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Microsoft America’s GM for SI & Advisory Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®
Do you want to learn how to engage as a solutions partner with Microsoft’s Americas organization, reaching over 6000 enterprise customers in the Americas business? Are you interested in learning from a 25-year Microsoft veteran how she organizes her team for success? Do you want to know the four principles you must apply now as a partner leader? To set up your organization for success in fiscal year 24? Then you’ve come to the right place.
What to Expect
Sarah Steiger, who leads the Americas Global SI and Advisory Partner Business for Microsoft joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering. We talk actionable steps for your organization’s success in fiscal year 24 and how to thrive in the Americas partner ecosystem.
Why Listen?
If you aim to:
- Engage effectively with Microsoft’s Americas org
- Learn key leadership principles
- Prepare for fiscal year 24’s opportunities
Then this episode is a must-listen.
In Sarah’s Words
Sarah Steiger is the General Manager of the Americas Global SI partners within the Global Partner Solutions Americas organization. She and her team help customers achieve more and drive digital transformation strategies through the top twenty Global SI and Advisory partners. Their primary focus is enabling these partners to build successful, profitable businesses that capitalize on the latest technological advancements while leveraging Microsoft products and services to benefit commercial companies, educational entities, and governments across the United States.
What You’ll Learn
Episode Highlights:
- Leading Americas global SI and advisory partner business for Microsoft.0:00
- Partner development and alignment in Microsoft.3:14
- Microsoft organizes its partners into different categories, including SI (System Integration) partners, ISV (Independent Software Vendors), LSP (Licensing and Service Providers), and distribution partners.
- The company has a structured approach to engaging with these partners, with partner development managers and technology specialists working closely with managed partners to help them execute go-to-market strategies and validate their technology solutions.
- Unknown Speaker: Partners build practices with Microsoft, invest in AI factories, and leverage Salesforce to drive alignment and revenue.
- Unknown Speaker: RPMs are coaching to think like Chief Revenue Officers, focusing on partner success and execution plans to drive revenue and profit margin.
- Partnering with GSIs for AI and cloud services.9:31
- Microsoft invests in GSI partners to accelerate AI adoption and drive customer transformations with Azure and 365.
- Satya Nadella highlights the shift in customer demand for integrated AI solutions, with a $600 billion total addressable market opportunity.
- Microsoft invests in its partners through the AI cloud partner program, providing onboarding, skilling incentives, and CO selling to capitalize on the opportunity.
- AI partnerships and resources for Microsoft partners.13:52
- Microsoft is providing partners with tools and resources to help them scale their businesses in the AI space.
- Building successful partnerships with Microsoft.17:14
- Trust is key to successful partnerships, as demonstrated by Microsoft’s account executives (AEs) having a broad perspective on customer accounts and leveraging CSU resources to help select the best partner.
- Best partners bring unique value to the table by demonstrating their superpower through specific examples of success in their industry and providing new information that Microsoft’s sellers don’t know about the customer.
- Partners must have a growth mindset, adapt to changing sales strategies, and collaborate with Microsoft for successful CO selling.
- Unknown Speaker: Keeping the customer at the center of sales efforts is crucial, ensuring solutions address their needs and problems.
- Partner success in Microsoft’s fiscal year 24.22:50
- The importance of mindset in partnerships, specifically growth mindset and honesty, to build trust and avoid misunderstandings.
- The need for partners to align with their corporate values and prioritize people, as they are the foundation of culture and growth in today’s fast-changing environment.
- Microsoft is investing in the marketplace, making it easier for partners to scale and grow their businesses.
- SI Partners may struggle to understand the value proposition of marketplace, but new availability of multi-party private offers could provide an angle for them to explore.
- Partner success in the enterprise space with a focus on SMC.28:01
- The company is prioritizing its strengths and focusing on 18 key plays in the enterprise space, while also investing $700 million globally in the SMC customer segment.
- The marketplace piece is super important to drive solution-to-customer and partner-to-partner activity, and the company is hosting an event in Dallas to showcase its investments in the SMC space.
- Sarah reflects on their career path, highlighting their love for learning and sales, and how they found the most fun job working with partners.
- Sarah shares her experience in aligning goals with partners, finding satisfaction in co-selling and helping partner leaders, and learning something new every day.
- Partnering with Microsoft, dinner party guest picks.33:03
- Sarah invites Billie Jean King, Oprah, and David Bowie to a dinner party, admiring their impact and personal journeys.
Unveiling Ultimate Partner LIVE—Dallas, TX, Nov 13-15, 2023
Ready to decode Microsoft’s recent game-changing investments in #Marketplace, #SMC, and #GenerativeAI?
Are you looking for actionable insights and a success roadmap?
Are you looking to network and have bi-directional engagement with Microsoft Executives, SMC sellers, GPS and Marketplace Leaders, and other Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program partners?
