Friends with Benefits

Building Lasting Impact Through Intentional Relationships with Will Taylor

• Sam and Jason Yarborough • Season 3 • Episode 8

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What happens when you combine the art of building relationships with the science of scaling businesses?

In this episode, we speak with Will Taylor, a leader whose approach to partnerships and content creation has made waves in the industry. Will’s journey has taken him from building his personal brand through insightful content to shaping successful partnership programs that scale businesses. He’s passionate about using trust as a cornerstone of business growth and is now leading the charge at AudienceLed, where he helps companies tap into the power of third-party relationships to drive demand and pipeline.

We dive deep into how Will built a career by sharing his learnings, the key to building meaningful, long-term business relationships, and the philosophy behind his approach to partnership success. Will opens up about how he leverages content as both a personal diary and a professional tool, and how intentional relationship-building can create real value. He also touches on why he believes that trust is the key to everything, especially when it’s built on a solid foundation of intentionality and structure. This conversation brings a fresh perspective on content, partnerships, and the business of building true connections.

What you’ll learn:

  • How trust, content, and intentional relationships drive scalable business growth
  • Why blending authenticity with strategy creates long-term impact in partnerships
  • How Will Taylor uses content as a tool for both personal growth and professional success

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) Introduction

(01:22) Discovering Will’s journey and philosophy on partnerships

(03:31) Harnessing the power of content creation to shape a career

(11:33) Aligning personal and professional values for lasting impact

(17:12) Overcoming challenges and misconceptions in building partnerships

(23:19) Proving your worth and creating value in business relationships

(24:45) The importance of trust and structure in driving success

(28:32) Introducing AudienceLed: building a demand gen agency

(30:17) Tapping into the power of trust in modern marketing

(35:16) Co-marketing vs. co-selling: what’s the best approach?

(41:22) The value of doing hard things and growing through challenge


Connect with Will Taylor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vvilltaylor/ 

Check out AudienceLed: https://www.audienceled.com/ 


Check out Arcadia: https://www.BeArcadia.com  

Connect with Sam Yarborough: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-yarborough/ 

Connect with Jason Yarborough: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yarby/ 


Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius

[00:00:00] Will Taylor: if I want to live a rich life,  when I started learning more about partnerships, I go, well, this is my ultimate goal just at scale. And if instead of positively influencing an individual, I'm positively influencing a community or an ecosystem to generate value throughout that ecosystem. and then that feels pretty great. 

[00:00:49] Jason Yarborough: ​ This is the one with Will Taylor. 

[00:00:52] Sam Yarborough: The one.

[00:00:53] Jason Yarborough: This is the one that's, I think that's the friend's, uh, titles he sees. It's, but this is one I've been looking forward to for a while. I've been talking to Will about bringing him on, just haven't been able to make it work out, but he has got some really great stuff going on.

[00:01:03] Jason Yarborough: People love Will on LinkedIn and his, uh, and in 

[00:01:06] Sam Yarborough: person. 

[00:01:07] Jason Yarborough: And in person. That's, yeah, absolutely. But you know, people love Will, so they wanna hear what he is up to. And I love his take on, uh, building relationships. Building marketing, uh, through trust, which is a lot of the things that we talked about. Mm-hmm.

[00:01:20] Jason Yarborough: Uh, trust marketing. If I may, 

[00:01:22] Sam Yarborough: it's been interesting to watch Will's journey, um, as he started at Partner Hacker Reveal now is starting his own company, but his steadfast belief in relationships has stayed strong throughout. however, he's one of the few that really, really puts onus on proof and. Being action about it.

[00:01:44] Sam Yarborough: So 

[00:01:46] Jason Yarborough: this one is good. Trust us. 

[00:01:49] Sam Yarborough: See out there.

[00:01:50] Jason Yarborough: Welcome to the show everybody.

[00:01:52] Sam Yarborough: Will, we're so glad you're here. Long time coming.

[00:01:55] Will Taylor: Yes, finally I was

[00:01:57] Will Taylor: waiting for my invite, but uh, I was waiting patiently, so, uh, I'm

[00:02:01] Jason Yarborough: told us to wait.

[00:02:02] Sam Yarborough: Yeah. You told us to wait.

[00:02:03] Jason Yarborough: you're, too big of a deal.

[00:02:05] Will Taylor: I think you're right.

[00:02:06] Jason Yarborough: Should we start off by talking about like mustaches?

[00:02:09] Will Taylor: Well, yours

[00:02:09] Will Taylor: is definitely much better than mine. Um, but

[00:02:12] Will Taylor: however, I'm glad that You

[00:02:13] Will Taylor: have one. 

[00:02:14] Sam Yarborough: All of a sudden I feel a little left out.

[00:02:17] Will Taylor: you participate in the mustache, you, you have the final say,

[00:02:20] Jason Yarborough: I'm,

[00:02:20] Jason Yarborough: I'm okay with the fact that you feel left out. Like, actually, I'm really glad that you

[00:02:23] Jason Yarborough: feel 

[00:02:23] Sam Yarborough: mean, me too actually, but.

[00:02:27] Jason Yarborough: Anyway, we're, uh, we're here to talk about Will Taylor today. Will, it's been, uh, like Sam said, a long time coming, long time, uh, friend.

[00:02:36] Jason Yarborough: You and I have worked together, uh, and at least one stop. Now we're hanging out in Arcadia together. You've been to both of our conferences or events, experiences, whatever we're calling these things, so.

[00:02:47] Sam Yarborough: Arcadian Luminary of the month.

