Grow Early Stage Startups Through Partnerships with Sean Paulseth

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I appreciate it, kd. I'm looking forward to our chat. Thank you very much.

So I love this as a topic because I consult a lot of early stage founders and oftentimes I'm like, okay, you're trying to go from zero to three. Partnerships is where you start. Channel is where you start. There are already people out there selling to your prospects right now that you could tag along with. And so I love this as a topic. So how, let's start with just like how cracked this or where this idea came from in terms of leveraging partners when you're going into these early stage companies.

Yeah, no, 100%. I think even with today's selling landscape and what's been going on over the past couple years, Covid, then we hear about a bad economy, then we hear about this and that, it's becoming increasingly hard to reach our prospects. People are getting hundreds, thousands of automated emails. How can you stand out? And I started to think, if there's a startup and you're trying to get 0 to 1 or 1 to 3, there's already people out there that have done that. There's people that have connected with their customers. There's people out there, whether it's an integrated partner or not, or indirect, direct, there might be someone that just sells into a similar department as you. So how can I, as a partner leader, sales leader, or even an ae, try to level up in a startup so I can get revenue faster, close deals faster, and leverage kind of the customer and customer base that they've already established and work together to win together ultimately.

And I think that's the key, right, is like, okay, there's people out there that are already going to my prospect. So start there. How do I identify a good partner? Like, what do you look for? How do I know? Right? I'm going into a new space. How do I identify a good partner? Someone who could potentially be a good fit.

Yeah, for sure. I think that starting off, when I had first started in the, in the startup that I, that I was in, I was an AE at the time thinking, hey, how can I level up? How can I understand that we didn't have very many partners at the time, integrated or not, And I started using events. So the reason why I bring up events is because if you're going in there and you don't really know what a good partner is because maybe it's not necessarily integrated technicals, or technicality aside, if you start looking at events and seeing other people that are selling at industry events like you, maybe they're selling to the same customer base. Maybe it's worth reaching out and networking with these individuals that have a similar product or a product that's selling into a similar ICP or a similar department. And how you can figure that out is through networking, through events, going to these things, having conversations, reaching out. I think what Covid everything is virtual now. People are open to having conversations through LinkedIn. If it's another company, if it's another startup, there is kind of an in crowd there. If you're doing sales and to really identify a good partner, are they open to working with you? I think in this climate more than ever working together is going to be a is going to be paramount to win. And I think looking at events and looking at other companies that are emerging in your space, whether you're selling to HR or IT sales, maybe it's worth reaching out to their partner people. Maybe it's reaching out to another ae. You can just do that on your own and seeing if there's any overlap in accounts. So there's really good ways you can do that for free. If you don't have an established partner program and you're just going out there first, you can start reaching out and start account mapping. Gone are the days of using spreadsheets and sending these over and going back and forth. That is manual. There are free tools out there that can now account map. So if it's an AE to an AE at an event or a virtual event or maybe you saw them at a webinar but you know they're in your space. Maybe they're selling HR2 but it's a different element. I can then go and reach out to them and use free tools to understand, hey, these are my accounts. In manufacturing it seems like we have similar accounts. I just closed this one but I'm looking to go this one. Maybe we can help each other. So there's ways to look at the data much faster to understand should I spend any time with this partner? Is there any overlap? Is the ICP similar? And then you can move from there and build out marketing campaigns depending on how big the startup is. There's there's things you can do to work together successfully after you understand are you guys moving in the same direction? Do you have the same goals? Is it and it becomes kind of a a win win process. But of course partnerships is is much more complicated than that. There's bigger Partners, smaller partners and all that. But I think looking at the data definitely helps. And there's things now in this day and age that can help do that too.

So are you, are you recommending that, like, ICs try to do this on their own versus, like, just like a company? Right, because obviously, like, companies may be focused on partnerships, but you're saying as an AE, reach out to potentially other AES that sell to your Personas and get these conversations going.

Yeah, 100%. Perfect.

Okay, so then now this, this splits because this gets a lot of fun. So at, let's go the IC route within the company route, how do I make it worth their while?

Right?

So like, all right, like, I sell to sales leaders, you sell to sales leaders, I reach out to you and go, hey, let's see if we have, you know, accounts that overlap or whatever else. But like, you know, at the end of the day, it almost always kind.

Of goes like, well, what's in it.

For the other person? Like, how do you make that work?

Right?

Were you just trading leads? Were you making introductions, like how, how you actually start to form a relationship?

