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Microsoft’s Business Applications Ecosystem Leader Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

How Partners Help this Business Applications Leader Leapfrog the Future of Work? I interviewed an ecosystem leader who shares what companies are doing differently to be the best in the business and change the game in an industry dominated by its competitors. Monique Hayward, Microsoft’s Business Application Partner Ecosystem Leader, shares the big vision Microsoft has for the future of work, how it’s leveraging the power of its cloud, and its immense commitment to its partners to lead the path forward.

In Monique’s Words

Monique Hayward is the Senior Director for Business Applications Ecosystem Marketing at Microsoft Corporation.  She leads the team responsible for the marketing strategy and programs to accelerate the growth of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform products with independent software vendors and systems integrators.

Monique worked for 22 years at Intel Corporation, leading teams and managing strategic marketing, communications, and business development programs in Information Technology, Data Center Platforms, Software & Services, Global Diversity, Mobile Platforms, and Corporate Marketing. 

Monique is also an award-winning entrepreneur, author, and speaker. Monique’s debut book, Divas Doing Business: What the Guidebooks Don’t Tell You About Being a Woman Entrepreneur, features a foreword by Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman.  Her latest book is, Get Your Hustle On! It’s Not Just About Getting a Job, But Building a Rewarding Career.

What You’ll Learn

• Monique’s Career Journey (2:24)
• Her Four Pillars for Partners (12:21)
• How Microsoft is investing in the business applications ecosystem (21:25)
• The synergies of Business Applications with Modern Work (23:58)
• What are the three things she looks for in a successful partner? (28:52)
• Being a megaphone marketer? (34:11)
• Advice to set each of us up for success in 2023? (39:47)

Creating Ultimate Partnerships

Let’s face it, we all have seen partnerships that look good on paper but never live up to their expected results. There are many reasons why partnerships fail, and at Ultimate Partnerships, we help you get it right by applying a proven set of best practices and frameworks. If you want to learn more, follow the link in the show notes, or visit our website.

Microsoft’s Dynamics Series Episodes

148 – How Microsoft Dynamics CMO is helping Partners achieve their greatest results, feat Emily He.

134 – How Partners Achieve Their Greatest Results with Microsoft’s Industry Cloud Strategy? with Toby Bowers

Alysa Taylor, CVP for Industry & Business Applications – Focus on Listening, Understanding, Knowing Where the World is Going!

Links from this Episode

• https://podfollow.com/ultimate-guide-to-partnering
• Dynamics Community Summit North America
• FREE OFFER from PartnerTap
• athleticgreens.com/vincem

Transcription – by Otter.ai –

Expect Plenty of Typos & Grammatical Errors

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

microsoft, business, partners, opportunity, ecosystem, people, career, partnering, monique, applications, organization, teams, listeners, technology, ensure, intel, growth, customers, platform, started

SPEAKERS

Announcer

00:00

How is this business application leader, reimagining the future of work to leapfrog its largest competitors. In my next episode of ultimate guide to partnering, I interview an ecosystem leader who shares what are companies doing differently, to be the best in the business and change the game in an industry dominated by its competitors.

Announcer  00:23

This is the ultimate guide to partnering the top partnership podcast. In this podcast, Vince Menzione, a proven partner sales executive shares his mission to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. And now your host Vince Menzione.

00:43

Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and today I will Modi K word. Microsoft’s business application partner ecosystem leader shares the Big Vision Microsoft has for the future of work and how it’s leveraging the power of its cloud and its immense commitment to its partners to lead the path forward. I hope you enjoy this episode, as much as I enjoyed welcoming Monique a word. Before we dive into the interview, 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. Monique, welcome to the podcast.

02:01

Hello, Vince. It is so amazing to finally get onto your podcast. Thank you so much for the invitation.

02:08

Well, the honor is mine. I am so excited to welcome you as a guest on Ultimate Guide to partnering. You’re an award winning marketing executive author, entrepreneur, and Microsoft’s business applications partner ecosystem leader.

02:24

Wow, girl. That was a mouthful, by the way. You know, I know I’d like to meet her one of these.

