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Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ – if you’ve been around the tech sector and world of partnering and the channel for the last 15 years – my guest for this episode of the podcast needs no introduction.
Tiffani Bova is a Business Anthropologist, Growth Evangelist and Transformation Advisor, Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author and Thinkers 50 Member.
Tiffani has the Coolest Title, Global Growth Evangelist at Salesforce. She hosts the “What’s Next Podcast with Tiffani Bova” and is the author of the Wall Street Journal Best Selling Book “Growth IQ, Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make Or Break Your Business.” Her credentials are very impressive, and we provide a link to her complete profile below.
I first met Tiffani Bova when she was a VP, Distinguished Analyst, and Research Fellow at Gartner and supported top technology giants and hyper scalers like Microsoft. After I started my podcast, I invited Tiffani as a guest Episode 32 almost three years ago, right after Tiffani had started up her own What’s Next Podcast with Tiffani Bova. Quite a bit has changed since that point in time, and I was excited to have her back as a guest during this latest edition of Ultimate Guide to Partnering.
Tiffani and I have both been blogging about the importance of partnerships during this time like no other. I knew having Tiffani would mean a wide-ranging, thought-provoking interview, and Tiffani did not disappoint. We could have easily spent two more hours, and after recording this episode, I have decided to release this in two parts.
In this interview, Tiffani and I have a far-reaching discussion on a myriad of topics. Specifically, in this interview, we discuss:
- The state of business during the pandemic
- How partnerships can be a critical accelerant to growth
- The role and importance of co-opetition
- Why organizations often don’t get partnerships right
- What organization need to do now to lead and come out of this time better
- The opportunity and the obligation we in the tech sector have to lead during this time.
We also discuss her career trajectory, how her path was informed, mentors, and principles that have shaped her journey.
One of the things that I like the most about Tiffani is that she is not afraid to be bold, to be controversial to challenge the status quo and you can hear that by the way she responded to some of my questions – sometimes it felt uncomfortable as an interviewer, but I find that is a good thing.
I hope you enjoy Part One of this far-ranging discussion and will join us for Part Two.
LINKS & RESOURCES
- About Tiffani Bova
- “Growth IQ, Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make Or Break Your Business.”
- “What’s Next Podcast with Tiffani Bova”
- Thinkers 50 List
- Transcription Below the Shownotes
As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. I’d love your feedback. Please like the podcast and provide comments or reach out to me at @vincemenzione on Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also like and follow Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook page or drop me a line at vincem@cloudwavepartners.com.
Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ is a rich compendium of what makes successful partnerships and is available on iTunes, Spotify, Google SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai Please excuse any typos.
Vince Menzione 0:39
Tiffany – Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering.
Tiffani Bova 3:05
No thanks for having me again, Vince. It’s a thrill to be here.
Vince Menzione 3:08
It is so great to have you back and your guest almost three years ago, Episode 32. I’m so excited to welcome you back. So much has changed so much has happened in our world. And also with you and so great to have you back for this discussion. Yeah, it
Tiffani Bova 3:22
doesn’t seem like three years ago, that’s for sure. But it’s lots has changed. But it also doesn’t feel like three years.
Vince Menzione 3:28
It’s gone by quickly as I think all of our years and days are kind of meshing together these days. And you know, I said quite a bit as happen, you know, your wall street journal, best selling book growth IQ had not been out yet. And that’s been translated into what seven languages is that? Is that about right? I think it’s nine now.
Tiffani Bova 3:44
Yeah, nine? Yeah, it’s it’s just, it’s crazy. It’s been a crazy ride. It’s been just two years. August was two years.
Vince Menzione 3:51
Wow. And it’s, it’s quite a great book. And we’re gonna talk about that. I love the book. By the way, I love the format of the book as well, like it’s comfortable to just put it in your hands and start reading into it. So we’ll talk about I want to talk a little bit about that topic. We’ve all spent the last six, seven months living through this global pandemic. We’ve seen a rising up in terms of social racial injustice in our society. You’ve had raging fires in the West Coast. We’ve had hurricanes out here on the East Coast, and we’re witnessing an accelerated transformation like we’ve never seen before, during this pandemic. So this is great to have you back and lots of topic areas for us to discuss today. I can’t wait. So I’ve said this before, but you have probably one of the coolest titles and all of it. And likely, I think it’s probably the coolest job from what I could see looking in from the outside but global growth evangelist at Salesforce, your podcast host what’s next podcast is really taken off in a big way. And now you’re a an author. And so you’ve added that to that title. So quite a bit has happened here. We talk about life and you talk about stages in your career in your book, you know being your 20s and your 30s and 40s And enter into your 50s. Oh, I can’t believe that I think you were lying. But we talked about, you know where we are in a point in our life when you go back now, is there a specific personal mission statement that you have like sitting back in your life that says, This is how I inform my life journey?
