122 | Mastering stakeholder alignment in the channel

Welcome to another episode of the Tech Marketing Podcast. I'm joined by two podcast veterans. Firstly, my co-host, Amanda Fitzgerald, who's been joining us on this series of channel-focused discussions, but also by another fellow podcast veteran. I'm going to say kind of my US equivalent of Amanda, Karen Hartson, who's currently at Cradle Point, part of Ericsson. And I'm really excited today to be digging into kind of how we manage stakeholder alignment in the channel for win-win. You know, this is a deep conversation. I'm expecting us to run out of time. But before we get started, let's go around and do some intros. Karen, we've been no stranger to the podcast before, but you've had a very, very journey going through the channel ecosystem. You know, you've had a lot of experience. We've worked in many of those companies together as well. Like, your transition has been remarkable. Like, what has been, what can you share with us on those experience and how it shaped where you are today? Oh, gosh, you ask an interesting question there. So thank you very much for having me. One of my favorite topics and really timely since I just successfully managed some stakeholder alignments. I'm looking forward to digging into this one. Timing is good. But, you know, I've been in channel-related roles for over 30 years now, and in some very traditional, you know, I was in channel programs early in my career at 3Com. I stayed in that channel program lane really through some of my journey into, like, Checkpoint, PGP, so traditional security networking companies that go to market through the channel. And then I spent some time on some maybe less traditional types of channel companies. So I was with Intuit for 12 years, who, you know, people know Intuit well for QuickBooks and TurboTax. And there, I also had a channel role, but it was working with accountants as a channel, working with developers at channel. You know, there were some non-traditional types of channel roles really expanding in communication and innovation roles. And so that really stretched me into thinking about channel and channel enablement and influence and developer and this idea of partner ecosystem more broadly. And so now for the last almost year and a half, I've been with Ericsson. I joined through Cradlepoint, which was a company Ericsson acquired in 2020. And we are now the enterprise wireless division. And I'm leading our global partner program. So it's almost, you know, a coming home for me in many ways. And so I think back to my early days, even at 3Com and some of these security companies. And so it's very much that traditional networking security that go to market through the channel, but really an exciting time to bring all of these really interesting and diverse approaches and innovation aspects to the roles. So very, very exciting times at Ericsson Enterprise. Awesome. So let's dive straight into the topic today. You know, we're challenged that we always face whenever we're dealing with anything in the channel. And Amanda, this is actually where I probably first met you was on this particular discussion where we were talking about channel sales and marketing alignment, but is bringing together stakeholders to get behind our vision. As you've mentioned, Karen, we've just been doing this on a project together. You know, where did we get started? Like Amanda, what's at the tip of your tongue how we think about channel organisational structures? Absolutely. So stakeholder alignment, to me, what that immediately conjures up is sales and marketing alignment. Now, we in marketing have got lots of stakeholders, and we'll dive deeper into that further down the podcast. But sales and marketing alignment, we've traditionally always been in silos. And that has served us well. However, you know, speaking the same language, having the same measurements of success, actually being in the same room around the same table and building our strategies in conjunction with each other. I think that is absolutely what springs to mind when I think about stakeholder alignment. Gone are the days where sales would be given their revenue targets, disseminate those targets to their regions, and then they ask marketing to help them build a pipeline. Those days, hopefully, are behind us. In my time at Red Hat for the last seven years, I've been really lucky where marketing has had a seat at the table when sales were putting together their strategy for the forthcoming year. So sales and marketing did sit around the same table and planned their calendar strategy together. And that was fantastic. So also, a lot of the partner engagement, the go-to-market strategy with the big partners, once again, that was always sales-led because the sales team owned the relationship with the partners. So when they did their partner planning and the partner go-to-market strategy with each of the alliance partners or big tier one partners or Plattingham partners, whichever, however you like to label your big revenue delivering partners, that was always a sales-driven engagement with the partner. Now, marketing, does get a seat at that table. So there is joint sales and marketing, go-to-market planning at partner level. So that's even more exciting. So my last three years at Red Hat, I was lucky enough to actually go through, we called it CHAMP planning, which is channel advanced marketing planning with partners. I was lucky enough to go through the training. And