02:32

Well, it is so good to have you here today.

02:35

Thank you so much. It’s really a pleasure for me to be here. I’m looking forward to this conversation.

02:40

I am so looking forward to this conference are continuing this conversation. You and I had the chance to work together last fall in October. In fact, as you might have mentioned to me before we started, I think I dragged you to Orlando for a big conference, right?

02:56

Yes, indeed, I like to tell people that Vince hustled me and my team to participate in this pioneering event mastermind at the Community Summit. And it turns out that you had a brilliant idea. How about figuring out a way to help partners who do business with Microsoft, improve their relationships and their engagements with the company and find ways to expand their business opportunities. And do that in a way that is in a safe environment where they can ask the questions where they can take a few risks, and then get feedback on their strategies and, and their execution plans. Brilliant.

03:46

So just for the record, I didn’t ask you to say that did I know you didn’t know. Okay. But thank you so much. I so appreciate you. And your team brought so much energy to that event. We’re going to expand a little bit more about the business opportunity for partners here in a minute. But for our listeners who don’t know you yet, can you tell us and them a little bit more about Monique Hayward?

04:11

Certainly. So what’s really interesting, I think about me and my journey is that it all started with this little girl who grew up in New York City, and I split my childhood between there and Columbia, South Carolina. Originally, my vision for my career was to be a political reporter for The Washington Post. And I was like that specific when I was in the fifth grade.

04:35

Is that right? Even at the fifth grade? Yeah, I really wanted

04:39

to be a journalist. And as you know, life unfolded and as luck would have it. I did wind up at a top 10 Journalism School right outside of Washington, DC, the University of Maryland and where else to be besides, you know, that particular place if you wanted to be you know, in politics and if you want to be in journalism, but then I decided that I kind of want to make some money. And, and journalists don’t really make a lot of money. It wasn’t like I was, you know, sort of precious about what would happen to the newspaper business when I was 1819 years old, like, No, I just, I just had bigger and better plans for myself. And so I stuck with journalism, but I switched from newspaper to public relations. And then I actually decided after that, that I really needed to get a master’s in business. And so, so I went to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio to go get my MBA. And then that brought me out to Portland, Oregon, where I started my career in high technology. And I worked for a company called Tektronix. From there, I worked at Tech for three years and went to Intel. And I was at Intel for 22 years, Wow, I did every job that I could possibly think of doing in the marketing space that built on my communications and marketing expertise. And the way that I like to describe my career at Intel was that I moved around to move up. And so I worked in every part of the business with the exception of finance, manufacturing, and sales, that was a huge education and how a company works from top to bottom. And then I switched to Microsoft, I started out in the core services engineering operations organization. And then that led me to my job currently, where I am working on business applications and working on Ecosystem Marketing, which is fantastic. I’ll tell you

06:34

what, we’re gonna dive in more about that career journey. But it’s fascinating story. And I want to also dive in on Intel, because what an amazing organization, we’ve learned so much from Intel. In fact, some of their leadership principles have become core to so many of the top organizations and Right,

06:51

exactly, yeah, in fact, the current CEO of Intel is a gentleman named Pat Gelsinger. And I actually worked for him as his chief of staff when he was at the company the first time around when he was on his journey to be the Chief Technology Officer of the company. And the other thing that, you know, I wanted to also mention about my journey is that along the way, I became an entrepreneur. And so I owned a restaurant business, I was a partner in a software company. And now I currently have a personal chef venture that’s based out in Phoenix, Arizona. And and that’s been going for, gosh, the last three and a half going on for years, which is crazy town. When you think about all the other stuff that’s going on in my life. What am I doing?

07:29

I was a GM at Microsoft, I know what that leadership requirements are like, and the time requirements like how do you do all that? I mean, that’s absolutely amazing to me.

