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Miri Rodriguez Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®
I was thrilled to welcome Miri Rodriguez to Ultimate Guide to Partnering for our first in person interview at our Boca Studio. Miri is a multifaceted professional with an impressive track record, recognized as an award-winning writer and an extraordinary public speaker. In her role as the Chief Storyteller at Microsoft, Miri has harnessed the power of narrative to create deep, personal connections between brands and their audiences. Her ability to blend creativity with strategy has made her a sought-after voice in the industry, inspiring countless individuals and organizations to rethink how they communicate and engage.
As an expert in brand storytelling and the award-winning author of Brand Storytelling, Miri has redefined how companies approach marketing, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and emotional resonance. Her work demonstrates that storytelling is not just a tool but a transformative experience that can elevate a brand’s presence and impact. Through her insights and expertise, Miri Rodriguez continues to shape the future of marketing, empowering brands to build meaningful, lasting relationships with their audiences.
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
1. Introduction and Branding as a Feeling (00:00:00 – 00:08:00)
- Key Highlight: Miri emphasizes that the brand is essentially how you make your customers feel, marking the importance of emotional connection.
- Timestamp: [00:00:00] Miri’s intro on what a brand represents, and [00:07:28] brand as a feeling.
2. Miri’s Journey and Microsoft’s Storytelling Evolution (00:08:00 – 00:14:00)
- Key Highlight: Miri shares her career path and how Satya Nadella’s leadership at Microsoft transformed the company into an open and authentic brand.
- Timestamp: [00:08:16] Miri’s 12-year journey at Microsoft and evolving roles, [00:13:00] storytelling’s rise within the company.
3. The Power of Brand Storytelling & Why It Matters (00:14:00 – 00:18:30)
- Key Highlight: Vince and Miri discuss how brand story helps build partner relationships and customer loyalty and why it’s fundamental to every business strategy.
- Timestamp: [00:15:00] Telling the brand story correctly, [00:17:10] storytelling as a critical aspect for partners.
4. Infusing Brand and Story Across Business Verticals (00:18:30 – 00:22:00)
- Key Highlight: The importance of integrating brand storytelling across all business areas, including sales, finance, operations, and customer service.
- Timestamp: [00:19:00] Story as a product, [00:21:10] aligning all business units to a cohesive story.
5. The Role of Empathy in Brand Storytelling (00:28:30 – 00:35:00)
- Key Highlight: Discussing Satya’s focus on empathy as a skill set and how it transformed Microsoft’s approach to storytelling and leadership.
- Timestamp: [00:29:00] Satya’s leadership and vulnerability, [00:34:00] how leaders should integrate empathy into their brand and story.
6. The Future of Storytelling with AI (00:40:00 – 00:45:00)
- Key Highlight: Miri introduces her new AI project—a women-focused large language model—and discusses how AI can enhance storytelling.
- Timestamp: [00:41:00] Leveraging AI to scale personal mentorship and storytelling.
7. Practical Storytelling Strategies for Executives (00:48:00 – 00:54:00)
- Key Highlight: Advice for leaders on leveraging storytelling to connect with their audiences and align their teams.
- Timestamp: [00:50:00] Miri discusses the intersection of legacy and empathy in leadership storytelling.
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Miri: The brand is everything. The brand is how you make your customers feel. Essentially, that’s what it is. So when you think about what is my brand, it’s a feeling.
[00:00:11] INTRO: Microsoft’s purpose is in service of your purpose. And again, 2024 is the year that partners come out as the leading edge of the spear on finding this buyer intent. You show up to every meeting and demonstrate why you are relevant.
[00:00:26] INTRO: Every day I have to force myself to make sure that I’m taking one step ahead in terms of my own learning.
[00:00:31] Vince INTRO: That flywheel of success is where you will build momentum and that momentum will continue. And then you feed into the other systems to say, this is what we did. This is how we did it together.
[00:00:40] Vince: Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzione and my mission is to empower every individual, leader, and organization to achieve their greatest results through successful partnering, building a successful brand and story.
[00:00:55] Vince: Have become key skills for organizations to reach the pinnacle of success. A few years ago I searched out an author who’s an expert in this area. And I had her on the podcast. Miri Rodriguez is many things. An award winning writer, an incredible public speaker, and a chief storyteller at Microsoft. And I’m delighted to bring her back today for an incredible and wide ranging conversation to better equip you and your organization to achieve more.
[00:01:24] Vince: Miri, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:28] Miri Thank you. I’m back. I am so excited. Finally in person, right?
[00:01:32] Vince: We’re finally getting to do this. We’re gonna, we’re on, we’re on in front of our audience.
[00:01:36] Miri: We’ve never met in person before. We’ve never met in person after all these years. We’ve been together and connected for a long time, but never in person.
[00:01:41] Miri: So here we are.
[00:01:41] Vince: Unbelievable. Great to have you back on Ultimate Guide to Partnering. You know, I was going back through the archives. You were a guest in January of 2021, which was pretty incredible from a time perspective.
[00:01:54] Miri: Intense. That was intense times. I remember when you asked me to join, I was like, We’re in the middle of COVID you’re still doing podcasts and it’s incredible.
[00:02:00] Miri: I mean, it’s just, I’m glad you did that though. But it’s, it’s been so good for you.
[00:02:04] Vince: It has been amazing. You know, we got, we got a lot of new listeners and we came back during COVID. And, uh, but not like this, not in the studio, not doing, and it’s so great to have you in person.
[00:02:15] Miri: Nice area, nice place.
[00:02:16] Vince: Yeah, well, how do you like our beach, right?
[00:02:18] Miri: know, I was just saying, in Florida, we love our beaches. I travel a whole lot and I can never, like, this is just, this is our beaches, everybody. We love this place.
[00:02:28] Vince: So, uh, we did our intro, but, uh, but for our viewers and our listeners that don’t know Miri, I thought maybe you take us on a little bit of your personal, professional journey.
[00:02:39] Miri: Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll start with Microsoft. You know, that little company, everybody talks about
[00:02:44] Vince: the guys in Seattle. We all, we both know.
[00:02:46] Miri: Yeah. I’ve been there for 12 years now. I just actually, August 6th was my 12th year anniversary. I can’t believe it. The anniversary. Thank you. I, it was one of those things that I said, I’ll be here 4 years and then go. And yeah. Still here. Um, and I’ve been doing so much. I’ve had the opportunity to do so much at Microsoft and I think one of the things that I love about the company is that is that it’s so versatile and so global and there’s so many things happening all the time. So I haven’t gotten bored. Uh, prior to that, I was doing tech in different companies, um, here actually in South Florida, Motorola and Brightstar.
[00:03:16] Miri: Um, and you know, I just started my career basically in sales support and that led into marketing and that led into comms. I am a comms major, so that was like the initial, I went back to like my heart. And then, you know, the storytelling thing came up. You don’t go to school. When I was, you know, back in school, you don’t go to school for storytelling.
[00:03:34] Miri: But now it is a thing. So I think we’re going to talk a little bit about that. So I am now a storyteller. I’ve been a storyteller at Microsoft for six of those 12 years.
[00:03:42] Vince: That’s fantastic.
[00:03:42] Miri: Yeah. And I was doing I started that an engineering in the engineering organization. And then I’ve gone through different orgs.
[00:03:49] Miri: And now I am in the health and public sector, um, industries. And I love it. I am so excited. There’s a lot of stories we’re telling there. They’re exciting.
[00:03:58] Vince: Well place that’s near dear to my heart as well as many people know I started off at Microsoft in the public sector business Yes, and we’re just comparing notes, right?
[00:04:08] Miri: We like know everybody like we probably worked together didn’t even know it
[00:04:11] Vince: I’m like, yeah federal state and local education Healthcare.
