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Quisitive EVP, Lane Sorgen Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

In the wake of Microsoft’s Inspire announcements on generative AI and co-pilot, the opportunity landscape for partners is evolving rapidly. Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned veteran in Microsoft’s ecosystem, this episode is a must-listen. We’re joined by Lane Sorgen, Executive Vice President at Quisitive and former Microsoft leader, who will discuss leveraging Generative AI in Business Applications. With the industry undergoing tectonic shifts, Lane will share key strategies for partners to navigate and capitalize on these changes. This episode aims to equip you with actionable insights to optimize your partnership ROI.

What to Expect

Lane Sorgen, who leads Quisitive’s Business Applications practice, shares how this multi-year, award-winning Microsoft partner is leveraging Generative AI to unleash business results with its customers. We also discuss both partnership and leadership principles that have been core to Lane’s career success. We talk about real-world and actionable steps for you and your organization’s success in fiscal year 24 and how to thrive as a business leader.

Why Listen?

If you aim to:

• Engage effectively with Microsoft’s Partner Program.
• Build an effective Generative AI Practice.
• Become an effective business and partner leader.

Then this episode is a must-listen.

In Lane’s Words

Lane Sorgen is the Executive Vice President of Global Business Applications at Quisitive Technology Solutions Inc. He has over 24 years of experience in the IT industry, including 18 years at Microsoft. At Microsoft, he held a variety of leadership roles in sales, marketing, and product development. He has a deep understanding of business applications and how to use technology to solve real-world business problems.

Lane is a passionate advocate for generative AI and its potential to revolutionize business applications. He believes that generative AI has the power to automate tasks, improve decision-making, and create new products and services. He is also a strong believer in the importance of partnership and collaboration. He believes that the best way to solve complex business problems is to work together with customers and partners.

Lane is a graduate of Delta State University and Christian Brothers University. He is also a member of the Forbes Technology Council.

What You’ll Learn

Episode Highlights:

• Generative AI and business applications with Acquisitive EVP.0:00
• AI adoption in business and healthcare.5:00
• AI in healthcare with a focus on Quizlet’s unique approach.7:35
• Partnership challenges and opportunities.14:01
• Microsoft and successful strategies.20:03
• His career at Microsoft and career development.24:42
• Speaking up in meetings and other great advice30:15
• Leadership Lessons.35:14
• Partnering with AI and customer-centric approach.39:49

This episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering is sponsored by QUISITIVE.

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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

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Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Many Typos

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

microsoft, years, partner, customers, ai, people, healthcare, company, business, speak, partnership, opportunity, leader, decision, partnering, success, share, amazing, love, build

SPEAKERS

Announcer, Lane Sorgen, Vince Menzione

Vince Menzione  00:00

If you’re a partner working with the hyperscalers like Microsoft, then you know this is an incredibly exciting time with Microsoft’s recent inspire announcements around generative AI and co pilot. The opportunities for organizations embracing Microsoft business applications are endless. So whether you’re a partner who’s just getting started with Microsoft business applications, or you’re a seasoned veteran, looking for new ways to grow your business, then this episode of ultimate guide to partnering is for you. 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. Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host, and today I will. Lane Sorgen is the Executive Vice President and Quisitive, a top Microsoft partner. Lane is also a former Microsoft leader with a wealth of experience in the world of business applications. And he’ll share with us the exciting work that acquisitive is doing to lead the way in generative AI for business applications. We’ll also discuss the massive opportunity that we’ve all been seeing with the tectonic shifts happening in our world and in our industry. As a partner, how can you thrive and survive during this time of rapid change. Lane will share his best practices and principles of success. And he’ll give you the inside scoop on what you need to do to take advantage of the incredible opportunities that lie ahead. I hope you enjoy and learn from this discussion. As much as I enjoyed welcoming my friend, Lane sergeant.