Tiffani Bova 5:17
Ah, no.
Vince Menzione 5:22
Wow. Well, I thought for sure there was like this post or someplace that said, this is where I want to be at this point in my life,
Tiffani Bova 5:29
where I’m going. So I’ll say mean, that was I was, you know, a little flippant, but honestly, no, I’d say in my 20s, no, for sure. In my 30s, no, I’d say my 30s were a big huge lesson and trust the process and trust your gut, those are sort of kind of two things I tried to live by, especially the trust the process. And in looking back, I trusted my gut. And this is what I mean is in my 30s, I changed jobs like every 18 months, you know, and so, you know, since this is a channel podcast, you know, I was a sales rep for a very small software company. And then I moved to a kind of small site now 100 hundred and 50 million, this is a long time ago. So 19 9600 and $50 million dollar value added reseller, and then we acquired a systems integrator, so we kind of became a much more full service partner, if you will, focused on the legal community. And so as very deep in so the am law, American law, 100 largest law firms across the country and selling hardware and software and services super early in kind of all the things we now take for granted. And when I was changing jobs, I changed them. Because I sort of wanted more, I wanted more of a challenge, I wanted to sell more like I don’t want to just sell software, I don’t want to just sell software and hardware, I don’t want to just sell software, so hardware and service interdomain. Like it was more like I want to be able to really solve some of these big corporate problems, especially as that was really this beginning of the.com bubble, kind of what the web was going to turn into. And I wanted to be a part of it. And so I got very early into the World Wide Web, as it was called back then, I was selling domain names in 1995, literally, so I was super early. And then I was Microsoft’s very first shared web hosting company, we used to get cease and desist letters on a almost weekly basis. Because we were taking spa licenses for those of you listening know what that is spa licenses and splitting them up on a server right putting 200 people’s quote unquote, shared web hosting accounts on one server was used used to just be Unix and Linux. And then we went to Microsoft, and that was 2001. And then I became a look was beta client, constant contacts, beta client and beta client, which then was bought by parallels and cents has been bought by Ingram micro. So that was kind of you know, that was a decade. And those around me would say, Ah, you’re a higher risk, like, you have to be really careful, like changing jobs all these times, right. It looks like you know, you just don’t get along with people or you’re not, you know, accomplishing the goals or you’re getting fired. I mean, who knows, right? But it was everything I just described, I wanted to sort of learn more, and I didn’t know what the reason was, until my very last gig was I was running a division of gateway computers, I was the channel chief at the time, and I helped sort of craft and structure the Intel deal with, with gateway and got us into CW and into zones, and you know, into sort of the direct marketing resell channel. And then I was like, I was just tired. I was burnt. And so I ended up landing at Gartner as an analyst, which was way out of my comfort zone, right. I’m a sales marketer and customer service executive. And now I have to be kind of this thinker analyst. And and it took me a good couple years to learn it. But when I looked back, to answer your question that trust the process was I didn’t know that all those moves, because some of them were lateral. Some of them were down, then some of them were up. I mean, you know, it was really just trying to fill my mind with new learning. I was super curious. And that’s how I satisfied it. And it really served me well at Gartner. Because I could speak to a channel chief or a head of marketing or a head of sales, or a head of customer service in a technology company, whether it be a startup or you know, a fortune one organization and sort of the largest 10 tech, largest 10 tech companies in the world where clients. And so it allowed me to continue to learn even more. So that led me to where I am now. And then the book, but the reason I gave that very long process story is because many people are, you know, they work for one company for good period of time. And even though you might move around, it doesn’t give you that a different perspective. So learning about culture and organization and customers and products and all those things really served me well.
Vince Menzione 9:47
It seems to looking in from the outside that you wanted more like you weren’t fulfilled maybe necessarily with each of those and you went for the next one that was going to give you what you needed. Is that true?