[00:04:14] Miri: Yes, and and it’s
[00:04:15] Vince: really like it’s it’s the most impactful segments of Microsoft, right? It’s yeah the the impact The we think about health care You The ability to do good in the world.
[00:04:27] Vince: Education is so important. Fundamental. Federal government people don’t recognize like the role of supporting Our troops, all the work that goes on there and state and local government, right? What would we do without it?
[00:04:41] Miri: You know, the, the police department, the fire department, the stories we hear, I just, you know, it gives me chills every time.
[00:04:49] Miri: I’m like, wow, we are enabling this kind of thing for our citizens, for you and I. Yes. And I just, I just love it. I love it. It just I’m so I’m I don’t think I’ll ever leave there. And it’s
[00:04:58] Vince: not for profit, right? We could talk about this for hours about it’s all about. It’s all about the better good. It’s about doing good.
[00:05:04] Vince: And
[00:05:05] Miri: I love the people there because they do care. Yes. When you talk to our officials and actually within our own organization, a lot of them have come from, you know, state local and they just have the servant heart and it’s so genuine. And so I love I love our team and I love who we work with. I love our customers.
[00:05:23] Miri: I’m having a lot of fun.
[00:05:24] Vince: Servant heart. You’re absolutely right with that. Yeah. And they spend their entire career in that segment.
[00:05:30] Miri: And they, and they truly, it is very authentic. Like, I’ve seen it and I love it.
[00:05:34] Vince: So, brand story, right? I, I, I brand you brand story and it’s so fundamental for those of you who have been aware of my principles of successful partnering.
[00:05:46] Vince: We talk about all the principles from growth mindset to executive commitment. And then when we get into like how to be a successful partner working with Microsoft, the 500, 000 organizations out there that partner with Microsoft and some of the other guys as well, brand and story are so important, so fundamental to success.
[00:06:06] Vince: And most organizations just don’t do it well, right? And there’s this myopic thinking about like how to partner with Microsoft. And I thought maybe we’d go there today and talk a little bit about what you do. Yeah. But also layer in this conversation because I believe it’s so fundamental to successful partnering.
[00:06:24] Vince: So I thought maybe I’d get your point of view. Sure. On the topic.
[00:06:28] Miri: And I have to say thank you because the work that you do for the partners, it’s, it’s so valuable. So important. It’s beyond valuable. It’s, I think it’s critical, uh, this kind of conversation that this table conversation and other ones that you have in it that you touch on is things that partners, when you’re, you know, when you’re on that side, you’re just worried about so many things that it may not be that they don’t want to think about branding or stories or, you know, programs, but they just, it’s not, it’s not top of mind.
[00:06:56] Miri: And so you come and you deliver this kind of podcast and, and, and the conversations we’re having. And then you’re like, they’re, they’re thinking, Oh, that’s right. Right. I thought about it, but I didn’t activate it. Now it’s a time to activate. So thank you for that. I’ll start with that. And you’re right.
[00:07:09] Miri: It’s um, it’s a topic where a lot of people will say, well, that belongs in marketing for for storytelling or branding. Uh, and it isn’t. I mean, in my, in my work, the brand is everything. The brand is how you make your customers feel. Essentially, that’s what it is. So when you think about what is my brand, it’s a feeling.
[00:07:28] Miri: It’s a feeling and if you can’t answer that feeling in one word, you probably haven’t branded yourself. Well, you know, uh, and that’s that’s something that it’s a science and as well as an art. So you have to be able to say, you know, what is the brand that I serve like Microsoft. Obviously we’ve. We, when Satya came on board, you know, that we branded ourselves differently.
[00:07:47] Miri: Uh, we started going out with the mission statement of to empower every person in organization on the planet to achieve more.
[00:07:53] Vince: Yes.
[00:07:54] Miri: And that word empowerment is not only our history because we empowered people in the back, in the, you know, in this, in our story of our brand, but it’s also our charge and our feeling, you know, what it feels like or not to be empowered.
[00:08:06] Miri: So that’s very key in that word. So ask yourself. Um, you know, what is that word? What is that feeling that I give in that? It’s your brand. And then the story of that is. Why you’re here. You know, why? Why am I still here? The brand story really serves two purposes. One. It is the story of the actual brand. It is an entity.
[00:08:25] Miri: It was born. It has friends. It has foes. It’s growing. Hopefully growing. You’re scaling, right? And that story never ends until the brand ends. Hopefully it won’t. But you know, you continue to tell a story. Nobody will ever get bored of story. Nobody, nobody will ever, because we, we thrive in story. We connect through stories.
[00:08:41] Miri: So you will always have an opportunity to talk about the brand and the brand story. And then work marketing, marketing and communications actually comes in is to enable the other stories that infuse your brand. These are the stories of your CEOs and your C suite and your frontline workers and the backend workers.
[00:08:57] Miri: I mean, you can just be here for hours talking about what infuses your brand to deliver that to your customer.
[00:09:03] Vince: So how do you infuse brand and story? In the markets that you serve. Tell us more about what that looks like.
[00:09:10] Miri: Yeah, I mean, so right now, like I mentioned, I’m in health and public sector industries.
[00:09:14] Miri: And I have to say the stories are really easy to infuse because there’s so many great stories that already are being told. And the beautiful thing about brand and story is that If you do it well, if you do it well, that your own customers, your own partners, your own audience is going to talk about your brand.
[00:09:32] Miri: I always think about brand story in the how as, as, as a product, you think of your story as a product, uh, you’re designing a story with purpose. And you know, the designer really like think about the chair you’re sitting in or the stool. I think it’s a chair, chair, stool, um, and you know, somebody designed it.
[00:09:49] Miri: Somebody designed it and they thought I’m going to make this tool and one day you’re going to use it as the user of this product, you can decide what to do with it. You could sit on it. You could stand on it. Please don’t fall. Don’t do that. You could sleep on it. Maybe really uncomfortable too, but there’s something you can decide the use.
[00:10:06] Vince: Yes,
[00:10:06] Miri: of your product that you that’s there. But somebody designed it with a purpose. And if they did a really good job, you’re probably going to use it for its purpose. So the same thing with story. If you take time to design your brand story in a way that is malleable and that that the user can take a look and go, Wow.
[00:10:22] Miri: The story makes sense. I’m going to reshare. I’m going to make it mine and they own it. Then you’ve done a really great job at branding.
[00:10:28] Vince: I love that. I love that. I started thinking about, you know, as you talk about Microsoft’s purpose and mission. Uh, our purpose and mission is in service of that same base, right?
[00:10:38] Vince: So we talk about. We empower every individual organization and partner to achieve their greatest results through successful partnering.
[00:10:45] Miri: I love that.
[00:10:47] Vince: We’ve dovetailed right into it because it’s such a powerful mission.
[00:10:50] Miri: It is. And everyone wants to feel empowered. And here’s the kicker of that. Empowerment, that word, means something.
[00:10:58] Miri: Some different things to different people. Yes, and so that when you think about your brand, what is that word? What does that feeling mean to your audience? It has to be ubiquitous enough that people can make it theirs. If it’s not, then you’re only branding your mission for your, uh, you know, for, for what you want the brand to go.
[00:11:15] Miri: And you’re not allowing that malleability that we’re talking about for the brand story.
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[00:12:04] Vince: So I find your role fascinating because you don’t see it, right? We’re, I hope that there’s many like big corporate executives that are watching and listening today. Because even if I look across even the fortune 500, I do not see your role like this storytelling role. And Microsoft really made some serious investments.
[00:12:23] Miri: Yes.
[00:12:23] Vince: I remember when Satya first became CEO.
[00:12:26] Miri: Yes.
[00:12:27] Vince: And this role. Emerged, evolved, was created.
