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Google’s Director of Partner Solutions Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®
Want to learn how Google Cloud fuels partner success through innovative solutions? In this Ultimate Guide to Partnering episode, Rebecca Potts, Director of Partner Solutions for Google Cloud, NA, sheds light on the importance of enabling partners through differentiated solution areas that directly address customer challenges. From AI to Security to Data, Google Cloud’s advanced technology and specialized approach empower partners to deliver exceptional value to their customers. Rebecca also emphasizes the transformative power of a value-first mindset where partners prioritize customer needs, innovate accordingly, and forge strong collaborations to create a win/win/win environment for customers, partners, and Google.
In Rebecca’s words
Rebecca Potts is a results-driven software and services business development executive with more than 25+ years of success in expanding and managing client relationships. As North American Director of Solution Partners at Google, Rebecca establishes differentiation and revenue growth through C-Suite relationships with system integrators, resellers,s, and ISV partners. Rebecca is also the founder and leader of the Executive Business Women’s Network, focused on serving the 180+ most senior women in Google Cloud globally.
What You’ll Learn
- Rebecca’s role at Google Cloud.2:46
- The Google Cloud partner ecosystem.
- What is she delivering to customers?5:07
- Cross-pollinate partner offerings and create partner-led solutions.
- “Precision Partnering” is a win-win-win for customers, partners, and Google.
- How has the organization evolved?6:56
- How Google has evolved from horizontal to vertical solutions.
- Google’s customer-focused approach.
- Three things to look for in a partner.
- How partners can best engage with the team.
- What makes a good partner pitch?11:34
- Success breeds success with Google Cloud.
- The ideal partner, working with Google.
- What does it mean to be a force multiplier for Google?13:46
- Partnering with Google partners to build trust.
- Partners need to have specialized capabilities.
- What is ai doing to scale the ecosystem?15:54
- How Google is scaling its partner ecosystem.
- AI and ML message and value.
- Google’s commitment to open technology standards.
- Trust is at the heart of all business relationships.
- Rebecca’s Career Journey to Google Cloud.19:16
- Rebecca’s role models.21:00
- The two biggest influences in Rebecca’s personal and career journey.
- How Rebecca got started in tech.
- Inviting three guests to a dinner party.25:46
- California chardonnay and coconut cupcakes.
Exclusively Sponsored By Google Cloud
This episode of the podcast is exclusively sponsored by Google Cloud. Google Cloud’s mission is to accelerate every organization’s ability to transform its business digitally. More than any other top cloud provider, Google Cloud as unique capabilities to meet customers’ needs across four areas. Data, Trust, Open Infrastructure, and Collaboration are all underpinned by Sustainable Technology. Learn more at cloud.google.com
On becoming, The Ultimate Partner™
At Ultimate Guide to Partnering, we bring you the leaders in this industry, the best in the business from the leading tech organizations and the hyperscalers, who drive the greatest influence and impact to our world of ecosystems.
With this exciting new Masterclass Series, Ultimate Partnerships becomes The Ultimate Partner™ More than just a new look, The Ultimate Partner is doubling its commitment to helping YOU become the Ultimate Partner by getting it right. Do you want to be The Ultimate Partner? Visit our NEW website.
Other Noteworthy Episodes Featuring Google Cloud
Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Many Typos
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
partners, customer, solutions, google, dinner party, work, ultimate guide, ai, partnering, partner ecosystem, rebecca, organization, isv, business, google cloud, partnerships, team, learn, market, heard
SPEAKERS
Vince Menzione, Rebecca Potts, Announcer
Vince Menzione 00:00
with their latest financial results, Google Cloud is approaching a $30 billion business and ranks Google as the third largest of the leading cloud providers, or hyper scalars. This creates a massive opportunity for partners to help Google’s customers take full advantage of their cloud environments by providing the additional services platforms that expertise only partners can provide. And if you’re a technology leader, looking to learn how to effectively grow your business, then you’re not going to want to miss this exclusive Ultimate Guide to partnering series, precision partnering, where I’m joined by the Google leaders driving the partnership business to help define what it takes to effectively partner with Google.
Announcer 00:52
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.