once again, that was reserved for salespeople. But the senior marketing leaders, the value that we added to that discussion made it a fully baked strategy. It wasn't just how do you deliver sales? How do you build pipeline to enable those sales numbers to be hit? So sales and marketing alignment is the first thing that springs to mind. When we talk about channel organizational structures, it in my head raises so many questions about where should it even sit? Karen, you've had an incredibly varied career as you've just gone through. We were talking about your 3Com days earlier, which is just fascinating. Where has channel reported in? It's not been the same in every organization, has it? It's always varied. I've been at companies that are 100% channel. So Ericsson Enterprise, for example, everything we do is channel. So there is a channel organization that sits alongside, we are a sell-with, sell-through. And so ultimately, our channel organization and our sales organization roll up to the chief revenue officer. So we are aligned, we are both part of the sales organization. The two sort of variables that I've seen within my career, and that's been pretty common, but the programs team and the partner marketing team. And I've run both. And so I've literally had a foot in either side. I've multiple times started in a role reporting to the CRO and then moved to the CMO. I've been CMO and moved back to the CRO. And a lot of times it depended on whether I had marketing under my role in addition to programs or if they were separate roles. So right now, I'm program side, programs and operations. I am rolling up under the sales organization. It's closest to the customer. So I like that because the people who manage the channel are my colleagues, my leader. So it's very close to the work. I like the structure. I think it makes a lot of sense. And then the marketing piece rolls up to the CMO. Now, because we are all channel all the time, the whole company on some level supports the channel. So it's not like that's not my job. That's your job because we are a channel business unit. And so it's 100%. I think when I've been at companies where that's not the case, I think that's where that tension that you're talking about, Amanda, tends to exist a little bit more. Where we have people whose job is, I'll talk about Intuit, right? A lot of the sales happen, it's click to buy on the website, right? We have retail channels, we have accountants as influencers and as a channel. And so there, it took a little bit more work to drive alignment between the different stakeholders because sometimes there were competing priorities there and competing for the numbers. But for me on the program side, I have been most effective in my role when I have had a seat at the table really alongside in the sales organization. Me too. Absolutely. So regardless of reporting line, you can forge alignment regardless of where you functionally sit within an organization. But I totally agree with you. Probably my most successful time as a marketing leader is when I reported into the EMEA channel sales leader when I was at Kaspersky because all of a sudden I got access to all the sales data because I sat within sales. I didn't have to beg, borrow or steal or coerce someone to share a report with me because I sat within that sales organization. I had automatic access because a lot of our reporting was Salesforce driven. And depending which function you sat within, you got different credentials on which data you had access to. So if I sat within marketing, I would have to beg, borrow and steal data. If I sat within sales, I had automatic access. It's just mad. It is sad. it's mad and sad because we're all on the same side i guess i guess and this is this is a really interesting conversation actually that's uh that i had with some people some senior cmos um senior cmos of course a cmo senior um some cmos out at the a and a's um where we were debating around kind of the evolution of that role you know karen you just mentioned how you're a hundred percent channel focused organization you you're on the sales essentially on the op side which means you report into the cro and a sales leader whilst marketing you know partner marketing reports into cmo that's something that's probably one of the most mature organizations i have i've come across um you know quite often partner marketing we're not just partner marketing but partners generally even even with a business that might be doing 80 of their sales through the channel is the kind of the the lost the forgotten uncle like they just get passed from pillar to post and and not thought about so the fact that that it's that that mature is is great but do you think there is this discussion we were having with these other cmos was actually there's the cmo role itself i'm going to focus on the cmo role here but it isn't just about the marketing the cmo role itself needs to change based on the type of organization each type of organization they operate in so if you're in a sas organization you might be much more aligned to being a cro um well if you're in a um a product organization you might be a cpo you might be a chief product officer and your role needs to flex based on how the business makes money you know i'm going to put out there to say actually are we seeing an evolution like where we're where partners and channel reports up to a board level and why not why are we not seeing that i have yet so i have yet to see a channel