Tiffani Bova 9:58
Yeah, it was a it was a common You know, I think it was I was curious. And I wanted to learn more. And I wanted more of a challenge. And I got bored pretty quick. And so that that was kind of part of it. Or I was a top performer from a selling perspective. And I wanted to not only be an individual contributor, but maybe lead a team, and then lead a group and then lead to, you know, bigger group, and then maybe a division. And so there was also that aspiration as well. And I always went back to my employer and said, Hey, listen, I want more, I’m more curious and what were challenged. You know, I love working here, I love the people. And this is a true statement, I always enjoyed where I worked. And I gave them sort of first right of refusal, if you will, like, give me more responsibility. And you know, and in all cases, they would come back and say, Look, we value you, we don’t want to lose you, but we just don’t have anything for you right now. And some of it was because they were very small organizations, there wasn’t a lot of place to go, right. I mean, you just didn’t have a lot of ability to move, move around, unless I wanted to physically move myself, which I was not willing to do. So you know, back then you had to go into the office, unlike now, and so I would leave. And so when I left, I always left without burning the bridge, right, I left with look, you know, I gave you the opportunity. It’s been 90 days, you haven’t found anything I’m going to I’m going to move on. And so that that’s really how that happened.
Vince Menzione 11:18
And then being a gardener gave you a, I guess a bird’s eye view that the way that the world was operating at the very top of the tech stack. Right. So that was a great role. I got to interface with you there when I was at Microsoft.
Tiffani Bova 11:30
Yeah. And I have to tell you, I mean, to be honest with you, like it was a big shift for me not carrying a quota and not being in sale mode, and not being a seller, and also not being viewed as a salesperson, because you know, sales is sort of the other four letter word. Yes. Right. And so I say that with a huge smile on my face. But you know, it took me it really did, it took me a good two years to kind of find my footing, I sort of ran out of everything I learned in the first two years, you know, like all my wisdom that I had acquired over my 15 or 20 years of my career. Like I blown through that the first two years. So year three, and four was really okay, I I got to start to hone in different skills, listening, formulating thoughts, looking for patterns, looking for signals, seeing commonality around the globe, and by size. And what can little guys teach big guys, and what can big guys teach the little guys and you know, that whole skill set was kind of year three, and four. By the time I hit kind of year four, and five, and six, I started coming up with my own unique IP, you know, around sort of the future, the channel and the future of sales, and really sort of where I thought the go to market motion and selling motion was going to evolve to and I think that a lot of that came from all that knowledge I had behind me at Gartner. You know, there’s 1000 other very smart people that are cranking out content. And I would read it and aggregate it. Okay, what’s the What does this mean to someone who’s a channel partner? What does this mean to somebody who’s an SI or an ISV? or whatever it might be, you know, a direct marketer or a distributor, etc. And then, you know, what’s the impact to someone who is responsible for a direct selling organization or customer service or marketing, and I learned that was my superpower. And once I found that it was sort of like a rocket ship, you know, I immediately went to a VP and then a distinguished analyst, and I ended my career there as a research fellow, which there was only 10 of us at the time is sort of the highest rank, if you will, from an analyst perspective. And that’s when you’re really putting out some impactful customer viewed right, impactful research that’s changing the way business is being done.
Vince Menzione 13:33
So at that point, you’d reach Did you feel like you’d reach the ceiling in terms of where you work gardener and why the move at that point to Salesforce,
Tiffani Bova 13:41
I felt like I was starting to get comfortable. And that was the longest job I had, like I just said, right through my 30s, I was changing jobs every 18 months. So I’d never had a job longer than probably two years, let’s call it, you know, outside of when I was, you know, in my 20s. And so when I hit my 40s I literally joined Gartner. And so I had a 10 year run there. And I was starting, like I said, to feel comfortable. And I also wanted to pivot myself a little bit from it being kind of consumption in my I’m in my career to being more focused on contribution. So I personally shifted from consumption to contribution. And when I hit 50, how do I pivot my career to being more contributing to not only from a corporate standpoint and a growth standpoint, but more of how do I give back? What are things I can do on you know, a quality or, you know, things that I’ve been able to do since I’ve gotten here and also really take my thinking to scale which was the book. And so, you know, I joined Gartner when I turned I mean, Salesforce when I turned 50 and I’m 54 now so I’ve been here, you know, I’m almost 55 anyway, so yeah, so March, but so that’s kind of how that happened was I think I was just starting to feel comfortable and it’s not that I felt like I I had run my runway I was just about to start my fellows project. And I said, Well, you know, the moment I start that project, I was not going to leave for at least three years, because that that wouldn’t be sort of not my personality to sort of start something and not finish it like that. So I knew that if I was going to make the change, I had to do it before I started by project.