Lane Sorgen  01:58

Lane. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, man, glad to be here today. I am so excited to welcome you as a guest and ultimate guide to partnering. We had the chance to work together at Microsoft. In fact, I remember sitting side by side with you in a business review once I mean it was like way back probably 15 or no longer years ago. So so great to have you as a guest today. Yeah, same here. Same here. So we’ve had your CEO Mike Reinhart as a guest, an amazing business that acquisitive has and you lead one of the business units. And I was hoping you can help our listeners better understand what you and your business help to solve for customers. Sure, sure. I’d love to actually, I run the Global Business Application business. And so global business application business does is really, it’s all the areas where we’re engaging with customers to help them with what would be business application. So I’m generally working more with the business leaders inside of a company if you want to think about it that way. Now, obviously, that actually entails all of Microsoft Dynamics, so dynamics, fNo, dynamics, Business Central, all that’s in CEE, we do all of that as the general stuff. And then we’ve also we’ve built over the years different sets of software. So we have, for example, one offering, it’s called informatix, employee performance management. And it is very similar to what you and I used to use for the annual review process inside of Microsoft. And so it takes it to that kind of capability to all different sizes of companies. And then in addition to that, we’ve built several industry specific platforms largely on dynamics. And so we’ve, we have quite a big offering in healthcare. Actually, we’ve, we have one partner of the year twice for Microsoft in healthcare. We’re hoping for a hattrick this year. So fingers crossed. We have manufacturing software. And then we have public sector really SLG software that we built. And so all of that is is what is in GBA we have we have business on, I guess in four countries, predominantly in North America, though. And then we have a really large contingent of people. In addition to the US and Canada. We have people in the UK and then we have Pakistan and India group as well. That’s a great business unit. And we’ve had several leaders from the business application side. Monique, a word was a recent podcast. We’ve had Emily, he also on the podcast talking about this amazing time for Microsoft and business applications. And we’re starting to see it now like eight months ago, nine months ago, we weren’t talking about generative AI and now it’s on the tip of everyone’s tongue. And Microsoft has embedded quite a bit of the open AI capabilities with copilot I was hoping to get your read on things here and get your purse

Vince Menzione  05:00

perspective, what are you seeing from the customers that you work with? And what are they looking for with respect to AI?

Lane Sorgen  05:07

Well, generally speaking, that customers are telling this really the same thing you’d see in the press, which that’s not always the case, obviously. But the feedback is similar in that there’s great, great hope and belief that it’s going to make a profound difference in business and in their business. So they believe that they have some basic ideas about how that might be the case. But it’s not etched in stone yet. And then on the flip side of that same thing here in the press, is, alright, I’ve got to make decisions about how much of this do I put in the hands of, if you will, the machine. And so there’s concern of that. That’s, that’s the general feedback. Now, there is one exception I mentioned, we we spend a lot of our time in industries with business leaders in the industries in, in those cases, that will take healthcare, what we’re finding is, there’s a they already have a long list of areas where they can advance their business and have extraordinary value by the implementation of AI. And so so it’s not a question of trying to figure out how they use it, it’s real, or how they might what solutions they might have. It’s actually now a question of, how do I do it? Who do I partner with? And then the answering of the question about how do I manage it? And I guess the last thing I’d add is when we talk to the those business users and explain the notion of copilot where we’re going to take all these things that AI could do for you, and could just do on your own, but we’re going to put it in a window beside your your physician or whatever, so that they can just make much better decisions much faster. But there’s still a user element, when we explained that, that sort of satisfies that need, and they’re really ready. They’re ready to go.

Vince Menzione  07:03

Yeah, I love the notion of co pilot, right. And I saw, I got to see Charles lamonta, who leads the business unit, discuss copilot and actually showed a use case where Microsoft is using using it internally for their own purposes. Healthcare, I want to stay here with healthcare for a moment because it is such an important area of focus, right 90% of global domestic product is healthcare. Right? And it seems like such an an area where we can drive great improvement. Where do you see the growth here? Lane? Yeah, well,

Lane Sorgen  07:38

if we’ve been using in our health, I’ll talk healthcare specific applications called Amazing care. In that package, we’ve actually been using cognitive AI and ML, really, for four years in production with customers. And like, I’ll give you an example. One of our customers, they, they they build care plans based on prescriptions. And so they read about 4000 prescriptions a day that they fold into their system, and they’re taking some machine learning, but they’re trying to make sure that they they build the right care plan and care path for with the implementation we have in production right now using cognitive AI, we’re up in the high 60% In terms of accuracy, being able to read the prescription, and put it into the care plan and learn from it without any human intervention whatsoever. And so two months ago, we actually did a pilot, same customer, same implementation with generative AI. And we hit up into the high 80 percents and only took a week. So the thing is, I think in healthcare, it seems to me there’s this, they’re further along and thinking about all the ways that it can help. But it’s really the large language models that allow that, that effort to happen much faster. And so we are right now we’re going back through what we have in AI, and looking for areas where generative AI can actually advance it, not just AI, but there’s a lot of rules based processes in healthcare. And so we’re where we think we’re actually have a unique benefit and market is we focus a lot on niche products. And we think that we’re quite agile. And so it gives us an opportunity to come in and change these rule based models into Gen open AI generative AI. And that’s actually where we’re, we’re focusing so Macy care release in August is going to have our first co pilot just like Microsoft, where where we will actually be helping our customers build out and manage this care plan. And so I think I think that’s where we go, I think it’s going to, I think it’s going to spike a whole new opportunity and health care because a lot of what the systems that run health care, they’re really big 1020 100 million dollar implementations and so the opportunity to be Insert this kind of comment it just for an AI opportunity, I think creates kind of a whole new angle into healthcare.