Yeah, no, great question. I think it starts with, okay, there's overlap. Check. We got it. We're selling to the same icp, we're selling to the same department. That makes sense. Now, is there any type of referral fee or anything in place right now with your organization to organization if there isn't, If I'm just an AE going out cold because we're a brand new startup, we have no partner program, nothing like that, maybe you have to reach out to a number of them. I always say, hey, if there's like, if you're reaching out to SAP or a bigger company, there may be 10 people that tell you, hey, you know what, I don't really want to work with you, but there might be one individual, there usually seems to be one or two that says, hey, let's work together for this. So what's in it for them is understanding what's the metric that drives them. Maybe it's, maybe it's a referral fee for them. Maybe they do have a partner program. Maybe they're looking to hit their number and they need a referral from you. Because obviously you and I both know referrals are much better in terms of booking that meeting warm and they need that. So it's kind of building the rapport with them and understanding what their goals are and seeing if you can ultimately help them get there. So whether that's more customers, more meetings Maybe helping their BDR book more meetings, understanding and asking the questions to understand what their goals are in their specific role and maybe their specialization and to help them get there. And if there isn't any mesh, you can just move on. It's like a prospect. Hey, you know what? Doesn't seem like a good fit. Let's just move on, you know, because there are people out there that are going to be open to working with you.

Got it. Okay. No, I like that. I guess then as a leader, how do you trying to think, how to phrase this question. Like, how do you make sure though, this doesn't become a distraction for your people? Right. Because I can also see it going the other way. Where I got, I got a team of AES all reaching out to other AES to try to set up partnerships when they could just be reaching out to prospects. How do you balance that? This actually does produce something versus potentially even becoming a distraction for an IC.

Right.

Because I like this idea for ICs, but I want to talk through how to actually do it. Well, where it's not. I got 10 AES reaching out to God knows how many other AES to try to set things up and we start crossing wires. So talk about badges a little bit.

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I think for as a sales leader, the last thing you want to do is get your A's too distracted going down the wrong avenue. They're always going to be looking for those direct customers, booking those meetings. And I think that will always be an element. So this is where the partnership side of things can come in and can actually support that sales leader or revenue leader to help move to the same goals as ultimately moving faster deals through the pipeline, bigger deals. We've seen all the data behind that. Like a partner can actually accelerate that. Now if I'm a sales leader, a partner leader, I want to work together and maybe just work on one partner. Maybe we start small, Maybe we start small. And there's a top AE that says, hey, you know, how about you work with this one top AE that I know because I reached out to the other partner and said, hey, we're working in the same acp I keep seeing at the same events, man. Like, how about we meet up, let's have a beer, let's have a, a chat about this. Are, are you seeing traction in this industry? Can we help get there? And you have a conversation with them and you start small because what you can do is build off one big win from the ae and maybe it's a Top A, that's segments their time. Maybe they did one demo and you build off that win, you get data from that win and you can look at the other AES. It's like this can actually help hit your quota and then you can start to create an actual partner program around that. But it's not going to start sought off right away. I would also not recommend doing that. Let all AES loose and be like, that's all what we're gonna do. And then next thing you know you're like, yeah, no one has booked any meetings in three weeks and now everyone's in trouble and panicking meetings with AES.

Like right, okay, so yeah, I like that. So now let's flip actually to the company side. Right. It's like as a company's looking at who to go after with partners, what I do see is, you know, they tend to, in my opinion, go too big too fast. Where they're like, they're, they're this little startup and we're like, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna go partner with Salesforce, we're gonna try to get into Salesforce's partner ecosystem. It's like, yo, you have five customers maybe. So like how do you like get the ball rolling with like partners and not try to go too big too fast with some of like the more established people in the space?

