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A Salesforce Executive Vice President Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®
My guest for this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering is a former colleague, now leading a 500-person organization focused on customer service. Connor Marsden is the Executive Vice President for Salesforce Service Cloud. Salesforce has just surpassed SAP as the largest business application software provider. And in this episode, Connor shares how Salesforce Service Cloud is the central nervous system for many of the amazing brands we all know and love and how partners can take advantage of the $1.6T opportunity partnering with Salesforce.
In Connor’s words
Connor Marsden joined Salesforce in 2014 and is currently the Executive Vice President for North America Service Cloud at Salesforce. He is responsible for Distribution, Customer Success, Marketing, and working closely with the Product Teams on future innovations. In his time at Salesforce, Before joining Salesforce, Connor was the U.S. lead for Microsoft’s CRM. He led a diverse team of Marketing, Sales, and Channel Managers responsible for driving the U.S. Microsoft Dynamics CRM business. Find Connor on LinkedIn
What You’ll Learn
- The mission and why of his organization (3:33)
- What is Salesforce Service Cloud? (5:10)
- Some of his best customers? (9:00)
- Why Partners should consider Salesforce? (10:55)
- The $1.6 Trillion opportunity? (16:03)
- Partners that get it right with Salesforce (18:31)
- When the kryptonite enters the room? (21:49)
- How can partners optimize for success with Salesforce? (24:29)
- His best career learnings (26:01)
Quote From This Episode
“When we go to market together, we have an old saying we’re better together, it really leads to some great outcomes because you can’t deploy a transformation without an incredible partner to help to hold the customer’s hand through the process.”
Other Episodes Featuring Salesforce
70 – Be Bold – A Far-Reaching Conversation with Tiffani Bova – Part One. https://theultimatepartner.com/episode/70-be-bold-a-far-reaching-conversation-with-tiffani-bova-part-one/
71 – Be Bold – Part Two of A Far-Reaching Conversation with Tiffani Bova. https://theultimatepartner.com/episode/71-be-bold-part-two-of-my-far-reaching-conversation-with-tiffani-bova/
31- Salesforce in Government, my interview with Casey Coleman – https://theultimatepartner.com/episode/31-salesforce-government-interview-casey-coleman/
Listen on your favorite platform https://pod.link/UltimatePartnerships
Join our First Ultimate Partnerships Masterclass
LIVE, October 9th & 10th – learn how the best achieve their greatest results HERE.
Our Sponsors
PartnerTap is the Founding Sponsor of Ultimate Guide to Partnering. PartnerTap is the only Partner Ecosystem Platform designed for the Enterprise. Their technology makes it easy to align Channel Teams with automated account mapping, letting you control what data you share while building a partner revenue engine.
Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Typos
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
salesforce, customer, partner, drive, business, partner ecosystem, create, service, cloud, pandemic, connor, focused, organization, conversations, excited, people, microsoft, leaders, carmax, solution
SPEAKERS
Announcer, Vince Menzione, Connor Marsden
Connor Marsden 00:00
When we go to market together, we have old saying we’re better together, it really leads to some great outcomes because you can’t deploy a transformation without an incredible partner to really help to hold the customers hand through the process.
Announcer 00:12
Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to partnering in this podcast Vince Menzione. A proven sales and partner executive brings together leaders to discuss transformational trends and deconstruct successful strategies to help technology leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. And now your host Vince Menzione.
Vince Menzione 00:35
Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and my mission is to help leaders like you unlock the leadership principles and learnings of the best in the business to get partnerships right. Optimize for success and deliver your greatest results. How partners like you can take advantage of the $1.6 trillion business opportunity partnering with Salesforce. My guest for this episode of the podcast is a former colleague, now leading a 500 person organization focused on customer service. Connor Marsden is the Executive Vice President for Salesforce Service Cloud. Salesforce has just surpassed SAP as the largest business application software provider. And in this episode, he shares how Salesforce Service Cloud is the central nervous system for many of the amazing brands that we all know and love, and how partners can significantly grow their business with Salesforce. I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I enjoyed welcoming Connor Marston. Before we dive into the interview, I am so excited to announce the ultimate partnerships mastermind. Our first event is taking place October 9 and 10th at the gaylord hotel in Orlando, Florida. This first of its kind live event will feature some of the best leaders in the partnership business, the ultimate partnerships Dream Team, and leaders from Microsoft in person to help you achieve your greatest results in 2023. For more details, follow the link in the show notes. attendance for this event is strictly limited. So please register today before it’s sold out. Connor, welcome to the podcast.