Vince Menzione  10:06

Yeah, it’s it strikes me that this is a tectonic shift. This is a once in a generation, like when the internet when we first got to life, it feels so strong right now. And there’s so much opportunity both from a, I’ll say, opportunity perspective. And then people there, a lot of people are saying we need to put guardrails around it and we could we could probably dive in here. We both know like, or people like Microsoft, people like Brad Smith, who we both got to work underneath we are Microsoft are really helping to drive that enforcement and helping governments understand both the opportunities and the implications of AI. Right, I love I love to see the application copilot being built into your portfolio and you’re a significant player in this business application space. There are others are a lot of smaller organizations there. And so I was wondering for our listeners, both partners and customers, if I’m on an on an elevator ride with you, and I asked you, why should I choose? Quizlet? Why should I partner with you? What would you say to me?

Lane Sorgen  11:08

Yeah, okay, I’m gonna answer it. Like, because it’s you, right? If it was a physician, it might be different. But what if I entered you? The reality is decision company, when companies make a decision about what provider or platform they’re going to go to. And really, it’s really about people process and technology, right? I mean, it has been forever. Generally speaking, it will be we believe that if company Gates was people process and technology, we will win a lot. And our history suggests that to be true. But I would tell them that I think the reasoning department with us is a combination, really, I think the three things it’s it is integrity, longevity, and leadership. And they all kind of meld together. So from an integrity point of view, if you look on our website, what we say we can do, we can do it really well, right. And in our engagement sales, we still the same thing. And if we say we’re gonna do something, then then we we do it, the longevity piece is our company is that is the culmination of really five different companies that have come together over time, every one of those companies has been a well respected Microsoft partner for 20 years or more. So we all know, you can’t stay in business as a Microsoft partner in the same industry and segment for 20 years if you’re not doing things, right. So that longevity, I think, is a proof point. And then the last thing, which was actually a big part of my interest in coming to work here was was leadership. So the leadership is very diverse. I mean, there were people that came from all different countries, right, all different socio economic backgrounds, and just even so, so there’s diversity. But really everybody that’s got a leadership role in the company, there was a, they made a conscious deliberate decision, like like I’m saying here, where they choose to come to quiz tip, because all of us in some form or fashion, want to spend our life’s work helping companies achieve great things. And that’s really what Well, that’s not our mission statement that that is actually the common element that you’ll see throughout all beliefs. I think that’s the differentiating point, I’d say, an elevator.

Vince Menzione  13:22

So integrity, longevity, and leadership. I love what you have to say here. And I will comment here, I’ve gotten to know several of your leader, I feel like you’ve built this amazing organization under Mike, obviously you and I got to work together. I know several of your other business leaders that have come together to form this amazing organization. And you are, I would say a partner that has gotten a REIT working with Microsoft though, we could probably dive in here on the Microsoft aspects specifically, but I want to this is the ultimate guide to partnering. And I love to share with our listeners like the nuggets of why a partner like acquisitive has gotten it right. So I thought we could dive in here a little bit on partnership. And love to ask you this question. What do you believe makes ln what do you believe makes a great partner whether it’s working with Microsoft or with other partners that you partner with an ecosystem?