Your solution has arrived: Ultimate Partner LIVE – The Americas Summit.
Ultimate Partner LIVE – The Americas Summit
I’m beyond excited to launch our first LIVE event. Consider this the “double-click” from Microsoft’s Inspire Conference to provide the prescriptive guidance and executive engagement to align, leverage, and scale your Microsoft Partnership.
This is a one-of-a-kind, unique event that will help you crack the code.
Ultimate Partner LIVE| Americas 2023
Why Attend?
🎯 Are you geared up to exploit the $50B Marketplace opportunity? Do you have a Marketplace Transactable Offer, not just built but with effective marketing and sell-through support?
💼 Have you designed an impactful co-selling plan for Small, Medium, and Corporate Accounts – SMC? Are you even sure where to start?
🤖 And let’s not overlook the game-changing potential of Generative AI, especially with innovations like Co-Pilot.
Join Us in Dallas – November 13th to 15th
Graciously hosted by Microsoft at the Las Colinas Campus, this event is designed with mainstage keynotes, breakout sessions, and individual boardroom sessions.
The event will begin with registration and a social at 4 PM on November 13th, hosted by SMC Leadership. On November 14th and 15th you’ll experience:
- Deep-dive sessions that build on insights from Microsoft’s Inspire Conference.
- A unique assembly of 300+ participants, including Microsoft executives from GPS, SMC, and Marketplace.
- A confluence of industry experts offering prescriptive guidance through real-world experiences, frameworks, and best practices.
Interactive Experience:
- Bidirectional keynotes
- Hands-on workshops
- Breakout and boardroom sessions
Networking:
- Connect with Microsoft Executives, SMC Leaders, GPS, and Marketplace Experts.
- Meet some of the SMC Field Organization looking to engage with partners.
- Engage with award-winning partners: ISVs, SIs, LSPs, and CSPs.
Walk away from these two days ready to implement your 2024 partner plan!
How do I sign up?
Limited Early Bird Pricing is now available. You can secure your seat today for what promises to be a transformative experience. https://cvent.me/8DN9bP?RefId=Company+Website
I look forward to hosting you and seeing you in Dallas, TX, November 13-15!
Vince Menzione
Why Ultimate Partner?
Over six years ago, I embarked on a mission to empower partners struggling to navigate the complex world of tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and AWS. Today, I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Ultimate Partner, an extraordinary media, events, and advisory company dedicated to transforming your Cloud Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy and fostering Ecosystem Led Growth.
Having witnessed the industry from multiple perspectives – leading a $4.6 billion Ecosystem at Microsoft, spearheading partnerships for a billion-dollar company, and hosting 200 episodes of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering®, I’ve gained invaluable insights and crafted a manifesto of principles to guide your success.
In an era defined by tectonic shifts, such as the global pandemic, economic headwinds, and the rise of AI, the role of hyperscalers has become increasingly critical. With investments of billions of dollars in ecosystems, technology, and customer acquisition costs, they have secured over $200 billion in customer commitments to durable cloud budgets. We stand on the precipice of a marketplace moment where simplifying and streamlining economic models associated with co-selling and ecosystem-led growth will shape the decade ahead.
Yet, as vendors and organizations demand more from us while resources diminish, we ask, “Where do we go? How do we navigate these seismic shifts? How do we thrive during this decade of the ecosystem?”
If you’re a partner, you’re likely grappling with these questions. The watering holes of the past no longer offer the guidance required to transform into a Cloud GTM and embrace Ecosystem Led Growth. That’s why Ultimate Partner exists – to be your trusted compass amidst the noise.
A Word from AG1
Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Many Typos
UGP Sarah Steiger Audio
Wed, Sep 20, 2023 10:22AM • 37:47
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
partners, microsoft, customers, ai, business, americas, talk, smc, accounts, organization, marketplace, solutions, change, success, year, sellers, sell, focus, drive, investments
SPEAKERS
Vince Menzione, Announcer, Sarah Steiger
Vince Menzione 00:00
Do you want to learn how to engage as a solutions partner with Microsoft’s Americas organization, reaching over 6000 enterprise customers in the Americas business? Are you interested in learning from a 25 year Microsoft veteran how she organizes her team for success? As a partner leader? Do you want to know the four principles you need to apply now? To set up your organization for success in fiscal year 24? Then you’ve come to the right place.
Announcer 00:30
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 00:50
Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and today I will Sarah Steiger leads the Americas global si and advisory partner business for Microsoft. And Sarah and I have an engaging conversation on the Americas partner business, the role of the ecosystem. And now partners of all types need to align for success with the incredible opportunities in store this fiscal year. I hope you enjoy and learn from this discussion as much as I enjoyed welcoming Sarah Steiger. Sarah, welcome to the podcast.