[00:12:30] Miri: It was created. And, uh,
[00:12:32] Vince: Steve Clayton, who I know is someone you worked with. Yes. Right. I’d like to talk more about, like, how that happened. But we had Steve come in. I was mentoring a group of individuals, early and career professionals that had a high trajectory at Microsoft.
[00:12:44] Vince: And we brought Steve in and I had never heard about this brand story or storytelling role that existed at Micro, and he was like chief storyteller, right?
[00:12:51] Miri: He was the chief storyteller, yes.
[00:12:52] Vince: And then you, uh, and then I met you and it was, oh, well, you, you’re working in conjunction with Steve. So tell us more about how that evolved.
[00:12:59] Miri: Yeah, it’s great. So when I came into that role, I was actually here in Florida. And I don’t know if you know the secret when you talk when you’re a Floridian like me, and they offer you a job at Microsoft. Your first thing is you’re going to negotiate not to ever go to Seattle. That’s right. And then, you know, then you end up going to Seattle.
[00:13:13] Miri: It’s a lie. You’re lying to yourself. So I ended up going to Seattle because I was offered this role, which was very fascinating, intriguing to me. It was a storyteller role within engineering. And I’m like,
[00:13:24] Miri: What is that? Engineering, especially in engineering. And it was Satya’s. Way of thinking, you know, up until then, Microsoft had been this kind of closed source.
[00:13:34] Miri: Nobody knows what’s happening behind closed doors, who the engineers are and what’s going on and what the next thing is. And so he came in with this real. Authentic idea of like, Hey, let’s show the world. What’s happening. Let’s show the humans behind the tech. And this was at a very critical time for us because we were driving digital transformation at that time.
[00:13:53] Miri: So we’re now introducing the cloud and in that transform, you know, that that on premises to to the cloud. Um, process. What does that look like? And our engineers. This was a first time for them, right? They had not been cloud engineers before the cloud didn’t exist. So the stories were that the stories were like, Hey, we are digitally transforming, but there’s also personal transformations going on.
[00:14:16] Miri: There’s job transformations happening. And so they brought us three of us into engineering to actually tell those stories.
[00:14:21] Vince: Fascinating. And I don’t think of engineers as storytellers at all, right? I mean, I think of them. Working on a, behind a computer screen. So tell us about that.
[00:14:29] Miri: Oh, a hundred percent. Oh, I failed.
[00:14:31] Miri: Exactly for that reason. I was, I failed for the first three months. I was like, I don’t think I can do this. I’m like, I thought I could do the job. And I, can I get a story out of this engineer? I actually remember, uh, you know, connecting with one of them. I was, we were talking about IOT, the Internet of Things.
[00:14:44] Miri: Yes. And I, you know, you take them out to lunch. You want to warm them up. You want to say, hey, can I interview you? And this is a great story to tell. And I remember, I mean, He just looked at me and I, I thought I prepped him good. And he just gave, he’s like, hand out. He’s like, give me your hand. I was like, okay.
[00:14:57] Miri: And he just puts the IOT device in my hand. He goes, there’s your story. You know, I was like, Oh my gosh. Well, and it makes sense to them. That’s the story.
[00:15:05] Vince: That’s the raspberry pi, right?
[00:15:09] Miri: And so I was like, yeah, exactly. And so I was like, how do I tell a story out of this? And it, it, it became very clear to me.
[00:15:15] Miri: You know, stories matter, but we have to get very intentional about the design of stories. So, back to your question about Satya and how this came to be and, you know, and, and Steve, um, I, I was very honored to work with Steve and we created, actually, he created, uh, a council, a storytelling council, where we brought storytellers from different parts of the organization, of the organization, of the company.
[00:15:38] Miri: I mean, we’re so big. And they were special. These pop ups like me and engineering other people. And so we’re like, it became increasingly clear that we needed to have some kind of hub where a community of storytellers, where there was storytellers popping up in different, all the verticals, all the verticals, including finance.
[00:15:53] Miri: I mean, sales everywhere. So we’re like, okay, what does this look like? How do we enable, how do we train? How do we infuse? How do we, and how do we tell a cohesive story? That was important too. And so So under Steve, even though I wasn’t directly working for him in his organization, I was actually in engineering, uh, I worked a dot, I worked out in line with him.
[00:16:11] Miri: He led that charge, uh, and it was a beautiful fusion of coming together from different parts of the organization to parts of the world, uh, to have this conversation about storytelling. So we actually had a storytelling, uh, summit annual that was happening. We all got together in HQ. It was just incredible.
[00:16:27] Miri: And it really, it really cemented the importance of stories. Uh, and I mean, here we are, right, as we keep telling great stories, so.
[00:16:36] Vince: Well, and I go back, I mean, it was a seminal point when Satya first became CEO.
[00:16:41] Miri: Yes.
[00:16:42] Vince: And, uh, Frank Shaw, Chief of, right, so Steve reports, does he still report to Frank?
[00:16:48] Miri: No I, so he, I think, I think he’s now in, uh, Government Affairs or Yes, something like that.
[00:16:53] Miri: Yeah, but at that point in time. So he’s now under Brad Smith.
[00:16:55] Vince: Under Brad. Yeah. But at that point in time It was noticeable. There was this change in tone from the company, from Satya.
[00:17:03] Miri: Immediate.
[00:17:03] Vince: Wanting to get out in front. Um, very communicative. Very open. Open. Very open. And I’ll never forget the first earnings call as CEO.
[00:17:13] Vince: Both he and Amy hood came on the earnings call. And if you recall back in the early days, I go back to the growth mindset, scarcity mindset, growth mindset, Satya brings growth mindset, infuses it into the business. And from day one, he gets in front, he’s on front foot with the analysts and open conversations about the company and where he’s taking the company.
[00:17:35] Vince: And, and that to me more than anything else helped propel the stock price from being flat for 10 years. To its trajectory now over 400 a share
[00:17:44] Miri: and we call that vulnerability.
[00:17:45] Vince: Yes
[00:17:46] Miri: He became vulnerable.
[00:17:47] Vince: Yeah,
[00:17:48] Miri: and he took a chance to show up in that vulnerability and we see you know We we look at people that do that and we’re like, wow, that’s fascinating And we almost like we admire it from afar, but to activate that it’s so hard
[00:18:00] Vince: Yes
[00:18:00] Miri: for leaders to activate that it becomes so hard and we know that everybody’s watching and what if we say the wrong thing?
[00:18:05] Miri: And here’s where story can help because you know Story can make you not only empathetic towards your audience, they become empathetic to you. We were no longer looking at Microsoft as a big tech dinosaur giant. We were looking at Satya and going, wow, what an incredible leader who is leading this company.
[00:18:21] Miri: And we were able to zero in to his leadership. And that’s what story does. We saw his humanity. And that made him just, Who he is today really in the company
[00:18:31] Vince: and the ability to emulate that right down in the field and even amy I mean, I think about a chief finance officer like that who’s able to tell the story When she gets on the earnings call, she’s
[00:18:42] Miri: fabulous.
[00:18:43] Miri: She’s incredible I I always quote her, uh in you know, when we when I do workshops and turn on i’m like Please look at the head of finance I mean if if anything could be like finance of all things to talk about if anybody can Yes, if anybody can talk You Talk you up on finance and numbers and they make it make you feel good about it.
[00:19:00] Miri: You’re a great storyteller. Uh, and so my role in many other roles started to grow and pop up and people in our organization started to actually, um, invest in these roles and actually create roles. Um, and you know, it became a mix of things. So we have storytellers that are actually in marketing and sales and comms, uh, in different parts of the Oregon engineering, of course, uh, in design.