Lane Sorgen  14:13

Yeah, I think I think the I think the answer to that is there may be best or easiest by an answer to another question. Okay. And I actually use this day in and day out partner with customers partnering partner to partner partnering with Microsoft on specific engagements and it was awhile back and we were working what was supposed to be Microsoft’s what are their first partnership deals with the customer? Okay, and that can be a lot of things. So that’s sort of irrelevant. But as large company in somebody’s ranking very high like the number two person that could not like it was the number two person company came in to provide some guidance to the team trying to craft this partnership and said you Here’s the way I want you and the team to work. I want you to engage in every discussion, every decision by asking yourself, what would we do if we were one company? And I remember thinking, Oh, that’s brilliant and wishing I had thought of it. And, but But nonetheless, I thought that’s right. And we actually did wind up fine forming a partnership with Microsoft in that company. And so since that day, when anytime we’re engaged in a partnership, like trying to when we’re doing planning here at acquisitive, and I’m in the room, we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to partner with Microsoft on open AI. Right? I’m always asking the question either of myself from the group, think about what we do if we were one company, because in doing that, you really shed all of the tension that everybody’s carrying with trying to make sure that your own company’s interests are protected. And you get to an answer, what the thing that was wound up I think even being like, like doubly brilliant about it is, if you can, once you get down to like what we would do as one company, each party has the opportunity now to say a partnership has to be good for everybody. And the way it’s shaped right now, it’s not good for me. So if we want to be in it, then if you want me in it, which took in 15 years since that happened, nobody’s ever said no. If you want me in it, then here are my interests that need a need to that need to be considered. And it’s just hard to get there, right? I mean, everybody respects their company, and they want to do the right thing for the company, and they don’t want to screw up for the company. And so I found that I think that’s the most important thing I would share about partnerships, whether it’s Microsoft or a customer or partner partner, which by the way, I’m a huge fan of, and I think we ended in an industry and an echo system should be doing more of it. But I think that’s the most important thing by just here to kind of net it out.

Vince Menzione  16:57

I think what I heard you say here was a shared vision for success, right? We come together to protecting our rice balls is an is a term I’ve heard use over the years for protecting our own interests and coming together. And basically, like, I like the idea of whiteboarding this, like what is what is the shared vision and value that we want to provide to the market? to the customer? Right? How do we want to think about that better together, and really come together as one organization, as you said, right around this partnership and strike out? Like, what are the what do we hope to achieve? And how are we going to achieve it? Right?

Lane Sorgen  17:35

Yeah, I will use that in my framing of that message. I’m just gonna adopt it.

Vince Menzione  17:43

I think you have it, I think you have it, and you’re doing it every day in the work that you do, from what I hear. When I talked about the tonic shifts we’re seeing and it is striking, right. We have been we’ve been seeing transformation we’ve been seeing challenging times, right. We live through COVID. We’ve had economic headwinds now as well. What challenges do you believe partners face today?

Lane Sorgen  18:04

Yeah, well, I think, and we have the opportunity as a partner inside Microsoft, and then it’s a huge ecosystem, but we can use the small world. So we’re connected to lots of partners. So not just looking at it through my eyes are criticized, but lots for the feedback. I think. I think it’s clear that the same challenges to kind of their same challenges today that they’ve had that we’ve had in the past, which is really just run business, how do I sell more? How do I staff? How do I how do I develop people? How do I stay current on technology? How do I get funding if I want to grow? And all of those things are I think still at the heart of how do I how do I manage when the economy goes down? And those things are at the heart of what it is? I think those are the challenges. I don’t think that I mean, my experiences have anything you need to offer on that front. However, there is one area that I think is a unique challenge right now. It’s not the first time it’s had this challenge was first time about 12 years. And that is really the the economy, it slowed. And so this is a big, that’s a big part of what we’re focusing on right now. So the what’s happening in our experiences with hundreds of customers is past 10 years comprehend size, what’s their vision, like? These are the customers we’re trying to target? What’s their vision, and then from that comes a list of the projects that they need to do technology, business apps are whatever that are going to facilitate achieving that vision vision. And then they break it into their departments the way that the general ledger manages that organization and they have a budget. And then that department is assigned to a person or persons assigned to department and then you’ve got the sponsor inside the company. And so for the past 10 years, that person, the beginning of year, I’m kind of simplifying but at the beginning of the year, they’ve got these three projects they got to do and then what they their processes I’ve got but got funding, I just need to go find who I’m going to get to do it, right. And then they got to make sure that they do it. It’s it’s a, it’s a hard, it’s hard task that has to be managed by by the customer all. But the big change is that oh, and when it’s time to do the project, they select it. It’s a rubber stamp in the organization. So so what we’re seeing all over the place is the it’s no longer a rubber stamp. And so the decision goes into rubber stamp, we’ll hear from a customer Hey, you’re selected, like we’re gonna start, I’m gonna get the paper going. Next Monday, we hear back over the cancer, the project’s been paused. And so what advance I know, you and I live in this in similar chairs back in 2008 2009, remember? Yeah, right. So I think the challenge for us as partners is, we actually do this more than the sponsors in the company, right? They’re going to do one or two a year, like it’s a company. That’s a lot of what we’re doing. And so we understand this notion of the bat, the business case, the value proposition. And so the challenge we have is, we’ve got to help that I’m just using the term sponsor that sponsor understand that that budget is not yours, right? That is a placeholder that you can have when it goes up to the committee. And there’s a business case, right. And so your job, which we would love to help you with, is to actually build out the business case. So when you bring it to your company, they can make the right decision, because what we see is their their decisions in companies where they choose not to do a project, because they don’t have the business case, but the business case is there. And so the company is making your decision from wrong, but they’re making the wrong decision because they don’t have the facts with which to make a decision. And I think that’s the biggest challenge we have, as partners in this community and its ecosystem. And frankly, partners, as a collective group with Microsoft to drive business is we got to help make sure that they these people know how to do this, because they’re some of them may not have ever seen it, but a lot of them are definitely not practiced at it, given a booming business over the past 10 years. Yeah,

