121 | Leading the charge: how vendors can equip partners for Gen AI

Jon Busby: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Tech Marketing Podcast brought to you by Together, where we cover some of the latest insights and trends and innovations across the entirety of B2B tech. Today, I'm very pleased to be joined by my co host in the channel, Amanda Fitzgerald, previous head of global distribution and marketing at Red Hat.

But also most excitedly by Patty Grow, which is a rather exciting name in today's climate that we're going to dive into, into a moment, into a moment, who was recently the head of America's at partner marketing, AWS, which is But also is now starting her own grow consulting, which I'm going to say is an incredibly convenient name.

Like who doesn't want to grow in today's market? Let's be honest. Um, so in today's, today's episode, we're going to focus on preparing partners for Gen AI, um, and how they can improve those customer journeys. An incredibly relevant topic. I'm sure you'll agree. So Patty, welcome to the podcast.

Patty Grow: Thank you so much for having me, John and Amanda.

Really excited to be here today.

Jon Busby: So Patty, I'd love to start off just looking at your career, specifically what your previous role was at AWS, uh, and what drives your passion for working with partners. So enlighten us a bit, like what excites you about working with channel partners?

Patty Grow: What really excites me about working with channel partners is that we're able to add another dimension of value to our customers.

So when you're working at an organization, you definitely have an opportunity to add value to the customer journey. And then when you add the partner to the mix. You have an additional point of view with additional capabilities. That can add so much more to the equation. So, um, with the three of us together, the partner, you know, the organization and the customer, we're able to really add, uh, a value added solution to really achieve, achieve their objectives.

So. That to me is really exciting when we can take all of those different ingredients, put them all together and see the impact in a really positive way.

Jon Busby: And Amanda, of course, you've worked with Channel Partners for a long, long time. What would you add to Pat? What speaks to you the most from Patty's answer there?

Amanda Fitzgerald: Absolutely. So once again, you know, great to have another compelling podcast out here. Um, so What I would say about partnerships, um, you know, nobody can do it by themselves and that collaboration, the, the tri trifecta, um, the collaboration between a vendor, a partner, and going jointly to the end user customer, there's no.

Better combination of skills and knowledge playing to each other's strengths and, you know, really boosting the impact we have when we work together. So partnering, um, you know, I've been doing it for 25 years, partner marketing, and it still excites me to this day, 25 years later. So it's the evolution and playing to each other's strengths.

That's to me is the key.

Jon Busby: So Patty, considering your, that extensive experience, like what do you think, you know, what do you bring as an expert in the channel space?

Patty Grow: Yeah, well, I've been doing this for a long time. Like Amanda, I've been doing this for over 24 years. And so in that time I've done everything from sales to pre sales marketing, partner marketing, leadership, um, and all of those different, um, all of those different roles bring a different perspective to the business.

And so when, you know, you're able to have those different perspectives, you're able to see from the point of view of the customer and being customers ourselves, you know, we're, we're all here and we're all delivering value. And so what I think, you know, that really excites me is that we're able to come together, able to bring that, um, you know, that evolution as Amanda said, but also taking a look over the years, how is the technology evolved, gives us some ideas of patterns on what we can expect to see in the future.

So, uh, you know, bringing all of that starting out way back when and learning about networking and layer three and, you know, routing, and now we're talking about Gen AI, it's so exciting to see the technology and how it's evolved. And how we're using the technology has evolved.

Jon Busby: Let's, I think let's start, I'm glad you mentioned technology evolution, right?

Something of course we love to talk about, um, with many of our customers. Um, but let's, before we dive into today's topic around Gen AI, let's start by defining it because I think it can mean different things to different people. So Patty, what does Gen AI mean to you?

Patty Grow: Yeah, and there are a lot of definitions out there, and you know, the most common is when you think about gen AI or generative AI, it's really a form of artificial intelligence, and it creates new content by analyzing data, identifying different patterns, and then you can create models.

And then you can use those models and patterns to generate new content that's similar to that specific set of data or set or training set. And this content can include, you know, new text, images, video, music, um, software code, all of these different things that we're seeing, you know, out in, out in the world today.

So it's, um, it's very exciting and very powerful technology.