[00:19:21] Miri: So I happen to be in sales. I’m in under Judson’s org. Um, and it’s just, there’s no discrimination as to where you can be a storyteller because we’re really all storytellers. Right.
[00:19:31] Vince: And they can emulate from you.
[00:19:32] Miri: Absolutely.
[00:19:33] Vince: So I have your book here. Um, look at this. This is, this is brand storytelling. This was released in March.
[00:19:40] Vince: We were talking about this earlier, during the height of COVID, well, the beginning of COVID
[00:19:44] Miri: lockdown,
[00:19:45] Vince: lockdown, March of 2020.
[00:19:47] Miri: I had a 15 city world tour.
[00:19:50] Vince: And you can tell this is dog eared because I’ve read it. I’ve read it. Um, we’re going to get real now, right? For our viewers and listeners, because I, we talk about, you know, Having a marketing plan, having built integrating brand and story into your marketing plan in the book you have an integrated marketing plan that you share.
[00:20:09] Miri: A reimagined one,
[00:20:09] Vince: a reimagined one, but I was hoping you could share some of the principles of that with our viewers and listeners today.
[00:20:15] Miri: Yeah. And I, it’s interesting. You call out the date. Because my book was scheduled to come out actually the summer before that. So 2019 in the summer. And there’s an interesting, like the, the, the publisher takes a lot of pride and work into the book releases dates because they know the market.
[00:20:33] Miri: So they go ahead of you and like, Hey, have your written book by now. Turn in the manuscript and do this whole thing. It was the first time I wrote the book. So I was like, and then I pushed back. Um, there was stuff happening personally. So I was like, Hey, let me, Let me just, I’ll write it later. And so they pushed my date to March, 2020.
[00:20:49] Miri: And I was like, how about December? You know, like what’s up? Nothing’s happening.
[00:20:53] Vince: Nothing happens in March.
[00:20:53] Miri: I’m going to make no sales. And well, here we are. Right. It was locked down and not only was it locked down the message here about putting your customer at the heart of your brand story. Just began to resonate immediately.
[00:21:07] Miri: People were calling me. I mean, I had to stop taking calls because people were like, Mary, what do I do now? What’s the story? Do I tell? We are literally like, do I sell right now? What is what is what’s happening? How do I in a lot of this is spoken here in the book. And here’s to your question. How do we integrate story into our marketing plan?
[00:21:24] Miri: Story really is integrated as part of your brand mission. Your story really has to be asking yourself. It’s really creating an end to end machine. Bringing all of the players in, and it has to start from the top. And I know you have a lot of, you know, top leaders here listening and CEOs. And I have to say it starts with you.
[00:21:42] Miri: Uh, a lot of your marketing people may be already trying, have been trying for a while and it won’t get done. It will not be infused and integrated the right way. If you don’t make this part of the strategy, it’s as simple as that. And why is it important to make it part of the strategy? Because if you don’t, you’re going to have pockets of it here and there, and it’s not going to be cohesive.
[00:22:01] Miri: And so it might look like you’re working on a story, maybe, Oh, we’re going to do a story as part of a marketing plan. A campaign, campaigns come and go. So an actual brand story, uh, strategy really is the leader saying, Okay, what stories are we going to tell and how and when? And who is going to go tell those stories?
[00:22:19] Miri: And it’s literally having those questions. And sales should be there. And marketing should be there. And operations should be there. And customer service should be there. Everybody should be on that table. Why? Because marketing is over here talking about a product that may not be available to this customer yet.
[00:22:34] Vince: Right.
[00:22:35] Miri: And then we go and we put a lot of money on that campaign. We know this. And then they go out and the customer’s like, where was my product? And it’s not GA. And so the story fails.
[00:22:43] Vince: That’s right.
[00:22:43] Miri: The brand fails in telling the story. And so if you have these people brought in, in one table and say, okay, what is your, what are your priorities?
[00:22:50] Miri: What are your priorities? And then look to where the priorities, if they don’t meet, you’re not telling the stories right. You’re not.
[00:22:56] Vince: So I want to stop you here because I, when, when we outline successful partnering, we talk about having your mission statement basically for the partnership. Like what’s the better together.
[00:23:07] Vince: Yeah. So if you’re a partner with Microsoft, what’s, what’s the one thing that makes you stand out? Yeah. And then what you’re saying is you build a unified brand story that goes across each of the Business functions of the organization, right? So you go across finance, you go across marketing, customer success, product, engineering,
[00:23:27] Miri: design, sales, sales,
[00:23:29] Vince: everyone has to be aligned to this brand story.
[00:23:31] Miri: That’s it. And it starts with you decide the mission, like back to you. You, you took the Microsoft mission and made it for the partners. Same thing. How does it align to, for us, right? We exist to empower every personal organization. So how am I, what does that mean to me in my sales org? Yes. What does empower mean?
[00:23:47] Miri: Empowerment mean to every person and every organization. In this case, my organizations could be public sector, and so there’s a lot that I need to advocate for there. So it’s very broad and it’s broad and broad. On purpose. On purpose, so that you can deliver it and, and, and succinctly make it part of, you know, let your, your teams make it part of their mission within their org.
[00:24:07] Miri: So it starts with the leader infusing that in, in every aspect and keeping people accountable. How shared priorities. Um, you know, I think it’s important for us to have a shared priority across all of them. If it’s not part of the priorities, and nobody’s, you know, if the bonus doesn’t depend on them, they’re not going to do it.
[00:24:21] Miri: It sounds nice, but they’re not going to do it. So if you say, hey, this, you know, part of our priorities is diversity and inclusion, all those big things, storytelling, making sure we tell the story correctly, and we still tell the story succinctly, and everybody’s telling the story, you know, cohesively, is one of our core priorities at the company.
[00:24:39] Miri: How often and how long until other people tell it.
[00:24:42] Vince: I love it. I love it. So, you know, think about this. This is this is where an area where partnerships fail because marketing is off doing its own brand. They’re all marketing. Yes. Directly to customers. Yes. Not inclusive of the partners that they’re working with.
[00:24:56] Vince: Not telling the story together. Or the process itself. Or the process itself.
[00:25:00] Miri: And so, and we mean well,
[00:25:02] Miri: But it’s so siloed, and we mean well, and time and time again, it fails. A campaign may give you, and we know campaigns, they do yield results, but they’re short lived. A brand story is going to be literally the continuous.
[00:25:14] Miri: The continuous narrative of how you’re what’s happening with your company and why we think about especially now and so the social climate. Let’s talk about that.
[00:25:23] Vince: Yes, let’s talk about social. I mean, it’s it’s actually very sad in some respects what it’s doing to our young people.
[00:25:29] Miri: And what what is doing to our young people is those young people are actually gonna become our customers, by the way.
[00:25:34] Miri: So they’re being they’re they’re being. They’re being, uh, educated in certain ways in certain, uh, areas, and they’re being infused and overwhelmed with content and your brand no man, no matter where it is in the in the in the in field. That generation is being we’re all being impacted. And so when you think about social issues, and you think about your brand right now, those kids Gen Gen Z Gen A they are looking at your brand and asking themselves. Why do I want to be?
[00:26:01] Vince: Yes,
[00:26:02] Miri: either part of that brand or work for that brand eventually or buy from the brand, whatever, whatever, however they come in touch with your brand. And it goes beyond the product. It goes beyond product. I mean, there’s, I could have the same exact product. And if one brand, one customer sells it at, you know, let’s say two t shirts, uh, and one is sold at 20 bucks, the other one sold at 50 bucks.
[00:26:22] Miri: But the one that’s selling at 20, uh, 50 bucks is, uh, talking about, you know, social responsibility, corporate responsibility. Those kids are buying that T-shirt. They are. And it’s, it could be the same price, it could be the same product. It doesn’t matter. So now the stories go beyond the product before, you know, back when we could just say, sell a really good product and we’re good.