Vince Menzione  22:11

I thought I heard you say too, is like, it’s been easy. The last several years money was cheap for a while. Yep. And everything was forward leaning, like let’s lean in. Absolutely. And we come from a time you and I both were we know the economic headwinds of the Oh 70809 time period, and having to do those cost justifications, right? And helping the client understand the value of the solution, what it will drive to the business and the impact, and how will actually save money time, all those things that come into factoring into really, it’s not costing you anything to do this. There’s a payback over probably the time here

Lane Sorgen  22:45

costing you not to do it. In most cases, right? The intuition that form that original budget entry was right. But but you don’t get to approve projects on intuition.

Vince Menzione  22:59

Yeah. And we’re leaning in and maybe for some of our listeners that are a little younger, you’re like, you gotta lean in and you got to help the customer understand the value. Right? It’s as easy as then then then it’s been the last several years. Right, right. I’m so excited to announce our continued partnership with AEG 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. So great, great to hear your perspective here coming directly from certain markets that we all care about manufacturing state and local government healthcare in particular. So what isn’t taught, but you believe to be true. You’ve been around Microsoft, you’ve been around inquisitive now for many years. What do you believe to be true to successful partnering?

Lane Sorgen  24:42

Well, I think there’s a lot of there’s a lot of training and stuff. I felt like in a way this is a bit of a lame answer. But it’s what comes to mind when I think about partnering and that is there’s an old quote I wish I could remember who said it but it was check your ego at the door. But you know, it’s partnering is really hard because you got what you say you’re the person that’s trying to be part right? That person, you’ve, you’ve got your own concerns, you’ve got your own baggage, whatever, right? Your own beliefs, your own experiences you’ve had, you tried to do this before, and somebody was a bad actor, and you had a bad experience, right? We’re, we’re bringing all of this in. So when I say ego, I’m not talking about an egotistical person, what I’m talking about, is really kind of check those things that cause cause you to be hesitant, cause you to be protective, or pushy, or whatever. So so that we can get to this shared vision, that’s really, that’s a hard thing to do. And I mean, I felt like I’ve been practicing this for 30 years. And I still, even when I’m practicing, and when I think I’m doing it, I’ll realize, Hey, I got to, I got to kind of reset myself, because I’m not really entering this in the disabled. And if you take it, like, I saw this for years, when I was sitting in the Microsoft chair, working with partners, that, that that actually that kind of checking their ego, or whatever coming in, I think sometimes makes it difficult to understand what it is that Microsoft is looking for. I mean, every partner that exists does small into Microsoft. Okay. So when we think about it, like we are the smaller entity, so that generally means we we conform, and we sort of more to Microsoft, that’s an interesting thought, when you think about the notion of checking your ego at the door. And the reality is, it’s just a matter of finding where our interests align with theirs. And the truth is, we as partners have actually the ones are going to have to do this, right, we’re going to have to figure out where we align it. And it’s just a lot easier, check the US door and figure out how they’re how we’re going to make money in this partnership that we personally are

Vince Menzione  26:54

for so I love what you have to say around check your ego at the door. I’ve also said and maybe it’s not quite exactly the same, that hubris when hubris enters the room. Yeah, we got it makes it really difficult to partner. And I think we said here too, is like I and I’ve worked with billion dollar independent software vendors as an example, that they have a different perspective, that sort of, there’s maybe a little bit more hubris working with Microsoft should care about us, Microsoft should do this for us, Microsoft should bring us leads of understanding how to work side by side, build that shared vision and value that you talked about. And then aligning for success, which I think sometimes is is an art and a science in itself.