Jon Busby: I'm intrigued like a man, you know, Amanda, you were in the channel for a long, long time as well. Like we've talked about it, but between us, I think we've probably got nearly a whole over a career and a half's worth of experience in part of marketing.

Cause I'd been in it for 20 years as well. So I think we've all, we've all got over two decades. Um, you know, what would you say the biggest challenge before now has been with partners doing their own marketing?

Amanda Fitzgerald: Partners doing their own marketing. Yes. So it's, It's that marketing expertise, um, doesn't always exist in the partner ecosystem.

So the partner does have two choices. They either do it in house or they outsource it. And the good thing about Working with partners, they do have those choices. Um, and so working closely with vendors, they, a lot of the partners do have access to market development funds, which enables them to do outsourcing to agencies, to third party, to do their marketing for them.

However, the one thing that you cannot outsource is your marketing strategy. So each partner Has to have a go to market strategy with their vendors of choice. So partnering with the likes of AWS, with the likes of red hat, having that joint go to market strategy is something you cannot outsource and having that joint go to market strategy and that joint go to market marketing plan.

is something that you need to do in house. Once you've got your plan and strategy, you can then outsource your tactics, the actual execution of that plan. So that's something that does not change and that will not change. So having, um, a real sight of your North Star, having a real, what are we trying to achieve?

All of that is done in house and then execution by various methods, for sure.

Jon Busby: Hold on a minute here. So I think this is what this, and then I'm glad you kind of went into that, that done that rabbit hole there, Amanda. Cause you know, when you were mentioning Gen AI, Patty, like I think where it gets used is creating new content.

Um, and often with partners, I think that's one of the biggest challenges I think they face. Um, but Amanda, you've broken it down into kind of two buckets there, which is actually, maybe this could help with generating their content. Um, but they still need to be at the core of it, be thinking about the strategy themselves.

Are we, are we aligned that that's the right way to break it down? Just, or does Gen AI also help with the strategy? Just throwing that one out there. Cause I, I've, you know, I don't meet many partners that have dedicated marketing roles. Um, you know, it's normally quite, quite rare to, to, or certainly on the larger partners.

So I'm going to throw that one out there and say, how are we breaking this down correctly?

Amanda Fitzgerald: That's a very good discussion,

Patty Grow: Patsy. It is a good discussion because you know, what we're traditionally, I think, as humans, we really think strategically. And so when I think about a strategic marketing plan, especially a joint marketing plan, when we're talking about a specific alliance between a partner and a vendor, those are things that, um, you would need to, to have.

I, in my opinion, it's best to have a human behind that to identify what is my objective. What are my goals? How am I going to measure success of this alliance or of this relationship or of these campaigns or whatever, whatever that role is. So you do need to have a human behind that strategy so far. Who knows what will happen in the future?

But, you know, I think that the Gen AI can certainly help with identifying some of the trends to help guide that strategy. To be able to help, as you mentioned, develop content, um, to be able to help support, you know, generating imagery, generating, you know, social media banners, those types of things. But I still think you need a human to really identify what are the goals.

And how to achieve those goals. And I think Gen AI can help achieving those goals, but we still need humans.

Jon Busby: I think, I think I, I think we all agree here, right? Which is you, and it's something we've heard as a, as a trend over the last few months, actually, um, with some of our other guests is you still need to understand the fundamentals of the business.

Um, of how the business makes money of how you're going to measure success. Um, AI can't help you do that, but it can help you get to some of the end goals a little faster. Um, which, which, which makes a lot of, a lot of sense. So do you, like we've been bounding around this kind of question on debate around is generally going to cause potentially more problems or is it the solution to those?

And just from what we've, we've, what we've kind of mentioned there, you know, is it, is it part of the solution or is it, is it part of the problem? Like, how do we want to, is it an opportunity, let's put it that way, or is it a challenge that partners should face?

Patty Grow: I would say it's an opportunity, and I'm going to give an analogy.

So when I think about, when I think about cars, when cars were first introduced, obviously I wasn't around, none of us were around at that time, but you can watch movies and read the historical, you know, books, it was, Oh my goodness, there's traffic accidents and there's congestion, there's all this stuff.

But you still are able to be very efficient in your transportation method with the car. I would much rather drive to, uh, the grocery store than, you know, get a horse or walk or whatever. So I think that's similar to that. Yes, there are lots of lots of opportunities for the technology, but we do have to be very aware of and responsible of some of the requirements that we need to understand with the technology.