Yeah. And to our point before, like that can also be a huge waste of time. Like if you're barking up the wrong tree and are you just partnering for the sake of partnering? Maybe it's a formality. You think you have to partner because your competitors happen to be partnering. Maybe that's not the best idea. So how I would map that is figuring out who else. And you can look through this through data. Maybe you don't want to partner with a workday right away because they're not the most partner friendly to your point or a Salesforce ecosystem. Maybe there's another startup that is going to create a stickier product for you and you have to kind of look at it as like almost like a macro level play because you want to figure out is there another company that's scaling a similar size right away and they would need the support. It's like a mutual partnership moving forward as opposed to. Because of course maybe you'll have to do that workday integration eventually when you get big enough. But let's not, let's not, we're gonna, let's not work on that right away because we're not gonna get any Dividends. We're not gonna get any leads from that right away. Let's look for some of those other smaller players that we know that maybe we can integrate with or work alongside as a direct that can help us because they are also super specific. But we work really well together and mesh well together. So it takes actually quite a bit of industry research and understanding because to your point, you don't want to pour in a lot of resources and I think a lot of companies end up doing this. We're just going to partner for the sake of partnering. Let's get that logo on that partner page. That is going to be what we're going to do and, and it's going to be awesome. And then you're like, wait, we don't have any leads. It's those smaller partners that you can work with that are open to working with you and doing the research, doing those account mapping, meeting with their partner team, talking to their CEO. Like all of those things will be important. But if you're scaling a small startup, maybe there's another one out there, maybe there's another one that's emerging. And you know for a fact that if we work together or we integrate or we work together and we come to an enterprise client and be like, but we're actually more cost effective than an enterprise product here, than a salesforce. You can more hands on approach as well. Like there's things that you can do to accelerate that and work with those smaller companies that are in the same boat as you and are trying to drive the same kind of goals as you. And they also don't want to work with a salesforce. So you can actually live with them and be like, yeah, no I don't want to integrate with that. Like we've gone through a nightmare story too.

Yeah. And then, and you've used the word a couple of times that I want to help like people distinguish, right. It's like you know, you have tries again you've used the word like integrate, right? So there's like product partnerships, right where like you're connecting products, right? Or pluggy name and then there's called you know, whatever like add on partnerships where like your product complements their product but it doesn't necessarily integrate with it. And then you just have pure call it like lead gen partnerships where they were just going after the same people. We were just like a warm intro. So can you kind of break down those buckets real quick of like who, what's a good integration partner versus what's a good call it add on or tag along partner and then what's just like a good like lead training partner?

Yeah, for sure. So starting with like a lead training, this is. These will become more substantial I think with smaller startups and companies generally because now we can look at the data much easier whether or not it's worth partnering and having a conversation. So these type of partners are people that maybe I'm selling into hr, they're selling into HR but they offer a compensation software. I, I sell a applicant tracking software. But we're both in the same group, we both selling to the same people. We can work together to work on referrals, intros and you can kind of work with the relationship with there. So that is going to be emerging and I kind of like, kind of like more of an indirect relationship and there's softwares and stuff. Like I can say that you can do a automated account mapping, things like that. So it doesn't take as much AE time to figure out if this is worth my time as a leader as well. You can look at that in a macro level and there's things that can help you do that. Now if there's a product integration or product partnership, these ones sometimes will be necessary nonetheless. So you may be a startup that's an add on to a Salesforce. Maybe you just want to live in a Salesforce ecosystem and you want to figure out what's the metric that drives Salesforce. Like how can we help Salesforce hit this specific metric? Maybe it's customer retention. Maybe I'm integrating with Workday because it complements their ERP system or their ATS HCM system and people are asking for that because it's a competitive nature to become a little more competitive with the other ATS out there or the other ERP systems that they're battling. Like product integrations will become necessary to understand or how to maybe win some of those more enterprise clients. Like maybe those integrations you're needed because you're an AI tool and you're not a standalone product. So you're actually forced to integrate. So those partnerships will be much bigger and you can map those out and that could be a whole different conversation on how to break into some of those bigger partnerships because they're the bigger people and you're the smaller. And like how can you, how can you help kind of get your name out there. And then there's ones that can work alongside, that can complement. And these are super interesting as well because these are ones where you go, may go into a sales cycle and if you had that specific area that you could check off as well, they would be like, well, we would have went with you because we went with the all in one product because we want the best of the breed or whatever it is. And they happen to all integrate. Those ones can have work alongside and these can help influence sales cycles, move sales cycles for sales cycles and you can bring that in. When you realize someone says you're ae and this is another good thing about communication throughout the sales organization is like, what are they saying? Why did we lose that? That maybe we lost a bunch of deals because we didn't have xyz. Maybe instead of building this out, it's going to take two quarters to do. We talked a product. Let's not do that. There's a partner that's growing right now. It's pretty small, but that can fill that void and we can become more cost effective together. So there's things like that where you can work alongside and I think those are becoming to are beginning to emerge a little more as well. They can be super effective too.

So then let's go the activation route here next. Right. Because I've run large channel teams, I'm a huge believer in it and it happens all the time. Right. Hey, new partnership with super Biz. Everyone's like, yes. And it's like Super Biz got 10,000 customers and Da da da da. This is going to be great. And nothing happens. There's no activation.