Connor Marsden 02:36
Thanks, Vince really excited to be here. It’s been a long time. So you’ve had a chance to reconnect. And I’m excited to catch up and talk to you about what we have going on here at Salesforce,
Vince Menzione 02:45
I am so excited to finally welcome you as a guest on Ultimate Guide to partner you and I got the chance to work together at Microsoft and wow, you know your career has really taken off. I mean really taken off like a rocket ship since then. So super excited for this opportunity today.
Connor Marsden 03:04
It’s been an incredible journey here at Salesforce, I had an incredible time that Microsoft as well, I learned a great deal and love my time there. It’s been an incredible ride here at Salesforce and excited to talk about the work that we’re doing with partners here and the opportunity that we see overall
Vince Menzione 03:18
Executive Vice President of Salesforce service cloud, it’s a big job. So for our listeners who may not know, can you explain your role Service Cloud, and the mission of your organization,
Connor Marsden 03:33
I’m going to take you back to when the pandemic hit vents, I was an SVP responsible for our strategic accounts in the United States. So working with our largest brands, I think it was April of 2020 pandemic had just hit. And we didn’t have a direct selling Service Cloud team. And so our CEO Marc Benioff really wanted to get a team focused on this opportunity for service which, and the pandemic was, if you can imagine all the digital service and engagement that that needed to happen, it was really a great space for us to put some dedicated focus. So I got a call from my manager at the time, Larry shirts, and he said, Hey, we want to create this new Service Cloud team, and we want you to do it, and you’re gonna have to hire like 150 people to sellers. And I was I remember being on the other phone thinking, I’m going to hire 150 salespeople virtually for my home for weeks after this pandemic had really started. And he said, Yeah, that’s what we need you to do, and to figure out this direct selling thing. And I said, Well, how long do I have to think about it? Let’s just take the next hour and get back to me. And so I got back to him and started it. But in short, my current role, I’m responsible for Service Cloud for North America from small business through our largest enterprises across the US and Canada. It’s a team of 500 plus soft solution engineers, and salespeople. And so it’s been great. We’re really focused on driving what’s our largest Cloud here at Salesforce.
Vince Menzione 05:01
Wow. So dive in. For our listeners who don’t know much about service cloud tell us a little bit more about the functionality and capability and Service Cloud
Connor Marsden 05:10
is to bring it down to its most basic components. It’s we enable contact centers, to better engage with your customer, using case management as a foundation using our service console. So we if you think about the typical contact center, it’s really like the central nervous system for a company and that you need to be able to answer any question that comes your way or routed to the appropriate expert to get that question answered. And so you need to have access to all the backend systems that a company has. And what we do at Service Cloud is we help to integrate those back end systems to a single pane of glass so that the agent can in a very efficient way, find an answer, resolve the issue, and move the customer along their journey. And so just to give you a for instance, I worked with a exec sponsored a really large hotel brand, they had 15 different systems that their agents had to use to get their job done, we were able to consolidate down to two systems, ours and another. And their efficiency just absolutely skyrocketed, their ability to engage with their guests skyrocketed, it was a really great story. And in addition to the console, and helping drive simplification, we also drive digital engagement. So bi directional texting, chat with your guests, using bots, to front end and drive deflection to create portals for self service, integrate with their mobile apps to provide a great experience. And then we also have a field service side of service cloud as well. So a great customer of ours is ADT, they use us for their field technicians to dispatch to actually drive the installation of ADT systems or to be able to troubleshoot an issue that a customer may be, may be having. And so how do you drive really great Scheduling Optimization of those field service agents? How do you give them the right tools, so when they’re in front of the customer, they can capture a lead or they can complete an order. Or they can just simply close out the work order and make sure that the customer satisfied. We from a Service Cloud standpoint, support all those scenarios on behalf of our customers.