[00:02:49] Jason Yarborough: That's right. That's right. Arcadian Luminary of the month. So, man, it's been great, uh, getting to know you and, and running around with you. I feel like I've learned a ton from you and I've gotten a ton of value out of, our friendship. So thank you for that. I know the listeners will today. So all that to say is great to have you here, man.

[00:03:06] Will Taylor: Great to be here. I appreciate you saying that. I'm always humbling myself and saying I, I am the student, not the teacher, although I do create content and teach and whatnot, but, uh, I'm just sharing what I'm learning. Uh, so I am a sponge,

[00:03:20] Will Taylor: but I'm glad that it.

[00:03:20] Will Taylor: impacts. Yeah.

[00:03:21] Jason Yarborough: Works for everybody, including yourself. So we did have a, a little stop together at, uh, reveal Near bound, whatever we're gonna call that. from your content and LinkedIn and your, your voice just out in the wild there, people have come to know you as somebody with a strong voice in partnerships and someone who's now building an agency. Right. And a lot of that did come from the work you did at Partner Hacker, which, you know, I think a lot of what the, the voice and the network that Partner Hacker grew is probably from you and your content. So we were all grateful for that. But you know, over the last five years you've had kinda quite the transition. Right. When you, when you look back on those times, and I think you even started ard, what do you think shaped you the most?

[00:04:04] Will Taylor: I would actually like to pay respects to the first person I sent my content to, who is a friend of the show and fellow Arcadian, uh, and attendee of events, which is Morgan Ingram.

[00:04:21] Will Taylor: basically what happened was. I was laid off from my role as a salesperson selling software to government agencies, which was a lot of fun, and I was doing pretty well. Um, but it was 'cause of COVID and so I was like, okay, well let me, let me write. At the very least, I, I've always liked writing and I saw people posting on LinkedIn and that's how I found Morgan. And then I, I sent him some of my content and it was lessons of going BDR to ae and. Why sales is amazing and all that kind of stuff.

[00:04:55] Will Taylor: So it was, it was on brand for what Morgan cares about. 

[00:04:58] Jason Yarborough: Was there anything in particular that Morgan said that was like, yes, this is, this is why I'm talking to Morgan.

[00:05:04] Will Taylor: he responded, uh, which was nice, 

[00:05:07] Sam Yarborough: you didn't know him.

[00:05:09] Will Taylor: Didn't know him

[00:05:09] Will Taylor: whatsoever. I just knew that he created content. He was a content creator, and I was like, Hey, I wrote this. What do you think? You know, you know this space much more than I do. Um, generally throwing that out there to try and connect with, uh, with another person. He gave, you know, a positive response and it was very, very respectful. We didn't have a chat or anything like that, but, um. The reason I'm mentioning that will tie in a bit later, but that kind of kickstarted my journey of at least being content aware. And I wasn't creating content more than the like two or three blog posts that I had created. Um, and I was doing work at ARD in my first partnerships role. Uh, however, what I learned during that year at ARD was there wasn't a lot of that type of content out there. And so I thought, well, what if I started to create some of that content myself? Because if no one else is, then I'll at least share my learnings. And then when I left Vidyard went to another company, there was a, a goal for the team to create more content in general, especially on LinkedIn. because they were in the sales tech space. And that's when the content on LinkedIn was having. Its its heyday. 

[00:06:27] Sam Yarborough: The good old days. 

[00:06:29] Will Taylor: Yeah.

[00:06:29] Will Taylor: Oh, tell me about it and so there was an actual incentive to create content and to continue to network. And so, uh, one, I was effectively paid to create content, but then it started to build, uh, both attention for our business, but then also for myself. And that's when, when I was let go from that role, uh, after about eight to 10 months or so, then. The media company of partner Hacker was just around the corner and they had crazy ideas of, Hey, let's do this thing. And I said, sure. 'cause I was, you know, at least one of the more visible people. And then that's when I was like, here's how I grow my, my career. And there was a second like r inspiring moment, which was, I did a blog post with Crossbeam while I was at Vineyard. That blog post got me that next role

[00:07:20] Will Taylor: that I just mentioned. Uh, so the person reached out to me because they saw me featured in that blog piece and they said, you're an expert. I wanna hire you. And that told me one piece of content got me a job. So what if I create thousands of pieces of content that's gonna do something pretty significant that I can't even fathom right now? So that's what really started the journey, the initial engagement with Morgan, and then, uh, that blog post, and then just the, the incentive and the rhythm that I was starting to build

[00:07:55] Sam Yarborough: okay, so since then you probably have created a thousand pieces of content

[00:07:59] Will Taylor: probably, yeah.

[00:08:00] Jason Yarborough: Do you keep a

[00:08:01] Jason Yarborough: tally? 

[00:08:02] Will Taylor: I don't, but I should, uh, and I should try and create milestones. That would be a cool timeline of like things that have happened that are indirectly related to the content. 'cause what keeps me going is I go to an event and someone who's never engaged with my content says, Hey, I love your content.

[00:08:19] Sam Yarborough: I know. Isn't that a thing? You're like, do you though?

[00:08:23] Will Taylor: blows my mind. Blows my mind. And it's to the point where I've had people say. We tell all of our new partnerships, hires to go follow you

[00:08:30] Will Taylor: and save your content. And we have a bank of your con. I'm like, at least leave a like

[00:08:36] Sam Yarborough: Yeah, like can you give me a anything?

[00:08:39] Will Taylor: Yeah. that's like the unknown of the effect. Um, like, okay, I'll, I'll, I'll keep going.