This is creating new content. It can create likenesses of people, likenesses of their voice. So we need to be very responsible in how we are using the technology. So could there be problems? Yes, but I think that the opportunities outweigh some of those problems. As long as we remain responsible in the application and use of the technology.

Amanda Fitzgerald: So John, I'm going to jump in here. What, what's really useful because you're a CTO and, and I'm, I'm from marketing. I've got a marketing hat on. You've got your technical CTO hat on. Patty's got sales and marketing hat on what this topic is going to do. Hopefully. Is to get the marketeers or the person performing the marketing function to speak to their technical gurus within their partnerships, because generative AI is a tool that marketing could avail themselves off.

So when we're talking about how do we use gen AI to create. Marketing content. It's not marketing that's going to lead that conversation. Marketing will have a seat at the table, but it's the technical platform guys that own the technology that the partners are using. That is kind of like going to be pivotal as part of this conversation.

To get in sales, marketing, and technical. So the fact that we've got sales, marketing, and technical on this call, We almost are advocating it has to be a three way conversation. Within the organization, how do we use Gen AI to achieve the strategic goals of the business?

Jon Busby: That's a very, very good question. Um, the, yeah, right. Where do we start? Firstly, I'm going to say I completely agree with your point there, Amanda. So the, um, what's something I've been noticing for a while. Uh, and I'm, I'm going to take it away from AI for a second, but if you watch investor presentations from let's, if you've watched any recent Apple announcement, if you watch any Tesla announcement, any big tech company will now spend a lot more time focusing on the essentially Silicon.

Is the only way of putting it right of the difference that Silicon are making. And all of a sudden, hardcore electrical engineers or chip designers are now sexy. There's no, there's no other way to put it right. Nvidia is now one of the most valuable companies on the planet. If not, by the time we're recording this, they may be the most valuable.

Um, the, uh, which is, which is amazing. Um, and I think chip designers have now become. You know, almost a famous, um, in what then the difference they can make to a business. And so I think we're now seeing that and could kind of bleed its way in with AI to now being, you know what, technical, and I'm not going to say it, I'm going to say technical here or a key or a key partner that you've got to go alongside with.

So I firstly, yeah, completely agree how you actually get close to that. That's the real question. Um, I think, I think if I had an answer for it, you know, we would all be sitting on a beach somewhere, so let's see if we can find one now. Like Patty, let's put the question back to you. Like how, we're talking about how we can use Gen AI with our partners.

Like what's, what's the solution in your mind?

Patty Grow: Yeah. So when I think about Gen AI and I think about working with the partners as well as with the customers, there's a lot of similarities. And one of the things as, you know, especially as we're talking about the technology of Gen AI, and I'm glad you mentioned, John, the chipsets and kind of the infrastructure behind this, because Gen AI is going to be as useful as the data in the learnings that we put into it.

And so when we're looking at, um, you know, the, the foundation models or the large language models. If an organization is looking to use their internal data, which is going to be the most valuable part of their business, they're going to need to make sure their data is set up properly. And that's where those powerful chipsets are going to be important.

That's where a lot of the, the backend infrastructure is going to be really critical. So that way they can use. Their internal data, put it to work and generate the correct insights to generate the correct outputs that they're looking for. And that's where partners come in because a vendor may know one part of a, of a customer's solution or a customer's organization, but a partner may have a much broader view.

And so that's the value that they bring. And so a partner will need to bring that expertise into a customer. And they're also, at the same time, going to have to make sure their data is in order so that way they can harness it. The, the learnings that they have for, for their customers to be able to, to implement that and, and make that useful as well.

So

Jon Busby: I just want to clarify that for a moment. Cause I, cause I was really, when you were talking about data, I was seeing there was seeing it as kind of two distinct items. So we're talking about the partner's data needs to be up to date, but also saying they should be delivering those services to help their customers, you decyler their data and get the most out of it.

Is that, is that correct? Like what are the common use cases that we see where I guess data is not being utilized to its maximum effect?

Patty Grow: Yeah. So when we take a look at some of the, at some of the use cases, there are, there are several. So when I think about, um, you know, I think about customer service, a lot of what we're seeing in customer service are the, you know, are the, the chatbots.