07:38

Yeah, when I advise my mentees and my protegees about, you know, the things that they want to do with themselves in their careers, the way that I look at life is that you prioritize the things that are important to you, right, and you can always find time, right now, there’s also a certain amount of downtime that you really should have. That gives you an opportunity to think it gives you an opportunity to stretch, and be creative and relax. Because then some of the best ideas come to you, when you’re in that state. You shouldn’t be super scheduled and super busy and going crazy all the time. You should give yourself you know, some time to breathe. But you do have a lot of slack that you can probably take a look at that is available for you to actually prioritize and get the things done that you really want to get done, especially if they are important to your career development and your career growth as a professional.

08:36

I’m fascinated here, before we go on any further because I have been practicing mindfulness. I’ve started meditation practice. And I’m interested, yeah, I’m interested if you’re doing anything along those lines here.

08:50

Oh, my goodness, I envy people who can meditate because my mind just wanders off all the time. I’ve tried. I’m in practice, shall we say, on the practice of meditating, because I need to settle in and I need to get my mind calm down. I’m sure that there are a lot of our audience members today who can relate to that constant machine, if you will, that’s going on in your brain like that, that manufacturing line, if you will, that’s going on your brain constantly, like always churning out something that you think is productive, right? But there are ways that I’m trying to learn to slow it down. And to allow myself that space to just breathe and picking up a meditation practice for me, I think would be fantastic. If I could just get my mind to settle down. Vince, how can I get my mind to settle down?

09:41

I’ll work on this at the end of the podcast because I want to take you through a few things but but also listen to the last episode. We got a couple episodes ago that we did with Dr. Michael Gervais. Oh, he’s got some amazing practices that he’s employed. Right and we’ll share some of that with our listeners as well in this Joe knows but right yeah,

10:01

no, I did his his high performance class, actually, when I first started at Microsoft, so yeah, I know he’s legit, I love him.

10:10

He’s amazing. And he’s a great person, he’s just a great such a great human being. But I want to focus in on here because like, I’m we’re gonna, we’re gonna peel back on all the aspects of Monique. Yeah, but this Microsoft business, you know, this is the ultimate guide to partnering and our partners care about, like how to work with Microsoft, tell us a little bit more about the partner ecosystem leader for business applications. It’s a big job,

10:36

it is a big job. Yes. And we have an ecosystem that is approaching 10,000. Companies who partner with us on business applications. And when we say business applications, we basically mean, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and power platform. So essentially, that business process layer that is critical to the operation of any company, whether you’re a small or medium business, all the way up to an enterprise concern, what I’m trying to do with my team, the big vision that I have, is that I want Microsoft to be the eminent partner ecosystem for this space for the business application space. And the way that that plays out, is in four ways. The first way is we want to attract and onboard the right partners, as this business continues to grow, as there are opportunities across the board in all of these different categories, whether you’re talking about customer service, whether you’re talking about sales, finance, operations, low code, you have an opportunity here that is once in a lifetime, once in a generation, if you will, that you’re able to drive a transformation within organizations that like I said, only comes around we are really wants. And and so we want to make sure that we are attracting and onboarding the right companies in the ecosystem, who share that vision around the opportunity to really go and deliver fantastic solutions for our customers.

