Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
For this episode of the podcast, I am pleased to welcome Cassandra Gholston, the Co-Founder & CEO of PartnerTap. I’ve known Cassandra since the early days of PartnerTap, so it was great to have her as a guest to discuss the success of her company and a topic we are both passionate about, Partner Co-Selling. In this episode, Cassandra and I both agree that trust, commitment, and focus are critical factors to successful co-selling and partnerships.
As CEO, Cassandra is responsible for the strategic vision of PartnerTap. Before founding PartnerTap, Cassandra spent her career in sales as a top performer in SaaS companies. She obtained multiple President’s Clubs and awards. She drives to make the jobs of channel and sales teams more lucrative through PartnerTap. Cassandra is passionate about giving back with a focus on charities around autism and youth.
I was an early fan of Cassandra and PartnerTap, so it was great to have this discussion on how technology has become a key enabler to the process of getting results. We both agree that overlook partnership first principles is often the kryptonite to successful partnering.
In this episode, Cassandra and I go deep on co-selling fundamentals for successful partnerships, how customers use her technology for success, her perspective and journey as a woman CEO in the tech sector, and trends she sees in the partner universe.
I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed my time with Cassandra Gholston.
LINKS & RESOURCES
- Follow Cassandra Gholston on Linked In, Twitter.
- More About PartnerTap
- Above the Line / Below the Line
- About Vince Menzione
- Subscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Audible, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!
- Follow or reach Vince – Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
- Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook
- Drop me a line – vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com.
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.
This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships.
Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below
Cassandra Gholston, 0:00
I think the companies that are focused on building out their ecosystems and really focused on, you know, those key strategic partners, that trust building, we’re going to see them come out as the leaders. And these leaders might look completely different than who we’re seeing today.
Announcer 0:24
Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. In this podcast, Vince Menzione. a proven industry sales and partner executive brings together technology leaders in this forum to discuss transformational trends and to deconstruct successful strategies to thrive and survive in the rapid age of cloud transformation. And now, your host, Vince Menzione.
Vince Menzione 0:54
Welcome, or Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host. And as we kick off the four year anniversary of this podcast, I’m thankful to all of the amazing thought and business leaders who’ve come to this podcast to share principles, success strategies, and best practices that help technology organizations thrive during this age of change and transformation. for this episode of the series, I was delighted to welcome a friend and a woman I admire Cassandra Gholston, the CEO of partner tap, a partner ecosystem technology platform where she is responsible for this strategic vision of the company. I’ve known Cassandra since the early days of partner tap, and she is taking the sector by storm focused on partner ecosystems, and helping organizations get the best results from co-selling. In this episode, Cassandra and I go deep on a topic, we’re both passionate about partnering and co-selling. I hope you enjoy this interview, as much as I enjoyed my time with my friend, Cassandra Gholston. Cassandra, welcome to the podcast.
Cassandra Gholston, 2:10
Thank you, man.
I’m excited to be here.
Vince Menzione 2:13
I am excited to welcome you as a guest to the Ultimate Guide to partnering. Our paths have been crossing for at least four years now. You’re the CEO of partner tap, a partner ecosystem technology platform, and an amazing entrepreneur and doing great work in this ecosystem. So I’m really looking forward to this conversation. Me too. Thanks.
So for listeners who don’t know, can you tell us a little bit about partner tap?
Unknown Speaker 2:39
Sure. So at partner tab, we are basically an ecosystem platform that really helps companies drive revenue from each partnership. And so what we do at our core, is you can think of partner tap like a Switzerland, we sit in between two partnering companies that are looking to share data. And what they do is they’re sharing account data. And we’re basically mapping that data across their ecosystem of partners, so that the companies are able to understand where they should be going to market with each partner. Can we do that at a channel level, and we also take it all the way down to the sales floor, where large organizations are actually having sales teams, Cosell on our platform. So really exciting time for partner tap, especially right now.
Vince Menzione 3:42
And how did this technology evolve? Like, how did you get started?