Vince Menzione 07:12
And I would imagine they’re using mobile devices, whether they be iPads, or iPhones or maybe even a PC that they’re using to do all that data, capture all of that lead capture information closing out an order. And that’s exactly
Connor Marsden 07:25
Yeah, that’s exactly right. Really mobile first, really trying to support the frontline worker on the field service side. And then going back to the pandemic. So why things took off. Imagine all these contact centers, where you normally had a centralized group of rows of cubicles of contact center, they all now needed to be remote work from home. And so you couldn’t just go and talk to your supervisor, everything needed to be digitized across the board. And that really created a huge opportunity for us here at Salesforce. It’s striking
Vince Menzione 07:54
to me as well, I’ll be on the phone with a customer service person today. And I hear the dog barking in the background. And I forget that they’re all working remote today, like they’re not back in these call centers like they were it’s such a striking difference than before.
Connor Marsden 08:06
Yeah. And think about think about how you need to train that agent, how you need to make sure that they have the right telephony needs, so that you have a really great audio connection with your guests. Think about how you’re getting answers to tough questions and how you’re swarming cases. And really looking to identify who the right expert is internally to solve an issue, whether it’s a billing issue, whether it’s a product issue, or whether it’s just a complicated case that requires the coordination of multiple folks, internally, being remote has really forced us to rethink how we work, how we engage and how we surface those answers across really complex organizations.
Vince Menzione 08:44
Before we started, we were talking about an experience I just had flying and just the poor experience I had in terms of customer service. And you’ve got some amazing customers, some brands that I love and trust, that are very customer centric. Can you talk more about some of your customers?
Connor Marsden 09:00
Yeah, we’ve got some we’ve had some amazing customers. Some of the some customers that I really think are doing cutting edge work Carmax down in Richmond, Virginia, they’re really reinventing how people are buying and selling cars. And so when the pandemic hit events in six weeks, they had to move to a contactless reservation system to get appraisals, to drive test drives, and to pick up cars, they had to move heavily into digital sales where you got a true Omni experience, read call into a contact center, inquire about a car, maybe get passed down to a store associate maybe go back to the contact center, all integrated into their e commerce experience. And they saw their online digital sales increased by 300%. Now, if you would have told me that one of the fastest growing areas of Carmax, who sells used cars would be online, but that’s just not an area that you would think that people would move towards but they really pioneered that whole buying process and developing trust with their customers. We have a great customer of ours is Honeywell, we just did a global rollout of their fields. service system. And I think they, because they’re able to drive better optimization of the resources, Vince, I think they’ve taken out like 150 tons of carbon, because their trucks are driving that many less miles because they can get from point A to point B in a more efficient way with our scheduling and optimization tools. Southwest Airlines uses us in their reservation in their contact center to provide experience for their fliers. And it’s still one of the best run most efficient, easy to engage contact centers from a handle time. And so we’re really proud of the work that we’re doing together with with their organization as well. It’s really amazing to see how our platform and the right customers hands, it’s just creating just tremendous innovation efficiency. And at the end of the day, really happy customers,
Vince Menzione 10:43
so much transformation, you’re driving for our listeners, many of which are in the Microsoft world, that ecosystem that we all knew and love. Can you tell us why they should consider building with Salesforce?
Connor Marsden 10:55
Yeah, we are laser focused on business applications. We just surpassed SAP as the largest provider of enterprise software, which is absolutely incredible since I started here, at Salesforce when we were about four and a half billion dollars revenue. And this year, I think we got it to north of 31 billion or thereabout. And so there’s really nothing that you can’t do in the front office with our system. If you think about how you actually create a true customer, 360 it’s how do you have your sales teams have a view into your customer? How can you understand how to service that customer? How do you create marketing journeys for that organization? How do you provide a commerce experience? How do you use mule soft to integrate all those back end systems across the board? How do you then report and have analytics we have Tableau which is really the leading analytics application out there for end users all embedded inside those workflows and exposed externally. And then we have slack and how you can swarm cases, really tap into the expertise in the organization and really create a digital HQ across the board. And all those systems are integrated, we share data, and you can really create some wonderful experiences on behalf of your customers and really create that that true customer 360. And so why people should consider Salesforce is if you think about our typical engagement, it’s not only the Configuring customizing the solution on behalf of the end user, there’s also a tremendous amount of change management that occurs, which is a really important for our partners from a revenue source. There’s also new business models that we’re creating that our customers need to get consulted, advised on etc. And so the typical Salesforce project has tentacles into so many different areas in the business, that our partners like Accenture and PwC and Capgemini and Deloitte slalom, they’re able to drive so many different conversations just based on a single Salesforce deployment. And it’s really been a growth driver for them across the board.