Vince Menzione 01:11
Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and today I will Rebecca Potts is the director of partner solutions for Google Cloud. And in this episode, Rebecca shares valuable insights into her role, and it’s focused on enabling partners through differentiated solutions that address customer challenges. We talked about the emergence of AI, and the importance of security and data analytics with Google’s advanced technologies. We also discuss a value first mindset to address customer needs. Those partners that innovate accordingly, become integral parts of the customer’s ecosystem, and drive the greatest results. I hope you enjoy and learn from this discussion. As much as I enjoyed welcoming Rebecca Potts. This episode of the podcast is exclusively sponsored by Google Cloud. Google clouds mission is to accelerate every organization’s ability to digitally transform its business more than any other top cloud provider. Google Cloud has unique capabilities to meet the needs of customers across four areas. Data Trust, open infrastructure and collaboration, all underpinned by sustainable technology, learn more@cloud.google.com. Rebecca, welcome to the podcast.
Rebecca Potts 02:46
Thank you, Vance, it’s so great to talk to you again,
Vince Menzione 02:50
it is so great to have this discussion we had the opportunity to meet not too long ago, and you have a fascinating role that we’re going to dive into today. Rebecca, you’re the director of partner solutions for Google Cloud. And I was hoping you could tell our listeners a little bit more about you and your role and mission at Google Cloud.
Rebecca Potts 03:11
Absolutely. So I am honored to run the solution partner organization at Google Cloud. And what we do is we are the bridge between the Google product organization and the go to market organization. And the partner ecosystem. We take all the stuff inside that can be confusing, and we simplify for our partners to make it easy for them to work with Google. We’re aligned by Google’s primary solution pillars. And we have people waking up every day thinking and focusing about our partners in terms of enablement and scale around our solutions. Like our AI portfolio. For example, we have others that are thinking about our security portfolio, and yet others who are thinking about our data and analytics partners. That’s really across the entire spectrum of the ISV GSI, an RSI partner ecosystem. Ultimately, our goal is to solve customer problems together.
Vince Menzione 04:17
We’ve had your other colleagues on the podcast talking about precision partnering. And from what I understand listening to you, you’re layering in solutions or specific solution areas across AI security data and analytics to help drive success for customers. Is that what I’m hearing?
Rebecca Potts 04:37
That’s right, so we work across our partner ecosystem. What we’re looking for is to work with the most appropriate partner based on the solution pillar or the solution focus at hand. Yeah,
Vince Menzione 04:52
I remember the conversations we’ve had like with Rob Harper on the channel side that’s transforming and with Chris Voss. On this whole GSI and services partner portfolio, so you’re working across those organizations as well. And what are you delivering? Exactly, for those customers and those partners,
Rebecca Potts 05:11
what my team is focused on, is thinking about how to cross pollinate our partner offerings and really create partner lead solutions. This term solutions, I’ve said it a couple of times, you’ve said it a couple of times, it can mean so many things. So let me do this. Let me clarify with an example of really what we’re talking about here. When we have a retail customer, they identified that their commerce experience was inferior to their store experience. And so based on that, we were able to leverage the retail industry experience from one of our GSIs. Secondly, as that GSI went to work with the customer, they recognize that customer already owned one of our ISV solutions, and that it can be used to identify performance gaps in the website. And then ultimately, what they were able to do is use the Google Data and analytics tools for optimization of their website and their, their commerce experience, through all of this, those three things together. We call this approach, precision partnering. And ultimately, what we’re looking to do is create a win win for our customer, for our partners and for Google.
Vince Menzione 06:34
I love that I’ve even heard it called a win win win, right? We’re trying to get the customer, the partner and Google all aligned on the same solution, basically centering around the customer, as my within my conversations with Jim Anderson, we talked about the customer being at the center of all this. So your team is fairly new. And it’s supporting this overall precision partnering strategy. Can you tell us how it’s evolved? Like, how did you get here?
Rebecca Potts 06:59
So we’ve always been organized by the different solution pillars and aligned with our go to market organization. So starting with the customer in mind is certainly at the center of everything that we do, we know that our customers don’t think about their problems in terms of should a GSI or an ISV provide the solution really, they’re just thinking about, I have this challenge, and I need to solve it. So it’s up to us to put the Lego blocks together and really provide a point of view for our customers on different ways that we can solve for use cases.