chief report up to or you know like our channel chief still reports to the cro but we have a channel chief and the cro you know is a very you know embracing the cmo role channel. But it's a really interesting question because is the channel a dedicated function or a piece of every function? That's kind of what we're saying. And so if we're a 100% channel company, then I would think everybody has some level of channel responsibility. Our operations need to understand how we fulfill given that. And we're not just channel, we're two-tier, we're distribution. So when you think about who needs to have channel responsibility, I would argue everybody does because they play an integral part of the awareness, the selling, the fulfilling, the supporting, the renewing, the expanding, all of those touch points. They're so close to the customer. They bring valuable feedback on feature functionality. So I think channel, when you start thinking of channel as an isolated function, I think that's where. You struggle to drive alignment. And when you can get everybody to embrace channel as a component of their role and feel some sort of obligation to an outcome for the channel, then that to me was step one in driving alignment. I know I'm fast forwarding to some of the conversation, but if you're going to drive alignment, everybody needs to feel like they have a personal stake in the outcome. And if they feel like channel is somebody else's job, somebody else's responsibility, and don't have any sense of personal accountability or responsibility, I think that's always going to be pushing a big boulder uphill. Actually, I think you've hit the nail on the head there, which is. And I hadn't thought about it that way. Personally, I was pushing for, we need a CPO. There needs to be a chief partnership officer or a chief channel officer, whatever we're going to call it. But for businesses where so much of their revenue is driven by the channel, it should actually be devolved and be a key part of every structure. True, but I'm going to play devil's advocate here. No, come in. Yeah. I've seen both happen. So Karen and I have both seen both happen, where you've had a separate partner ecosystem organization, and I've seen that disassembled, broken it up into its pieces, and then put into each of demand gen, digital marketing. I've seen it happen in the seven years in my last company. But here's the thing. If you don't have a dedicated channel chief, then there's nobody spearheading the movement. If you devolve it into each department, and there is a business case to say, yes, you do need. Those departments do. Everyone should have a channel lens. Everyone should. However, if you don't have a channel chief, who's going to drive that lens? Because without a spokesperson, without a figurehead, without an evangelist, people will say they're doing it, but who's going to hold them accountable? Show me. Show me you're doing it. Show me how you're doing it. That's why you need the channel chief. And I don't really. And going back to your point, John, should it be someone at sea level? We can argue that forever and a day, and we're never going to get that resolved on today's call. But I think you do need. And also, I'm going to also say something else. Controversial channel is a term that I don't use so often anymore. So I'm now transitioning to using partner ecosystem. And in my mind, the difference between channel and partner ecosystem, channels, people, when you say the word channel, especially in my last organization, they think of it only as two-tier distribution. They think of it as distributors and solution providers, and you're just selling through the channel. And that's a very traditional view of what channel marketing is. So in the new world of partner ecosystem marketing, the difference in my mind is partner ecosystem is how do your partners align to your customers, your target customers? And what type of partners do you engage with? And those types of partners who have the customer focus that we're trying to leverage that partner relationship with our customer base, that ecosystem of partners can be a combination of ISV, CSI, solution provider, and some partners are all three of those. They are independent software vendors, as well as systems integrators, as well as solution providers. So that traditional stereotypical partner type, I think, still exists, but partners are now hybrids of those types. And also, when you go to market with your partner ecosystem, and you're trying to engage with your target customer, it could be several partners that are involved in a single sale. So that's why partner ecosystem is now the way to think. But it's only the likes of me and Karen who can educate the rest of the company on what the difference between channel and partner ecosystem. So you do need subject matter experts like myself and Karen to educate the rest of the company. So that's why you need a separate function. Yeah, you're exactly right. And I use the words interchangeably, I probably shouldn't, but this comes into a point, actually, Karen, we were discussing yesterday, we discussed a lot this way. Yesterday. We had a lot, and it's early in the week. I know, it's only Wednesday we're recording this. I think there was a gap. I think I agree with what we're all saying here, which is, it does need to be devolved, but there needs to be someone that spearheads it. And the biggest gap I'm hearing over and over again, loud and clear, is there's an education