Lane Sorgen  27:38

Yeah, I like that. So

Vince Menzione  27:41

I love we could talk all day about partnerships I love we were gonna have to get together in person and have a beverage and talk more about this. I’d love to see you again in person. Soon. But you know, I’m also fascinated with the career journey, the work that I did at Microsoft supporting earlier in career professionals. And the work I get to do here with Ultimate Guide to partnering and helping some of those early in career professionals understand how someone like you achieve such great results and success in your career. So I want to ask you, Elaine, I mean, you were you were a senior leader at Microsoft, you’re in a very, very senior role acquisitive, was there a pivot point? Was there an inflection or something that happened along the way that whether was a spark or a mentor that got you to this spark? Or got you to this point in your career? Yeah.

Lane Sorgen  28:27

I’ve watched over the years, I’ve watched the videos. So go back and watch some of them. So I need to think about a couple of these sorts of questions. It’s a lot easier to talk about generative AI, because you’re living in everyday some of these thinking about so I was glad to have that. When I’m working with prime professional development in any form, coaching or helping whenever there’s some things that I’m always focused on. And those are, those few areas are typically are those, those pivotal points, we are the sum of our experiences. So at my age, like you’ve had a lot of them. So I’ve tried to think of ones that that I think are still shaping today. So that’s kind of how I was thinking about this question. So there’s, there’s one, one event that I think about every day, it’s part of everything that I do every day. It was pretty early in my Microsoft career, I just accepted a role as a VP in the SMB, SMB business. And because of the timing of accepting that role right behind that was our US subsidiary leader pulled together the VP level people. There’s like 25 people and I went to the meeting, and I felt like I was in a different country speaking a different language. I knew my business no one is doing, I didn’t know how to engage. It was literally I was I was probably more uncomfortable in that it was a three day session in that meeting, and then I’ve ever been in my life, Mister, I gotta, I gotta figure out what this is. I just I’ve never spent the In the time, amongst leaders thinking about leader things, and a big group of people, many of which had had quite a bit had significant years of experience over over mine. So I said, Okay, I gotta get a mentor. And they went to a guy by the name of Mike Hart. And at the time, he was the, essentially the CEO of the US subsidiary. Now I picked him specifically because I was watching the room trying to figure out at read lips, or whatever. And I noticed that when he spoke, he was very succinct. And he was the one person understood. And I looked around, and everybody nodded their head when he would speak. So I asked him to mentor him, mentored me, and I told him what I was experiencing. And I’m, I’m an extroverted shy person, which is kind of a weird thing. So I mean, I’d love to be around people, but speaking sometimes can be very scary for me. Okay. Especially. So I told him about it. And and he said, ln is really simple. He said, there are three times, right, there are three situations where you need to speak, and you always have speak if those three situations happen. And if they don’t happen, then nothing’s don’t speak. Okay. So he said,

Vince Menzione  31:08

I want to know what the three with the 330s are. I’m excited.

Lane Sorgen  31:12

So he said, he said, first of all, you got to know what is the intent of the event or the meeting, whatever. So read your background nurse, which I hadn’t done, okay? That’s so understand the leader or the group or the mission, what are they trying to achieve? The three times you speak are if somebody in the room is actually speaking and contributing and providing information that is incorrect, or is going is taking the meeting off in a direction that’s unproductive relative to what you’re trying to do? Then you need to speak up to bring it back onto on to on track. Okay, one vote. The next one is when when someone speaks, and it is valuable, but it needs some additional to make the point such that everybody in the room can consume it and understand it. Alright, so sometimes this deciphering it or explaining it. But if you have the you know, the information that that can form, then you need to speak right then because that’s progressing and moving in the right direction. And then the third one, any, any I remember vividly smile big. When he said this. He said, When you are the subject matter expert, and you have information that most of the people don’t, that needs to be in the room to make great decisions and you speak. And I said, Why are you smiling? He said, Well, there’s 20 Something people in there, you’re one of three people that are focused on SMB speak on SMB stuff and don’t say a word or talking about enterprise stuff. Okay. i That’s sort of the fun part of it. But it was a nice little element. And so I’ve now taken, I don’t think I could have done it, I couldn’t have done that job, but couldn’t have done any of the jobs. Since this. And it was a good, least 15 years ago, I couldn’t have done that without that basic premise, because I would not have been able to be a contributor and leaders. And I think that’s the most profound thing. And I think about it, even when I’m with friends in a group of people.