Cassandra Gholston, 3:46
So this really evolved out of a problem that I had myself, I had been in software sales for many years, I was co-selling, and it was an issue were trying to understand once you build trust with your partners, where could you go deeper? What account should you be focused on? And figuring that out was a completely manual process you, you know, might be inside of a really large organization and that organizations has hundreds of partner companies, which one should you be working with on each deal? And that question is so difficult when you’re, you know, just one person sitting inside of a large company with partnering with other large companies. So it was in that where I just thought, you know, there’s got to be an easier way to do this. I know that I could make more money personally, if I had a tool that maps me against my partners showed me which opportunities we should be co-selling on. We were doing this manually. So I studied the market and really saw that there, what was happening was more companies were being born in the cloud, more companies were going to be co-selling in the future. And there was a big market opportunity to build a technology. So fast forward four years, we have some of the largest enterprises using our technology today. And we have evolved from not just a sales co-selling application, but really to full ecosystem application. So it’s really exciting.
Vince Menzione 5:37
So when I started out, in the world of partnering, we would take a spreadsheet, and we would send it over to a partner, and we would compare territories we look at, you know, try to get account mapping and try and get some triangulation there. Have you taken that a step further? Like what happens? How do I know which partner to work with? By the way? How does that all happen within the technology?
Cassandra Gholston, 5:59
So there’s a lot of different factors about which partner you should be working with. But at the core at the at a data level, right? It’s understanding which you really should be co-selling with your most strategic partners first, right? Those are the partners that you’ve already have trust built up. So using an application to map data and understand which companies you should be working with. First step is, I’ve got to trust my partner, because we’re going to be sharing information. So with partner tab, you’re putting in, you know, the Switzerland space. So we’re saying we do trust each other, we’re bringing the data in, and then based on a lot of different fields, right, that are inside of companies CRM system, like, you know, which of my customers have the highest NPS? And how does that map to my partner’s prospects, or our mutual customers have these mutual customers, which ones have the highest NPS, these are probably the ones that we can expand together, or these are the ones that I can recommend my partner to sell into. So there’s a lot of different information that we can pull in that is that lives inside of the CRM system. And that’s what we are showing, and basically providing insights to our customers on where where this maps in between the two organizations and which ones you should focus on.
Vince Menzione 7:37
You know, you mentioned an interesting point here, which is very true around trust, is there a qualitative measure, like I, I take some of my clients through a triage exercise in terms of selecting the right partners in which to co sell with, is there some type of qualitative process or quantitative process you do within the system.
Cassandra Gholston, 7:55
So in the system, we immediately know who trusts each other by how much data they share, are men for an open co-selling relationship, they’re going to share everything for a untrustworthy partnership, they might share a subset, a very small subset. So that’s how we know in our system, but I think it’s with companies that are looking to you know, I want to I want to build out a Cosell program, the number one thing that has to happen is both sides of the partnership need to be compensated, there needs to be some sort of compensation. And if we’re taking this down to the field level, where sales teams are going to work hand in hand together, on deals, each side has to feel like there’s something in it for them to help the park to, to bring the partner in or work together with a partner. And so often these programs fail, because one side doesn’t have as much compensation. So there’s nothing in it for them to work with the partner. So that becomes really difficult. And it’s why so many companies are furious that they sign up and they think that they’re going to be co-selling with a larger company, when in reality, their compensation isn’t there. So So that’s number one. But then beyond compensation, it’s trust, right? So even if our two companies are compensating both sides, if we go down to the field level, and I’ve heard that this part, you know, there’s some sort of channel conflict that has happened that can just go through the organization like a wave, and all of the sales people in you know a certain territory are saying, I’m not going to ever work with this partner. So Co-selling is extremely difficult because there’s so many levels. It’s not just at the channel level, where you’re building trust, it’s going down to the field level, it’s going down to those sales leaders. Everybody has to be all in on both sides.
Vince Menzione 10:24
You know, you’re struck a really strong chord here with me, because I find that partners often struggle making the transition, right? They come together in these Kumbaya meetings, I call them. And then transitioning from that, yeah, we’re gonna go charge up the mountain, we’re going to take on the world together, and then nothing ever happens. And it’s what I call where the rubber meets the road, this traction, this actual co-selling, you brought up a couple points here, right around trust around compensation. Why do you think organizations do get stuck?