Vince Menzione 12:59
How do you and your team go to market and sell with these partners,
Connor Marsden 13:03
in a lot of cases, they’re really established relationships with the largest size or regional si with our customers. And they really understand and have the expertise of the entire landscape of what’s happening inside that customer. We’re laser focused on business applications and how we can drive change efficiencies take cost out, but also help to drive revenue. And so where it works best is where we’re having regular syncs, trusted conversations, we are positioning our s AP, ideally drive the services for the deployment, the change management, and then the other ancillary consulting services. And they’re the ones who are behind the scenes. They’re validating the Salesforce platform, they’re validating our approach. And they’re really providing the important services quote, or the Esso W so that customers can see the full picture of what the total transformation is going to require. And so on that way, when we go to market together, we have old saying we’re better together, it really leads to some great outcomes, because you can’t deploy a transformation without an incredible partner behind the scenes to really help to hold the customers hand through the process.
Vince Menzione 14:10
And you’re also working with quite a few complementary software solutions. You’ve acquired some of those brands like Tableau and slack, but Salesforce created the marketplace, right? You created this whole ecosystem strategy where it wasn’t just Salesforce, but it was Salesforce as a platform. Yeah, all of these complementary software, like you don’t do everything soup to nuts, these complementary solutions become embedded into this the customer solution, we talk about a Southwest or we talk about a Carmax. There’s other components to that as well.
Connor Marsden 14:41
Yeah, you’re right. We have the AppExchange, where we have 1000s of ISVs that have built solutions on our platform. Some of them were acquired like a great example is velocity. They created a CPQ tool for industry. So for telecom organizations, for energy in utilities They provided a an order management system based on our platform, we actually acquired them on our side. And they’re part of our part of our platform, but they actually built a billion dollar business on the Salesforce platform. You have companies like DocuSign, that are in our app exchange Coveo, for search is in our app exchange. And so when we go and sell a complete solution, we’re not going to be the ones to be able to provide every answer to every question, these ISVs they round out the solution. And they seamlessly plug into our Salesforce platform, the way that we talked about is we’ve created a trillion dollar industry with the Salesforce ecosystem over time. And this is a study that we did with IBC. And that supporting 1.6 trillion and new business revenues by 2026, is what we’re shooting for. And for every $1 of sales, FY 2026, we expect our partner ecosystem to make $6.19 $6.19
Vince Menzione 15:53
for every every
Connor Marsden 15:56
600% more. So that’s a huge opportunity, given that we’re the largest enterprise application provider in the market today,
Vince Menzione 16:03
the ecosystem drives additional revenue, right, that six, that six point $6.19 that gets generated is through trusted partner relationships. It’s developed its advisors, its consultants, it’s systems integrators, it’s complementary solution providers ISPs of the like that are building out and surrounding the customer with a complete solution.
Connor Marsden 16:27
Yeah, it’s, I have an expression vents that I’ve used, actually, from my times that Microsoft and I brought it here to Salesforce, it’s the partner ecosystem, it is how we are going to be successful long term for all the reasons that you just shared, because business and the business, the amount of industries that we’re in, it’s just really complex, and you can’t be all things to all people. And when I bring on a new rep, or a new manager and a new team, I really asked them to embrace our partner ecosystem. And here’s the challenges of partners is that sometimes you’ll have an engagement or a deal or something won’t go right. And you may lose a deal because of a partner. And it’s really easy to point to that one example of where that may happen. But what I share is like, hey, for every one time that you may have a bad experience, you’re going to have six great experiences, and you’re going to get revenue that you didn’t expect because of the partner ecosystem. And so you have to be thinking about the partner and the totality of they’re going to be bringing things to you that you never would have had exposure to just because there’s a lot more in our lot more individuals, smart people in our partner ecosystem than there is here at Salesforce. And if we use that as a forcing mechanism to drive growth, it’s well just quite frankly, truly is what propelled us to where we are right now.