Vince Menzione  33:08

This is this is a life lesson lane. I love what you watch for me worrying. Yeah, and it’s for me as well, like, I think we’re gonna, we’re certainly going to share this in our show notes. So it’s speak up when you can contribute to the information that’s being shared, speak up when the information being shared, is directed or where the information is taking the meeting in the wrong direction. And the third one was

Lane Sorgen  33:33

when you’re the subject matter expert, and you have insight that needs to be brought into the discussion so that the decision or the design or whatever is the intended outcome of meeting needs to have that information to get the best answer for response.

Vince Menzione  33:51

I love that. And I also love what you had to say is like, if you’re not the subject matter expert, don’t speak up. And I was thinking myself. Yeah, because your credibility is at stake. If you start speaking on a subject that you have, that you’re ill informed on. People will not take the information that you share that you are well informed on. They won’t take it as legitimate, I guess. Yeah, that’s right. Great. Exactly. All right. I love this. I love this is really good. Good information. Like,

Lane Sorgen  34:17

I’d love that story. I feel like it happened to this morning. It’s so fresh for me still.

34:22

Yeah.

Vince Menzione  34:23

So this is a favorite question on my mind. And I want to take you out a little bit of a journey. Yeah, yeah. So you’re hosting a dinner party, and this dinner party could be anywhere in the world, we can decide where that is. After you can, you can tell us where you want to host it. But you can invite any three guests right from the present, or the past to this amazing dinner party. I’ve even had one or two guests pick somebody in the future to invite to the dinner party, which takes it in a different direction. Yeah. Who would you invite to this amazing dinner party and why? Yeah,

Lane Sorgen  34:58

I saw some questions on this. So Well, first of all, I want to have it at your house because like I said, I’m, I’m a extroverted Shy Guy, and you do a really good job with questions. And so I want to bring them there let you ask good questions, because that’s, that’s what I want to experience with them. That’s, that’s okay. First one is George Washington. I love talking to leaders and and just learning from their experiences, especially if they’ve had some unique experience. And I figure George Washington forming of us, I’d love this country. I think learning what that was like, at that time would just be amazing, right? You could ask one question. And it would be, I mean, it would be consuming the home dinner table. Plus, it’d be introduction, since I was little bitty kid like the second grade, and heard that he had dentures made of wood, I’d love to see what would teach look like. That’s the case, one, two, this, this came up in a at a dinner with a couple and then our, our children who are in their 20s, two weeks ago, I was in this great restaurant, and they were they had this playlist, it was all hip hop. And it was noisy, it was a happening place to be on a Friday night and two generations, everybody’s loving the music, most of the music’s 10 to 12 years, new or newer. And about every, like eight song was Michael Jackson. And I thought about it. And it was Michael Jackson from way back. I thought, how interesting is that? I mean, I think he’s going to be pop common stuff into perpetuity. And so I don’t know what I would ask them. But I would love to tell my friends that I had dinner with Michael Jackson, right? Just, I can’t really think of something more interesting. And then the third one was a little more difficult. I think it would be Taylor Sheridan. So he’s the guy that wrote Yellowstone, and was at 83. And it’s a Texas guy. So I now live in Texas. So that’s kind of interesting. What I’d like to I don’t I’d like to talk about him is how, where does, how does he get to a creative state? So we’re all creating, writing is not my forte. So it’s what I mean, it’s not the writing. Where does he? Where does he get this? Like, I don’t think I can get there without some serious drugs. It would be nice. I mean, I think all of us would like to be more creative. When I go to somebody that seems to be creating these kind of setting a trend, but he didn’t follow a trend. And what he’s creating

Vince Menzione  37:32

is done some amazing work, right, both Yellowstone and is it 1847? What is the name of the other show?

Lane Sorgen  37:38

1800? Something like that, yeah.