[00:08:44] Will Taylor: So.

[00:08:44] Sam Yarborough: a thousand pieces of content, we're just gonna use that as a baseline. Like that's really overwhelming for a lot of people. Um, I like how you started this with your student, not a teacher, and I think that can kind of lead into this next question, but what do you think has helped you stand out in kind of the massive content, as you've gone through this journey?

[00:09:06] Will Taylor: I think it's two things. One is I basically use it more as a personal diary, a personal professional diary, uh, where I'm noting down my thoughts, my thoughts of the day. My thoughts of the week, uh, which could be something like, I did this thing. Let me try and like organize that into a step by step for myself. Uh, which why not share that with other people? That's gonna help others as well. And now they get the step by step. and so the thought process of this is just my public diary of my, uh, you know, day to day as a professional. That makes it easy to create contents. And then also, uh, it's sharing something of value because it's like something that most people don't usually share, uh, even though we're in a much more like sharing community and sharing economy right now.

[00:09:56] Will Taylor: that's the, the one thing. And then the second thing is, uh, not getting caught up in, in the hype.

[00:10:02] Will Taylor: So, you know, it's nice to get the likes and the followers and all that, uh, but. There have been times where I've gone in the direction more of I'm doing this post just to do a post and I'm not as intentional and I'm looking for the dopamine and it get, it gets me the dopamine, but I'm like, uh, this doesn't really feel like it's actually bringing value

[00:10:27] Will Taylor: to anyone else technically other than to myself.

[00:10:30] Will Taylor: So trying to avoid that. I've been especially on that right now where. I'm posting no picture. It's like no fancy hook, and I'm doing that intentionally to note down everything I need to, which is helpful. It's not getting all the impressions, but I want to build that authority and that comes from sharing value.

[00:10:51] Will Taylor: So what's valuable? Well, I know what I'm doing is valuable, so just sharing more of what I'm doing. If I'm using that as a tool to organize my own thoughts as at the same time, then it's going to build that authority and distribute that value. So that's how I think about it and it's like that's how I get the reps in.

[00:11:10] Will Taylor: It's easy as well. I was gonna note down my thoughts anyways, in an SOP, why not just

[00:11:17] Will Taylor: do that publicly? 

[00:11:19] Jason Yarborough: let's talk a little bit about some of the work you've been doing the previous couple of years before starting AudienceLed. Like, and, and partnerships. And a lot of your content still revolves around partnerships. Like, I wanna know like why partnerships matter to you. Like what is it about partnerships that really gets you going?

[00:11:37] Will Taylor: if I want to live a rich life, it goes back to that core of what, why I studied those

[00:11:43] Will Taylor: things and what, why I'm interested in those things. And when I was. Studying to become a therapist.

[00:11:51] Will Taylor: I grappled with the idea of like, uh, it doesn't feel right to like charge someone to, to help them with their personal challenges, but it feels right to charge them for their business challenges. Uh, so that's just sales, you know, in a nutshell, in a very simplified way. And all the, the fundamentals still apply of like. How do you positively influence someone? How do you guide them? Uh, and it's through the structure of facilitating, you know, the relationship. But then when I started learning more about partnerships, I go, well, this is my ultimate goal just at scale. And if instead of positively influencing an individual, I'm positively influencing a community or an ecosystem to generate value throughout that ecosystem. and If I can be like a catalyst for it or even the orchestrator of that, then that feels pretty great. So everything that I'm learning, it's all in an effort to bring it back to, I always call it like the real world, where it's not just businesses, making businesses more money, which is nice 'cause money's nice, but it's generating value for a local community or society or culture at large. so learning the processes of. Having the business incentive and requiring the structure to facilitate relationships strategically in an ecosystem for a business is, uh, not only fascinating to me, but also so empowering because I go, everything I learned here, it can be applied to my friend group. To my family, to my local community, and even in my one-to-one conversations, uh, you know, my personal relationships.

[00:13:35] Will Taylor: So everything that I do, it has to tie back to my personal life or else it's not worth it. And that's why I'm so incredibly interested in partnerships because it is. Everything I just described. But what I love about business is business is a playground to not only test your skills, but you're forced to do it right, because there's dollars on the line, on the line, or people's jobs on the line,

[00:14:00] Will Taylor: and that requires a lot of accountability and responsibility. So that's why, you know, I don't have a business background, but I'm like, I love business because it forces me not to be lazy in how I approach my relationships and I need to bring structure and intentionality and you know, if I have 30 minutes. I can't just loaf around in the 30 minutes. I need to be direct and clear and still layer in some, you know, personable elements of making people laugh and feel good and all that kind of stuff.

[00:14:31] Will Taylor: So it's, it's honestly just so aligned and I think it's the perfect place for learning the skills to navigate a healthy life. 'cause you live longer when you have more relationships.

[00:14:42] Jason Yarborough: I think we have very similar, uh, alignment. I guess it's around like why we're in this

[00:14:48] Jason Yarborough: work. 'cause like I, I feel very much the same purpose behind it. To the point where like early in my career I had a mentor, uh, that told me he was like, we were just talking about career.