We're also seeing, um, use cases where customers and partners want to take tasks, menial tasks and be able to automate them to be able to go through and, um, you know, use analytics to be able to take a look at some of your business trends and to be able to analyze those trends and make predictive models, um, to them.

So there are a lot of different use cases. And then if you drill even deeper into industry, um, it can get very specific. And so there's a lot of possibilities out there, and I think that there's going to be more to come.

Jon Busby: I'm glad you went into customer service so, so early there, because it's one of the things I just, I just don't think many businesses realize that.

The amount of valuable data they have in their customer service platforms. Um, I think it's probably the most underutilized data source. It's just seen as like, that's where people go when they have problems, but you have a whole bunch of consenting data, not just around the customers, but around what products they're using, the challenges they're having that you can utilize as part of marketing campaigns and, and other solutions.

So I just wanna call that out 'cause I think it's, it's where my mind often goes and I think many people just don't realize the, the value of it. Um.

Patty Grow: Absolutely. And even the service and development of those products and new features. If you know, you're starting to see trends where customers are reaching out to you because of a specific issue or a problem or a feature that's missing, you're able to take some of that complex data and distill that to be able to give recommendations on what should we be changing?

What should be in the next update? What do our customers want? And that's where things get really exciting because then we're able to deliver on, on what the customers want at the end of the day.

Jon Busby: I completely agree. Like, do we think many, just talking about data for a second, is, is, is data a necessary gate that you have to go through AI effectively?

Patty Grow: I would say yes. So if your, if your data is. is not organized in a way that the Gen AI is going to be able to, um, to access that data. You're going to get faulty outputs, you know, hallucinations and, you know, all of the new terms that are out there, but essentially it's going to be wrong. And so you want to make sure that your data is set up in a way so that it is, you know, accessible and it's going to provide accurate outputs.

Also, just being mindful of what we're putting in You know, are we using, you know, are we using pronouns like he and him, she and her, they, them, are we, you know, putting, you know, if it's a, are we putting an equal representation of men, women, people of, of color, different ethnicities, and aligning them to different, um, different roles.

So just being very cognizant of the, the data that we are putting into these models is going to certainly impact the output.

Jon Busby: Amanda, I like, I'm going to come back to kind of your trifecta of, um, marketing sales and technical for a moment. Like what's your view on where data is often underutilized in part of marketing?

Like, you know, Where is it, do partners realize some of the data they're even sitting on?

Amanda Fitzgerald: Probably not. And I think I,

Jon Busby: yep, there we go. We're done. Sorry. We've

Amanda Fitzgerald: taken the gloves off now. We've definitely taken the gloves off. Probably not. I think, you know, what, what, what I've seen is, um, these cross functional conversations.

I don't think this happens. as much as I would like. So to get people to sit around the table and have that three way conversation between sales, marketing, and technical, and to actually put those topics of conversation and have everyone contribute to that, because marketing tends to be on the receiving end of insights.

Like we used to have a marketing intelligence team that used to give us the marketing insights from the previous six months. However, it wasn't answering the questions that we really wanted tackled. So having those questions defined up front before the insights are given to you, it always used to happen the wrong way around.

We used to be given the insights before we've even asked our questions. And then there'd be a kind of like disconnect. Well, that isn't what I'm looking for. You know, they've just analysed what, going back to Patty's point, they've analysed what data they've got. And given us the insights from the data they've got, but it doesn't answer any of our questions, the ones that we need answered.

So having that closer correlation with your marketing or data intelligence team to say, right, these are the insights that I'm looking for. Do we have the right data to analyze, to give us those answers? And if we don't, how do we change the data captures? That conversation, I don't know whether that actually happens or not, because I was never party to actually defining what insights are we looking for, because that was always done at CMO level.

And I was head of distribution and commercial, but my data needs, even though I documented my data needs, they went in, but because it wasn't a CMO need, my data needs were never addressed or. So, so it's an interesting conundrum, but I think heads of marketing need to be more vocal and be more, um, determined to get their data needs met.

I was vocal, but I don't know. I think I backed away from certain discussions. Um, and I should have been braver and more courageous and Patty, I love the word curious, you know, curiosity. My curiosity was always there, but I needed to follow through on the conviction. Well, I think this is a business critical need and I didn't, I, you know, using the right language helps a long way to getting Your needs met.