Sarah Steiger 01:30
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here. It’s been a long time coming. But I’m really looking forward to this,
Vince Menzione 01:35
I am so excited to finally welcome you as a guest on Ultimate Guide to partnering you lead the Americas global si and advisory partner business for Microsoft. And I’m so looking forward for to our conversation today.
Sarah Steiger 01:48
Absolutely. The group that I’m with, we’ve had a lot of changes recently. And our new focus for this fiscal year is so exciting because we’ve actually come together as the Americas. And so that’s a big change for us this year. And so for me, my team, I lead the top global SI Partners global and advisory across the Americas. And so what we do is we really focus on helping them innovate and realize value by adopting Microsoft solutions on behalf of their customers, to help them transform their business. Our main focus is on commercial accounts, mainly enterprise. But we also focus on state and local across the Americas. And our top enterprise accounts was about 6000, I would say across the region. So my team of PDM. And I we were dedicated, as I said to the top global partners, working to help them focus around our core tenants of alignment, simplicity and focus. And it’s just been so exciting this year to see us come together as the Americas,
Vince Menzione 02:48
we had Nina Harding on the podcast, this was just as Microsoft announced the changes and bringing together the Canadian business and the Latin American business. Under this America’s umbrella, I was hoping you could double click a little bit more for our listeners on how your team is organized for success.
Sarah Steiger 03:05
So we have been learning so much about the different cultures, the different languages, and just the different ways of operating across the regions. And that’s both within Microsoft and then also our partners. So in many cases, our partners might have been organized by North America. And we were only talking to them about their US business. And now that we’re getting in, under the covers, we can see that we’ve got much better alignment with the way we’re organized, and the way they’re organized, it really is allowing us to be able to simplify the way that we engage with them the conversations that we can have, we’re also identifying a ton of best practices that we’re seeing. So for instance, there’s some best practices with one of our partners in financial services organizations in Peru, and Brazil. And we’re actually able to bring that not just to the US, but also introduce it into Canada. And so really breaking down those barriers, we hope is going to unlock even additional greater productivity both for us and our partners by being able to have common conversations.
Vince Menzione 04:05
And a lot of our listeners don’t understand the complexity of the hybrid model and Microsoft or the this Matrix Model, if you will. So as you look, if you’re working with a very large scale, si or advisory partner, there are resources at the global organization, the global partner organization that support the build with and manage the growth of that partner and then you localize it in many cases. But then you also have a group of partners that you manage individually in the Americas business is that the way you’re organized
Sarah Steiger 04:36
so we think of worldwide is really being the enablers and the help and support with the build with and they also set the strategy. And then for us in the Americas we were considered the field. So we’re focused around execution. So that’s selling with that’s executing on the go to market strategy that we come up with at the beginning of the year. So we’ll work hand in hand with the worldwide team to create a global partner development plan at the beginning of the year, and I’m speaking on behalf of the managed partners that we work with. And so for Si, there’s about 200 or so managed partners in the US. And there’s probably about another 50 or so considered managed partners in Canada and Latin, that are just SI Partners. And then similarly, there’s a couple 100 ISV, and then LSP, distribution, telco service partners. So basically the way we structure that GPS organization is by partner type, so that we know how partners want to show up to their customers. And we’re enabling and going to market with them in that manner, right in that fashion. So we find that that works best. So we have partner development managers that will engage in the managed partner space in typically a one to one to a one to seven ratio for the manager partner set. And then we also have a team of technology specialists. So we’ll have partner technical specialists. And we also have some CSAs, some cloud solution architects that could work with them in validating their technology solutions tied to our go to market offers around our cloud. And they really work to help make sure that they’re getting to that last mile of the partner being able to execute with our customers. And they’ve got all the latest and greatest from Microsoft,
Vince Menzione 06:21
I think about the three buckets being the build with right so your team of PMS are building with and the technology specialists come on board to help drive that function. You have go to market resources that you tap into across Heather Dagens organization that helped to drive that go to market motion. And then you also talked about the sell with so your team is also intimately involved in the sell with bringing the partner into the various Microsoft calls, oh use or operating units. And those could be geographical, they could be vertically focused. Is that right?
Sarah Steiger 06:51
So we work across the US or organizational units? And you’re exactly right. They’re they’re split by geography, or by vertical for some of the key verticals that we focus on. And then in Canada and Latin America, they’re more geographic focus, but within the geography, they’ll have industry verticals. And yeah, the PDMS job is to understand the partner’s sales organization, and what are the key priority industries that they are focused on as well as top customer names that they may be interested in, and then map marrying that up with our Salesforce. And we know that we can be quite complex, there’s a ton of of sellers that we’ve got across account execs, the stew, the CSU, all the different resources. And so our PDM has really helped our partners navigate that. But really to try to drive that alignment and affinity, because sell with is really the most important function that the PDFs are driving with the partners.