[00:14:59] Jason Yarborough: I didn't really have a career path at the time. I was, you know, kinda fresh out of college. Back in the day. Sam said, this is Sam Chapel,

[00:15:06] Jason Yarborough: Not Sam, your my wife. Um, he said, you know what Jason, you should be a facilitator. You're good at groups relationships. Connecting stuff like that. And I was like, Sam, that sounds like a pipe dream. Like, I think you're making stuff up right now. And, uh, it took me a while to find it, but when I got in my first role, I kind of saw the opportunity like, oh, we're, we're facilitating relationships, conversations, groups of people, and we're tasked with this. Really fun opportunity to kind of connect all these different pieces that otherwise wouldn't connect.

[00:15:41] Jason Yarborough: The, the sales orgs, the marketing orgs, products, CS executives, and like all these, and you're crossing all these different streams of, of business and opportunities and customer bases, et cetera. my first thought when I kinda figured out what I was doing in partnerships with PFL, might have taken me longer than most.

[00:15:58] Jason Yarborough: But I sat there and I was like, holy crap. This is what Sam Chappa was talking about, and I found it. I was like, this is just the best opportunity ever. And I, I, I fell in love with the job, the role, the people, and the, the ability to go out and, and build, build, build relationships. And we have this podcast as a result of it.

[00:16:19] Jason Yarborough: Right? And I don't know if you know this, but we've told 'em the podcast before, but like the whole premise of this name came from the fact that my parents were like, we still have no idea what you do. And I'm like, that's cool. Don't worry about it. Uh, I get paid to make friends and we're, we're pretty good at it.

[00:16:34] Jason Yarborough: And those friends have certain benefits to companies in the form of revenue and money, and so it's friends with benefits.

[00:16:41] Will Taylor: Heck

[00:16:42] Will Taylor: yeah. 

[00:16:42] Jason Yarborough: we go.

[00:16:43] Sam Yarborough: There's other meetings too, but um.

[00:16:46] Jason Yarborough: We'll leave those to the minds of the listener.

[00:16:49] Sam Yarborough: Well, I like that you kind of crossed the line of like, this is, you didn't use this word, but it's an ethos. It's a mantra. It ties back to how you lead your personal life and your business life, and those two things are blurred. Um. That can be a touchy subject for people in business. They like to have a clear cut line of like, these are business relationships.

[00:17:09] Sam Yarborough: These are personal relationships. so I wanna hear your opinion on, in your thoughts, what do you think most people get wrong about building these purpose built relationships?

[00:17:21] Will Taylor: There's the, the people doing it that I think they get something wrong, and then the people outside of it looking in that I think they get wrong. So I'll answer in both those perspectives. So I think the people doing it, what they often get wrong is. Not necessarily, it's, it's not a conscious wrongdoing, but I think it's just naturally occurring in the nature of the relationship where you get an emotional reaction to trusting someone based on the FaceTime you have with them and talking about the projects that you could be working on. I think people doing the work, what I, what we get wrong is we attribute that to progress and value, which although like it technically is you need trust.

[00:18:09] Will Taylor: So that's like a milestone, but it's not, it's not the progress and it's hard to discern that because you are making friends, uh, and you are building a relationship and that can be rewarding that reward itself can distract you from. Looking at, let's say the fundamentals of why is your business paying you to do this, which is to ultimately impact the bottom line and or, you know, by proxy, uh, or rather it impacts the bottom line because you're generating value for the end buyer. it's distracting because it's emotional and it's a part of relationships. And so that's what I think we can often get wrong. And that leads me to, like, I, I constantly beat this drum of. The simplest form of advice I give to partner people is if you show up with an agenda, you ask direct questions about what they care about, you tie back what they care about to the programs that you talk about in your meeting, and then you set a clear next step like that is table stakes.

[00:19:15] Will Taylor: And I, as someone who's not, I don't consider myself businessy. I'm like. How is that not a thing for every single meeting that every person ever does? Because that's what moves the needle, is really pushing the action forward. And I think it's because in partnerships it's very wide, it's complex, it's intricate, and there's this relationship element where you go, great, I won their trust.

[00:19:35] Will Taylor: And in this complexity that's. Obviously very important, and that gives me this emotional reaction. So I'm not saying no one moves the needle, but I think it, it is distracting, even if you are trying to move the needle and impact the business. Uh, that thing is, is very distracting. the people on the outside, what I think they get wrong about partnerships is that, it's only pipeline generating and it's the stakes and handshakes, which, this is burned into my mind.

[00:20:02] Will Taylor: There's someone. Who's at,call it a research firm. They're very academic in their approach, but they said to me, they said, I used to be a partnerships person and my perception of them is they're the silver tongue sweet talkers 

[00:20:17] Will Taylor: where they'll make you feel good, they'll give you really good ideas, but then it's like hard to attribute and hard to really identify what the impact is and. The part that I don't like about what they said was, not that it like triggered me emotionally, but I'm like, I actually kind of agree to a degree, um, because of that feeling. Now I think those are like two specific and too harsh of words and they were in the role before, so I think they have some leeway and they're a tenured professional, so they have experience in this, 

[00:20:52] Jason Yarborough: they're not wrong to some extent to, to, for

[00:20:54] Jason Yarborough: some folks in the industry that some of the folks in the industry are just gonna giving a, a bad rep to those of us out there who actually, are doing more than just sweet talking. I.

[00:21:03] Will Taylor: Agreed. what that wrapped for me as like, uh, that put the bow on, well, why does the CRO or the board, uh, not see this function as, as we know, it should be seen as. And that's because yeah, perception, but then also. given the complexity and call it like a bit more of the newness of it, there's less of this documentation of how do you prove it, how do you actually run your program and, you know, there's 20 types of partners that you could engage with, and so how do you really build a playbook and communicate that effectively?