12:18

What is the right? What does the right partner look like? The right partner,

12:21

I think, looks like in a couple of different ways. One is certainly capable today of delivering the technology expertise that we need in order to help our customers solve their problems, I think has to have some ambition, around how they want to grow their business and use the Microsoft Cloud, to enable that growth through their businesses. And then also to have your kind of a shared understanding about the opportunity, right? And to be thinking not just about today, but But where are we going in the next six months, 12 months, you know, two to three years, right? This ecosystem is constantly evolving and changing. And we need partners who are not just in it to win it today, but in it to win it for the long haul. That leads me to the next opportunity around this vision that we’ve put in place for our ecosystem partners is that we want to promote our partners growth and success. And we do that by way of having repeatable scalable engagements that our partners can take advantage of when doing business with Microsoft, a lot of listeners are familiar with the Microsoft cloud partner program and other opportunities that we have for you to engage with us. That’s the front door if you will to come in to the Microsoft house. And and that is how we invest in our partners success is to make sure that you are on board with the programs that we are putting together to to build and grow your businesses. And then the next piece of it is to ensure that once we have the right partners on board, and that we have you growing with our ecosystem, that you are doing what you need to do, to drive customer acquisition to retain those customers in our Microsoft cloud technologies and initiatives and programs and that they are successful in doing that. Because the storytelling that we want to be able to engage in is about how our customers are taking advantage of our platforms and building their businesses and being successful. And you as a partner are enabling that for our customers. If we are going to continue to have kind of this virtuous circle of you know, growth and opportunity leading to success, we really need to make sure that we’re focused on that piece of it. And then finally, one of the key aspects of my role is to be the The best leader that I can possibly be for the ecosystem externally, as well as for my team internally, and what we are doing is ensuring that we have a focus on a center of excellence that we are building within our organization to ensure that we can be the best marketers for our partner ecosystem that we can possibly be. It’s highly competitive out here, I don’t have to tell you that, you know, the things that keep me up at night are how am I going to ensure that I can create awareness, build brand perception, ensure that I’ve got great engagement and relationships, and I’m spend the money that I’ve got in the right places that are going to deliver the right results at the right time, I want to make sure that we are continuing to stay ahead of the curve and be best in class in terms of our partner marketing, strategies and execution.

15:56

You know, it strikes me as I listened to you, you bring so much excitement and energy to this ecosystem, right first attracting and onboarding these partners, ensuring you’re promoting their growth and success, giving them the right tools, right, in terms or the right coaching to get there. And then you being a leader in this ecosystem. I saw it live at our event, we talked about the event. But you know, this vibrancy around this community and it’s a community, that’s really well, I would say there’s a lot of, it’s probably one of the tightest communities is what I would say they’re really engaged with Microsoft, they seem to be the most engaged. What Why do you think that’s so?

16:35

You know, it’s interesting, I’m glad that you asked that question, because that’s one of my observations. I’ve only been in this role since August of 2021. And in Yes, I have noticed that there are lots of deep, enduring long lasting relationships in this ecosystem. And it doesn’t take you long to get into a conversation with someone who will start with back in the day. And you’re like, Oh, wow. So I think it’s, I think it’s a combination of the passion and the opportunity that people see in the ecosystem for the business itself. But then also, going back, this is one of those businesses that Microsoft pulled together by way of a combination of acquisition as well as investment internally in growing the business. And next thing, you know, you’ve got a multibillion dollar business on your hands, and that there are a lot of people who are associated with that, from its origins all the way through to its newest instantiations of where our investment is going for the long term. And so there are people who have been on this journey since the beginning, where they talk about the Great Plains days, right, or they talk about the various acquisitions along the way, they remember the product names, they even remember the product code names for crying out loud. Wow. Okay. So and that’s a lot of, of institutional memory that you don’t have, and a lot of newer companies that don’t have those kinds of roots that they have put in, that they have actually nurtured and grown around a particular business category, I find that really fascinating. You’ve got a lot of old timers, if you will, who are also very interested this in ensuring that the business stays viable, that is shirring, that it continues to grow, and that they are also very open to other companies who are potential competitors. But you know, we’re all in this ecosystem and looking out for each other, because it’s so much better for all of these folks to work together than to view each other as a threat, right? Because the bigger business goals and Microsoft’s success all up is more important than what little piece of the pie that I’m going to get by competing with you head to head on this particular deal. Right? I’ve had very few conversations with people that have centered around what’s in it for me, everybody starts with what’s in it for the ecosystem, what’s in it for Microsoft and what’s in it for us together as we approach these opportunities to really grow the business.