Vince Menzione 07:46
Yeah, and I heard you talk about an a number of what I’ll call named accounts. So you’re you have a level of specificity that maybe didn’t exist before, right, because partner development managers were responsible for all things but maybe not accountable. For the revenue number. It sounds like you’re double clicking on the revenue number. Now,
Sarah Steiger 08:04
we’ve definitely evolved, I would say in recent years, and like I said, we were relying on worldwide and a lot of the partner self service resources that exist and that are getting enhanced with machine learning and a variety of other things that to rely on them to do the build with side so that we can really focus on execution and on the sell with side. And so for sure, we’ve been coaching RPMs, in recent years to really put on the hat and think of themselves as the Chief Revenue Officer of their partner. So what does the partner need to be successful? What are the partners goals from a business perspective? And what can we do through Microsoft solutions to enable that in order to make sure that they’re going to see the best value, the highest revenue, the highest profit margin with Microsoft, by doing the cell with execution plans that we want to work with that one?
Vince Menzione 08:55
Yeah, I love this focus. I think this is spot on, especially from the time when I was enroll. We were all things to all organizations, and it was really tough to delineate the success of the program. So it seems like you’ve really nailed it in. Yep. So we’ve been you mentioned a little bit about practices and building practices with these partners. It seems that both some of these large s eyes and advisories and Microsoft have been leaning in on investments. I’ve heard the term AI factory use recently for one partner. But can we talk in talk a little bit more deeply about this, like what are you seeing on your side? And why the most recent investments?
Sarah Steiger 09:33
The why is the pace of change and transformation with cloud services is moving so quickly in the marketplace, especially now with generative AI and all the things that have come out in the last, you know, few months. And we need si partners to help us really realize that value across the marketplace. So these partners are vital in helping our customers understand all these tech innovations and what can they do to transform their own own business? is. So what I’m seeing is partners are taking advantage of the Azure migrate and modernize investments, we have a new investment called Azure innovate, especially for analytics and AI, where we’re funding pre and post sales, implementation assessments, proofs of concept. And these motions are happening incredibly quickly. And we also, especially in the global si space, we’ve signed several billion dollar plus commitments with them in Microsoft Cloud and AI to reshape professional services across business critical areas and use of AI solutions. So we know that that’s the tip of the spear. And we’re developing these early access partnerships, around 365, copilot, open AI service and with Azure to pilot these technologies, where these GSIs are doing it for themselves internally, and bringing together the increased capabilities of these tools through their experiences, and insights. And then as well bringing them to the customers. So we’re seeing them build and deliver, go to market solutions for our customers in the enterprise space, that really are showcasing Microsoft technologies and helping to accelerate AI adoption, we’re investing in our GSI partners, as you mentioned, with the strategy and their go to market plans. And then like I said, making sure that we’re aligning their Salesforce with our sales teams to accelerate sales and customer time to value. And one thing I should point out is, and I know you know this, and many of your listeners, probably that our sellers are compensated based on consumption of our cloud technologies. So we’re really relying on these partners to help us show the way with generative AI, and then drive those implementations of customer transformations, or we’re not going to be successful, Azure is not going to be successful.
Vince Menzione 11:46
I have been talking about these tectonic shifts we’ve all been seeing right, we had discussion about the pandemic accelerating the transformation. Satya talked about seven years of transformation in seven months, we saw these economic headwinds over the last 18 months. And hopefully we’re coming out of that time. But we’ve all been asked to do more with less. And now, this decade of the ecosystem where customers are asking us to bring it all together. What roles do you see your partners playing here? Bringing it all together? For the customer? You talked about AI specifically? Does this create opportunities for more partners, to partner with your partners, in fact, to bring a whole solution to a customer?
Sarah Steiger 12:24
Yeah, that’s an excellent point, I definitely think that there’s an opportunity for more of that partner to partner activity. And I’m hearing that from my partners as well. I mean, for me, you talk about tectonic shifts, the biggest shift that I’m seeing is the interest and activity that we’re getting, not just from the C suite, but from the CEO and the board level executives, they’re now aware that AI can empower them to achieve more, whether it’s their internal operations, or on behalf of their customers. And so this has mentioned the open AI service. For us, we’re seeing that’s been the fastest growing for in Azure history, we have over 10,000 customers that are using this service already. And so we introduced the AI cloud partner program, to really invest in our partners to enable them to capitalize on all of this opportunity. The GSIs are amazing, they’re big, and they’re bad. But they they can’t scale to the demand that’s out there, we see a over $600 billion total addressable market with these cloud services. And we’re seeing our best partners get all the benefits of this cloud partner program. That includes onboarding, skilling incentives, as well as CO selling. And I think that that’s true for everybody in the partner ecosystem that this this is just a once in a generation opportunity that we need everybody, all hands, everybody rowing in the same direction in order to be able to take advantage of
Vince Menzione 13:48
it pointed out something here, I think anybody recognized how quickly this was gonna happen. I think a lot of people were caught off guard, right, maybe maybe a little flat footed when it really took off the way it did in November, December timeframe. What are you doing to help that scale you discussed like, how do you help these partners scale their businesses? And what is Microsoft doing alongside them to help scale?