Vince Menzione 17:44
I’m happy to announce that partner tap has become a founding sponsor of ultimate guide to partnering. I’ve been friends with the founders of partner tap for many years. And partner tap is the only partner ecosystem platform designed for the enterprise. Their technology makes it easy to align channel teams with automated account mapping, letting you control what data you share, while building a partner revenue engine. I’m so excited to have them on board. Be on the lookout for events, content and more. And I’m so excited to continue working together and our exciting year ahead. What attributes do you see from the best of the best? What are the best do differently than the others?
Connor Marsden 18:31
I think our best partners really helped to simplify what’s needed to best help our customers. And they help us better engage with the customer to really narrow down here’s where you need to focus. They have really trusted conversations with us and transparency like a partner relationship has to be based on just radical candor, right? You don’t have time to play games or politics or positioning. When I’m engaged with our top our top partners, we’re talking about what’s going great, where we need to improve, where we might not have the right level alignment so we can quickly course to drive success. And then lastly, from a partner standpoint of going great, it’s ideally that partner also has a trusted relationship with the customer. So when Salesforce isn’t in the room, they’re sharing the right message. And they’re helping to guide the customer with their trusted relationship as well.
Vince Menzione 19:25
Yeah, they’ll say the same thing without Salesforce in the room in front of the customer that they would with you in the room. Right. That’s the trusted relationship. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. I love radical candor. By the way, can I reuse radical candor? Can I license it from you? Yeah. I’m talking about being aggressive enough in terms of an honest open relationships mindset and on the light but getting to that we need to have the open and honest conversations about what’s working, what’s not working, so that we can get the green as I like to say when we
Connor Marsden 19:57
get engaged with a large transformation or even with a small business or a medium sized business, it’s complex. And you’re trying to drive change to establish human behavior and things can go wrong together, having the right governance in place, having those difficult conversations bringing the customer along for the ride. And that’s the only way we’re going to continue to drive the outcomes that our customers expect from us,
Vince Menzione 20:20
when you’re working in one of these large projects. Is there a framework that you put in place on the project side? With? Yeah,
Connor Marsden 20:26
yeah, we try to for our large transformations, we try and probably like the gold standard model is our partners are they’re driving the or they’re driving the project, they’re driving the engagement, we work with our partners to ensure that in the SW there’s budget for an architect on our side, so that we have somebody embedded as part of the overall project team working together with the customer, the way I describe it, is that they have the backbone back to our product teams or product development, as questions start to as questions start to arise. And then getting into a monthly cadence with the customer, the exact sponsor on their side, the exact sponsors from our side, and from the partner. And I find when we do that, if you can get into that regular cadence, you actually learn a great deal about your product, what capabilities you need to maybe focus on, are there any gaps? Are there any opportunities for new ISVs to plug those gaps in, you learn a great deal, and the partners learn a great deal as well. And it also just instills a great deal of trust with the customer. And so a monthly governance process, during an active transformation, I think it’s table stakes. And then long term, especially for our larger customers get it into a quarterly cadence with the partners. And with the customer to track progress is also a best practice that we do as well,
Vince Menzione 21:42
what has been or has there been a Kryptonite that has gotten in the way of success working with partners?
Connor Marsden 21:49
Yeah, so first, like, we’ve got an incredible partner ecosystem. And so I think the kryptonite that we tend to that we tend to see is, we want our partners to have a point of view. And we want them to express that point of view. And we want them to be transparent about what their point of view is for that individual customer. And I think where and I think where things may not go great. And where we need to course correct is where we’re not being really transparent about what their point of view is versus our point of view. And it’s out of alignment. And we don’t know the route of alignment. And so I’ve seen that instance, come a couple times before from a partnering standpoint, and that just goes from that just goes back to how we talked about the best practices for how we need to engage from a customer standpoint, but like anything, these are complex projects, and it’s okay to have different viewpoints, we just need to get those surface early. So if we’re out of alignment, let’s just acknowledge that we can agree to disagree, and we can move and we can move past it.