Right.

There's no actually like, hey, how do you plug in? So let's talk about how to activate a good partnership.

Okay.

So we met. Okay.

So we talked. Okay.

So we realized we have some alignment. Okay. We agree to some terms which I do want to get to in a little bit. How do you then activate it? How do you actually then ensure. Insure is the wrong word but like make sure that you know they're pulling you in and that you're pulling them in and there's that actual activation of the partnership.

Yeah, 100%. I think that's a million dollar question when you're going into a partnership with a bigger company and they have maybe three or four other competitors already part of that ecosystem. Why you? I think to help with that as and I think this is just a mantra for anyone in partnerships is always to give first. Like what can I give to them or what can I do to activate this partnership? Saying, hey, you know what, we have a lot of XYZ customers which is why we came to you anyway and said this is a good Partnership. Maybe there's things we can do that doesn't result in them actually giving any resources because they're going to be hands off. Well we don't have. Their hands are tied. They can't give you anything. We can't work with you on a webinar. It's like how about we start doing marketing initiatives or things to activate that partnership such as a virtual roundtable with a bunch of customers. Doesn't take a lot for us to do that. But if we have a lot of customers of there we start to bring them in, ask them maybe just for a thought leader once a month, maybe let's bring them in once a quarter. Maybe there's. Eventually you want to get to that point where you can do virtual events and co branding and stuff like that. But it may be just you on that island to figure out and bringing them in to getting them on your on their radar. And then to take it a step further. What is that metric that makes them want that their customers. What is that metrics that is important to that partner? Like is it. And when we integrate with them for instance, is that. Is that metric customer retention? Maybe it's. Maybe it's understanding that it becomes a stickier product like understanding. And I think that is the key to a partnership is going in there and understanding. I know all the partner leaders that have been in partnerships much longer than me understand that going in there with bigger product and a bigger player what is that metric that helps drive them? Why did we integrate in the first place? And that's highlight all of these things with their top down, like a top down approach or with all of these initiatives that we can do that we're just calling them in that they don't have to put a lot of resources in. We start to get on the radar, we start to drive that home and I think slowly we'll get on that radar and understand why you would be the, the, the better partner to partner with. And actually they will start giving you resources. It's a slow grind at first but there's other times. Well maybe it's not worth going down that because there's too many of these. Like there's a, there's a time for that too. And I think when you're starting out to find, find one or two, three max partners that you can go all in on because you don't have a lot of resources because you're a scaling startup I think is key too.

Yeah, I like that. Now one small thing there is like if I'm Small, right? You mentioned, like, give first. Like, what if I don't have much to give?

Right. Like, small.

Right. It's two founders. Maybe I like one salesperson with me. Right. We're still in, like that, the garage. Right. So does that mean maybe it's too early to go for partnerships? Like, because maybe I don't have much to give other than maybe my product complements them or maybe my product helps their product be a little bit stickier. Like, so what if I don't have much to give?

Yeah, I think in those use cases, you have to look for that big win together or not together. If you have to find that win, where you have that one salesperson is hunting people that use that software or use that product that you eventually want to bolster that partnership with. And you do all that work and you show, hey, we just signed an enterprise client. They use you. Let's build off this win. Let's work on this win. And we do that first. It's incredibly hard to go there if you don't have anything to give for sure. But I think if you grind and get a big win and show them, hey, you know what? This is who we are. The data will show you have a great case study with them. You build off that one. Whether it's enterprise, mid market, SMB, if you can get in there and grind and get that win, use your CEO, use everyone that you have to get that in. You can show, hey, you know, this is our first win. We've been in. We've been in the market for a little bit now. Like, is. Is there. Is this customer maybe relevant to you? You know, I mean, like, maybe your first couple customers that you have are customers they don't work with. Maybe there's someone that you can give a referral to. Maybe your CEO knows someone, you know, I mean, like, there's things that you can use, I think, to your advantage beyond maybe because you're just starting out, maybe there's other connections that you can help them, that you can help them fill that void. So there's other things. You can get super creative with it too. But once again, it's a grind. It's definitely difficult when you're going in there, three people in the garage and you're trying to figure out, okay, we got a partner with workday, like, how could someone. Someone do that? For sure.