Cassandra Gholston, 10:56
I think that I think number one is they a lot of these companies are doing Cosell because that’s what everybody is talking about. But they have come from a culture that is not about sharing information and partnering in in this new way. They’re coming from a culture where they were very guarded with their partners, maybe it was a completely traditional resell partnership. A lot of times there isn’t that trust, even though these companies have partnered together forever. And so they’re trying to shift a sales culture that was not partner friendly, to a completely friendly partner culture where we’re open, we’re sharing, I talked to so many companies that say, you know, they come from the Kumbaya meeting, but they’re not sharing accounts. So if you’re not going to share accounts, and we’re really supposed to Cosell together, then you’ve got to go back to square one. And that Kumbaya meeting needs to happen, you need to have more of those, right? Because you don’t have the trust built up. It’s with partnerships 60% of your meetings that you have, whether it’s at the channel level, whether it’s at the sales leader level, or the sales rep level, 60% of those meetings are relationship building. And especially right now, that’s very difficult when we don’t have conferences, happy hours, lunches, just that human communication, where we’re in person building, that trust is more difficult now than ever. And so when we are on these meetings with partners, virtually, we have to remember that we have to spend time relationship building to get that trust factor, if the partner is not going to be willing to share data, you have a lot more work to do. I’ve also heard companies say, you know, our partners won’t give us list. And I said, Well, have you asked them and nine times out of 10, they don’t even ask for you to share data. And it’s it’s like, if you’re going to Cosell together, then you need to understand what accounts you’re going to be working on. Where’s the go to market strategy? You have to know the data in between, right? And sometimes it’s going to take a lot longer to get to that. But if you’re not asking, right, okay, well, let’s, let’s understand where our data overlaps. And which accounts we should mark it together on right now out of the gate, you’re not asking that then just know your competitor is because I’ll tell you, we have companies working with the largest companies, and the large companies are providing lists to everybody that’s asking. So I think that’s that’s step one is after that Kumbaya meeting, really, you have to put a plan in place. And that plan has to be around. Where is that intersection point that we should where’s the low hanging fruit right now where we can have that success out of the gate?
Vince Menzione 14:27
You know, you brought up a couple of points here that I believe are key one was around mindset, right? The organization has to have I’ll call it an abundance mindset, a growth mindset, a forward mindset around partnering so many organizations, so many SAS software companies come at the world at a very like we can sell it all. We don’t need a channel. I don’t want to share my leads. I don’t want to share my customers. I don’t trust you. I don’t want you involved in my accounts, right. So there’s that added there’s that mindset. And then you mentioned two other things that are kind of key to me. One is around Sort of the commitment, the commitment to have the meetings to continue to drive and to share lists. And then I think the other piece, and you kind of touched on this one as well was around focus, like, we need to focus, like we need to have focus on execution of Co-selling.
Cassandra Gholston, 15:15
Right, right. And I think one of the big ways to have focus is we’re setting expectations, right? Because even in a co sell relationship, there can be some areas where we might compete. And so how do we both trust each other, but also compete in in other areas. And this is where it gets complicated. And this is another reason why these programs fail a lot. And best partner leaders that I’ve talked to are great at setting expectations. They think they’ve learned early on in their career, they’ve had things happen, where it’s burned them. And so just setting the expectations of you, here’s where we’re going to work together. And I’m going to make sure that we’re above board. And if we are in an opportunity, that where we’re competitive, we’re just taking that off the table. And just the fact that knowing we’re not here to gain insights to compete with you, in this area of our business, we’re gonna go full trusting, and we’re gonna work together over here, you know, we’re, we’re gonna compete, but it’s separate. So it’s expectation setting that will help the two companies definitely focus. And understanding where that middle ground is where we can Cosell and focusing just there. That’s why these platforms right now, these data sharing platforms are flourishing, because of the way that partnerships are changing due to the cloud. Yeah,
Vince Menzione 17:08
you bring up some really great points, I’d love to peel back a little bit more, you talked about those types of clients, can you share with us where you focus who some of your key customers are in the market, and why they selected partner tap?