Sarah Steiger 14:10
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the first thing we’re doing, I think, is being as transparent as possible with making tools and use cases etc, available. So there are several co pilot solutions that I would encourage everybody to take a look at GitHub, co pilot, security, copilot, et cetera, customers are already working with them. partners should be to learn them, live them, apply them to your own business, and then you’ll learn for opportunities for you to help customers unlock that value. We have a ton of partner resources that are on our AI for transformation partners website. And then also right now from an enablement perspective, we’re running a co pilot bootcamp series of different enablement programs that are happening now. And we’ve also seen that when partners are taking advantage of these resources and are coming up to speed, they’ve had tremendous success in host In person customer events around Gen AI, and they share specific use cases that are really making it real for these customers and talk about all the other issues that are related to incorporating AI into your business environment, risk, compliance, security, privacy, operational, all of those things. I’ve actually got my event later on today is is with a top partner and our top enterprise accounts. So we’re seeing momentum, like I haven’t seen since the late 90s, in terms of people showing up for inter in person events, hybrid events, like never before, it’s been great.
Vince Menzione 15:34
Yeah, I’ve been hearing the same sentiment, right? The C suite is involved in a bigger way than ever before. It seems such an exciting time at Microsoft. So the things you mentioned earlier, the boot camps and the like. Those are available to all partners, right. So some of those things we talked about are not just for the global size, but that’s
Sarah Steiger 15:52
correct. Yeah, absolutely. There’s, there’s so much that’s available for everybody. Like I said, we can’t do it alone. So absolutely, we want to make it make as much available for everybody in the ecosystem to take advantage of
Vince Menzione 16:04
Yeah. I’m so excited to announce our continued partnership with ag one. Many of you know, I made taking a green drink supplement, part of my health ritual for over 21 years now. And it has made all the difference to my health and well being over six years ago, I found athletic greens, and now their product ag one became my go to supplement. Ag one is the first thing I take every morning to power my day. It covers all of my nutritional bases, supports my gut health gives a boost to my immunity, and energy levels. If you want to take ownership of your health, try ag one and get a free one year supply of vitamin D. And five free ag one travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drink ag one.com forward slash Vince M. That’s drink ag one.com forward slash Vince M. Check it out. Great. So Sara is the ultimate guide to partnering. So I need to ask I asked every guest this, what do you see from the best partners? What attributes do you believe leads to a successful engagement?
Sarah Steiger 17:23
Yeah, I think what I usually tend to coach partners on in the first thing is trust partners, we know have deep relationships with their customers and deep understanding of their accounts. And oftentimes, our sellers don’t know that or don’t fully appreciate that. And so the biggest thing, again, in CO selling is to make these connections, seller seller, partner to Microsoft, and build trust and understand that we’re not we’re not in it to compete with these partners, we want to be collaborating with you. We know, on our side, the best partners, I’ve seen, know that our account execs have a very broad perspective on the customer perhaps broader than what the partner has visibility into. And that the AE also was leveraging the stew this CSU other resources that in some cases can have five to 10 year relationships with these accounts. So they can be tremendously influential in helping that account, select the best partner to engage with. So to me, I think it comes down to it you could call it trust, you can call it honesty, what have you, we need to be honest with each other around what are our objectives in a given customer. Oftentimes, back in when I was in my consulting days, we would do an MOU, right? We would we would start by saying what do we want to get out of this relationship? What what’s our role? What’s your role? And so you can be that formal if it’s a huge deal, and you need to do that. But I would just I just sum it up by saying trust, I would say trust, that’s one of the best things that I’ve seen. And then the other thing I would say is, there’s so many partners out there, it can be really difficult for our sellers to know what’s the unique value that each partner provides. And what differentiates your part you as a partner. So I like to talk to partners about what’s their superpower, right? Can you give specific examples of what you’ve done? Have a brand? What is your superpower? What are you known for? What do you want to be known for? And can you give specific examples of success in a like industry, etc, with customers in order to demonstrate your superpower that really helps cut through the noise when you’re trying to work with sellers. I’ve also seen many of our best partners have industry subject matter experts that can help explain the business impact to customers. That really resonates with us, because oftentimes we don’t have that deep industry expertise that we know our partners do. And then last thing I would say is when you’re talking to our sellers, I’ve seen our best partners really bring insight so I always coach them to say if you’re coming to a conversation, bring some information that we don’t know about our customer, right? What can you tell us that we don’t know? That will help us lead to value and impact for that customer. And that’s gonna be the other thing that that’s going to make you remembered. And it’s going to make you sticky with the account teams.