[00:26:41] Miri: Um, but the reality is it’s no longer. And so we are competing against a, a really incredible scenario environment that it’s overwhelming with content, overwhelming with social issues and demands from our consumers. Yeah. That are saying, what is your brand really about? Are you really, is your supply chain really green?
[00:27:01] Miri: And they’re keeping us accountable. So it doesn’t, it doesn’t just sound nice to say we’re going to be green by 2025. Come 2025, they’re going to be like, okay, tell us how you became green. That’s a story. You’re telling stories. Are you lying to us? And so that is the accountability that our consumers expect of us.
[00:27:16] Miri: Those consumers are going to become partners. They’re going to become, you know, employers, employees. And so we have to really think about that story.
[00:27:23] Vince: Gen Z is really big on authenticity. Yes. We’re starting to see that now. It’s permeating through everything.
[00:27:30] Miri: They won’t buy a product, even if it’s really good, if they feel like their, you know, the company they’re buying from doesn’t align to their values, for example.
[00:27:36] Miri: That’s happening.
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[00:28:34] Vince: Well, you work for one of the best companies in the world. I mean, Satya has been recognized as CEO of the Year, multiple years now. Yes. I want to ask you what you see from the best and where, what do you see, where, where do you see when organizations fail on this brand and storytelling?
[00:28:48] Miri: Empathy.
[00:28:49] Vince: Empathy.
[00:28:50] Miri: Empathy. Um, I remember when Satya wrote his book, Hit Refresh. Yes. He actually, I don’t know if anybody knows, but he actually wrote an employee version for all of us. Where he actually has his own notes in it.
[00:29:03] Vince: I did not know that.
[00:29:04] Miri: It’s fascinating. And
[00:29:05] Vince: I referenced the book quite a bit.
[00:29:07] Miri: loved it.
[00:29:07] Miri: And I ate it up. I just opened it and never closed it. I ate that book up immediately. I have to say, it changed my perspective on empathy. Um, before that, I thought empathy was a personality trait, which I did not have, you know, I was like, not an empath. Uh, my kids will remind me of that all the time and they were like, you’re cruel.
[00:29:25] Miri: And I’m like, that’s okay. It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. Um, but, um,
[00:29:29] Vince: Get over it.
[00:29:31] Miri: Yeah. Get over it. It’ll be fine. I’m like, no, don’t be a flake. And, um, and, but no, I mean, I read it and he spoke about his own stories and he, I can not forget the story he tells there where he was, you know, he, He was applying for a role internally and the, he had checked all the marks.
[00:29:47] Miri: He was good for it. He had all the skillsets and then the, the hiring manager said, okay, um, let me, you know, let me ask you this question. If you saw a baby on the floor crying, what would you do? And he’s like, I don’t know, I’ll, I’ll look for their mom. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. He’s like, you pick it up.
[00:30:03] Miri: So he failed the interview.
[00:30:04] Vince: Yeah, he failed.
[00:30:05] Miri: He failed the interview because he had no empathy. And that was such a lesson to him. And then to all of us, he started this idea around empathy being a skill set. And I was like, Oh, okay, then I’m going to, I’m going to go get that skill set. I’m going to really work on this.
[00:30:19] Miri: Empathy shows up in so many ways for a brand. In so many ways for partnership, because again, it has the opportunity, it’s pregnant with opportunity of you making your audience think of you as a human, so you win, they’re more forgiving when you make a mistake, which we’re bound to, it’s okay, uh, they’re more apt to being on your corner when they get to know you a little bit more than just the brand, um, and, and then you get to empathize with them.
[00:30:43] Miri: What does that look like even today? And now we can introduce AI. It enables us to get past our biases. And our lived experiences and in our own, uh, our own ideas. And it enables us to open up a space where we can really see people and companies for who they are and what they’re trying to do. And then we can help each other.
[00:31:01] Miri: So I think it’s great.
[00:31:02] Vince: How do you build empathy into an organization and into a brand?
[00:31:06] Miri: Again, when you tell the stories, Immediately you become, you start to empathize, right? So, I have told stories, you’ve seen my personal stories.
[00:31:14] Vince: Yes, I have. Yes, I have.
[00:31:15] Miri: Um, and I’ve shared
[00:31:16] Vince: And we’re going to talk about some of those.
[00:31:18] Miri: Yeah, yeah. And so I’ve been, I decided, actually, to start sharing those stories publicly. And it wasn’t easy. I’m talking about on social media. It wasn’t easy for me to share. And then I realized, well, if I don’t share, I could be navigating this on my own, and nobody will ever understand. But if I share, people will look at me, and they will.
[00:31:37] Miri: Not that they will have ever gone through something like this, but they can understand, you know, I, I can talk about something that makes you makes me embarrassed. You may not have the same story, but you felt embarrassment. So we meet at the embarrassment. We meet at the feeling. Yeah. And that’s so powerful because you’re like, Oh, I, I cringe because I mean, I can understand you could, I can understand embarrassment.
[00:31:55] Miri: Maybe not, maybe not the same scenario, but you should understand what I may have felt. And so that is the power of story. It’s packed with this idea that we can, we can invoke emotion from people and the emotions remind us that we are human and reminds the, remind us of the human experience and the human connection.
[00:32:11] Miri: And that’s where we need each other. It’s so powerful.
[00:32:13] Vince: You have to be vulnerable and you were very vulnerable for those who don’t know you were a cancer survivor.
[00:32:18] Miri: Yes.
[00:32:19] Vince: And you were very vulnerable about that time.
[00:32:21] Miri: Yeah.
[00:32:22] Vince: And most people don’t feel that in, like in, in our corporate domain, like LinkedIn. Yeah.
[00:32:29] Miri: Yeah.
[00:32:29] Vince: Like that’s not something we should do. Right. A lot of people say, well, that’s your personal life. That’s not your professional life. Tell us more about how you, how you think about that.
[00:32:38] Miri: Yeah. I actually, I, I, and I should say, I didn’t. actually share the entire thing. So I was very, I decided first to share where I was going cause I was going to be away for a while.
[00:32:47] Miri: I had to have a lot of procedures. So I wanted to just say, Hey, I’m going to pause. And that’s when I first decided. But beyond that, I knew that this was going to be life changing for me. I knew it. And so I wanted to preface it with I, it’s going to, this is where I’m at right now and this is where you’re going to see me later.
[00:33:05] Miri: Um, and all of that I’m going to be sharing as much as I can because of the learnings that I’m going through. And this is what story does, um, at the corporate level and at the personal level. We have conventional wisdom, right? It’s like, you know, let’s be good to each other, be good to your neighbor. Okay.
[00:33:21] Miri: The conventional wisdom becomes so much more powerful when you add on your story on top of that. And now it’s your, it’s your lived experience through the conventional wisdom. Like, Hey, be good. Okay. Well, why be good? Well, because your time is, your time is marked. I mean, you’re just all the things. And so my decision to do that was important because I wanted to share that at the, at the personal level and actually became a corporate thing at the same time because of so many women came to me that were at corporate and saying, Miri, I went through or I’m going through or I just got diagnosed.
[00:33:52] Miri: And so it, it infuses the actual company. When you, because one individual, all of us, right, all of us infuse what’s the culture. So it’s, I’m part of that culture. And so you’re part of that culture. If you become more human, more vulnerable, you drive a cold. It’s a, it’s a culture changer. It really is.
[00:34:09] Vince: Yeah.
[00:34:11] Vince: Any advice for our viewers and listeners, CEOs, executive teams on how to do what you just did.