I like that. And then as we start to kind of wrap on this, let's talk about the terms a little bit, right? Of like, what make, you know, what have you seen work best in terms of like, you know, I guess like what the offer is. Right? Do you like Rev Share? Is it, you know, lead, you know, numbers? Like, how do you like to structure the call the expectations of the partnership? Because oftentimes, you know, when I talk with people like we have a partner program and I go, great. So like, what are they doing for us? They say, well, nothing. Like, well then that's not a partnership. Like they, if they're not doing something for us and we're not doing for them something for them, that's not a partnership, that's a contract or whatever it is. Like how, like what are some of those terms? Like, do you like rev Share, Lead share? You know, like what, what does that.

Look like for you and your, your groups? Yeah, absolutely. I think what we did and which was, which was successful and ultimately got us, got us acquired in the first startup I was a part of was to really focus in on one or two partners and go all in because we knew that was the industry segment that we had to go all in on. We were getting kind of too, too, too widespread, too thin. So how could we possibly go in there and figure that out? So we wanted to work together and create a term sheet as more of a mutual accountability. You know, AES will do a, an action plan almost. I've actually started to create that more on a partner plan with specific partners saying, hey, these are the amount of leads that we want to give you by the end of the quarter. This is what we want to do. On the marketing side, we'll bring you on some research that we just did and start ticking these things off so they know exactly like a mutual accountability to it. And that may involve rev share, that might involve lead share, that might involve maybe a product integration or enhancement or things. So making sure when you're going in and if you're really small, you got to go in hard on one or two partners. Let's see if they're open to working with you. Let's see if we can create a map together. Let's see. This is what we're doing for 2023. We want to bring you in on this. We want to do that. How does this look? This is what we're expecting from you. Just kind of level set. And if there is nothing giving back to your point, then be like, okay, well this is not a partnership. Let's move on to another similar partner that may be open to it or maybe a similar size or maybe a similar. They can work alongside us. There's so many different, like tech and software that's out there now that I feel like you'll be able to find that person or that. That. That company that will work with you and then create terms that are favorable for not you, but both of you to win together, ultimately.

I like that. And then actually one other one, you know, you mentioned this was a different topic we could have gone into, but, like, you've mentioned it a few times throughout this that I think is important to call out is you've mentioned the startup grind, right? Like, startups are hard, right? And it's hilarious to me because, you know, everyone, you know, everyone's the wrong word. But, like, you know, I want to get into tech and I want to. I want to join a startup and I want to, you know, build a rocket ship and then. But they forget that it's hard. Like, it's hard to do and it's. It's glamorized. But, you know, it's like we're at this weird impasse right now with people and, you know, call it employees and team members coming up. It's like they want the big win, they want the payout, they want, like, the, the glory that comes with. They forget it's really hard to do this. So, like, how do you manage that grind? Right? And, like, I think this is important. Like, I'll. I'll harp on this real quick. They. Hard work has almost become a bad word. Like, you can't tell people to work hard anymore. You can't. Like, the word hustle used to be a cool thing. Now it's hustle culture and hustle porn. And it's like, well, like, but you do. You gotta work hard for some of this stuff. So talk about, like, that grind a little bit and how, like, you manage it, how you get through it, and.

Also maybe help set some people's expectations.

Where, like, this is kind of what comes with the territory.

Yeah. No, and I didn't even want to use the word grind once again, because you don't know if I should.

Like, I heard it.

Mad.

So someone's gonna say something, someone's gonna be offended.

But the great thing about startups is you have to go in there with the level set. You're not gonna be. Maybe you won't ipo, maybe you won't be acquired. But what you will learn are invaluable skills that you can bring to pretty much any kind of sales role, partner role, you can pivot in there. You learn how to be resourceful, you learn how to Learn. I would say you learn faster in a startup that. As opposed to maybe you're working for a big beast, like a. Like a salesforce, you almost turn robotic there. Startups are moving really fast. You're going to learn facets of the business that you would have no idea about. Right. And you understand, maybe you want to build a business later on and it doesn't work out. You know what now doesn't work out? Like, you learn the negatives, you learn the positives. I think there's so many things that you can do and learn in a startup that you can't in a bigger, more established organization that will help you throughout life. And to stay. Not to use the word grind or. Or hustle. And this is even kind of falls into the partner realm as well. It's like, what can I do beyond what everyone else is doing? Because maybe you're selling into a. Maybe you're selling your competitor is a salesforce. Not to harp on them too much, but, like, maybe you're up against the big beast. But how can I stand up? And I think things like building your brand is important. Networking as many people as possible out there, hey, what have they done? Like, even building a brand using video. I know I don't have to go down, open up that door. What are your competitors not doing? And you got to do that. But you'll learn that really fast. You'll learn how to do that. You'll learn what happens when you raise a series A. Like, all of those things I think are super cool, but once again, it's gonna be. It's not gonna. Every day is gonna be different in a way. And I think staying organized and like all of those other good sales mentality read, stay healthy, like, segment your day. All of those things are gonna be important. But there's other things that you're not gonna be able to do in a bigger organization that you can do as a startup because you're gonna be handcuffed. That's another element to this. Like, I can now just maybe I. I'm gonna have a champion podcast. Every month. I'm gonna. I'm gonna interview a champion and put it on LinkedIn. You may not be able to do that on Salesforce because you have to go through marketing or maybe there's some red tape. Like, things like that. There's a lot of cool stuff that you can do as a startup that your people are gonna be like, you can just do that. I'm gonna start posting videos on LinkedIn and building my own brand. And doing things like a champion podcast, I think that's a great way to. To. To get your name out there and build your brand and talk to other leaders and stuff like that, and you won't be held back. So I think there's some pros and cons, for sure, but it's not all IPOs and acquisitions and things like that. So knowing that going in there, but knowing that you can learn and take what you learn from there and apply that to any other organization, you will know how to work hard. Like, that's the. That's the essence of working hard in one of those, for sure.