[00:21:35] Will Taylor: It, it's very wide and complex, but that's Where my mind goes is bring it back to the fundamentals. And if you speak in fundamentals, if you can speak to the CFO and how they understand the business,

[00:21:46] Will Taylor: then you win because that's the, the simplest form. And from my experience, I mean, again, I've been sharing what I've been learning and it's only until the last year or so that I actually had like p and l competencies like thrown at me or, or taught to me and. That for me. Maybe that's 'cause of my own searching. Maybe that's 'cause of the people that I interacted with, but like at large I'm like, that should be the number one thing every single time is how does this impact that bottom line for that CFO? Because we say that it impacts, you know, the whole life cycle, but why aren't we proving it

[00:22:25] Will Taylor: and Show it.

[00:22:27] Will Taylor: that got under my skin.

[00:22:28] Will Taylor: 'cause I, I'm like. I'm a prove it type of person. I don't really like hyperbole and, and all this stuff. And again, I got caught up in a bit of that hype and so I'm like, oh, that's gonna influence my career. Like I wanna make a lot of money and impact a lot of people. And the way I do that is not through this hype.

[00:22:47] Will Taylor: And so. I don't create content about the, the p and l yet 'cause I'm still learning it. And so I'll probably be sharing a bit it about our own business and as we get more data with clients, then I'll be sharing that as well. But that fact, uh, makes me think, oh, that's shocking that, you know, I went two, three years, four years before that being a thing that I should learn about. and that's what I think. Both rightly and wrongly, the the people outside of the function think about the function. and it's on us to prove it. Uh, it's not on them to prove it, it's not on the board. The CFO, the CEO,

[00:23:25] Will Taylor: if they believe in it, that's gonna help. But like we should have the rigor starting with nobody believes this, so

[00:23:32] Will Taylor: I need to prove. 

[00:23:34] Sam Yarborough: You know, and I think it is really interesting. So I fell, quote unquote, onto two executive teams, and being on those teams was a huge learning curve for me because. If that's what we're talking about, like, you know, and I think a lot of people step into partner manager roles or even partner leader roles, and they don't have that seat at the table, and so they don't take the initiative to learn those things.

[00:24:00] Sam Yarborough: I know that's kind of like the chicken before the egg. Like you don't have a seat at the table 'cause you don't know how to have the conversation. Um, and you don't know how to have the conversation 'cause you don't have a seat at the table. But one of those things is in your control. So, um, learning about that and actually talking about how your business ties back to the bottom line to every.

[00:24:21] Sam Yarborough: Um, stage of the customer lifecycle, all of those things is so impactful rather than, we went to a happy hour and I made 10 connects, and things are great. Like, tell that to A CFO and you know, that's, that's not how things get done in this 

[00:24:38] Will Taylor: Yeah. Not, not to mention getting a promotion or even like

[00:24:42] Will Taylor: helping your partner, like if you care. This is the, I'll call it a problem. This is the problem I have with the idea of like, trust first. Um, trust is very important. However, I believe you build trust on like a very good foundation. And that foundation is with structure in how you engage specificity and what you ask about and and how you speak, and clarity on what you're doing and what it's impacting.

[00:25:09] Will Taylor: And all those things go together and in my mind I'm like. If my friend showed up to me in my personal life and said, I need you to do this and we need to work together on this thing. If I just said, yeah, sounds good. Let's plan it out, and we created this plan and it's six months out and, it just like never happens.

[00:25:27] Will Taylor: It never produces the result that my friend ultimately said that they wanted. Obviously it's probably not gonna be as complex as, as a business relationship, but like. I would feel, uh, like a failure for my friend if they came to me asking for this help. And so for our business relationships, I'm like, why is that not the priority to say?

[00:25:47] Will Taylor: I build your trust by producing actual, tangible results that impact you. and leading with that and creating structure around that. I think that's how we, we move the needle. it doesn't sit well where we say, you know, build trust and that's through your personal influence again, great that that happens, but 

[00:26:06] Will Taylor: that needs to be on a, solid foundation. 

[00:26:09] Jason Yarborough: I mean, it's absolutely necessary when you sit in, in between so many people, but it's all a byproduct of just how you show up, how you deliver, how you care, and how you, you know, provide value. If you, we talk a lot about, you know, partnerships being a two-way street of value, right?

[00:26:26] Jason Yarborough: If you, I think if you're focusing more on how you can provide value to the partner instead of just holding your hand out and you, you show up in ways that benefits them, like then you can truth and win them over. And I know you and I have had many talks about trust, right? And I think it's something that, it's kind of an unspoken, but often overlooked. principle of our job, so to say, and that al also like the, the trust that it takes to, to win on the internal team.

[00:26:55] Jason Yarborough: we kind of just assume that because we're hired by this company that we have, you know, their quote unquote trust. But I'm, I'm currently building a new program and I feel like it took a while for them to kinda see like, okay, hey, yep, we trust what this guy can do.

[00:27:08] Jason Yarborough: We know what you can deliver on just because you have a good reputation, you build a lot of content or whatever. Like you're still, anytime you go somewhere new, start over, you're, you're tasked with, you know, rebuilding trust. I think we have to understand the, the structure that that takes to your point.

[00:27:24] Will Taylor: Yeah, that's right. And yeah, it's, uh, the intentional communication and organization of it that, like I said, I'm like, maybe I'm, I'm a zealot for it now. And like, um, anti ideas and much more focused on outputs and outcomes, it's easy to get lost in the ideas and the, the relationship itself. Um, in, in partnerships, like every idea, every partnership will sound like a good idea until you start trying to implement it. Every integration's gonna make sense. It's gonna be logical, but like, can you actually do it? That's like the idea doesn't matter at that point. Like, get the data, validate, you know?