[00:34:19] Miri: Yeah. To me and to all of you, I think. The important thing here is to ask yourself, what is your legacy beyond the company? What is your personal legacy that you can integrate as part of the company? You’re there, you’re driving, you’re leading, uh, you have the charge, you know where you’re going.
[00:34:37] Miri: Hopefully you know where you’re taking the company and your own goals there. But there’s a person, there’s a personal question you got to ask yourself. Why am I doing this? Why do I get up every day to lead something like this? Why is this important to the world? And then to me, And if you’re able to, and if you can be vulnerable with that question, and then share it with people, I mean, they’ll eat it up.
[00:34:56] Miri: They want to know. Everybody wants to know. And that’s what Satya did, that’s what leaders that are admired do, is that they’ll integrate their own, their own life philosophies into the why. What is your why? Uh, not just because you get paid a lot of money, but what is your why? Yes. And, and that is a very personal question that infuses really the mission of your company.
[00:35:17] Miri: People want to know why you’re there, why you’re leading, why you’re waking up every morning to do this. And if you can answer that question and actually be, be open with it, uh, you might be surprised, very surprised about how people tune into you as a leader and tune into the brand as a result.
[00:35:31] Vince: Yeah. Some of the best posts I do on LinkedIn, the most viewed or commented upon or when I’m vulnerable.
[00:35:37] Vince: I talk about a failure. I talk about maybe the fact that now my son works in my company with me or talk about that journey that we’re on and
[00:35:46] Miri: yeah,
[00:35:46] Vince: yeah,
[00:35:47] Miri: we want to see humans. We want to remind ourselves that we are human, that we have this connection across times and, and, you know, ages. And it’s at the end of the day, it’s business, people doing people.
[00:35:58] Miri: It’s not just business doing business.
[00:35:59] Vince: Absolutely. So, uh, Microsoft partners.
[00:36:03] Miri: Yes,
[00:36:03] Vince: we know. We know a few. We have one actually. So I was like, you have many roles.
[00:36:08] Miri: I do.
[00:36:09] Vince: So, uh, we had our recent conversation. You’re like, Hey, I’m now a Microsoft partner. I was like, Wow, wait, what? How does that happen? So let’s dive into this latest endeavor of yours.
[00:36:19] Miri: Yeah. So first of all, I’m going to say this is the first time I’m actually publicly talking about it. So here you got it out of me. I think I’m actually, I don’t know. I, I, I won’t say that it’s true, but I don’t, it’s check that. Check me, please. I think I’m right now the only employee and partner at Microsoft and how this happened.
[00:36:35] Vince: That’s right. How does that happen? So you have an MPN number too then. I do. Yeah, so congratulations. Thank you. I have one as well, by the way. I’m an MPN.
[00:36:43] Miri: I’m going to go for MVP. Okay.
[00:36:45] Vince: Awesome.
[00:36:45] Miri: How did this happen? It happened, again, and it’s interesting. It happened because through my journey, so this was a two and a half year journey, um, I began to think about my collection of, Stories at Microsoft, and that involved a lot of my personal experiences involved women that I mentor and I have mentored or that have mentored me men that have mentored me and just like just being a woman in tech and the navigation of that.
[00:37:12] Miri: And I remember one of my mentors said. Cause I mentor women one on one and, and, and he was like, Mary, you can’t scale that. And I’m like, I know, but I love it. It’s like, you can’t scale it. You Do something that, it’s like, if you, if that back to your legacy, what is your personal legacy? You can do that. And you know, nobody will find out and it’ll be like 20 people.
[00:37:29] Miri: But if you, if you scale it, you, you’re just, it just becomes global. It becomes ubiquitous and you can’t be everywhere. I wish I could. And so me too. Yeah, exactly. You and I were talking just backstage about, you know, having conferences and I’m like, I keep saying no, I just don’t have the time. I love it. So, uh, sitting, this is incredible.
[00:37:48] Miri: Every time I had a surgery, I had five. Every time I had a surgery, my recovery time was maybe, I don’t know, six to eight weeks. I was in bed, and I was just thinking. I was just thinking. I put all my electronics away. I had my, I’m a writer, so I just journaled, journaled. And I had downloads, and ideas, and downloads.
[00:38:04] Miri: And I just, they didn’t make sense at the beginning. I was like, I’m probably drugged. I’m like, this is, this is all the anesthesia wearing off, but I just good meds and I was just writing, writing, writing. And then my last one, which was July 30th last year, so like last one, I just came actually from my doctor for a minute.
[00:38:21] Miri: Was I just just a year? Well, just now. Yeah. Wow.
[00:38:24] Vince: Yeah. Congratulations.
[00:38:25] Miri: Thank you. And so, um, I, It all of a sudden came together like a puzzle piece, and I was like, Oh my gosh, I got it. And it couldn’t have happened before because of the timing. So what this is, and then I pitched it to Microsoft and they say yes, it’s just crazy.
[00:38:39] Miri: This is um, a large language model, now built on Azure, yay. Um, it is think ChatGPT meets Chief. You know Chief?
[00:38:47] Vince: Yes, of course I know Chief.
[00:38:48] Miri: So, okay. So basically, the, the large, the GPT model, instead of you going and inquiring, you know, like, sourcing from the internet, it’s actually women coming in, asking whatever questions, and the source is other women.
[00:39:02] Miri: It’s expert women. That are going to come in and answer the question very, very personalized, very, yes. And so for the women experts and authors on that side, we actually, it’s going to be a model where they actually get royalties every time the AI uses their answers. So we’re building their empires.
[00:39:19] Miri: Fascinating. And then the users can meet me, right? They’d be like, hey, storytelling. Hey, you know, I want to scale my business with storytelling. Well, Miri, the source says, Miri says, right? And so you get me, you don’t have to read my whole book. It could be boring. I don’t know. Was it boring?
[00:39:33] Vince: Wasn’t boring at all.
[00:39:35] Vince: Come on. I’m throwing this thing apart for granted. Some people
[00:39:37] Miri: just don’t read the whole book. And to be honest, to be fair, some people just want like cliff notes. Hey, tell me how this applies to me.
[00:39:43] Vince: You have to sign my book today.
[00:39:44] Miri: Okay, I’ll do that. Excellent. Um, but so it’s going to take the, it’s going to take the entire knowledge base and it’s just going to make, personalize it for you, what you need for that purpose.
[00:39:53] Miri: moment in time. And so it’s by women, for women. I’m really proud to say, uh, now on Azure. And yeah, I, I’m a partner.
[00:40:01] Vince: I love it. And so how are you going to make this available? I mean, obviously today we can announce it, but when is it available?
[00:40:07] Miri: My partner’s going to be like, uh, so, okay. So we are planning to launch it for users by March, hopefully March 8th, next year.
[00:40:14] Vince: We have a little time.
[00:40:15] Miri: But I am actually connecting, connecting with women who want to start building the AI we’re building now. Love it. Um, and these are experts. So if you consider yourself an expert, uh, in any field, in any way, we actually have niche areas, so it doesn’t have to, it’s, it’s all the verticals of a business, it is actually wellness as well.
[00:40:32] Miri: So the holistic part of all the things that we do, um, and you want, you don’t have to have a book. You can say, Hey, I have a method that I want to create. The AI will also help you. With a questionnaire and put that together. So if you don’t have it all succinctly, you’re like you’ve mentored women before you haven’t, you know, you could put it together.
[00:40:48] Miri: Um, so we are inviting women who are experts to start actually building with us. So connect with me at the end.
[00:40:54] Vince: And is it only for women?
[00:40:56] Miri: Yes.
[00:40:57] Vince: Okay. Because I was thinking on the partner side, I know many women leaders, experts that I could bring to you.
[00:41:03] Miri: Please bring them all.And I have been asked the question why actually, um, actually I connected with Chris Kapp about this before and I love him.