Vince Menzione 22:46
Yeah, I think the best partnerships work when both organizations and locking arms have like a shared vision for success, whether it be project based or outcome based for the life of a market go to market strategy.
Connor Marsden 22:59
That’s right. And here’s the deal. It’s complex, the business problems that we’re looking to solve, and there’s a lot of competition out there in the marketplace. And so in a lot of cases, I’ve seen some sales teams lean too hard on a partner to help to guide his selection. And at the end of the day, what I tell my teams is, look, we got to stand on our own two feet, we got to engage with the customer understand their business, and we got to earn the right, you know, to secure that business. And sometimes the partner is going to be in a position to help. And sometimes they just may not be, and that’s okay, as well. But let’s just understand, like, where they’re situated where they can help where they can help. And let’s just understand that early and often.
Vince Menzione 23:33
Yeah, there’s multiple seats at the table for the client, right? They’re looking at, they’re looking at all the seats at the table, and sometimes you’re in a better position than they are to help lead that discussion. That’s exactly right. Ultimately, the customer is going to be the ultimate arbiter of how things play out.
Connor Marsden 23:49
They’re going to say, here’s the solution I want to choose. And here’s the partner that I want to choose to drive the deployment. And oftentimes when you have a partner, Salesforce, we take too many too much liberty, and how much influence we’ll have on those decisions. I’ve seen things go awry. And so there’s a lot of humility in these large programs, that the customer has the ultimate say, Yeah, it’s really important to ground yourself on that
Vince Menzione 24:13
when hubris enters the room. It’s not good for the client. That’s exactly that’s exactly. That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. What advice do you have for partners looking to build a business partnering with Salesforce?
Connor Marsden 24:29
So if you’re new to the Salesforce ecosystem, get focused, find an area of our platform, we’ve got a huge landscape Sales Cloud Service, cloud marketing, cloud, Tableau, Congress cloud, we have a new CDP product that we’ve launched that is absolutely it’s a fastest growing product that I’ve seen in my time here at Salesforce. I’m really excited about dig in and get focused number one on one of the areas number two, ideally get focused on whatever you’re going to drive inside of Salesforce, and also focus on an industry. We’ve got an incredible industry Model and actually the leader for industry solutions. jujhar Singh actually came from Microsoft. And we work together there for years. And so from manufacturing, to healthcare, to financial services, to public sector and government, telecommunications, travel, hospitality, take the solution and get focus from an industry standpoint. And then like anything, when your first few customers and make them raving fans, if you want to grow your practice, it’s not about what you can sell. It’s about what you can deliver on behalf of your customer and to have incredible references, and people are willing to vouch for you. Those are the simple things that I think about for partners who are looking to get into the Salesforce ecosystem.
Vince Menzione 25:39
So Connor, I’d love to shift gears. As you might know, I’m fascinated with the career journey and helping early and career listeners learn from leaders like you. You’ve had an amazing career, I’ve watched this meteoric rise, was there a spark or pivot point that propelled your success? Was it a positive or negative experience?
Connor Marsden 26:01
The best advice that I have for people who are early in careers is a couple things. So first, be curious, right? Ask a lot of questions, when you’re early in career, understand how things work, why they work, and always realize that everything can be improved inside of a large organization. And folks who are curious, in my opinion, always kind of rise to the top, I think, second piece of advice that I give too early in career is that careers aren’t linear, meaning like you don’t go from role to role to role to straight up an organization, that you really need to think of your career as a collection of experience. And that’s really served me well. And so I’ve currently I’m a sales leader, for a specialized sales team focusing on service cloud. I’ve also led sales teams focusing on managing the end customer relationship across our entire customer 360. But at Microsoft actually ran field service marketing and had a $10 million marketing budget, I was responsible for the CRM operating model while at Microsoft, which included thinking about our partner program, thinking about our customer success across the board. And I would bounce from individual contributor to manager role along the journey collecting these experiences. When I’m in the role that I’m in right now, I feel like I have a fantastic foundation. And that when I talk to another customer executive would have a shared experience of what they’re experiencing and can bring some real insight to the table.