Vince Menzione 20:07
So golden nuggets here, right? First of all, trust. Without trust, we don’t have partnership, it’s a transaction. So I trust us enter the room. And you talked about candid and open communications as part of interest, right? I like to say we need to have deliberate conversations, right? And it’s okay to you have to put your cards on the table and explain like your your point of view, a lot of partners hide back, kind of hold their cards close to the vest, and don’t share as much they don’t trust as much of Microsoft, there’s always that sense that Microsoft is going to take my account you, you share the reasons why that doesn’t really happen the way Microsoft scales. But it also can help help a partner out quite a bit. You talked about that brand, that superpower I love the term superpower, I like to talk about the shiny quarter like the in the bucket of shiny quarters, like what makes you stand out differently. You also brought up the industry expertise and the fact that Microsoft has been traditionally a horizontal company going across many different vertical industries, and looks at its partner ecosystem to help drive that vertical specialization. And then insights right, so help me better understand my customer. Because I think about an account executive is almost the quarterback with of this large team of people that are assembling around the the account in these very large enterprise accounts. They don’t may not have the same insights that a partner might have. And the customer might say things differently, or maybe be a little bit more candid to the partner about their position with Microsoft than in front of Microsoft. Right. I think there’s some really great, some really great examples here. I’m going to feature these in our show notes. So this was absolutely just golden. Sara really enjoyed that part. So what about the partners that don’t get it? Right? What do you wish that you had said to them? Now? If you could?
Sarah Steiger 21:54
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess I would say so. I’ve been in the partner space for a bit. And I guess I would say that partners have to have a growth mindset, right? Microsoft, we adopt a growth mindset, things are constantly changing. And we’re constantly changing. And so I think partners have to have a growth mindset in terms of thinking differently, of how they sell with us. Selling has evolved so much over the years, and especially now. And as you pointed out about the the quarterback, we are a team sale. And so I think collaboration is also super important in CO selling with us, there can be ample opportunity for miscommunication. So we need to make sure that we’re agreeing upfront, and having that constant communication and collaboration. I think it’s also important to keep the customer at the center, right, making sure that you’re starting with what are their needs, how are we solving their problem, and that always can kind of bring you back if you kind of stray from that course. But being able to adapt as we change, right, we change every year. And so being able to recognize it for what it is, and just have that growth mindset. And just just being thinking differently. I think that’s the first thing. And then the second thing, I would just reiterate again, that that being honest, right, knowing your objectives of what you want to get out of a pursuit. And if you want to build long lasting relationships, I’ve seen partnerships fail, if you’re not clear and upfront with your objectives of what you want to get out of a specific account or specific deal. And we know it’s a big playing field. So sometimes we’re going to compete, and sometimes partners are going to compete sometimes we know, partners have their choice and hyperscalers. And so if we keep the relationship honest and straightforward, and we focus on the desired outcomes with the right expectations, I think that helps avoid misunderstandings and, and keeps us efficient so that we know when we’re going to market together and we’re not wasting time. And I think also it helps build build trust over time. Yeah,
Vince Menzione 23:46
I love what you have to say here. So again, golden nuggets in terms of what successful partners look like. I want to double click on mindset. I talk about growth mindset. I talk about how Satya changed the culture. I’ve had Dr. Michael Gervais on the podcast four times. He’s coming back actually in a couple of weeks now. What do you think partners can do specifically around mindset that they maybe don’t do today? And I’m kind of I don’t know if you have the answer for this, but I’m actually looking forward for our partners to understand Yeah,
Sarah Steiger 24:15
I mean, I, I spend a lot of time thinking about people thinking about my people, and thinking about maybe some of the softer skills. And I think in the US, we went through some pretty intense coaching by Brene Brown a couple of years back, and we we do a lot with Michael Gervais, too. And for me, I take all of that stuff to heart. And so I think mindset really starts with what as a partner, what are your corporate values? What do you believe in what’s true to you? And I would hope people is somewhere on that list. Right? And if you value integrity, right if you value success and winning, but not at all cost, right. And if you value people keep bringing people along with you, then I think that, to me, that’s those are some of the foundations of culture. I know it is super challenging in this environment, because the ability to manage change and manage through uncertain times is also a core skill that we all have to have these days. And I don’t see it ever, ever swaying from that. And so I think against knowing that change is a people business, you can’t evolve, you can’t grow, you can’t have growth mindset, if you don’t get your people on board. And so that’s why I always end up coming, everything comes back to people to me, and I feel like you have to just really keep that up front.
Vince Menzione 25:38
We are so aligned here i, we could go through my principles. And we were like, we’re like talking through them. Actually, when I talk about agility, and commitment and alignment and vision and value and all the rest of that. I just love what you have to say, Sarah, for our listeners today. I want to go back to the big announcements that inspire it was just a little over a month ago, right? Maybe it’ll be closer to two months by the time this airs. But how can partners best align for success now that we’re in Microsoft fiscal year? 24?