gap. Wouldn't you agree, Karen, from your side? I would. I want to pull on that thread, Amanda, though. I completely agree. And I will say the other strange dynamic I ran into when we were using the term channel, was that my time at Intuit, they thought of channel as marketing channel, right? So when you said channel, web was a channel. Yes. Direct sales was a channel. So they're all routes to market. Well, routes to market and channel can be sometimes confused. It's a route to market, definitely. And historically, I've always meant partner. They meant all routes to market. And so I absolutely, totally agree. Partner ecosystem and partner ecosystem is the phrase. And then to get on to a point, John, in my time at Ericsson, one of the things that I've been really champing is a transformation in the language that we use. And what I keep saying is, I don't want to label the partner. I want to label the motion. And the reason that's so important is that hybrid model that you were talking about, which partners didn't want to be labeled a reseller. They're like, I do more than reselling. I do services. I do customization. I have my own products that I've now built. I do embedded work. Don't just call me a reseller. That's not what I am. And then on the flip side, I would have questions like, well, what's the difference between the VAR reseller program and the carrier reseller program? We don't have two reseller programs. That's just a go-to-market motion. We have one go-to-market motion and we call resell. That's what it looks like when we do this. It created a lot of confusion. And so really educating and creating a visual, I call it our partner ecosystem. Placement, like really creating a visual. And whenever you have the opportunity, so whether it's a marketing team or a new operations leader that's joined the company, really using that as an opportunity to say, hey, let me talk to you about our partner ecosystem. These are the different go-to-market motions that we have in play. Partners play in both. We label the motion, not the partner. So now I start hearing other people say that we label the motion, not the partner. Very exciting because we're making progress on it. But where it got really interesting, and I think this is around, again, back to that stakeholder alignment, is when you can put it into, so what's in it for me? Why should I care about this partner ecosystem? And I was talking to some of our marketing leadership and I said, look this partner ecosystem actually creates incredible competitive advantage the fact that we have these different go-to-market routes that we support meaning we support right so if i'm a customer and i want to buy and i buy from eric's an enterprise wireless division i can choose how i want to pay because they support both a resale and a managed service so i can choose between capex and opex i can choose who i want to buy from because they have a diverse ecosystem of partners that have broad geographic coverage i can choose what types of services i want to buy because they have standalone services partners who can come in with extreme expertise or i can choose from a reselling partner that also has services i can also choose the technology that will work alongside it because they have a technology alliance program so i can quickly see which technology aligns with it and i know that not one solution ever works one solution fits none so so this partner ecosystem because i'm buying from a company that has this really robust and diverse partner ecosystem what they're giving me as a customer is choice i have choice on how i want to buy who i want to buy what i want to buy and that's very powerful when we market not only do we have great technology but we have great technology with this incredible partner ecosystem that provides you with point choice and it's actually a feature we should market to our customers we should market the power of that i honestly i don't know that's been one of the clearest definitions of ecosystem that i've had for a long long time which is it provides customer choice i just want to i know i'm going to take us off on a tangent away from the channel for a moment but obviously for our listeners many of you are not just channel you're in the marketing space this is also why you need to invest in brand because the brand helps to drive the demand that the channel then fulfills right if i'm using your terminal could that karen you taught me that if i got that the right way around right that doesn't doesn't create brand they fulfill brand right exactly exactly vendor has to create brand exactly which is why brand like again making sure that your top of people's mind when they're thinking about it is is right getting your partners to go and drive your brand is is not going to work um but i i love that love that thinking around it it produces creates customer choice it's fantastic if you start with a customer you'll usually get the right answer and i think that's why you know back to your point amanda having that channel champion there is really really important but making sure that channel champion can still speak in the language of customer is equally important you know i think that's why i think that's why i think you're really important we're not solving for none of us are solving for ourselves or our partners at the end of the day we exist as a business to solve for a customer need and then solve it so well that the customer is willing to pay for it right we're all