[00:28:04] Will Taylor: Does that integration make sense? Does this relationship make sense? Uh, start there. Don't start with. Hey, I think there's something here. Let's, let's go deeper because then you can waste a lot of time, um, and resources. And that's how people get let go. again, I'm like a zealot about this 'cause I'm like, I don't wanna get let go.

[00:28:22] Will Taylor: I have been let go before.

[00:28:24] Will Taylor: Uh, it's not nice. So we need to change that.

[00:28:27] Will Taylor: And if it's me teaching it, then I'll, I'll teach it however I can.

[00:28:32] Sam Yarborough: Okay. I wanna switch gears a little bit because what you're doing now is very tangential, but a little different. Um, so talk to us about AudienceLed. why did you start this? What is it? What are you doing? I.

[00:28:45] Will Taylor: AudienceLed is a demand gen marketing agency. We're a team for hire that's going to execute on running demand gen programs. Um, our shtick is we work with third parties exclusively, so. We layer on top of whatever a marketing team is doing, and we don't replace people. Instead, we amplify everything that they are doing. And we do that with third parties. And, that's everywhere from the customer that you have because they are a third party that your buyer trusts. Why not activate them all the way through to the influencer, creating content on LinkedIn all the way through to formal partners. And all the way through to media, sponsorships, and field events because that's where buyers show up. So we intelligently map where buyers are engaging. Then we identify with who or with which entities they're engaging with, where are they spending their attention and trust credits. And then we strategically engage them in coordinated efforts that align with the client's narrative as well as the third party's narrative. Based on the incentives that those third parties would be categorized into, um, how do they make money? That's generally how we then say, well, this is how we're going to engage and help you make that money, which is gonna benefit the client. So, um, at the core it is demand gen marketing agency team for hire, and we aim to impact lead generation and pipeline generation, and again, all through third parties.

[00:30:14] Jason Yarborough: I love that you kinda brought that word back up again. A trust and that you're marketing on behalf of companies by tapping into the, the trust that customers or influencers or whatever somebody already has. So instead of, you know, maybe investing way too much money into, you know, cold outbound strategy,

[00:30:34] Jason Yarborough: how do you begin to tap into like your.

[00:30:36] Jason Yarborough: If your ecosystem of trust,

[00:30:40] Sam Yarborough: What did you call it? Will trust tokens. Did you say tokens?

[00:30:44] Will Taylor: Credits. 

[00:30:45] Will Taylor: Attention and trust credits 'cause we only have so many, you know, minutes and hours in the day. So buyers are spending those, uh, they keep their trust credits a lot closer than their attention credits, but they're spending those in places. Uh, and that's also generally where they're gonna be spending their dollars, uh, if not their time.

[00:31:03] Jason Yarborough: I feel like if, you know, 80% of buyers have already made up their mind of who they want to go work with or what vendor they're gonna purchase, like, you know, a lot, a huge percentage of that is coming from those people that they're already talking to. Right? Whether it's your partners, your customers, or your influencers out there where they're listening to them, you know, on LinkedIn or something.

[00:31:21] Jason Yarborough: So they're getting their thoughts and ideas from somewhere, you know? So I think it's brilliant to be able to offer an opportunity for someone to tap into that. Because a lot of people don't know. Like I've, I've been, I've worked with a lot of companies that, you know, want to work with me because of my network or my sphere of influence, you know, so there's, there's a world of opportunity out there that, you know, I think marketers are just missing out on by not finding their people who can champion their calls.

[00:31:48] Will Taylor: Yes, and marketers have been forced to look too inwards at, what are the metrics in the. Levers to pull and should I just spend more on, on our ad platform? And those are not like the wrong tactics or even the wrong strategies 'cause they can work and they definitely worked a lot more before. Um, but the over indexing on. Our company, only our company protect our channels and talk about nothing else. Um, we've over-indexed in that and we've left the buyer behind because buyers are seeing through that now. They go, oh, this is just a SEO gamed article. Um, they're just targeting me 'cause they bought some list

[00:32:27] Will Taylor: for, uh, outbound agency or, or what have you.

[00:32:30] Will Taylor: And again, not the wrong tactics or the wrong strategies, they can work, but buyers are only increasingly. Identifying, well, this is a company centric approach. Uh, and so we tried to layer into those actual functions and workflows that exists that are well attributed that they can attribute. We just layer in. Third parties so that it is higher conversion, more

[00:32:56] Will Taylor: distribution, and ultimately going to impact the buyer psychologically much more positively, both in the the method of reaching them and the context and the content that specifically is reaching them as well.

[00:33:10] Jason Yarborough: Got it. So, I know you're a man of intention and ethos, what would you say is the core ethos of, of AudienceLed? 

[00:33:18] Will Taylor: So our tagline is, go to market with the market. And the whole ethos is if you create a platform for others to become famous in, then that's gonna have a, not only a feel good impact, but it'll. Increase this brand awareness and the organic mention that happens in the community, that 80% of the decision being made before they actually come to your business, um, and your, your customers will be more loyal.

[00:33:49] Will Taylor: Your buyers will convert faster, and your brand perception will be increased as well out there in the market because you are this platform. If, if I am a demand gen marketer. I'm evaluating, you know, the market at large, my job, my career, and someone says, if you go over here, whether you buy our solution or not, you're gonna get good content, so you're gonna get the value.