So if you start using the terms, this is business critical, hopefully someone will listen.

Jon Busby: I I'm going to slightly, I'm not going to challenge you on this one, Amanda, cause I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I do this. There's something I think going through my head a lot recently. Um, and unfortunately listeners to the podcast, you probably would have mentioned, heard me mention this a few times, but I recently reread based on one of our guests, Tony Condi.

Um, this, he actually did marketing for Stephen Covey, right? Famous author of seven habits. I'm sure we've all read it, but the bit about data that really stood out for me there was this whole concept of first seek to understand, then be understood. And, and actually what stands out is we are now seeing these trends of CMOs.

to speak, needing to understand the rest of the business before they go and make some of their own demands. Um, and so I, I see kind of your challenge there, not necessarily that you were looking at the wrong data points, but that potentially there was a, there was a mismatch of expectation between the CMO and the rest of the business.

Um, and that's why you were struggling to get aligned. So I know we're going massively off topic here, but this is, you know, it's important when talking about data is you've got to make sure that you That everything ladders up into a positive outcome for the business. And I think that's too many marketeers are focused on their own, um, their own goals or too many CMOs are focused on their own goals rather than thinking about what, what the business needs.

And that can't be any, that can't be any more important. It's even more important now, uh, with, with the pace of change with gen AI.

Patty Grow: And I think it comes down to the accessibility of the data because with the technology now we're able to have complex data inputs. And have the complex data outputs as well.

And, and I think that's what's really exciting about this because I, I do see in many organizations and probably in the future that the data that you were looking for Amanda is probably going to become more accessible because it's going to be more of a prompt as opposed to putting a request with the, you know, your, your BI or business intelligence team or putting all of these things in.

Um, and so the. Speed of the data that and getting the answers that we're looking for is going to come more rapidly. And that's going to allow us to make decisions. And that to me is super exciting because to be able to get those answers and get the data that we're looking for without having to go put in like a request or a ticket or bake brownies for somebody so you can get, you know.

Jon Busby: We've all been there. We've all baked another cake for some kind of outcome. Um, don't, don't shy away from it if you haven't done it. We've all been there. Um, Completely agree. Let's come back to Gen AI for a moment because we've talked about data for a bit now. So how, Patty, how do we think channel partners can effectively utilize these Gen AI technologies to improve their marketing efforts and ultimately improve customer engagement?

Patty Grow: And so, you know, what it means for partners is it's going to be very similar to what it means for customers. And we're now able to have partners harness their data once their data is in order and it's accessible, they're able to look at some of these trends and they're going to be able to then help and advise their customers on how to make the most of some of the business trends.

And the most interesting thing, in my opinion, about partners is that, you know, oftentimes they specialize. In a specific industry or a specific vertical. So they may be driving a different car, but it's the same road they're going down. So they're able to provide that expertise to their customers and to their clients, whether it's.

in healthcare, automotive and manufacturing, um, you know, whatever that may be, they have expertise. And so to be able to access the data, to be able to see patterns and trends, where maybe the, the data was too complex and it was maybe in all these different places, but now it's able to be utilized and it's able, it's accessible.

So now they can make sense of it. That's really my opinion, what partners are bringing to their clients and what they're bringing to the table. From a client, partner, uh, vendor relationship.

Jon Busby: Specifically, Patty, like if we dive into Gen AI again, have you, have you, can you share some strategies you've seen that have been hugely successful with partners?

Patty Grow: Yeah. So when I take a look at the partner community, a lot of, a lot of vendors are putting together competencies. training programs. And I think that is really key because you're able to then have a specific standard to say, you know, this partner has this competency on Gen AI with AWS or Microsoft or Google, or, you know, there are, there are several out there.

And what that means is that partner has gone through a very rigorous set of. Not only trainings, but implementations, typically customer case studies to be able to demonstrate that they're, they're capable and they're able to help customers. And they've got that knowledge. And oftentimes what we see is many partners have competencies with many vendors or many organizations.

And that really rounds them out because there are so many different approaches and this technology is so new. Um, that there are many players. So having that, um, that worldview is really important. It's going to benefit their customers. So

Amanda Fitzgerald: it can be a differential advantage in that partner ecosystem space.