Cassandra Gholston, 17:21
Sure, one of the companies that we’ve been working with for a long time, and we’ve done a lot of expansion inside of their organization, is ADP. And it’s a great example of a company where, you know, they compete with their partners, but they also co sell and, you know, partner tap is really given them a way to focus in in specific areas where they can co sell and, you know, leave the rest of that data private. So, so we, we can find a middle ground where our teams are going to work together. And in some of these partnerships, they’ve taken it all the way down to the field level, where their field teams know this specific field rep in the other company that they should be working with on particular opportunities. And then we also have an instance where their marketplace, right uses partner tap, specifically for understanding where do we have mutual customers with these partners? Because the marketplace, you know, these these, they’re adps customers are actually making purchases right through through the Marketplace. So that understanding of which customers should they be marketing to, you know, when they’re in the payroll platform, based on, you know, where they have these mutual customers across their ecosystem, and understanding which of these customers have the highest propensity to buy through the Marketplace. So it’s just been an interesting account for us because they have so many different complexities of in instances of partner
Vince Menzione 19:23
tab. Yeah. And, you know, when you mentioned marketplaces, they were sort of ahead of the game there. Right. And a lot of the, you know, the hyper scalars were falling behind ADP in terms of the use of a marketplace to deliver the solution.
Cassandra Gholston, 19:35
Yes, yes. And now we’re seeing marketplaces, everyone’s creating a marketplace, which is good because that’s the way people are buying and that is the future, especially now with the pandemic. I mean, it is really fast forwarded this digital transformation, light years, right. I mean, we so it’s The companies that are there now, it’s great that companies that are getting there, good, you’re you’re a little behind, but it’s forced us all to definitely work differently and, and think of different strategies to connect with, with our buyers. You know,
Vince Menzione 20:16
you brought up a really great point about the pandemic, and this time like no other and marketplaces are becoming more prevalent now, because of what’s happening people are people are doing their own shopping, right? We’re shopping online, we’re not necessarily you’re not going into the grocery store, you’re ordering online, and so on. What else have you seen that you didn’t expect to see this past year? During this time,
Cassandra Gholston, 20:40
I think the one thing that really weighs heavy on me, honestly, is women leaving the workforce in droves. That’s something that I think about probably on a daily basis, I think, you know, we were already limited to, you know, women in technology, we were making a lot of leaps, and we’re going in, in a great direction. And the pandemic has forced a lot of women to have to leave the workforce. And it’s, it’s really sad, as, as a leader, myself, I mean, we, we have an employee that that, you know, had to had to take a leave. And so just, it’s, that’s one thing that I just didn’t foresee. But if you can imagine trying to run a high power career, you have kids at home, and one person needs to stay home and homeschool, because that is so difficult. It’s falling on women’s shoulders. And so for me, as a leader, I just, I want to be as supportive as possible. And and I just hope that when this all is over, and who knows if it’s even going to be over at the end of 2021. It’s just uncertain right now, what is going to happen when those women try to come back into the workforce. And I think as as business leaders, we need to welcome them back. But it’s depressing statistics, honestly, reading it, living it too, right. But fortunately, our key employee was able to come back. But you know, having somebody that, you know, all of a sudden, it’s just homeschooling isn’t working. And I have to, I have to leave. That’s, that’s, that’s so tough.
Vince Menzione 22:43
It is very tough. And you know, we’ve seen this negative result. And I Gabrielle Schuster, on the podcast before the end of the year, we talked about the decrease of women in technology from I think it was 36%, down to 27% over the last several years. And now to see this happen, we really need to work on this. This is certainly an issue. I’ve had other women in technology leaders on as well, I think it’s an issue we need to take up as a technology community, if you will, right, driving the right results or driving it back in the right direction, right? Yeah. So it is a tough topic. And we could we could spend a lot of time here. And I would like to spend more time here in the future. But as you know, this series of the podcast is focused on how are we moving forward into 2021. And I’m focusing on asking each of the leaders in this space about their predictions and advice for partners coming out of 2020 and into 2021. What advice would you give our listeners to help them optimize success in 2021?
Cassandra Gholston, 23:46
My advice is really to take a deep look inside of your partner ecosystem. And really ask yourself, which of these partner companies have I built the most trust with? Where are those gaps? I think right now we because we’re not flying around, and we’re not traveling and we’re in one spot, I think it’s we have more time to reflect. And I think the companies that are focused on building out their ecosystems and really focused on, you know, those key strategic partners and that trust building, we’re gonna see them come out as the leaders. And these leaders might look completely different than who we’re seeing today. Just because the people that were leading channels really looked at, you know, who who are we going to take to the next level in 2021? Who in the ecosystem is it and what work do we need to do around trust building?