[00:34:16] Will Taylor: If you're just consuming or if you wanna put yourself out there, you can do that too. If they're gonna go over to that vendor every single time, they're gonna

[00:34:24] Will Taylor: go to their events, read their content, and that's how their, the community is going to be made. It's not gonna be this closed off network of, it's in a Slack group.

[00:34:33] Will Taylor: Nothing wrong with that, but it's this like identity that you can associate and others can associate with.

[00:34:39] Jason Yarborough: Yeah, I'd say where I'm at right now, nac, they, they do a pretty good job of tapping into some of those people that are buyers trust. You see a lot of deals coming in that are influenced by three specific people that are really, present. I would consider them trustworthy in the marketing landscape. So it's really cool to see that, you know, a company like this can, can, is tapping into that and really making a, a big impact with those guys and women.

[00:35:05] Sam Yarborough: a lot of what you just talked about I think could be tied or closely. Akin to co-marketing in the partnership world. Um, let's talk about that for a minute. Like, I've heard you actually say you believe most partnerships should be co-marketing oriented, and I don't disagree. Um, but I think that that's a hard thing for people to get their head around because it's sometimes can feel like a slower path to revenue.

[00:35:32] Sam Yarborough: So talk to us about that.

[00:35:34] Will Taylor: Yeah, so I took a hard look at the different partner types and how they could impact different parts of the buyer's journey, starting with the core revenue metrics and working backwards essentially. 'cause I wanted to have a bit more of my own competency around. What does a business care about? How does it operate from marketing to sales, to success and onwards? and so in that exercise I was thinking through, well, if someone asked me to advise them on starting partnerships. How would I navigate that? Uh, let's say if I'm just getting introduced to their business, but there's some fundamental things that I should know. How mature are they? Do they have product market fit? Uh, who's doing the sales? Um, what is their, the go to market like right now? Where are they strong and what is their solution type and business structure? Things like how are they charging? Is it a high ticket or a low ticket? Is it PLG? Um, is it very hands-on and so on. And in this exercise I was going, okay, well where can partners actually help for those different parameters? Uh, and I created a matrix that is still a resource being developed, but you can input, you know, those different things and then get a recommendation. And so when I thought about, well, what's kind of this like sweeping generalization? Industry agnostic, but like using some of those core parameters, uh, and the output. Was, I couldn't feel confident in saying that most organizations of different types and ticket size and all that, and maturity, et cetera, I, I couldn't confidently recommend that co-sell or looking at just the sales part of the, the buyer's journey. To be the area to focus on because there was so much more opportunity outside of that.

[00:37:18] Will Taylor: And it was also for a very specific type of organization, uh, that was generally higher ticket and more serviceable. That's when you can start to work with. Resellers and um, service partners and so on. And that's where there's a really good fit for co-sell. Sometimes tech partners too, but generally tech sellers, again, for a majority of recommendation, I would say most tech sellers only know how to sell what they are selling.

[00:37:45] Will Taylor: They don't know how to sell with partners. Um.

[00:37:47] Sam Yarborough: Maybe even then sometimes that's a challenge. So adding on a partner technology is, and I say that lovingly,

[00:37:54] Will Taylor: Yes. Yep. Exactly. So that's where I'm like, okay, well if I were to recommend something,

[00:37:59] Will Taylor: where's the easiest place to start? And where's the easiest place to expand across the buyer'ss journey? That can still impact the core revenue metrics and its co-marketing. There's more partner types and more situations across. The different company structures that exist where co-marketing fits then co-sell. So that's how I came to the conclusion. and you mentioned it's like, you know, more upstream from revenue. Well, the other reason that I thought this was important to explore was because marketing has also been tasked with proving it. A lot over the last 10 to 15 to 20 years. And that's where a lot of this technology in, in the MarTech space has been developed. And so if they have kind of already figured out, well, how do we attribute a piece of content to impacting revenue, we should tag along for that ride and we should learn a lot and we should do a lot of execution in those systems that they, they already have.

[00:38:59] Sam Yarborough: There's no sense in 

[00:39:00] Sam Yarborough: reinventing the wheel. Yeah, they've, they've done it 

[00:39:03] Will Taylor: Yeah. so.

[00:39:04] Will Taylor: if, if we really wanna prove it. And it's more often the case that co-marketing is a good fit, then we should work with marketing and we should, uh, implement another systems and then continue to collect that data of, well, here's why working with partners is better than doing it alone.

[00:39:21] Will Taylor: And it will have a downstream effect to sales as well, because that's inevitable, uh, whether

[00:39:26] Will Taylor: the partner's present in the sale or not. Uh, if we say. Lead gen and pipe gen is better with third parties. then sales is gonna either close them faster or we're gonna have the metrics anyways based on the initial tagging.

[00:39:39] Will Taylor: So, you know, if we were to start anywhere, it's there. And then again, I'll, I'll die on the hill. At least for now, that co-marketing is better suited for most organizations.

[00:39:49] Jason Yarborough: but most wanna start with the, uh, the co-sell. They just want to go straight to the, to the pipeline and the revenue, which is fine. That's what they know. So it's up to us to come in and again, there's that word, build that trust with the team and show them like, Hey, this is a, a, a more upstream path to getting there.