Patty Grow: Absolutely. And, you know, one of the things that is, you know, we talk to customers, they want to know that the partner that they're working with. Has some experience, and especially with Gen AI, it's a, it's a very new technology. Yeah, I mean, I understand we've been doing AI for quite some time and Gen AI is really starting to become a buzzword.

But there's a lot that is still unknown and people are still getting their arms wrapped around it. And so to be able to know somebody has taken the time and has a bench of technicians, has a bunch of experts. That is a, that's a big thing. You want to make sure you're, you're working with somebody who, who has done this before.

Jon Busby: I think, I think it's a key, it's a key point, right? We, I don't think there's a conversation about Gen AI recently, we haven't, we haven't trust somewhere in the conversation. Um, and with such a new technology, you referenced that a few times, Patty, like, how do you, how do you make, as a partner, how do I make my customers comfortable that I'm qualified to have those conversations?

Patty Grow: Yeah. Well, I think the, the certifications and competencies are the first piece. Um, the second is, you know, is the partner using it? A lot of times I've seen partners talk about their journey and what they are doing and how they are using Gen AI. I think that's a really important thing for, for partners to talk about.

Um, and so I also believe that the customer success stories, so taking a look, you know, when you're working with a partner. or working with anybody, whether you're redoing your kitchen, you want some references, right? You want to know if they've done this before. And, and so taking a look at partners that are publishing customer references publicly, to me, I want to know, how are they helping others that look great?

Like my organization or within my industry. That's a big, that's a big piece.

Jon Busby: I think there's, there's a lot of advice that I just want to unpack there. Cause that was, there's, there's a lot that I think partners can partners and vendors can gain from this. Right. The first, the first thing I'm just going to make a comment to though is as a developer, I see this happen all the time.

You see something like. You'll see a, a request for, for a, a job and it will say something like, we want AI experience, we want 10 years of AI experience, or 10 years of a particular framework. Let's say chat, GBT experience. I mean chat GB g BT has only been around for four years, so how can you have 10 years like it there?

There does need to be a recalibration of like what experience means because the pace of change is sped up and you know, sometimes that can be as simple as they've just. Deployed one project in it, and that's more than anyone else. So, but let's unpack some of the elements you mentioned. Cause I think there's advice there for both the vendors and the partners.

So if you're a partner, you know, go out and look at what vendors are offering these certifications, go and get your team qualified. Um, go and get the customer case studies written up. And if you don't have a customer case study, maybe look at ways that your vendor can support you in order to get that first customer, but from a vendor perspective, and I think this gets really even more powerful is if you are not You know, it doesn't matter whether AI is part of your product or not, but if you're already not already offering some kind of AI certification, this is something you should look at adding soon.

Um, because if you don't, some of your competition will. Um, and that, you know, that would help if that helps you. If that's the one thing that helps your partners grow, that can be a hugely valuable, valuable part of the relationship.

Patty Grow: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jon Busby: Um, so, you know, I think there's a, there's a, there was a lot there.

I mean, Amanda, what stood out for you, you know, as, as ways of trying to help these partners grow their business?

Amanda Fitzgerald: Yeah, I think it's, you're, you're absolutely right. You know, if, if you don't offer this service, someone else will. So if you haven't started, start today, start looking at. What, um, gen, gen AI applications do we currently use in house and how do you monetize that?

How do you make that a proposition you can leverage for a customer? Because the technology is there. I'd be very surprised if they're not using gen AI in some way or form and document it, make it available. an in house use case and then look at what applications, what similar applications can they offer their customer base.

So do the due diligence, do the homework. If they haven't got an internal example, then What opportunities do they have as a business to use Gen AI to progress their business? I mean, Patty mentioned some lovely use cases right at the beginning about looking at trends, looking at analyzing trends in their industry, analyzing what customers, what content are customers engaging with, using Gen AI tools to do that analysis.

analytics. So, if you, if they don't already know what their in house use cases are, then start defining those and then looking at how do you monetize that into a customer offering. I think those are the two things that stood out from what we've been discussing. Yeah.

Patty Grow: And one more thing to add. Amanda, you're, as you were talking, it made me think of this as from a partner perspective, what is your differentiator?

How are you operating differently from all the other partners out there? Is it a specialization in an industry? Or a specialization and a use case. Are you going to focus on, you know, personalization and focusing on marketing optimization or campaign optimization? Are you going to be focusing on, um, you know, financial services customers?