Vince Menzione 24:55
So you came back to trust building so I wanted I want to emphasize that right? You Do you believe that that is a key attribute to success in 2021?
Cassandra Gholston, 25:03
Absolutely.
Vince Menzione 25:04
So as you know, I focus in on this podcast on what characteristics make a great partnership and why they fail. And we’ve been talking about trust building. So I’m also hoping to pivot a little bit here too, as well, like, what characteristics Do you believe make a great partnership? Number one,
Cassandra Gholston, 25:23
there needs to be, there needs to be a win win for both sides. And, you know, if both sides are coming to the table, and there is a real Win Win and the partnership, there is a recipe, there are the ingredient for success. And then beyond that, it needs to be trust. And beyond that it needs to be we’re going to be sharing information together. And we’re going to be open. And I think those three things are, are the keys to making a great partnership successful. There’s a lot of other work that goes in, and I know you do a lot of that work. But those are the three the top three things that I think about need to happen after that kumaon meeting. Right, that you talked about,
Vince Menzione 26:19
I agree with you, I agree with you so much of what you just said is so foundational, and you know, information sharing isn’t a one time thing, right? It’s not just sharing that lead. It’s it is a continual process. And one of the things I talk about with Co-selling is it’s it’s not just we had a phone call, like we have a dialogue we meet once a month, I have a regular ongoing with you to understand situationally, where are you with this customer? Where am I with this customer? Because there’s a triangulation that needs to happen in order to be more successful together in that account that isn’t just a one and done type of thing.
Cassandra Gholston, 26:52
Right? Right. It’s a constant work. It’s constantly working at the relationship and making sure that there is a win win there. And once once one side stops winning, that’s when the partnership starts to go downhill. And so recognizing that before it happens,
Vince Menzione 27:15
is there any instance or situation you recall, where you saw, like a partnership fall apart? Like, what do you believe was the kryptonite? Like, what would you have said to them, just to get them back on the right path,
Cassandra Gholston, 27:28
I think partnerships will fall apart. They’ll they’ll fall apart, I’ve seen a lot fall apart really quickly. You know, there’s this big kickoff and, and then nothing. So see that all the time, when you have a really long term partnership that falls apart. It’s a lot of work to rebuild. But it can be done, though. I’ve seen that happen to where, you know, these are 20 year partnerships, huge issue, channel conflict comes up. And you know, it’s a couple years to rebuild, rebuild that partnership, it can be done. But most of them fail right after they launch.
Vince Menzione 28:10
Yeah, they didn’t get started. That’s where the traction doesn’t happen. The rubber doesn’t meet the road, we never get beyond that initial Kumbaya, right. And then the older partnerships, it’s almost like you know, it, this is so analogous to marriage or relationships, personal relationships. So the older relationship, like I’ve got a lot of baggage built up over. And the first thing that happens, I run, I run, I’m like I’ve had it this is. But I do see this so much so often, in these long term business relationships, that and also where they stall, they just stall because we think we know the partner, and you knew the partner 20 years ago, but the world has changed. Our technologies evolved, our marketplace has changed. And I haven’t I haven’t evolved with it right.
Cassandra Gholston, 28:57
And the players have changed in both organizations. So you’re constantly relationship building with new players. So true. That’s the other difficult part. There’s so many complexities about
Vince Menzione 29:11
there. I love this conversation. This is so like, we could go here all day. Let’s have a couple of cups of coffee here. But I know I know our listeners are gonna want to turn turn us off at some point. So I do want to talk about you and your career a little bit more. You’re you’re a woman, entrepreneur in technology, still a very male dominated world. We talked about the percentages here. We’ve, you know, Gabriella Schuster has done an amazing job. I love her TED Talk. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to it or watch it. It’s amazing. What were their challenges that you needed to overcome Getting Started? And what advice would you give to anyone starting their own technology company?