And it's what's interesting. I talked about this a little bit, actually, in a session that I did with SAS Doc earlier this year of like, you know, oftentimes, right, like, those early, early employees, like, they get it. They get the grind. They get this is gonna be hard, but they're also. They're excited about it. Like, they're not. They're not complaining about it. They're excited about it. They're like, we're building something special, and we're a part of something special. And as it grows, that specialness starts to change and it starts to be, well, this is my job. It's not something that is special anymore. And, you know, that's where a lot of companies get stuck is like those first 10 to 15, they. They get it. They understand the grind and what they're signing up for. Then as it grows, that's where you start to get that divide a little bit, that. That, you know, difference in expectations and all of that, for sure. So as we wrap on this, my friend, this has been great because I do. I think partnerships are something not enough people do. I love the idea of, you know, getting creative as an IC of like, you know, use this. You know, put this in your 10% time where it's like, maybe not where you put 90% of your focus, but if every month, 10% of your time, four to five hours, got dedicated to, like, putting in some work around partnerships and networking, I really, really like. But the name of this podcast, right, is Live Better, Sell Better. Because I have that weird idea, right, like, if. If we lived better, if we had more energy, if we were healthier, happier, more confident, more fulfillment in life, that sales would improve as well, what would your live better advice be for people listening?

I think everything that you do outside of actually selling is going to impact your success. And I will. And I'll drill in one area, which I know you're a Big advocate of is reading. I don't think a lot of people read enough. I know there's a lot of great audiobooks, but physically reading and writing, whether even reading sales books, just reading anything, I think is so advantageous for growth, understanding memory. And once again, anything that you're doing outside is going to impact the way you sell. So whether that's exercise, reading, if you're meditating, all of those things, you will see differences over time and it will ultimately help you sell better. Hit your number, everything like that. There's obviously things out of your control, but the things you can control are things, those outside things like exercise and reading and saying focus. So yeah, I love that, man.

Even, even reading has gotten some grief over the past couple years. Like, it's just, it's getting so crazy to me of like, well, you know, does no good to read 20 books if you don't execute on them. And I'm always like, look, go read 20 books and tell me you're not a different person by the end of it.

Your vocabulary will change. Like it will.

I challenge you not to change. If you sat down and you read 20 books across the year that you don't start to think a little bit differently. Differently and start to talk a little bit differently and have different types of ideas. Like, I've yet to actually see that people just love to harp on things. To harp on things. Or it's like, oh, yeah, all right, reading, you gotta go execute first. Yeah, you can do both, you know.

No, 100% I couldn't. Yeah, I can't. I'm a huge advocate of that. Anyone who says that is just, yeah, I'm ready for that argument as well.

Well, hey, consider him being signed up for that one. So this was really, really good, man. Where can people go find more of you? Where are you putting contact, like content? Where can they connect with you? All of that.

Yeah, absolutely. So, Sean Paul Seth on LinkedIn. I post a lot partnerships, sales, love to network. If there's things I can help you out with, I'm happy to do so look at my network. Can I give you any intros, etc, referrals? I know we're going into whatever you want to call our quote unquote downturn, I'm happy to help. So just add me up and I'm happy to connect. Awesome.

Well, I appreciate you, man. Appreciate you going deep on partnerships and I'm sure we'll be having many of partnership conversations in the future.