Sarah Steiger 26:07
Yeah, so we did make some huge announcements, I would say my takeaway after having digested a lot of that is, this is the year of Microsoft marketplace, we’re making tremendous investments, we’re not alone, all the hyper scalars are doing this, it just makes good sense for the marketplace, no pun intended, it just makes good sense for the ecosystem, and makes great sense for the customer. And it helps Microsoft scale. Right? It will help us grow our business. And it’s just where we have to be now. And one of the things back to what you were suggesting before about perhaps partner to partner. So when I think about systems integrators on the one hand, it’s like, well, there there are people are their IP. And so what’s what’s the play for marketplace, because certainly in the ISV space, makes all the sense in the world to be to be plugging marketplace. I’ve been talking to SI Partners and and really just scratching my head myself to figure out what’s the what’s the incentive, what’s the value prop there. And we have new availability as part of these announcements of multiparty private offers that I think is is an angle in right I think on the one hand, there can be the work that SI is may already be doing with large partners such as SAP, VMware, Adobe, and also smaller ISVs. And in particular industries. So the area that I would explore if you don’t think you have a traditional marketplace solution, or you weren’t all about IP cosell before, is this new availability of multi party private offers, right? Today, it’s only available in the US and Canada. But we’re spreading soon to the UK, and then hopefully Latin and globally. And so having a transactable offer and marketplace really helps unlock the partners, cosell benefits. So l partners, I would say need to have a marketplace strategy, whether it’s for your own IP or more. So exploring kind of this multi private multi party private offer option. I would also say coming out of the announcements in the enterprise space. In the Americas, we have around 6000 enterprise accounts. And so prioritizing your strengths, what industries accounts and accounts you focus on, what’s your differentiated value, what we did this year in terms of our focus is we had 52 solution plays last year, oh my goodness, we have narrowed, simplified, focused down to 18. And I think that we’re, that’s helping customers I’m sorry, that’s helping partners aligned to the 18 key plays. And then the last thing that was an announcement coming out of that is all the investments we’re making in the SMC customer segment, which is the next tear down of commercial below enterprise. We’ve got six solution areas that are infused with AI across all of this, and an SMC in particular, we’re making $700 million globally of an incremental investment, just in that customer space. So our what we call SMC is still a huge playing field. There’s plenty of cloud native customers there. There’s plenty of customers that other businesses would consider enterprise. So I would say, Don’t neglect looking at the SMC segment don’t all be chasing after enterprise because that’s a crowded field. And there’s tons of benefit tons of business to be made in the SMC space.
Vince Menzione 29:19
I think it’s a field the diamonds actually I’m glad you brought this up. First of all, the marketplace piece, super important multiparty offers super important to drive that I’ll call the whole solution to the customer. Right It helps it helps the partner to partner it objectifies the partner to partner activity, right? We take this solution, we add this professional services, we might add a third piece to it and we make it available to a customer. You talked about SMC two and I want to spotlight this because we are hosting an event but a little shameless plug for our event, but we’re gonna host an event in Dallas November 14 and 15th with the SMC organization and with the marketplace organization and GPS comm all coming together to support exactly what you’re talking about here. So this It’s just, yeah, I could have gotten a paid you to say what you just did.
Sarah Steiger 30:03
I’ve always I’ll be waiting for that check in the mail. Yeah, no, you’re absolutely right SMC is is on fire. And that’s going to be a tremendous event. Like I said, we’re pouring so many investment dollars into that. We’re getting really smart around how we go to market and how we automate our engagement model there. So yeah, that’s going to be a really timely, well, well timed, and really effective event, I’m sure.
Vince Menzione 30:28
Thank you, sir. I’m hoping to see you there. So we’ll talk some more about this. So I would like to pivot. As you might know, I’m fascinated by the journey to success. And you have had several senior roles at Microsoft. I’m interested to know was there like a spark? Or a pivot that set you off on this path to success?