Vince Menzione 27:21
So was there a best piece of advice that you received along the way?
Connor Marsden 27:25
Here’s the best advice that I’ve received that’s really helped me is that at the end of the day, it’s all about your customer. And so really focus on your customer, get engaged, make them successful, build relationships, because in a similar way, as we talked about how you want to make sure that you’re aligned with your with your partner, when you’re not in the room, that they’re sharing the same message. Customers also have conversations when you’re not in the room. And those are the most important conversations about how they’re speaking with you. Do they want to expand the relationship with Salesforce? Or do they not? Are they seeing value and what you sold them or not. And as a individual account executive, as a first line manager, second line manager focusing on your customer success will never steer you in the wrong direction.
Vince Menzione 28:07
Customers, the North Star, I mean, 100% so profound. So as you might know, I’ve had Dr. Michael Gervais here multiple times. And he discusses the importance of a personal mission, a personal philosophy, if you will, was there a personal mission? Or philosophy that has guided your journey, Connor? And if so, do you mind sharing it? Yes, I talked
Connor Marsden 28:31
to my teams about having really understanding what your core values are. And for me, my core values are responsibility, family, and forgiveness. And so that’s what propels me. So when I think about responsibility for my teams, I take to heart that in my organization, there’s those people, I need to be there to help them be successful. My responsibility is to make sure that they can grow their careers, feed their families have the success they need to have, I take that to heart, the same with the folks on my team, my direct leaders and managers. I’m a big believer that we invest a ton of time at work, and ultimately, like work is it becomes your family. Right? Yes. And you have to treat them in that way. And through the good times, and the bad, but we need to have each other’s backs. And so family is an important piece. And then the last is forgiveness. And I talked to my teams about this all the time. I make mistakes all the time, I can point to so many situations that I wish I turned left instead of turning right or I made a decision that led to a poor outcome. And I know that my teams are going to make mistakes too. And I pride myself that we learn from mistakes, we move forward, but we forgive ourselves. And we don’t let and we don’t blame for it. Meaning that bad news needs to be able to travel fast. And when that bad news is delivered, it’s delivered in such a way that we’re focusing on the problem and not the emotional side. And then when it’s over, we’ve learned we’ve forgiven and we improve. And I think in any highly functioning complex sales, environment or organization And, you know, that’s really served, at least me personally as a leader,
Vince Menzione 30:04
responsibility, family and forgiveness, some really profound things, I think about forgiveness, I think about the fact that you don’t often hear the bad news. If there’s no forgiveness. On the other end,
Connor Marsden 30:14
you don’t hear the bad news. And maybe you hear partial bad news, but you don’t get the full truth. And Satya from Microsoft’s talks about how technology doesn’t respect tradition. And so for you to be able to, for your bill to grow as an organization, you need to be able to surface the whole truth as quickly and as efficiently as possible. And that means that people can’t be afraid to bring up really uncomfortable conversations. And that’s where I think forgiveness really helps me to ensure that the environment is created such that the truth is going to surface to the table.
Vince Menzione 30:43
So important. So let’s have a little bit of fun. This is a favorite question of mine, Connor, you are hosting a dinner party. And for this amazing dinner party, you can invite any three guests from the present, or the past, and you can host this party anywhere in the world. And we could talk about that as well. Who would you invite to this dinner party? And why? Yeah,
Connor Marsden 31:07
great. Three people for dinner. And so I think I’d invite Elon Musk. And just because there’s really no one who’s transforming our world more, and the work that he’s done in Tesla, and SpaceX, and really trying to drive our global narrative on the environment, renewables, etc. And just because I’ve had personal interactions, and it’s fascinating, just to hear three things, I think I’d have Marc Benioff, our CEO at the table, as well. And then the third would be Abraham Lincoln. And I think Abraham Lincoln because of his, like steering a country, and being so clear eyed about what needs to happen. And just learning about that fortitude, that leadership fortitude to pave a path forward. And so I think those would be my three,
Vince Menzione 31:52
what an interesting conversation, I’m gonna have to come by and bring a beverage, because So Elon, I do want to talk to him about what’s going on with Twitter right now, I think that’s an interesting conversation, what’s gonna happen in Delaware court, Mark, of course, obviously, ohana, we have to, I have to respect that and love to have that conversation with him as well. And then Abraham Lincoln is one I also truly admire. And we’re in somewhat of a divisive point in our country right now. And I do think that it’d be great to have his insights as to what we need to go do.