in a commercial business here so if we always start with a customer what's the value to the customer if you can answer that question then you're going to find that point of alignment that you can work back from i want to bring us back to back to our org stroke not that i want to take us away from that that trail of thought but i want to bring us back to this question that amanda you posed just in our prequel so i'm going to let you jump in with this question actually amanda what you know this true innovation can be scary so take us away yes so i'm going to dive into this as well so alignment is one thing alignment with your stakeholders is one thing but i think as partner ecosystem marketers i think we are very innovative we're looking for ways to engage better with our partners to address customer needs so just by having that in our job spec we are creating new content and creating new ways of engaging with our partners so bold statement i believe we are not we embrace change and therefore are not afraid of taking calculated risks is that true of our senior execs though because by definition our senior executives have got responsibilities to our shareholders our board of directors um our investors um so here's the question how risk averse are our senior execs and how do we as partner ecosystem leaders marketing leaders how do we overcome what could be an obstacle what could be a challenge how do we make a change make them more comfortable with the risks that we feel comfortable taking when we're engaging with our partner ecosystem now that's a long way of setting it up but um so the so the debate is how do we overcome risk-overse senior execs interesting um so i i mean i've just gone through this i've been through quite a journey on this one lately so it's a timely question i think um i think it's easier to align on a problem statement or an outcome than it is to align on an idea so i start with i don't try to get the executive to align on my idea i try to get alignment on the outcome that we are trying to drive and the pain that it addresses because it's usually much easier even a risk of risk averse person can align on a problem statement so i drive alignment not on an idea but on a problem statement um because there's an infinite number of ways to solve a problem that is by you know that is innovation so i align there and i tried to get real deep embracing of the problem statement and that was done through data through you know like get your executives talking to partners like because you're really close to the work you're hearing from the partners all the time so use your partner advisory council get those executive meetings with a partner get executives talking to partners hearing directly and really align on not only the problem statement but the opportunity that comes if we solve the problem so if right now our partners have lots of manual processes if they have lots of pain around that that you know we sort of align on okay foundationally i can align on that's a problem statement but if i'm a sales leader and i hear that there's a bunch of manual processes what i'm hearing is that i've got sales cool to caring people doing non-selling activity oh okay now i found a problem that my cro also does not like right so i've driven alignment there but also when i hear partners say you know and this has been true since the start of time my boss currently says this i love this partners will sell good enough but easy over best but difficult right so what we found is partners universally loved our solution love our technology love our support love like love that but difficult to do business with meant sometimes they will choose something that is not as good but it's good enough but it's so much easier because time is money so when we started getting alignment around this is the cost of what we're doing today so if we solve this problem the upside is more selling hours for our sellers who are embracing you know having to deal with this manual and partners more likely to recommend our solution because we are now not only good enough we're the best but we're easy so when we can fix those things here's the outcome we're going to see and then we start putting data like here's how many manual hours our distributors here's how many hours we're taking away from our sales team so we put data we worked with our channel uh sales leaders say how much time does your team spend on these manual tasks so we got real strong alignment around here's the cost of what we're doing right now that pain and so we could start to then project forward so the upside is if every partner account manager gets hours back what does that turn into can they manage more partners or what does that turn into what does that turn into how can they manage more partners or or manage the partners they have more deeply how much revenue could that generate we looked at things like deal registration programs really difficult when deal registration programs are really easy industry data says we should look at about a six percent lift in deal registration right so we could start to put numbers to it we could put roi calculation to it so that was the first step is is getting executive leadership brought into the problem and then really putting together a vision and i put a three-year vision and really i like to put themes to things so so you know the theme of the first year is addressing critical gaps and then we and then we hit industry parity and then we actually have an