There are a lot of different opportunities to specialize and get very focused and specific. Um, and there are also ways that you can go broad. So as, you know, from a partner perspective, I would, I would strongly recommend to think about. What do you want to be known for? What are you, how are you going to specialize and how are you going to best help and add value to your customers?

Because there's going to be a need to differentiate, um, within the market. Cause the market is getting very, very full already with all this opportunity. So being able to understand what makes, what makes them unique.

Jon Busby: I think, I think actually you've hit the kind of nail on the head there, Patty, which is, you know, for me, it's not just around making sure you're unique, but Gen AI offers the biggest opportunity for many partners in, to make themselves unique, like some of the.

I, I had the opportunity to go to a tech startup show last month, you know, the there's many of these over the world, but some of the use cases of AI now are now so it's, it's, they're going to be a meme, but like I said, to give you an example, like I saw one very, very different use case, uh, you, the use of AI in order to allow.

Divorced parents to manage their schedules better. Like that's, I mean, it's intricate, it is niche, it is niche, but that you can do the markets, um, and so that for me, that stood out. It was like, this isn't just someone saying we want better meeting notes. Like you, there is a lot of opportunity to utilize.

Some of these gen AI technologies as part of your products to offer something that is, that is truly unique and adds value to your customers. Um, I'm not saying that that, that's a great example for B2B tech, but it, it's one that stood out for me as, as where, how, how niched some of these, um, these services can go.

Amanda Fitzgerald: And this reminds me of, of, of my marketing training from 20, 20 years ago is the arrow when you're targeting your, your target audience, the arrow. Is how specific you need to get. So the example you've just given John, you know, developing an AI solution that is targeted at. Divorcee parents that are co parenting and how you schedule that, that is laser vision marketing.

So every partner has got. A go to market strategy, what service, what, what target market are they targeting and what service are they offering that target market? And how do you build gen AI into that offering? Is it an add on offering or is it modifying the offering they currently have, but using a new technology?

So those are the conversations that we should be encouraging our partners to be having. Yes.

Patty Grow: And using Gen AI to identify who those specific people are that could benefit from the service too. So there's a lot of, there are a lot of applications and it's, um, it's exciting because it really allows people to be very thoughtful on what impact do I want to have on the business or on a specific segment of the business or a segment of the market.

And that to me is really, really exciting.

Jon Busby: One thing I just, I want to dive in, continue to dive into here. Right. So, cause we've, we've been talking around how I kind of posed the question. Or be it a little wordly earlier, which was, is it this, is it part of the product or is it part of the method that you use to get to the product?

I think that the, the outcome here really is it's both, it's both and everything all at all in one. Um, so I think, I think we've agreed the value that it can add. Um, But for many partners, they may be wondering how they get started. And I think this is one of the most intriguing elements that I think we're going to go through in the next few months with any kind of artificial intelligence, especially with some of Apple's announcements last week, since we've been prepping for this call, like they've, they've changed the game on how security and trust will work, but also.

Probably increase the importance of cloud as part of that. Um, you know, for many partners getting started, like what consideration should they be going through in order to pick kind of their strategic alliances? Um, for who they should utilize for AI, like Patty, you know, obviously being a AWS, one of the biggest, uh, cloud companies out there, if not the biggest cloud company out there, like what would be your view on how they need to build their own partnerships?

Patty Grow: I think partnerships are really important and it's important to have, in my opinion, it's good to have many partnerships. Uh, there are a lot of vendors out there that have different offerings. That provide a different type of value to customers and let's face it. Many of our customers are using multiple clouds.

So I think that the data is residing in many different places. So if I'm a partner, I would identify where do I currently have existing alliances? Where do I identify vendors where our alliances or the customers that we're serving intersect? And then how do I become an expert on these vendors? So that way I can continue to add value, not just to the vendor, but to our respective clients and customers together.

And so that then leads to once you've identified, okay, which, which vendors do I want to go deeper with? Which alliances do I want to continue to nurture and evolve? That's when you can say, okay, let me. You know, get my technical bench to be certified on, you know, G. C. P. Azure A. W. S. On all of the clouds and all of their respective offerings.