Cassandra Gholston, 29:52
You know, I was very lucky that I spent the last five years before founding this company. In pretty much a woman led division, Elena donyo, was a GM of our division. And she actually became the president of concur two years before, you know, I left and across the org in Elena’s division, it was really 5050, male and female. And when you see that, it just doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t resonate with me that there’s, you know, that you can’t go and build a company or you can’t go become president of your organization. There’s another woman crystal beam on, she became the CFO, and she reported to Elena, and she now is the CEO of talent. And she just brought four executives for female executives with her over to talent. And, you know, there’s all this press about, I can’t believe that she’d bring four females with her. But Had it been the inverse, you know, there, there would have been no press about it. But I think it’s, it’s, you know, for women like crystal for women like myself, for all the female leaders that I worked alongside, it was just there wasn’t a difference, you never felt that, like you are less than or you couldn’t do something it you just saw, you watch the example. And it was being done. And so it, you know, founding a company, I realized that yes, there are not very many female founders. But that’s exciting. That’s a lot of opportunity. And I want to be an example, just like Elena was to me, for other entrepreneurs that are females. I mean, it doesn’t, it really doesn’t matter. And I’ve always, you know, before that worked in, worked on the sales floor, and that’s, you just have a tough skin.
Vince Menzione 32:00
I love it.
Cassandra Gholston, 32:01
I love it, things don’t faze you like that. You just can’t let that stuff they do. So I was really lucky, I think because I guess everywhere else, it wasn’t 5050. And there weren’t a lot of examples of women leaders, but
Vince Menzione 32:17
it you know, I’ve worked in both I’ve worked in organizations that were 5050 and organizations that were very heavily skewed male, very different organizations culturally, as you might imagine, was there any one piece of advice you received, either when you got started in tech, or when you started partner tap that you could share with our listeners,
Cassandra Gholston, 32:35
you know, there was one piece of advice, and it was from Nicole Sanger. And she said, never look back and never think could have should have would just go
Vince Menzione 32:48
Just go. I love that. And what did then what did that how did you interpret that? And what was your action from that?
Cassandra Gholston, 32:54
Well, I think in the early days, you can do a lot of coulda, shoulda, woulda, and I would always come back to her advice. And, you know, it’s that growth mindset is all about mindset. And just going forward, you just, you know, you’re in the moment, you’re working on what you need to work on. Because you’re you’re going forward. And so looking back and thinking those things like you have to keep that out of your head. I just listened to the Have you heard the above the line below the line? Where are you right now?
Vince Menzione 33:30
I am not sure that with me.
Cassandra Gholston, 33:32
So it’s about living above the line. And when we live above the line, we’re in a curiosity space, we’re in a learning space, we’re open. When we’re below the line which the human brain and humans are, we’re conditioned to live below the line, where were you having negative thoughts? It’s a survival mechanism. You know, we’re guarding ourselves. Well, that below the line space that we’re conditioned to live in, is, is a space where, you know, we it’s hard to move forward. And so there’s this practice of just asking yourself, where am I? Am I above the line? Or am I below the line right now? And you know, to get to that where am I spaces is about, you know, coming into exactly where you are, that’s, you know, touching into, you know, opening your senses of, you know, sight, sound, smell, touch, right and, and just grounding yourself in the right now and going no, I’m above the line. So I am in a learning mode. I am in a curiosity mode, I’m open, and that’s where we need to live if we are going to be high performing. And we’re going to build companies, listen to customers and you know, keep iterating For us a partner tab, it’s all about focusing on what truly does drive revenue and partnerships, and building the features that really help those companies do just that. And being in that space of curiosity and learning about what what, what is that next thing that we need to do to help these companies grow more revenue? What is that?
Vince Menzione 35:25
I love that, you know, I didn’t know the above and below the line, but it’s analogous to, you know, our brain, our reptilian monkey brain, if you will, that was fight or flight. And then our mind which we can control, we can learn to control our mind and our thoughts and our focus and, you know, mindfulness, that mindfulness piece is the software. And the brain is the hardware, I see it that sort of see it from that same analogous way. But focusing being mindful focusing what our intentions are, is what I’m hearing you say here. And in your case, it’s the focus on the business is what I’m hearing. Tell me a little bit more about, what is your vision for partner tap? And where do you want to take this.