Vince Menzione 15:19
Got it. Got it. And so I feel that a lot of the great experiences that you had a gardener, in one way or another found their way into the book, right? There’s a and I love the book, by the way, I went back and re read and listen to your audible as well. And first of all, I think I said this earlier, but I love the way that you formatted the book, right? You have individual stories of what works and what doesn’t work for each one of the growth paths. I love the way it’s inviting like it’s already it’s already outlined in certain spots for you when you get in so you feel comfortable outlining and writing on the book, because it feels like it’s intuitive to do that. Like I just love the way you did that. How did you get to that with the book? Like how did you think through that process,
Tiffani Bova 15:59
I had a piece of advice from a writer who was helping me with my proposal before I had an agent. And before I had a book deal. And he said something to me that I repeat all the time. His name’s Peter. And he said, right, the book you would want to read? And I said, got it. Because I had read 75 of sort of the best business books kind of ever written, right, according to everybody kind of a thing. And I took notes on what did I like, What didn’t I like? What was inviting? What wasn’t inviting? What felt, you know what I mean, clunky or whatever, to me what felt really engaging? What you know, what, what could I take from all those. And I realized very quickly, I have a short attention span, I like stories, I want you to kind of get to the point, it’s kind of the way I communicate Anyway, you know, I’m so used to giving a 20 minute keynote that you’re trying to move in, you know, 5000 people into a certain direction in 20 minutes. So you learn very quickly how to get right to the point and story arc, in speaking and onstage. And how could I translate my style to paper was the hardest thing for me to do, because I’m not a writer in that way. And once he said that, to me, I was like, got it. And so the book became very much the way I speak. It’s 30 short stories, like you said, I underlined things because I know not everyone reads every page, I you know, organized each one exactly the same. So by the time you read sort of the first chapter or two, you knew exactly what you were going to get the rest of the book. And now you could jump around, because it was a logical way for you to dive into certain topics, and then revisit things based on where you were. And the you know, let me tell you what I just told you. So if you don’t like the chapter on john deere, or Red Bull, or Sears or Sephora, then just read the highlighted section, you know that I wanted you to get out of the book and move on. And I can tell you that I’m far more proud of how many people have been had or have had a positive experience with the way I wrote the book as much as I am about the content of the book, really, because I worked really hard. There’s no PowerPoint slide. There’s no Excel. It’s a sketch note. It’s light. It’s not heavy. It’s not. It’s repetitive in the framework, but it’s not repetitive in the concept. And so I really did work hard. And then once I got the publisher, or the agent, and then I got the publisher, and I’m gonna go back to your original question when you said, Did you have it mapped out? That’s when I decided to write the book. That’s when I did a vision board and I said, What do I want? What do I want the next career move to look like? Like when I was going to leave Gartner? You know, what do I want to do? What do I want that to look like? And it was literally like this is the publisher I want this is the agent I want. This is the publicist, I want this is the book I want to read. This is the place I want to work. These are the things I want to do. I want to make it to the thinker’s 50 list. I want to speak at a Drucker event. I want to you know, kind of all that stuff. And I did put that on a vision board.
Vince Menzione 18:56
You did? Okay. It’s hard to believe that you didn’t have like a path, like your path already lined up in some way or fashion just by watching your trajectory over the years.