19:34

I’m so excited to welcome athletic greens as the latest sponsor to ultimate guide to partnering friends who know me well know I’ve made taking a green drink supplement, part of my health ritual for over 20 years now. And it has made all the difference to my health and well being. About five years ago I added athletic greens and now their product ag one has been From my go to green drink supplement, I take this literally every single day. Ag one is packed with 75, high quality vitamins, minerals, Whole Foods source superfoods, probiotics and antigens, it literally is replaced every vitamin in my cabinet, I take it at the start of the day, and often have a second serving on days when I really need it. If you’d like to give ag one a try athletic greens is giving away a free one year supply of vitamin D, and five travel packs with every new purchase, check them out at athletic greens.com forward slash Vince M. You know, I’ve been observing as a Microsoft leader and also with this business. And it feels like a chess game. And Microsoft is making some significant moves. I believe Microsoft is changing up the game here in terms of business applications, right we’ve Microsoft is allowed Salesforce to, I’ll say dominate, right? And some respects. But I’ve also been watching from my lens, a this very vibrant ecosystem, but also how Microsoft has added functionality integrated across the clouds with the with the solutions and some of the work. Can you talk a little bit more to our listeners about this exciting future for the business applications ecosystem at Microsoft?

21:31

Yes, I can thank you for setting that up. Because one of the things that attracted me to this role was that very strategy that Microsoft, everybody knows Microsoft and everybody knows that Microsoft is pretty transparent about it strategies when we are investing in a market and when we are getting opportunities, and a lot of it has to do with In fact, this was very similar to what we did at Intel as well, when I was at Intel, you invest in the in the ecosystems, right? You invest in the infrastructure, you invest in the platforms, because the way that you get people to, to come together around innovation is to create opportunities for multiple players across that ecosystem. It’s a horizontal kind of approach. And people do not like silos people do not like quote unquote, getting locked in, right? People want to have choices. And and the way that we have invested, I think at Microsoft, from a business applications perspective, is taking that kind of mentality where we want to deliver the most functionality that we can within our products, but also understanding how is that going to enable more innovation from our partners, there’s always the saying that there’s smarter people that are outside of an organization than there are inside of an organization, right. And so when you create opportunities for people to innovate on your platform, you just get a better result, right, you just get more growth, you get more opportunity, you get more innovation. And so when you think about how we are investing in business applications, it’s very much in that, in that vein with that mindset that we continue to bring new functionality, we continue to bring more innovation, but man, we are really relying on our partners to kind of take that to the next level. Right? And to say, Hey, what is it that you know, they can do to take this platform to New Horizons and to to better implement our good ideas with their good ideas to really solve customers problems?

23:40

It also strikes me from a business I can I talk about these chess moves, right? And recently, your organization started rolling up under a different organization, can you share that with our listeners on what that means to the future of the platform, or the integration, I would say, of the platform.

23:58

So business applications is now coupled with the modern work business, which essentially is office 365 teams, etc. which is an amazing opportunity for business applications. Because when you think about the world of modern work, when you think about hybrid work, when you think about where the future of work is going, it makes perfect sense to have modern work and business applications together under the same umbrella. The CVP, who is leading the chart for us is a gentleman named Jared Spataro. He’s been a Microsoft for many, many years and has been leading this business, which is a huge business as you might imagine. I mean, talk about it just office alone, right, like what that represents it, you know, in terms of Microsoft’s revenue and profitability. But but as you can see, what’s been happening in the world of work is that the processes are starting to get integrated with your every day Office applications. So when You’re when you’re working on teams, and you have, you know, dynamics 365 sales, you want to have the linkages between those two as a salesperson so that you’re not going back and forth from one application to another thinking more and more about, you know, where can business applications? And where can modern work really interact together? From a partner standpoint, what what I’ve been looking at with my counterparts in the modern work organization is three things. One, where can modern work partners be better with business applications? Number two, where can business applications be better with modern work? Right? And then number three, how do we get our partners more skilled, more capable, more ready to bring those opportunities together for modern work plus business applications so that they can actually have opportunities to expand their businesses? And to look at it beyond just enterprise? Right? We’re looking at a lot of small and medium businesses, for example, are already using Office teams, etc. Right? Now, how can we actually bring them an opportunity around Central, for example, or dynamics 365 sales, right, this just gives us a new way of looking at the business and and creating greater value for our partners in the ecosystem, and to be able to create new business models that will generate more growth and more revenue for everyone in the ecosystem.

26:35

I was thinking about this as you were speaking money, Mike, what is it 1.2 billion people use that modern work platform?

26:42

Yeah. Can you say that again?