Connor Marsden 32:24
I so it’s, I don’t know if you knew that my dad’s actually a politician in Virginia. And so he’s a state senator. And so I have in depth conversations with him just around the political climate and what’s happening in our world today.
Vince Menzione 32:35
I did happen to know that maybe we should invite your dad to the table as well, I think we can make room for a fourth, what do you think
Connor Marsden 32:41
he’s the one, he’s the wisest person that I know. And hence, he told me, he said, he said, when every bill that he votes on in a lot of cases, you’re trying to do good for somebody in the bill. But ultimately, you’re also doing bad for somebody else. And so take minimum wage, for example, which he was big proponent of Virginia, of doing a measured approach for, and you’ve got a small business owner out there who’s gonna be impacted, and then you have the benefit to the the employee, and how do you and every legislator has to manage the balance between the good you’re doing and the harm that you’re doing, ideally, strike the right policy. And I just think he does a phenomenal job of that.
Vince Menzione 33:17
I love that we have to say they’re so Connor, you have been an amazing guest I it’s been so much fun to reconnect with you today, for our listeners, many in the Microsoft ecosystem, any final words to help guide their success.
Connor Marsden 33:32
If you’re in the Microsoft ecosystem, come check out Salesforce, we’re growing, we have a robust portfolio, and we need some incredible partners to continue to help us fuel the fuel or fuel our growth. And for our Salesforce partners that are out there, just a sincere thanks for all the work effort in partnership. And I hope that I get a chance to see everyone on September 20, to the 22nd at Dreamforce, which is the largest tech conference for business in the market, and we are bringing it back. It’s gonna be bigger and better than ever, this year. So really excited to reconnect with our ohana and our entire ecosystem. And because it’s been long overdue,
Vince Menzione 34:09
I’m so excited that you’re bringing it back by the way. So it’s the 20th to the 22nd that’s taken over you like you take over the city in such a big way to such a big event.
Connor Marsden 34:18
It’s we take over it is a city takeover. It’s exciting. And I think we have Red Hot Chili Peppers playing this year, which we’re excited about. Nice. It’s going to be a it’s going to be a phenomenal event. And it’s one that I’ve missed for the last couple years that we haven’t had a chance to do and because of the pandemic so it’s gonna be great to get back at it.
Vince Menzione 34:36
Awesome, Connor. Thanks again for your I recognize how valuable your time is and so precious, so busy. Appreciate your time today.
Connor Marsden 34:46
Thanks, Vince. This has been amazing and thanks for all your work that you do on behalf of partners. It’s really inspirational.
Vince Menzione 34:51
As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please subscribe on your favorite platform. Like comment, tell your friends about submit God to partnering and where they can find us, and I’d love your feedback. Please like the podcast and provide comments or reach out to me at Vince Menzione on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also like and follow Ultimate Guide to partnering on our Facebook page, or drop me align at Vince M at ultimate dash partnerships.com. I am so excited to announce the ultimate partnerships mastermind. Our first event is taking place October 9 and 10th at the gaylord hotel in Orlando, Florida. This first of its kind live event will feature some of the best leaders in the partnership business. The group I call the ultimate partnerships Dream Team, and leaders from Microsoft in person to help you achieve your greatest results in 2023. For more details, follow the link in the show notes. attendance for this event is strictly limited to support and intimate executive dialogue. So please register today before it’s sold out. I hope you join us my friend at the beautiful Gaylord hotel October 9 And Tim.
Announcer 36:16
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to partnering with your host Vince Menzione online at Ultimate Guide to partnering.com and facebook.com/ultimate Guide to partnering. We’ll catch you next time on The Ultimate Guide to partnering