experience that's so good we have a differentiated experience and so putting that into a three-year road map that a chief operating officer who maybe doesn't live this every day could still understand thematically okay there's what we're doing and then being really clear here's what i'm asking for in the numbers and here's the outcome i think this is going to drive and really being clear about the numbers like at the end of the day the numbers but it all started with aligning around the problem statement if you get you know and when i when i hear it played back from leaders that say we need to address the manual processes we have with our partners as an example when a very senior leader says that at a meeting i know we've won that like check we have hit that mark we have broad executive alignment around the problem statement so now we can start to talk about what we need to do about it and then you bring bring forward a problem then you got to get all your stakeholders in a room and like i'm it's the hardest thing in the world to do but the first person you need to call is your biggest detractor like yeah who is the person oh i've learned that lesson who is most like you know and i think when you're young in your career the temptation is i'm going to avoid tony because tony is always going to disagree you know those those sort of like nope that is the first phone call you need to make but that comes with experience that comes with experience and confidence because you and i have been there yeah yeah and now and and i don't know about you i'm now no longer afraid so so we've grown in courage we've grown as you say the biggest detractor you have to make your biggest fan because otherwise they're going to detract behind your back it's good one way or another, bring them in, understand their pain point. We're all people. We're all trying to succeed. Assume that they are not like personally out to get you understand what they're detracting is about. There's usually something really good underneath it. So for example, we have resource constraints. And so part of my solution was bringing forward, not just a technology, but incremental resources to help deploy that technology, because I knew that that was my detractor's number one concern. Way too many priorities, way too few resources. So understanding my detractor's objection was going to be resource related. And if I could help address that, that my detractor was actually going to become a supporter. An advocate. That was huge. Don't avoid the detractor. It's so hard, but make them your first phone call. Totally. And be courageous. We talk about curiosity all the time. I don't think any of us. I don't think any of us need to be encouraged to be curious, but courageous, but in the right way, as you say, ask the question, what do you think is stopping us doing this? And open-minded. And be brave enough to open. Yeah. And open-minded enough to change based on what you hear. Yes. You may have to change your approach. Yeah, exactly. I was going to say, it's also about having a growth mindset yourself. This is about bringing them along on that journey. I love that. This vision piece is something that I've been sitting with a lot recently, Karen, since we've come up with some of this last year, which is. I have that cartoon in my head of everyone has different expectations of. We're building a swing and the customer thinks it looks like this and the salesperson sold it like this. And actually, I think there's something powerful about just spending a bit of time drawing it out and explaining it in a way that isn't. I think it's like a top level title. I think you need to go a little bit deeper and actually make it something people can touch, touch, feel, experience. And I tend to always think about this is it needs to be good enough that someone. It's not a blank sheet of paper. It's something that someone can violently disagree with. If they don't agree with it, they can come in and at least have an opinion about where it's wrong. So I think we're missing that vision piece now with too many transformation projects, be them in the channel or not. So that's something that really changed my mind. You know, and I love what you're saying there, John, because I think the most difficult thing to overcome is not disagreement. It's indifference. I can deal with strong agreements. Great, right? And you know, when you've got strong agreement, like I got an advocate here. Strong disagreement is still clear. Why do you disagree? What's the problem? How do we. Indifference though, man, that is. I will take disagreement over indifference any day of the week. No, but it's not just. Sorry, Amanda. It's not just indifference. If you give someone too much choice, it paralyzes them. So it's not just around a high. I don't really have a view on polka dots. It's more like you've got to. If you're giving someone a blank sheet of paper, they just don't know where to start. You've got to give someone a place of where to start. Sorry, Amanda, I jumped in there. No, no. But what Karen's quite right in saying, you can change the vision. You can change the vision as well, based on people's strong opinions. But you're right. If you don't know what they're thinking, and silence is not consent, silence is definitely not consent. And I've learned that the hard way. I've learned that. I'm thinking, raise your hand if you disagree. Nobody raises their hand. So you think you've got consensus and agreement, but you do