[00:41:13] Vince: I love Chris Chris Kapp is sell for the people that don’t know.
[00:41:16] Miri: so he asked the same question. Why for women only? And I was like, well, hold on. Just like Facebook, right? They came out and did something. It’s soft for something for. Then it went mainstream and it will probably, absolutely.
[00:41:28] Miri: But for us, um, for me, we have something to solve immediately. And it’s that equity, uh, and that accessibility to women. And that I didn’t have, and I don’t have still. And so it’s really, it’s really something that we want to provide and come out with, go to market with, and then we’ll open it up. But really for me is, my legacy is to be,
[00:41:52] Vince: Um, I’m so excited about this.
[00:41:54] Vince: I can’t wait. We’ll share it with the world.
[00:41:57] Miri: Yeah.
[00:41:57] Vince: And I’ll introduce you to many people that maybe you don’t know that.
[00:42:00] Miri: I can’t wait. Yeah. I can’t wait to meet everybody.
[00:42:02] Vince: So let’s talk about meeting people. Um, we are hosting an event in Dallas, Texas, October 22nd and 23rd, and you’re going to be there.
[00:42:10] Miri: I am. for the invitation. I am.
[00:42:12] Vince: I am so excited to have you speak.
[00:42:14] Miri: Thank you.
[00:42:15] Vince: Uh, what are we going to talk about?
[00:42:17] Miri: Yeah. So we talked a little bit of storytelling as a strategy and just, you know, high level. Really? We got high level. I’m going to get a little more granular on storytelling in the future of storytelling with AI.
[00:42:29] Miri: How have we, and especially me in my role, been integrating AI and things like copilot in the different areas to deliver stories that matter and to get through the junk, to get through the just the fluff and deliver succinct, content to our audiences because they deserve it.
[00:42:47] Vince: Nice. So you’ll be able to take us through like how to best use ChatGBT as a storyteller.
[00:42:52] Miri: Absolutely.
[00:42:53] Vince: Oh, that’s fascinating. And what we’re doing at Microsoft,
[00:42:55] Miri: we’ll be sharing prompts. We’ll be sharing, I’ll do a demo. So a lot of people love the live demo. So that’ll be fun. Um, but also like what prompts work and how to prompt. Uh, so talking about that, basically the power of AI right now, people are being, you know, Kind of skittish around how to use it.
[00:43:09] Miri: They think it’s like, it’s not Google, by the way. I mean, I love Google, but it’s not, it’s not like a search engine, right? It’s, it’s really a, uh, think of it as a smart intern, you know, it’s a, it’s, it’s something that can help you and can enable efficiently. Um, plus you get to train it at the same time and the more you train it.
[00:43:28] Miri: The more output you’re going to get out of it. So a lot of times now, especially as CEOs, you’re like, well, do I have to go hire a storyteller? Uh, no, you’re probably you’re, you’re marketing teams doing some of that. Some salespeople are. So now that you introduce something like GPT models, uh, you are getting a lot of time back and they can use it.
[00:43:45] Miri: They should be using it for storytelling, which is going to work. Okay.
[00:43:48] Vince: If you haven’t registered yet, right. It’s a registrations open. Theultimatepartner. com go to the registration events page and sign up because Miri is going to be out. I mean, it’s just outstanding having you here today, but on stage is going to be a whole nother level.
[00:44:02] Vince: It’s going to be
[00:44:03] Miri: fun.
[00:44:03] Vince: And I think we’re going to have some of these books available for, for people too. Great. We might be giving a, having a giveaway. We’ll talk about that.
[00:44:10] Miri: Okay.
[00:44:10] Vince: But you have to come. Um, I have a favorite question. Okay. That I love to ask my guests. Yes. And, um, I just found out the New York Times has stole my question.
[00:44:22] Vince: They’re starting to ask people this same question. I have been asking this question for years now.
[00:44:28] Miri: Ah.
[00:44:28] Vince: But, Miri, you’re hosting a dinner party.
[00:44:31] Miri: Okay.
[00:44:31] Vince: And you can invite any three guests.
[00:44:34] Miri: Okay.
[00:44:34] Vince: From the present.
[00:44:35] Miri: Mm hmm.
[00:44:36] Vince: Or the past.
[00:44:37] Miri: Okay.
[00:44:38] Vince: One or two guests have actually given us guests from the future.
[00:44:42] Vince: Pretty interesting.
[00:44:44] Vince: And we can talk about where we’re going to host this party. I’d love to hear where you, like a favorite place to have it.
[00:44:48] Miri: Okay.
[00:44:49] Vince: Whom would you invite and why?
[00:44:51] Miri: So I have three, three choices. Oh my gosh, that’s a hard question. I remember you asked me this question before. I think I’m going to give it a shot.
[00:44:59] Vince: You have to use different answers.
[00:45:00] Miri: I’m gonna. I don’t remember what I said. Okay. Every time it’s going to be different. Um, okay. So I, I, I think I would like to have the, the, uh, the, the dinner in Morocco. I’ll tell you about it. Yeah, the food is so good.
[00:45:13] Vince: Is it? Oh my gosh. Because we were talking about Italy earlier.
[00:45:16] Miri: Italy is Italy. But Morocco has this fusion of Arab and, um, and French food. And it’s just, the, the flavors are incredible. So we could have a really beautiful dinner. Sounds fabulous. In Morocco, like overlooking the desert or something. Um, I would definitely would love to have Da Vinci.
[00:45:32] Vince: Leonardo da Vinci
[00:45:33] Miri: Leonardo da Vinci and I would love to have him because I just want to hear his his brain like I just want to understand what is what’s top of mind. This is a person who I mean talk about stories. He built everything. He did everything. He, he was just, I mean,
[00:45:49] Vince: First helicopter.
[00:45:51] Miri: He was everything. He was a painter. He was an architect. He did so many things. And I’m like, how can somebody just, how can all of us really do all the things? And we can. And he’s just, and I would love to ask him, how, how do you do all the, how did you do all the things? Like, how, what was going on in your head?
[00:46:04] Miri: Um, and one of the things that I love about him is that he activated stories. In everything that he did. He had a story of the why a lot of times. We really, yeah. And so he’s, you know, why did I do this? He took a lot of notes. He took a lot of notes. And Milan, there’s a whole, there’s a whole gallery actually of his notes.
[00:46:21] Miri: Fascinating. Uh, and he’s just explaining like his, his why, like why he saw something like that, why he thought about something. It’s just, I love the why. I think it’s a great, great, great thing. I would love to see Steve Jobs .
[00:46:34] Vince: I would as well. I mean, his, um, you know, we, Microsoft, Apple was always the bad guys, but what an amazing marketer and storyteller, storyteller.
[00:46:45] Miri: And I, so I think he changed the game for us in tech. I think he was the one that showed up and said, I can sell a product or I can sell a story. And if I sell the story, I’m going to sell the product and more. And he did that really, really good. I mean, we can all attest to that.
[00:47:01] Vince: There is a famous uh, video of him leading a group of marketers when he first came back into apple and the first campaign, the geniuses whatever it was called the um, Crazy the crazy no the crazies.
[00:47:15] Miri: Oh the crazies. Yes.
[00:47:16] Vince: Yeah, that is just fascinating.
[00:47:18] Miri: So good And then I would love to meet one of my ancestors And I I’ve been you know, really doing an entire just kind of ancestry I’ve been on this journey.
[00:47:31] Vince: Take us through your ancestry.
[00:47:32] Miri: Yeah. Well, so I was, I was, I’m born in Venezuela and I came here when I was 13 and I’m actually, so I’m a, I’m like 50 percent indigenous.