Vince Menzione  37:44

Well, if we have it at the house, we’re gonna have to invite actually one of the stars of Yellowstone, and I’m forgetting his name right now. But the gentleman who’s married to the daughter on the show.

Lane Sorgen  37:56

What’s his name? Call something cold? Yeah,

Vince Menzione  37:59

he lives in Stuart, which is just north of Jupiter, Florida here. My Jeep from the same dealer that he bought his truck. So that’s how I found out he was here. So But George Washington, Michael Jackson, I’m gonna I want to know what the question is. You were gonna ask George Washington, though? Is there one specific question you want to ask?

Lane Sorgen  38:19

I don’t know. That’s kind of why I was saying I need you there. But what I really wanted, I really would like to understand, how do you show up as a leader, this is going to be put in and be the president. i That’s That’s, that is something that is just totally incomprehensible to me. Right. Maybe the same question as what was the pivotal thing that set you up from this time in your career? I don’t know. And, and I’d like to understand, like, are they the same? Are they essentially saying leadership treat traits at a different time? Or was it different than?

Vince Menzione  38:54

Yeah. And there was no precedents? Right. George Washington came in. There wasn’t ever a President of the United States. Right. We they were under the role of the king before that. So right, every everything was new, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. And like, what are you thinking like in terms of like, how do you lead? I think, to your point, that would be a fascinating conversation.

Lane Sorgen  39:16

Yeah, yeah. Talk Talk about leading through ambiguity. That’s probably one of the best cases of that ever.

Vince Menzione  39:24

Yeah. And I’d love to know what he what his thoughts were on some of the other leaders surrounding him. That would be amazing. I wish we could go back. Right. That’s it. That’d be a lot of fun.

Lane Sorgen  39:35

I wonder if George Washington ever had any tequila that would be disinteresting to see Yeah, like shared interest stories, right.

Vince Menzione  39:42

I’m sure they had they had spirited beverages. It was probably something that came over from England. Well, Elaine, you have been an amazing guest. I am so feel so privileged and grateful to have our friendship and to have you come along today. On Ultimate Guide to partnering, but any closing words of advice for our listeners, this is a time we talked about the headwinds, the top tectonic shifts, and how they can optimize for their success.

Lane Sorgen  40:11

That’s kind of a hard one, I think I’ve said shared a lot of things. I’m gonna go back to an old default that I’ve, I heard one time, and I’ve, I’ve used it ever since. And there’s, there’s a lot of decisions going on. And like, in any practice, what are we going to do to adopt AI? Right? I mean, are we think about the new measure of work, it used to be ours? What if we’re using AI to build software? Right? I mean, there’s a lot of decisions that need to be made, and how do we have conversations. And the old phrase was, if you ever are in a case, where as the leader of the company, or a leader, a company or an individual as like, I don’t know what to do next, or I don’t know what to do with my time right now. I would just say, go spend time with the customer. I mean, I’m gonna tell you, I’m two years into this company. And I had a lot of those events and times where I felt that way. And and so if the answer is always somewhere in a conversation with the customer, I don’t know if that’s kind of what you’re getting at. But that’s really how I’ve figured out what we’re doing and how to participate and how to contribute and and then how to play a role in those decisions that we have. Because you don’t want to just make a bet without having really high confidence that the customers are interested in what it is that we’re going to try to do.

Vince Menzione  41:36

Yeah, I love what you have to say the customer at the center. Some have referred to it as a customer centered mindset. Right. I love that. I love that lane. And with that, I want to thank you again for being such an amazing guest.

Lane Sorgen  41:50

Thank you. i It’s been a blast. I’m I’m really proud that you gave me a chance to speak today. It’s been great fun.

Vince Menzione  41:57

So good to see you again, my friend. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Lane’s origin as much as I did. And chances are if you’re as excited as I am about the opportunities in store, then you’re going to want to join us November 13, through the 15th in Dallas, Texas, as we launch our first live in person event, ultimate partner live the Americas Summit. We’re bringing together leaders from Microsoft, across the field organization for small, medium and corporate accounts, the Microsoft global partner solutions leadership team, and the marketplace team, all converging in Dallas to help share valuable insights and help you double click for success in fiscal year 24. Don’t miss this unique opportunity. Secure your seat today by visiting our website, Ultimate Guide to partnering.com or the ultimate partner.com. I hope to see you in Dallas this November. I hope to see you in Dallas, my friend in November.

Announcer  43:09

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