Sarah Steiger 30:48
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I guess, I guess I would say two things. First, I consider myself a lifelong learner. I love to learn, I love to listen, listen to your podcasts, listen to other podcasts, you know, read, I’m a huge reader. So I’d say I’m a lifelong learner. And at the core, I’m a seller, right? All most of my career has been in sales, he spent a little bit of time in consulting, delivery, but most of its been in sales. And I would say pretty early on, when I was at Microsoft, I reached a point where I realized that I needed to be more intentional about managing my career. And it became obvious to me that Microsoft is so dependent on the partner ecosystem, we can’t survive without our partners, we put them first that I figured that’d be a good place to build my career. That’s where we’re going to invest. And also, at the time, I, we were creating a new organization, which you will know which was SMS NP, which is kind of like a combination of what’s today global partner solutions and SMC. So it was partners and customers in that that customer segment. And I got tapped on the shoulder by someone to say, hey, help, let’s go start this up. It’s gonna be a blank sheet of paper, we don’t know what we’re doing. Anyway. So I joined the first partner field organization. And I think that was the spark that really kind of set me on my path. And I’ve done a bunch of things. I’ve moved around within Microsoft, so on and so forth. And then, two years ago, I guess, I’d still been working with partners, but I was doing it actually, in our ISD organization, which is a whole other podcast, I was looking for a change. And I did some reflecting. And I remember that I think that job working with partners was really the most fun job that I had. And so I pursued a way to come back to the partner group. And here I am. And I just love the challenge of aligning our goals with another company. And watching that company, those partners succeed. And the satisfaction of working with partner leaders, like I said, is kind of wearing the hat of a chief revenue officer on behalf of them, and helping to co sell I just find to be super satisfying. And I learned something new every day. So it’s been great. I
Vince Menzione 32:51
love what you have to say here as a as a partner leader who started off in direct sales as well like the end that path. You said, it’s so much more fun working with partners, and building business together. Right. I just I love I love what you have to say here. Yeah, yeah. So I have a favorite question. And I love asking this to almost all of my guests. But Sarah, you’re hosting a dinner party, and this dinner party could be anywhere in the world, we could talk about that as well. And you can invite any three guests from the present, or the past to this amazing dinner party. Whom would you invite? And why?
Sarah Steiger 33:26
Oh, my goodness. So this is a fun one. And I spent a little bit of time thinking about it. I talked to my husband, I talked to my kids. And they all had very interesting dinner guests that they would invite to their parties. And I think if you asked me today, I think what one thing that kind of popped into my head is I have the privilege of going to the US Open earlier in the week. And I would say Billie Jean King, would be the first one that I would invite, because she’s just such a force just on and off the court. And such a role model. And it has really changed the lives of so many people change the sport, got to pay equity, did all of these amazing things. So I think she would be really interesting just to hear her stories of all the things that she’s gone through. And then second, I would say Oprah, again, iconic. I think she’s met everybody in the world. I think she’s gone through all of her own personal journey and personal arc. And now it’s reached a stage where she’s all about giving back. And she’s such an influential force, that I would love to talk to her about how she makes her choices of what she chooses to get involved with or not not get involved with. And then I feel like I’d have to round it out. So I have an athlete, I have somebody in media. I think I would go with a musician next. And unfortunately, he’s no longer with us. But I think I would add David Bowie to that list. Because, again, iconic an artist, not just a musician or a rock star or whatever you want to call him but kind of that an enigmatic personality and I think he would have a really interest perspective. So I don’t know what the dinner party would like be like if you throw them all together in a room be a little eclectic. But anyway, that’s my list.
Vince Menzione 35:07
Well, I might bring dessert. Is that okay? Because I would love to meet with all three of them. I mean, that was there is always welcome in our house. Yeah, I would normally bring drinks, but I think dessert might be more appropriate here. But we’re tennis family as well. So I love watching the open this time of year. It’s yeah, great event, and Oprah’s extraordinary. And I’m a big Bowie fan as well. So I would love meeting David. That’d be awesome. Yeah, yeah. So sir, you’ve been an amazing guest. I so enjoyed having you here today. Any closing words for our partners on how they can optimize for success this year? Well, first
Sarah Steiger 35:43
of all, thank you again, for having me, it’s been an honor. And a lot of fun, I would say I guess I would just summarize by saying Microsoft is a partner first organization. And these days, partners have never been more vital to our success. So we sometimes might not always be the easiest to navigate, or the easiest to work with. Which is why I appreciate you Vince in this podcast, because I think you’ve chosen to take this step in your career and really help guide all of our partners and how best to work with us. And so that’s a tremendous service for us. So thank you for that. And then lastly, I would just say again, to any partner out there, focus on your superpower, right? We can’t be all things to all people. Just be clear and laser focused on driving what your superpower is, is your brand message when you’re looking to team with Microsoft. And when you’re looking to engage with customers.
Vince Menzione 36:32
I love that focus on your superpower. Sara, thank you so much for spending time with us today in your very busy schedule as Microsoft kicks up. Its fiscal year 24. Thank you.
Sarah Steiger 36:43
My pleasure. Thank you.
Vince Menzione 36:45
I so enjoyed having Sarah Steiger as a guest on Ultimate Guide to partnering. If you’re a partner working with Microsoft, I hope you learn from this discussion as much as I did. And chances are you want to learn even more, which is why I’m hosting my first live event in Dallas, Texas, November 13. Through the 15th. Come to our website, Ultimate Guide to partnering.com or the ultimate partner.com. And learn more. I hope to see you in Dallas, November 13 through the 15th
Announcer 37:20
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