Vince Menzione 07:37
So take me through, I’m a customer, right, I have a problem on my Google salesperson working with this customer, how do I find you and your organization,
Rebecca Potts 07:45
you would find me and my organization through your partner. So an example that I mentioned before the GSI that has the retail experience, in close partnership with Google, they will understand the ISV portfolio. And they will also understand the data and analytics tools that we have available. That partners coming back into Google to say I’ve got this customer situation, let’s all work together to figure out how we can pull, pull all of the tools go forward and focus on solving the customer problem.
Vince Menzione 08:23
And you talked about solutions. Again, we could go in a lot of different directions on what is a solution. You had Chris Sacca Loski at the event talking about vertical solutions, but your organization is more horizontal, right, you’re going across AI security data and analytics. Tell us more about where the organization is headed and where you see the growth.
Rebecca Potts 08:42
We do focus today on horizontal solutions. But the future really is to put all of those Lego pieces together. So if you think about the fact that Google goes to market by analytics, security and AI, those are the three of the solution pillars, and those are the base Lego blocks of our go to market motion. from a customer standpoint, then the next layer of Lego blocks are those use cases where they are trying to solve their own business problems. And those are typically aligned to industry. So we’re Chris’s group and my group really intersect our he’s got the industry building blocks, and my team has got the technological building blocks. And if we put all those together, along with the solutions that our ISV partners provide, that’s really the direction that we’re headed.
Vince Menzione 09:40
I love what you have to say here. If I’m a partner, how would I best engage with your team?
Rebecca Potts 09:44
So what makes my job really fun is that we are always launching new solutions and looking for a new set of prioritized partners based on three different things. So the first thing is We’re always looking for partners who have a really clear position in the market based on a particular solution or specialization. We know that many partners have multiple capabilities. But at the same time, there’s no one company can be everything to everyone. So the question really becomes, where do you stand out? What’s your elevator pitch? If I’m to think of you, in a specific scenario, I have to think of the top two or three things. And couple that with any problem that I might be trying to solve for, from a customer standpoint, or as one of our field sellers is calling to ask, Which partner should I work with in this scenario. So that’s certainly one thing, strong, strong position in the market. The second thing is, we’re always looking for partners who have strong delivery capabilities. And of course, customer references. Anybody who’s got customers that are willing to tell their story, we know that wins all day long. And the third thing that we’re looking for as we’re launching different products and solutions, is partners willingness to lean in with Google. So meaning, what is their sales and go to market capability, we are obviously, depending on our partners to expand our ecosystem with their networks, I get asked all the time by partners, how I can help them to get in front of our field sellers. And well, we certainly have channels to do that. And we’re happy to facilitate those conversations. I think what’s much stronger is when a partner goes and finds an opportunity, and then is able to bring that opportunity to a Google field seller. And then what happens is that you have a field seller talking to they tell a friend, who then tells another friend, that hey, this particular partner, not only brought me a deal, but then they delivered for success with our customer. And that kind of thing will get you much further than getting on yet another conference call where you’ve got our sellers who, you know, are listening to yet another partner pitch. So success breeds success.
Vince Menzione 12:22
Yeah, I like to call it the flywheel. You mentioned a few things here. I want to recount them for you. You talked about having unique position in the market and unique point of view, maybe a unique solution area that nobody else has. What is that elevator pitch around it and having the delivery chops, I’ll call it the delivery capabilities and references supporting them. And then you mentioned lean in. And we’ve heard lean in a few times here, right? You want to make sure that like it’s not just a checkbox, that you’re committed to building your relationship and your practice around Google? Yeah. So
Rebecca Potts 12:55
absolutely. And I think the whole idea is, you’ve got to show up with your sales resources, we are looking to build a cosell motion with you, our partner, we need some of your resources, and we need some of our resources. And we’ll figure out the go to market together. But for those partners who are looking at Google purely as a channel and not the other way around, I would suggest that they should change their focus and or rethink their focus.
Vince Menzione 13:27
So Rebecca, you and I have been around partnerships for quite some time. And you’re honing in here a little bit. But what do you believe makes? What characteristics do you believe make the ideal partner working with Google Cloud?