not, because silence is not consent. And also, silence is apathy. They haven't engaged. They haven't bought into your vision. They're not even nodding. There's just nothing. There's silence. And silence is not consent. So you have to have verbal agreement. But the vision, you're right, John, the vision is something you can all look at and hopefully understand. And if you bought into the vision, then you need a verbal and a physical nod of the head and a verbal, are you convinced this is the right direction? Are you convinced this is the right direction to go in? And you have to literally go around the table and ask every single person, every one of those decision makers, the joint decision makers, are you clear on the vision? And are you in agreement this is the direction we're going to take? Because if they're not, say now, and then you redefine the vision, because you're redefining and you're modifying the vision until you get that consensus around the table. Or go back to your problem statement. And this is why, that's why I always like, do we all agree that this is a problem that we need to solve? Because it may be that the vision isn't the problem at all. It's like, yeah, that's as good as any vision. We just don't think any of this is a priority. This isn't a problem. We are not aligned on the problem statement. So if we're not aligned on the problem statement, we're not aligned on the need for any vision, let alone this vision. So I want to start bringing us to wrap this up here. And I've got, you've all been very agreeable with me. We just talk about disagreeing and everyone keeps agreeing with me. I'm going to be divisive here, but I think you're probably going to agree with me on this one as well. So I want to kind of summarize this as our learnings for our listeners. And really, I broke it down to three things, but I'm going to go around the room and see what everyone else wants to add. So the first one for me is you need to understand the way that our organizations are structured are important for you to understand which people you need to bring on that journey. So I put that as a maturity of your channel organization. That can mean a lot of things depending on how you're structured, how you make money, how important your partner ecosystem is. The second one, and this comes to the points you made, Karen, you've got to understand your problem statement and have clarity. But the most powerful thing is you then got to create a vision that's based on outcomes. So those are my three learnings, like understand who you need to bring on that, get on the bus, understand where the bus is going, and then have a vision, draw the map to get there. But what am I missing from that plan? I disagree. I don't disagree. We're not going to disagree with that statement. I think that in terms of stakeholder alignment, you know, there's always the whiff on what's in it for me, right? You know, and so I think as you are going through and you're understanding your organization impact, it's really also probably understanding that what is the pain point for that stakeholder? And it may not be one universally, right? You may need to understand at least the nuances. And I'll just add, don't forget your support functions. Like I think it's really easy to look at and say, okay, well, sales, marketing, maybe engineering. Don't forget about like finance, IT, legal, right? And so you don't forget about your support functions because oftentimes they are the detractor that comes in and disrupts everything you're trying to do because you didn't consider an impact on, you know, I want to do a rebate, everybody's great, we can afford it, great, great, great. And it's just like, do you know what a nightmare this is for me? No, I don't have the resources to support that. We didn't bring them, we missed a stakeholder. So don't forget your supporting functions. Think very, very broadly about, and when in doubt, go ask, just go ask. Yeah. Amanda, any final comments from you? Yeah, my final comment is, how do you align with all of your stakeholders? Because you're right, the obvious stakeholders are your sales leaders, are your direct marketing leaders. You're account-based marketing leaders, but there are a lot of other teams that you need to align with. And you're right about, you know, offerings and, you know, three-year deals, finance, and the team that do all the SKUs, all the sales operations, even down to country level, because you might get agreement at global, you might get agreement at regional, because I was in a global role and a regional role. But then if it isn't carried forward to country level, no matter how fantastic the program is or the offering is, it will fail. Such a good point. So getting your RACI, your roles and responsibilities, who your influencers are, who's contributing, as well as need to be informed, your RACI becomes key as well. Yep. So it's not just stakeholder alignment, it's RACI, and I'm a spreadsheet fanatic. I've not found a better way of doing RACI other than in a spreadsheet. But if you find a better way of doing it, then please share. Yep. Great, great point. It's been another absolutely fantastic podcast. I'm glad, you know, well, it's been great to Karen for you to be back on. I'm sure you won't be a stranger. I'm sure I'll have you back on in the next six months or so talking again about the channel. But thank you both for joining me on today's Tech Magazine podcast. Happy to have you again. Thanks for having me.