26:44

What was 1.8 million people? Billion me? Yeah. And just reimagining the future of modern work through layering in or integrating in business applications and power platform. And again, I’m not paid by Microsoft here. But I just think about that. And I look and I look at like, you know, okay, and I have had Salesforce here on the podcast, but just having to buy other companies and couple them together, loosely coupled them isn’t going to work in the future. And I think there’s a really interesting story here for customers and also for partners,

27:20

right? I hope that partners will, you know, take a look at this and go, Wow, yes, Microsoft has really got it dialed right and thinking about the workflows across the business, right? The office worker of today, right, is not just interested in, in one particular way of doing things with the pandemic taught us right, that we have to be flexible, we have to think about better ways of integrating, we have to be more nimble, we have to be more agile. And we have to be quicker in terms of how we meet those needs. And if you’re operating in just one context, that’s not going to work. You’ve got to be thinking across the board.

28:03

Absolutely. And so you talked about, like some of the things you’re doing in attracting, retaining, elevating and enabling partners. But what do you see from the best partners you work with?

28:15

That’s a great question. What I see from the best partners, the ones who are honestly, our award winners every year, the ones who rise to the top, the ones who experienced the most growth and and have the most success, I think have three characteristics. Number one, that they really understand how Microsoft Works. And they have the relationships, they have the connections, they tend to be in my inbox.

28:49

A lot. I probably know some of those names, too.

28:52

Yes, yeah. I bet you can call some of those names. Definitely. But but they really understand how the machine at Microsoft Works. And you know, and you don’t have to be a huge partner to understand that even some of my smaller partners really understand, right, like how Microsoft Works, and, and whether they know that firsthand, or whether somebody is coaching them to help them understand it. They take the time to learn how Microsoft Works. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, is that they are thinking about not just today’s business, but what does tomorrow’s business look like? They’re thinking about new ways of making themselves indispensable to their customers. They’re thinking about ways of really expanding their growth opportunities. They’re not just resting on their laurels. And then I think the third characteristic of really good partners that I’ve encountered is that they press us to be better. They bring Bring us issues, they bring us challenges. And they do it in a way that is constructive. And that’s respectful. And they give us the feedback. And, and they hold us accountable for always being on point with what it is that we’re trying to do to enable the business. So I think those are the three things that I think stand out for the ones who are the most successful.

30:24

Yeah, and I want to repeat them here for our listeners, right. So they really understand how Microsoft Works. Some of them might get coaching, we won’t mention any names here. Now, they’re working on making themselves indispensable to their customers. And we just had a recent guest on who in fact, focused in on how he’s expanded his business and really helping being indispensable to his customers and, and their outcomes. And then they press Microsoft to be better. I see this from this community, by the way, they really do a great job. They’re very vocal. Yeah, very deliberate, but in a diplomatic way, and the way they approach Microsoft, right,

31:01

and they, and they actually approach us in the spirit of collaboration, right? It’s not they don’t blame us, because they know we’re a big organization. And there are a lot of things that happen on the inside that are beyond anyone’s understanding or control, generally speaking, they approach us with spirit of collaboration and the spirit of orientation, a growth mindset, you know, the things that we care about at Microsoft, right, that it’s not about the people, it’s about the problem. Right? Let’s get that. Let’s get that problem solved. Because we’ll all be better off at the end.

31:35

Yeah. And so many of these partners are passionate and vested in the platform, because they believe in it

31:42

works. They know it works. Absolutely. Absolutely, indeed.

31:45

So let’s pivot, I want to go back to this conversation. You know, you and I had a wonderful dinner together in Orlando, you got to share beverages and share stories. And as you know, I’m fascinated with this career journey, and helping others in this industry advance. So you’re, you’re both a woman, and a black woman. And I know a little bit about the story. But I think it’s so fascinating for our listeners, can you take us through a little bit more of the details? You talked about working for Pat, who’s an amazing leader, just incredible leader from what I’ve been told? Yeah, but let’s focus in on that path a

32:21

little bit. Where would you like for me to pick it up?