Tiffani Bova 19:04
Yeah, I didn’t. I didn’t really do that until I saw where the market had told me I played a role. And I think that was something else. There’s a book by Sally hogshead, who talks about sort of, you know, what is your I’m a Maestro in her framework. And it was about how do people see you? And what are your superpowers? And so literally Vince’s you know, you know, I was and I still do, but I was probably doing at that time, I don’t know 40 5060 keynotes a year or something, you know, months every major partner event around the globe. And I would say to people because they don’t be like, Oh, we want a copy of your slides. So anyone listening knows my trick. I’d be like, you can have a copy of the slides, but you have to email me feedback on what I said. And here’s my email address. And so I would probably get depending on the size of the room, about 10% of the people would want the deck and I would get that much feedback on a weekly basis from my keynotes. I liked this This stood out to me. Were you sitting at our staff meeting? Oh my god, you nailed it to, I don’t agree with you at all, I think you’re way off the mark. This is what I didn’t agree with. I was actually insulted whatever it might be. And I took all that to heart. And so every week, I was just slight little pivots and what I was saying the stories I was giving, how I was presenting it, how I was saying it, and people would literally say, I don’t know how you stay on the pulse. So that’s how I did it. Because I was getting so much feedback in real time. And I could adjust in real time in my presentations, and in my, you know, keynotes and in my podcasts and and all the things I was doing, right.
Vince Menzione 20:35
Yep, that’s excellent advice.
Tiffani Bova 20:36
And then I would hear from people on what they thought of my content, and also what they thought of me. And that shaped what, Okay, forget what I think of me, what is the market think of me, right? And so that helped me sort of craft, where is my value? It I actually rewrote my LinkedIn profile, I rewrote, you know, my bio, I did all that. And I used words that people would use to describe me instead of what sort of I thought, right. And, and once I understood that, then that’s when I laid out the vision board. Okay, this is the path that I accidentally have carved out for myself, right? Yep. And what the market is now saying, you know, I, you should never call yourself a thought leader. Someone goes, Oh, she’s a thought leader. Okay. All right, right. Or she’s a game changer, or, you know, she’s on point or whatever it might be like, that’s what they say what people have said, and and I’m so grateful and thankful for all the feedback. And I’m actually equally thankful for the harsh feedback too, because it, listen, it’s it’s all about getting better. So
Vince Menzione 21:39
absolutely, that’s the best feedback and impact. So the feedback loop was constant, it was persistent. I love I love that. I love that analogy, and how you how you got that from people. And you use that to chart your course. And so you didn’t start out with a personal mission statement, but you eventually got there based on your vision board and what you’ve gotten in your feedback.
Tiffani Bova 21:58
Yeah, and I think that this goes, I think this has a lot to do with sort of, I was an athlete, very young, played sports, very young, and then got very competitive, very young, I was playing competitive tennis at literally nine. And I was number one in my state 910 11 for singles, girls tennis as a kid. But that taught, you know, everything around coaching and getting feedback, and you know, winning in a humble way, losing with your head held high, always trying to improve that it’s all about practice, you’re gonna get sore, you know, you know, you’re gonna feel scared and uncomfortable, and all those things from the age of like, you know, in a competitive sense, from the age of like nine to probably 23. And so that’s a long time to you know, it’s like, that’s why like sales, you’re told daily, you suck.
Vince Menzione 22:49
That’s right.
Tiffani Bova 22:51
I mean, right, you get hung up on no one answers your emails, like you could really take it personally. And so, you know, that’s why I think sales was a way for me in a professional sense to stay competitive. And also take the same kind of mindset I had as an athlete and apply it to my work. Like, okay, let me figure out how do I get stronger, faster? How do I if I played volleyball, like, how do I get a higher jump? You know, or how do I, you know, I was a paddle from Hawaii. So I was a canoe paddler. And so we’re in the middle of the ocean. Like if I had to hold my breath, how do I hold my breath longer? Like, how do I you know what I mean? Like, you just got to go out there. And you have to practice, practice, practice. And hopefully it all comes together. And that’s what I feel about what I do now and what I feel about selling and what I feel about writing a book like it’s just all about practice.
Vince Menzione 23:37
Lots of great nuggets there from Tiffani Bova one of the things that I like most about Tiffany is she is not afraid to be bold, to be controversial, to challenge the status quo. And you can hear that by the way, she responds to some of my questions. Sometimes it even feels uncomfortable as an interviewer. But I find that to be a good thing, as it challenges us all to be bold. I hope you enjoyed this far ranging discussion, and will join us for part two. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide partnering and where they can find us and i’d love your feedback. Please like the podcast and provide comments or reach out to me at Vince Menzione on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also like and follow Ultimate Guide to partnering on our Facebook page, or drop me a line at events em at Cloud way. partners.com Thank you for listening. And I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Announcer 24:35
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 slash Ultimate Guide to partnering. We’ll catch you next time on The Ultimate Guide to partnering
Transcribed by https://otter.ai