Rebecca Potts 13:41
I think at the heart of it all, we have to have a collective value mindset. I use that phrase intentionally. And really, what that means is that we work primarily with partners who lean in with us to build trust not only between our two organizations, but with our customers on their transformation journey. They typically have a specialized capability and a repeatable process for customer acquisition and delivery. I think this is really key where I’ll give you an example. One of our AI partners just recently came to us. And they committed to do 50 workshops in 100 days. And what they outlined was a program that said, Hey, we’re gonna go do a one day workshop with our customers, we’re going to focus on the customer challenges and use cases. So once that one day is complete, then we’ll design a six week jumpstart engagement to get the teams on both sides aligned, and then we’ll go do project delivery. So these are the kinds of programs that are really simplistic but also really powerful. They’re just something that people can really rally around. They instill confidence in the sales process. And of course, they provide value for the customer for the partner. And for Google’s it’s a win all the way around.
Vince Menzione 15:07
You’re enabling these partners to become that force multiplier, those 50 workshops and 100 days of force multiplier for success working with Google,
Rebecca Potts 15:16
right? Absolutely. We’re looking for partners who already have a specialization. So in this example, specialization in AI, as we’ve launched our generative AI platform here in the last few weeks, there was additional enablement required, of course, on the new product of the new platform, which my team helps to facilitate. That’s step one. And then we’re asking our partners to design customer facing workshops and offers, which is an example that I just gave a great example. And, and then of course, we’re tracking pipeline. At its at its simplest form, that’s really what my team is doing. to scale our partner ecosystem, we have to start somewhere when we launch a product. But ultimately, our role is to scale across the entire partner ecosystem to ensure that, that every partner is enabled and has an offer, and is out expanding the Google Message.
Vince Menzione 16:19
So it strikes me this is such an exciting time, you and I were both sitting in the room with Dr. Patricia flurry. See, just a few weeks ago, right? Talking about AI, and all the excitement coming out of Google Cloud. Lots of amazing excitement, I was hoping we could spend a little time here because I know that data and AI and AI are in your wheelhouse from a solution perspective can tell us more about what your organization is doing here.
Rebecca Potts 16:47
Of course, the AI and ML message and value is not anything that’s new to Google. But my team is really playing a large role in the strategy for against scale with our customers, alongside our partners who specialize in this area. So we follow the process that I outlined before where we have focused our launch efforts on partners who have aI experience. The other point that I want to make here is that as we go to market, our with our Gen AI platform, it’s important to note that Google’s commitment to open technology standards ensure that it’s not only easy for our customers to get started with our AI platform, but that they’re able to leverage their own curated knowledge without any concerns, of losing their IP to an external model. In many ways, our journey is just getting started.
Vince Menzione 17:49
Such an exciting time for all of us. This is the ultimate guide to partnering. What is the one thing that isn’t taught that you believe to be true to successfully partnering with your organization,
Rebecca Potts 17:58
people do business with people that they trust that’s at the heart of all business relationships, we do business with people who are action oriented, and we do people business with people who do the right thing. So internally, we call that being googly. But really, our closest relationships with our partners are with those who act on the basis of trust and integrity. And at its simplest form, the word partnership really means let’s agree on what we’re going to do together. And then let’s just go do
Vince Menzione 18:31
it. Trust, I have a point of view on trust that without trust is like the oxygen in the room. And tell me more about googly. Googly really means
Rebecca Potts 18:41
just doing the right thing. It’s about trusting your colleagues. It’s about respecting your colleagues. It’s about listening, active, listening with your colleagues, to make sure that all voices are heard. And all points of view are heard. You can’t do that unless you have a trusted relationship and a belief that this is a safe zone. And what I say will be will be listened to and considered. So that’s why I’m saying that trust is really at the heart of everything we do both internally and with our partners.
Vince Menzione 19:16
So Rebecca, as you might know, I am fascinated with the career journey and how people got to this particular spot in their career. And I wanted to spend a few moments learning more about you and this amazing journey to this really prestigious role within the Google Cloud organization. Was there a spark a pivot point? Or an inflection that set you on the path to this spot?