32:25

Take me through, you know, you, you talked about doing every job except for finance, sales, and manufacturing at Intel. Tell us more about what you learned along that path? And what were your key learnings? And was there a spark? Where was the spark? It looks like the spark was in fifth grade? Like you deciding to be this journalist, this investigator I’m going to call? Yeah. Are you an investigator of business? Is that is that Monique?

Announcer  32:54

Yeah, a little bit.

32:55

I think I’m pretty curious. And I think one of the things that has always served me well, particularly in the industry that I’ve chosen high technology is that there aren’t very many people like me, who have the ability to communicate well. And, and to tell a good story, and to be able to cascade that out to millions of people. So I basically have taken the combination of that communications and marketing skill set that briefcase, and and I’ve kind of walked it around throughout my career is that who needs this skill set the most at this particular time in this organization. And and I tend to want to solve problems and bring value to teams where there needs to be more discipline and more focus around pulling a vision together, figuring out what our strategy needs to be to support that vision, putting a megaphone up against it, and telling everybody in his mama, what we need to be doing about it, and then being accountable and delivering the results. And so that has been the basic framework that I have laid out for myself in my career. And that’s been a really good formula for me to have been successful. The other thing too, as your listeners probably picked up on early on, is that I’m not a technology expert. I’m not an engineer. I’m not any of that. So I have built a career around being sort of successful in technology without being technical. And that’s again, back to the curiosity I asked the questions that how will my mother understand this? Why does it Why does this have to be so complicated? Can we please simplify it? Can we can we please just get to the three bullets that matter here and not the 20 pages that you’re forcing somebody to read? So I think asking those questions, being relentless about simplification. Being a megaphone marketer, those are the things that have been really the keys to my success as both a corporate marketing executive as well as being an entrepreneur. And I think also a lot of that entrepreneurial Sense and Sensibility I’ve brought to my corporate career and vice versa. Right? So being a small business owner, Boy, you really do learn how to turn a scarcity into abundance. And when you don’t have a whole lot of money to be promoting your business. Boy, do you figure out how to how to do some guerilla marketing really fast in order to get customers to buy your product or your service? That’s for sure.

35:43

And maybe even filling a restaurant with a bunch of friends and guests because a famous person was going to be coming. What about that story? Yeah, exactly.

35:51

So yeah, so So what Vince is referring to my friends, is that I actually have the deep honor and pleasure of having Morgan Freeman, the award winning actor as one of my mentors in my life. And he and I met when I was still working at Intel years ago. And we developed a relationship out of an event that I hired him to do for me as a spokesperson, when I was the global diversity Marketing Manager at Intel. And he has been instrumental in my career, particularly when I was getting out of the restaurant business, when the great recession of 2008 2009 happened. And he really did guide me and advise me through a really tough time in my career. What I remember him telling me specifically was number one, that if I closed my restaurant business, that it would not define me for the long term. And then number two, that once I close my restaurant business, I would be able to breathe and that my career would absolutely take off. And he was right on both accounts. So he’s super wise, he is the man on screen that Gravatar is for real. And, and he is an amazing human being. And I love him like, like a father.

37:16

I just got to see Shawshank Redemption again, just Oh, wow. couple few weeks ago, and just what an amazing performance by him.

37:23

I know he’s a he’s an amazing, just an amazing man. He’s an actor, he’s a he’s a humanitarian. He’s a philanthropist. He’s, he’s, you know, mentor to Monique a word. I mean, he’s, he’s like,

37:35

we’re gonna have to get you both here on the podcast next. That would be awesome. You know, you said something, and I don’t want to leave it without amplifying it for our listeners, because I actually I learned something here. What you said was you brought Monique and her toolkit to each of those individual jobs and all these different departments of accompany, I always felt like you had a morph, like you had if you were moving to some other role. You know, HR is an example like, you couldn’t be that same person. But you said yes, I find the organizations that need Monique, they need that toolkit. And this is what I bring simplification amplification, you know, all those things you bring that are unique to you. You bring that to the job?