[00:47:40] Miri:. And then European from Spain and Portugal, the other 50.
[00:47:44] Vince: Cause there’s also a lot of Italians in Venezuela as well.
[00:47:47] Miri: There is a lot of Italians. I didn’t get that passport, man. I wish I had. There is a lot of Italians. Actually, Venezuela, Venezuela is, uh, the Italians dubbed it little Venecia.
[00:47:56] Vince: That’s where the name came from.
[00:47:58] Miri: Yes, that’s where the story came from. Um, and so I would love to meet my ancestors because I, part of our own stories come from our past.
[00:48:08] Vince: Yes.
[00:48:08] Miri: And they inform our future. And the more I know about them, the more I know about myself and where, where I’m going, where my legacy is going. Oh,
[00:48:14] Vince: I love this.
[00:48:15] Miri: And I have been doing a lot of work of, well, through my own, you know, medical journey.
[00:48:20] Miri: I had to really think about genetics because I was actually diagnosed. I have a, the BRCA gene is a gene mutation and that’s, I had no, I was the first one in my family diagnosed with the BRCA gene and, and even though it never skips generation. So somebody in my family has it on either side. So I started to really learn about epigenetics and, uh, and gene mutations and I thought how interesting this entire thing is.
[00:48:41] Miri: We, we have so much of us that is integrated in our story, in our history that we don’t think about. But when we think about it, it makes it I have an engineer that I mentor and he was like, you know, I, he’s like, I love what I do here. He’s at Microsoft. He’s at, he’s at Xbox. And he goes, but I’m always, it’s like, I always want to work with my hands.
[00:48:59] Miri: I always want to work with my hands. And it’s like, I love to code, but I just want to work with my hands. And so we did the work with him and he finds out that he has like this insane Irish background. And they’re like, the, like his, like, Great, great, great parents, great parents, how like they were like, uh, smiths.
[00:49:15] Miri: And so he’s like, that’s where it comes from. It’s in my blood. And so it’s part of like our story. And I think when we integrate that and then we enable tech as part of that, cause we didn’t have that technology. We have it today. My gosh, we have like, we can, we can really leave a great legacy, a personal one and a corporate one.
[00:49:33] Miri: Uh, while we, when we infuse our ancestry plus technology.
[00:49:36] Vince: So this is so fascinating because as you know, I’m going to Italy,
[00:49:39] Miri: I know,
[00:49:40] Vince: and I’m going back to the villages where my grandparents are from.
[00:49:43] Miri: I know. And I cannot wait to hear those stories.
[00:49:45] Vince: Oh my goodness.
[00:49:46] Miri: You’re gonna just like it’s it and you it will change your life.
[00:49:49] Miri: I’m going to tell you that because it gives you mission. It gives you it reminds you of where you come from and where you’re going to go. It gives you mission and it just it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful.
[00:49:58] Vince: So can I come to the party? Do I get to go? I can bring dessert.
[00:50:03] Miri: Well, you’re the host, so you’re already invited.
[00:50:05] Vince: Morocco sounds fascinating. I can see this beautiful desert setting.
[00:50:10] Miri: Sunset.
[00:50:11] Vince: White tablecloth. Tents. I love it. I love it.
[00:50:14] Miri: Music. They play a lot of, like, weird, like, I shouldn’t call it weird, very intricate instruments that they have, like, handmade instruments. And it’s just beautiful. It’s wonderful.
[00:50:21] Miri: Wonderful.
[00:50:22] Vince: Wonderful. So, um, I really want to thank you. So great of you to come up here. So great to have you on this podcast. Um, we have a lot of listeners and viewers that are trying to align for their success. Um, you know, this is a, I call this the tectonic shifts we live, we’re living through right now.
[00:50:41] Vince: Yes. I mean, this is a time like no other. I think it started during COVID. I mean, if you think about what’s happened geopolitically and just our lives. Economically, our world has changed. Uh, companies don’t operate the same way that they did. The cultures have changed. Hyperscalers, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon really dominating the world.
[00:51:00] Vince: I mean, everything is changing right now. What’s the best advice you can give to our listeners and viewers watching today to optimize for their success going into 2025?
[00:51:11] Miri: Great question. Great question. Um, you’re all leaders because you’re doing something good, right? Already you’re all where you are because you’ve attained great skills to lead a team to lead an organization, uh, to lead an entire company.
[00:51:25] Miri: And that’s all wonderful. Um, but I ask of you to think again about legacy, personal legacy and empathy. And how can you turn that into your superpower? Um, how does that look for you for your team? How does that look Um, you know, it’s it’s it’s important. For your your customers and your partners. And when you think about that, it may look different to all of you.
[00:51:49] Miri: But when you think about it, it really it’s an exchange. Of energy that you’re giving and that you will see will be begin to change culture. You have the power to really change that culture and be be nimble through all the things that are happening right now. Everybody looks to you. You’re the leader.
[00:52:06] Miri: Everybody looks to you to for the mission, but not just the goals. The people mission. The culture mission because if you have a great culture, you know this, um, they’re gonna do what you need them to do. They’re gonna just they’re gonna be there. They’re gonna want to be there. So it’s all about culture.
[00:52:21] Miri: It’s all about. It’s all about people. You know, everybody’s asking themselves the same question. What is my legacy? Uh, where am I going? And if they can attach their personal legacy to yours, you got them. I am attached to the Microsoft legacy because our leader has infused that in us. And I’m there and I wake up every day to empower somebody to empower something.
[00:52:38] Miri: Uh, and that’s my legacy. And so I’m able to actually Do other things under that, that same umbrella. So can people say the same thing? Can your people say I’m attached personally, emotionally connected to this mission? Because my leader, that is his legacy and it goes beyond, you know, the numbers and the corporation.
[00:52:55] Vince: Yeah. The Stoics have a term for this and it’s, I’m going to butcher it, but I think it’s memento morte, which means remember that we’re, we’re only here. We’re all going to die. We’re all mortals. We’re all going to die. Yes. And so what do we want our legacy to be?
[00:53:10] Miri: That’s it. Ask yourself.
[00:53:11] Vince: Yeah. This is fascinating.
[00:53:12] Vince: I love, I love so much having you here today.
[00:53:15] Miri: Thank you for having me.
[00:53:15] Vince: And I’m so excited to host you in, in October.
[00:53:17] Miri: I can’t wait.
[00:53:19] Vince: Thank you so much, Miri. Thank you. For being an amazing guest, an amazing leader, and, uh, writing an incredible book, which is in, uh, you’re, you’ve had your second edition now, so we’re going to have the updated version.
[00:53:31] Miri: Yeah. I’ll bring you the updated version. All right. Terrific.
[00:53:33] Vince: Thank you so much for joining Ultimate Guide to Partnering.
[00:53:35] Miri: Thank you.
[00:53:36] Vince: And for our listeners and viewers, um, I can’t leave without saying this. Take the time today to share this interview with your friends. Uh, we would love to have also a five star review comments on LinkedIn, uh, YouTube, and subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple.
[00:53:59] Vince: And I want to thank you for listening, joining, and viewing the Ultimate Guide to Partner. Thanks for listening to this episode of ultimate guide to partnering. Hopefully this episode and all the episodes we’ve recorded are helping you better align your partner strategy to achieve your greatest results.
[00:54:16] Vince: So I want to ask you something. Have you implemented everything you’ve been learning and are you now achieving the growth and revenue objectives that you hope to achieve? If not, it’s time to take action. Now join ultimate partner experience. We’re building the community I’ve always dreamed about. With UPX, you get access to exclusive industry insights, unparalleled networking opportunities, tons of educational resources, and support from a community that shares your goals.[00:54:47] Vince: Join us now. Visit our website, theultimatepartner. com, and sign up today.