[00:40:07] Jason Yarborough: And, you know, can we, can we start from this perspective, work towards getting, you know, a better co-sell, motion established trust across the board with our partners, you know, and help them understand like how we can begin to build pipeline leads through something they already know. I, like to call it coming in, doing old things in new ways. There's, to Sam's point, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. You guys know how to do webinars. You know how to build campaigns. You know how to do this. Let me just show you how to do it in a more, you know, streamlined manner by bringing someone along for the ride and tap into the trust that they have with their people

[00:40:40] Will Taylor: Exactly. 

[00:40:41] Jason Yarborough: to break it down that way.

[00:40:42] Jason Yarborough: Then it's like, okay, we're listening. Let's run some experiments. Let's try some things out. Lemme show you how it works. Let's not try to boil the ocean in in one quarter. Let's take it step by step, and then boom, roll with it. 

[00:40:53] Will Taylor: And I'd also venture to say that like marketing is better situated to run tests. Uh, 'cause if sales is running

[00:40:59] Sam Yarborough: tests like that increases the risk. Marketing is used to spending, you know, 80% on what works, 20% on tests, give or take. And so they have this scientific method already and sales is like, close the deal, period. Yeah, exactly. Uh, there's more risk in

[00:41:16] Will Taylor: changing what's already working for sales, so.

[00:41:19] Jason Yarborough: let's bring it home with a topic that I know you and I both love. Uh, you're, you're a guy who likes to do hard things, likes to challenge yourself and push yourself to do more, uh, on the, you know, personal perspective, sometimes physical perspective, like for you, will Taylor, what drives that?

[00:41:37] Will Taylor: when I was about 24, I realized that I was thinking too much and not doing enough. That kept me safe. And I

[00:41:47] Will Taylor: think that's why I was doing it. I would think about things, I would write about it, and then I would have this idea of myself and that was not reality.

[00:41:55] Will Taylor: And I'm like, well, I'm so nice. Why don't people like me more? Or, uh, you know, I know I can do this thing, but I'm not doing it. And there was that dissonance there. And so I flipped the script and I said, well, I have to do the things. And that's the thing that's scary. 'cause if I do it, I could fail. But the more I fail, the more repetition I get in, the better I'm gonna become at it.

[00:42:19] Will Taylor: And the more closely aligned with that ideal

[00:42:21] Will Taylor: version of myself, I will be so, if the boundaries before were smaller, 'cause I wasn't really pushing them, the more I push against those boundaries, the larger they get. And that makes me more competent and more well-rounded. And ultimately that gets more out of life. I can navigate life better. I can find enjoyment for things more. You know, for example, I used to work in a factory, uh, for a summer job, and I told myself that I don't want to do that. Like, it's too limiting. It's like very constrictive. And, and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to, you know, chase my dreams.

[00:42:56] Will Taylor: And so, uh, well to do that, I need to push further. 

[00:42:59] Jason Yarborough: So for you it's, it's about like proving to yourself that you have what it takes.

[00:43:03] Will Taylor: Because I wasn't proving, like I, I was like, I am this person, but then I wasn't. And it's like, well, it's like not keeping a promise to yourself. It's almost disrespectful to that vision

[00:43:13] Will Taylor: to not take action on it. So the intentionality to be able to do that in the moment of, you know, if I'm emotionally agitated with my, my romantic partner, and I don't. Take the intention to be patient because that's how I ultimately wanna be, then. Like, I'm gonna make the mistake I don't wanna make, and that's not what I wanna do in life. And so why not just actually do it and, you know, uh, get, get the chutzpah to be able to do it and

[00:43:44] Will Taylor: just Do it Do it you need to do. I love this quote. I think it's from Alex Hormoze, where he says A patient person doesn't feel patient in the moment. 

[00:43:54] Will Taylor: They're experiencing all the emotions that you're experiencing, but they're choosing to be

[00:43:58] Will Taylor: patient. And that really impacts me 'cause I also like to be patient. Um, and it works.

[00:44:05] Will Taylor: I've seen it in myself over and over again, and it, it allows me to show up exactly how I want to be and how I intend to be. And that's very fulfilling. And you only get there by doing, doing the hard stuff.

[00:44:18] Sam Yarborough: I love what you just said because I think there's so much like, uh, conversation right now around manifestation and you can think about shit all day long, but until you take that first step, like it's just not gonna happen. So you embody that. Um, and it's an honor to, to see it and, um, you know, be on the outskirts of, of rooting you on.

[00:44:41] Sam Yarborough: So Will, thank you for joining us today. This has been awesome.

[00:44:45] Will Taylor: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. And, uh, you said you're on the outskirts. I would say not so much on the outskirts. Uh, the Arcadia group is, is very much so close to impacting me and providing me guidance. So, 

[00:44:59] Will Taylor: you're in the central sphere of, of influence,

[00:45:03] Sam Yarborough: Well, happy to be there. Um, if people, I mean, obviously LinkedIn, you're there, you're very active. Um, anywhere else that people should go to learn more about you.

[00:45:14] Will Taylor: well if you're interested, AudienceLed.com. Um, but otherwise just LinkedIn for now. I've been thinking about other channels, but, uh, you'll get all the thoughts through there. Tactics, personal updates, all that kind of stuff. So follow along and if you're a lurker, leave a, like once in a while so I get a go

[00:45:30] Will Taylor: boost, 

[00:45:31] Jason Yarborough: lurker

[00:45:31] Jason Yarborough: to Liker, the journey of Will Taylor. 

[00:45:34] Sam Yarborough: All right friends, thank you so much for another great episode. We'll see you next time. Will we appreciate you immensely and we'll talk to y'all soon.

[00:45:42] Jason Yarborough: See y'all. ​