Cassandra Gholston, 36:08
So my vision for partner tap is really connecting the organizations around the world, whether they partner in a b2b capacity or a b2c capacity, it’s really about driving more revenue with each partnership. So that’s number one. Number two, on where this company goes, this is a mate, a huge market opportunity. This is a company that can go to an IPO, we’ve grown faster, due to the pandemic, we’ve grown more in the last six months than we didn’t four years, this isn’t going to change, it’s just accelerated what what is, you know, been happening it, you know, inside of companies. So it’s an exciting time. And there’s the sky’s the limit for partner tap,
Vince Menzione 37:03
if you had a billboard, and this is a metaphor for a message you want to send out to the world, what would that billboard say on it? And why?
Cassandra Gholston, 37:13
Well, right now, what I would say is, drive more revenue with every partner partner dat, that’s what I would say, for love that. For a personal billboard, I mean, we talked a lot about women entrepreneurs and female leadership. And, you know, my message to every young woman out there is you can do anything, and that you put your mind to, and, you know, I was, I had a wonderful upbringing, and, and, you know, my mom stayed at home, but my father was just a workaholic. And, you know, he just always told me, you can do anything, if if you want to go run a company, you can do it. If you know, you want to be that the top salesperson in the company, you can do it. So just having, you know, that cheerleader my entire life is has just been awesome. And not everybody has that. And so I think I think my my billboard would, would be for, for all those females that you have that male figure that supports you, because it is about male males supporting females, especially right now, especially when we’re seeing women leave in droves. And like you said, with your conversation with Gabrielle Schuster, you know, we’re seeing a decline with women in tech that that’s just disheartening to me. So, you know, we need we need, we need those male allies to help champion females.
Vince Menzione 38:56
I love that. And so the billboard would read,
Cassandra Gholston, 38:59
you can do whatever you put your mind to,
Vince Menzione 39:01
you can do whatever you put your mind to. I love that. I love that Billboard. And to all of my fellow males out there, we need to be learned to be more supportive, be good allies, and not just allies. I use the term champions. I can’t the weak champions, are what we need to be in order to help make this change that we want to see in this world. Yes. Cassandra, one more question for you. You’ve been an amazing guest. You’re having a dinner party, and you can invite any three guests to this dinner party from the present or the past. And hopefully it’ll be a socially distance dinner in Arizona and that beautiful setting that you’re in right now. I might stop by because I do love Arizona. As much as I love Florida. Who would you invite to this dinner party and why
Cassandra Gholston, 39:49
can we pretend that socially distance is over and we’re out?
Vince Menzione 39:54
Yeah, we can we can Let’s do this. Let’s Let’s all be vaccinated for it. How’s that? Well, I’ll be good.
Cassandra Gholston, 40:00
Yes. So I know the person the people that I would love to have dinner with right now are alive. I would love to have dinner with Oprah and Gayle, for sure. I, I look at Oprah as definitely somebody that overcame so many obstacles. And I just, I love her. I love her. And I love Gail, too. They are power power women. And then I would I would have to bring autumn Grimm.
It would be really, for those of
Vince Menzione 40:35
us on the podcast who don’t know who I miss, maybe you can share?
Cassandra Gholston, 40:40
Yes. So autumn Graham is my co founder, I would definitely have to bring her because if I had a dinner with Oprah and Gayle and she wasn’t there, she’d be really upset. And I know we have a great time at dinner with those two.
Vince Menzione 40:53
I love it. Oprah Gail and autumn.
Cassandra Gholston, 40:56
Yes.
Vince Menzione 40:57
What a great dinner. What are you gonna serve?
Cassandra Gholston, 40:59
Well, I would hope that Oprah chef is cooking.
Vince Menzione 41:04
Come on, and it’s gonna Yeah, it’s gonna be
Cassandra Gholston, 41:08
a nerd, you know, to the nines. I’m ready.
Vince Menzione 41:12
I want to thank you. You have been an amazing guest. I am so excited and charged by what you were doing in the world, both as a CEO of partner tap and the great technology you’re driving and also as a female entrepreneur, woman entrepreneur, leading the charge right now in tech. So I want to thank you for joining the Ultimate Guide to partnering. Cassandra.
Unknown Speaker 41:33
Thanks for having me Vince.
Vince Menzione 41:36
As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please subscribe on your favorite platform, like comment, tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to 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 Vince m at ultimate dash partnerships.com this episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships, get partnerships right, optimize for success, deliver results. For more information, go to Ultimate-Partnerships.com
Transcribed by https://otter.ai