Rebecca Potts 19:42
Yes. So Vince, I went to work for SAP in 2007. At that time, we were really focused on selling ERP solutions. But after I joined sa P. They acquired success factors in arriba. And so we really very quickly had to figure out how to add the human resources and the procurement value prop to our financing supply chain story. The other thing we had to figure out was how to tell an integrated on premise and cloud story to our customers, much like Google SAP at the time, we relied on our partners to play a critical role, we were really looking to our partners to provide that the industry relevance to our customers as part of this story. And also, we relied on our partners to instill the confidence in business transformation journeys for our customers. So if you compare to what I’m doing today, in terms of integrating partner offerings with the Google go to market motion, you can draw a parallel path between my experience 15 years ago, and what I’m doing today,
Vince Menzione 20:57
this is probably the most amazing time we’ve seen in many years. So exciting. Let’s talk a little bit more about that journey. Was there a role model either directly or indirectly that that you learned from along the way,
Rebecca Potts 21:10
I think the two biggest influences in my personal journey were my aunt Karen, and also a woman that I worked for in my late 20s. And her name was Janine LaMarsh. So I’ll start with Aunt Karen. I grew up in a small town in Michigan. And she was the only person that I knew that had a corporate job, she worked for at&t her entire career, and I admired the clothes she wore, I love the way she carried herself. And she had this fantastic business travel itinerary flying all over the place. And it seemed tremendously glamorous. And I thought that is something that I want to do. I want to be that. And so after college, I moved to Chicago. And in my late 20s, I went to work for a small organizational change management firm, called the Martian associates, we were working on ERP implementations and doing the change management related to those. So at the time, Janine Marsh helped me recognize that while the tech industry is very exciting, the intrinsic value, really, for me is learning about and defining a customer’s business problem, and then working as part of a team to figure out what the solution is, and then ultimately seeing that play out in the market or even better in a customer’s earning results. So that’s what’s really exciting to me, as I worked across the multiple ERP implementation projects, I really got to see what good looks like I got to see that good leaders are empathetic listeners. They don’t claim to have all the answers. I also learned at that time that starting with the end in mind is what gets you everywhere. So in many ways, these two women led me to where I am today.
Vince Menzione 23:04
I love hearing that both about your aunt Karen and Janine. Janine, yes, Janine. So this is a favorite question, Rebecca. And you and I were talking before we recorded today a little bit about having a dinner party, but you are hosting a dinner party, and you can invite any three guests from the present or the past to this amazing dinner party. We could even talk about where we’re going to host this amazing dinner party. Whom would you invite, and why?
Rebecca Potts 23:33
This really is a fun question to answer and something fun to think about. The first person that came to my mind is Ina Garten. She’s also known as Barefoot Contessa, you may be familiar with her as she’s a tremendous Cook, and, and businesswoman. In my spare time, I like to throw dinner parties. So this is something that’s really familiar to me, I use a lot of her recipes. And in fact, I am known in my group of friends for making ins coconut cupcakes with buttercream frosting. So for this dinner party, I would love for ina to bring her version of the cupcake because I certainly wonder what her version would taste like. The second person that I would invite to this dinner party is my maternal grandmother. She and I were really close. She passed away about 10 years ago. But I’m really curious to hear what happened is like, I think that would be a fascinating topic at a dinner party. And the third person that I would be delighted to meet would be Richard Branson. I really admire him. He is a self made renaissance man. I’m fascinated by the fact that he started his first business as a team He parlayed His love for music into one of the world’s most successful record labels. And then he didn’t stop there. He got into the real business, the telecom business and of course, the airline business. Events. You mentioned in the question that we should talk about where to have this dinner party. And I would like to suggest to Richard Branson, that we have it at his private island in the Caribbean. Just think about this think about, we’re eating ionic gardens coconut cupcakes with buttercream frosting. We’re certainly having champagne at this dinner party, and we’re eating on the beach on this private Ireland. So it sounds like perfection to me. Would you like to come?
Vince Menzione 25:46
I am going to bring the most amazing California Chardonnay. It’s the only California Chardonnay I like Jeff. And it goes so well with coconut cupcakes. It’s going to be we’re gonna have an amazing time together. Rebecca,
Rebecca Potts 25:59
I can’t wait. I can’t wait either. Let’s do it very soon.
Vince Menzione 26:03
All right, we got it. Let’s chill the bottle. Yes, Rebecca, you had been an amazing guest such a fun guest. Such a thoughtful business leader. I love what you’re doing to drive. Really, you are the fuel that’s driving this precision partnering business. And we look at across the other leaders of the organization. But it’s your organization that brings the solutions that fuel the precision partnering. It’s so great to have you as a guest here today.
Rebecca Potts 26:31
Thanks for having me. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. So there you
Vince Menzione 26:34
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.
Announcer 27:26
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 partner. We’ll catch you next time on The ultimate guide to partnering