Um, how do I how do I identify of my target customers? What are The use cases that are going to be most important to them and how can I be proactive and identifying what are my customers going to need to reach their business objectives next year, five years from now, 10 years from now, and that means getting to know their customers really, really well, and that's where the technology can also come in because there's so much data.

We're only using a portion of it right now, but with Gen AI, you're able to leverage that data to create those insights at a At a speed that we haven't been able to do before.

Jon Busby: Oh man, I want to jump in for you on this one. Yeah.

Amanda Fitzgerald: So this is really interesting because we, when I was in the EMEA, you know, most recently I was at global, but when I was in the EMEA, we did.

a partner profiling, you know, we're always partner profiling. And we asked them, which cloud providers do they have those alliances with? And we were really surprised at the outcome because we thought they'd have one or two preferred, um, alliances, but the majority of our big partners, Had an alliance with all of the cloud providers.

So at least three, three, four, and it was consistent across the big tier partners. So you're absolutely right, Patty, you know, where, what current alliances do they have? And how do you build that into a business model? Because they have strong alliances with all the cloud providers, all the big. The, the, the, the hyperscalers, um, and that shouldn't have surprised us, but it did.

So those relationships are really important, but also how, once again, how do you monetize that? How does the partner build a revenue stream from each of those alliances? And customers have more than one cloud as well. They don't have an exclusive platform. With just one of those providers, they have multiple cloud platforms.

So there's an even greater need for partners to have multiple alliances, have a joint, not go to market strategy, but have a cross platform solution that is gen AI ready. And, and you quite rightly just identified another use case for Gen AI, Patty, which is analyzing how, how do you put together that solution?

How do you put together that cross cloud platform solution using Gen AI, not just offering Gen AI, but using Gen AI to package it? As a customer offering. So the use cases are endless. You know, it's blowing my mind. Actually. This, this whole conversation is blowing my mind. .

Jon Busby: But let, let's try and, well, let's try and bring that to a close because we're coming up to the end of our recording time today and we could keep, I think we could think we definitely keep going on for another two or three more hours here.

Like, so to close out, close this episode, let's ask that one question. You know, what would our advice be to someone wanting to get JIA, um, pat? What would, what would be the, be the approach?

Patty Grow: You know, I would encourage them to stay curious because when we are talking about Gen AI, there are so much opportunity.

So I encourage them to stay curious, explore these different use cases that are out there and identify new ones. Because just on this call, I think we're seeing so many different, so many different opportunities. And so to keep the customer in mind, to be able to think about what do my customers need? And leveraging that data and staying curious there, I think, is is really important.

Um, also staying responsible because we talked a little bit earlier about all of the inputs that we're putting into into the technology. And that is what the technology is, is learning from. So making sure we're, we're responsible in. Separating confidential customer data, being responsible and represent and how we're representing, uh, you know, men, women, different groups.

Um, so that way we have a fair and accurate representation. And then to continue to think really big because I think truly the sky is the limit here

Amanda Fitzgerald: and beyond,

Patty Grow: you know, so it's, um, I think we're just, we're at the tip of the iceberg and it's so exciting to, to see, you know, the impact a year from now, what it would look like.

Jon Busby: Awesome. Amanda, what's your view?

Amanda Fitzgerald: I think my key takeaway is, um, define your capabilities. within the Gen AI space because you need to be able to articulate this to a customer. What can my company offer you, Mr. Customer? Don't just use Gen AI as a label. What does it actually mean? What can I offer a customer?

So, so, so understand your capabilities as a partner. Articulate that capability and how it's going to appeal to your customer. That would be my key takeaway. I

Jon Busby: think we've had a nice balance there. I think that's a really nice balance of think big and be curious, which I completely agree with, uh, Patty, but also make sure you can articulate it well.

Absolutely. Patty, Amanda, it's been fantastic to have you both back on the tech marketing podcast, Amanda, you'll be joining us for the next one as well, uh, as part of our channel series. Um, but thank you very much for joining us today. And, uh, yeah, we wish you all the best with your very aptly named, uh, new company.

I've got to say, I'm very jealous. Possibly Consulting doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Um, but, uh, but, uh, Grow Consulting certainly does. So all the best and we hope to see you again soon.

Patty Grow: Thank you so much. Really appreciate the opportunity and great conversation. Thank you so much for having me.