38:17

Yeah. Yeah. And with some with some opportunity to expand the skill set for sure. I learned something every time I do a particular role or have more responsibility, especially as I’ve become a senior leader in organizations, right. The leadership journey has been, you know, quite, you know, quite enriching and quite engaging. But the basic skill set is still the same.

38:48

This is a favorite question. And you know, since you have a catering business, you might, you might find this one interesting. Okay. So you’re hosting a dinner party, I’d be interested to know what’s on the menu, since you have a catering business, but you can invite any three guests from the present or the past to this dinner party? Whom would you invite? And why?

39:10

Okay, well, first of all, so I would invite Frederick Douglass, because he’s an amazing orator and storyteller. And I think that my guests would be absolutely fascinated with his journey through history, Barack Obama, because he’s, like, just an amazing human being, again, first black president of the United States. I mean, everybody knows his story, but I’m sure that he has some really interesting anecdotes that he would tell in a smaller setting rather than any public forum. I would, of course, invite my mother because she can’t miss that for the world. And, and I think the last person that I would invite would be, would be Oprah, Oprah Winfrey. Because you would just she would keep everybody kind of like relaxed and on point and inject her, you know, sort of soulfulness and mindfulness into the into the operation. So that would be awesome.

40:11

I love it. What a great conversation. This would be Frederick Douglass, Barack Obama, your mom?

Announcer  40:17

And Oprah.

40:18

I mean, what a great group. Can I come? Maybe I can come by for a beverage afterwards. What do you literally? Yes. So Monique, you have been an amazing guest. I know, you bring so much energy to life. And I drill, I really appreciate that about you. And I appreciate you making the time. I appreciate you. Thank

40:37

you for inviting me onto the podcast. I hope that the listeners found it intriguing and interesting. I would really love to know.

40:47

Well, we’ll find we’re gonna ask them. But first, I have one. I have one more, I have more and more question for Okay, for all of them. What advice would you give to each of us and to them to set us up for success in 2023?

41:03

Oh, wow, I think in 2023, boy, the world is an interesting place. So my advice would be to ensure that you have a fantastic plan. But make sure that it’s flexible enough to change on the fly number to make sure that your resource to do the things that you want to do, because this is an era where we are kind of doing more with less, and you don’t want to be in a position where you’re doing less with less. Right, so So ensure that you’ve got the resources to be able to achieve your objectives this year. And then I think the third thing is, is that just have some fun, it’s going to be tough, it’s going to be crazy. It’s there are all kinds of world events, macroeconomic conditions, all these things that you know are pointing in the direction of things being a little rocky, but you know what, be optimistic, have a good time find some joy in all of this, and and do it for yourself as well as for your teams, because everybody needs to stay the course this year, and and feel like they are making a contribution and being productive in the process.

42:12

You know, I am extremely optimistic. I have maybe I have rose colored glasses on but I feel that we in this technology sector have such an opportunity to help leave lead the change? Yes. And that even during, you know, economically challenging times, people still need to reinvent their businesses.

42:29

That’s right. Preach events pray. Ah,

42:31

I am there with you. You know, and I am so excited for the future for all of us, Monique.

42:38

Yes, I am to this was wonderful. Thank you so much.

42:41

And I’m going to put a plug in I’m going to be speaking at your event coming up here. I think it’s going to be the 24th of this month, right? Yes,

42:49

absolutely. Yes. We’re going to have you as our featured speaker for the business applications partner hour.

42:56

I love it. I can’t wait to join you up on stage again. I’m so excited. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you once again. Thank you. So there you have it. Another amazing guest joins Ultimate Guide to partnering. And I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did. Odds are if you’re a technology partner, executive and hearing my voice, chances are you too, are looking to accelerate your success through partnerships. I mean, let’s face it. We all have seen partnerships that look good on paper, but never live up to their expected results. There are a lot of reasons why partnerships fail. And that ultimate partnerships, we help you get it right by applying a proven set of best practices and framework that’s used by leading partners working with Microsoft, and other technology giants. If you want to learn more, follow the link in the show notes, or visit our website at Ultimate Guide to partnering.com.