Episode #29 -The Art of Authority Podcast with Mike Saunders- Interview With Robert Glazer on Developing Strategic Alliances

Welcome to the Art of Authority podcast, bringing you interviews and episodes to help you radically optimize your authority and influence to become the go to expert in your field. Here's your host, authority positioning coach, Mike Saunders.

Hey, guys, welcome back. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. And today we have with us Robert Glaser, who is the CEO and founder of Acceleration Partners and the author of international bestselling book Performance Partnerships. Welcome to the program, Robert.

Hey, Mike, how are you? Hey.

Doing great. And when I interviewed you on my podcast a few months ago, and then I decided to do this summit, obviously authority and influence, who do you want to talk to? But people that know the business and are doing big things. So that's where I circle back with you, because you are providing a bridge, in my opinion, people that finally realize I need to be playing in this space, but then how do I do it? So give us a little bit of background of your company, what you focus on doing. Then we'll get into just. Just some really good, practical, tactical things that people can be doing in their business.

Sure. So Acceleration Partners is the leading performance marketing firm in the US we help launch and manage affiliate programs and performance partner programs for large brands such as Target, Adidas, Gymboree, Reebok, and we help generate over about a billion and a half in revenue for our clients in their programs last year. We're really just focused on performance. We think that the future of marketing is more win win relationships. And whether you want to call it affiliate marketing or performance marketing or performance partnerships, we just think that the trends that you've been seeing something like blockchain these days are towards efficiency, speed, transparency.

And trust. And we think that when someone can deliver a customer or a lead or an action and people can pay them for that action, there's just not a better form of marketing.

Well, I agree with you. And the aha moment I think a lot of people have is when they realize if I pay for any kind of an advertising campaign, it doesn't matter what we're thinking of. You know, Google Ads, Facebook ads, you know, anything online, you're paying up front and hoping for a result. With these kinds of relationships, you are paying once the sale is made.

Yeah, we talk about the difference between paying for inputs and paying for outcomes. And I've given speeches in front of large rooms and I say, raise your hand if you think you would rather pay for inputs and raise your hand if you want to pay for outcomes. And of course, everyone says outcomes, but no one is really doing that in Reality. And it just requires both some methodology rethink and some technology and to build a program that's just based on results. But the companies that are doing this and are doing it at scale are having a huge success with it.

Well, we could talk until the cows come home about all the changes in online advertising and Facebook ads and all of these things and well, now let's put another filter in and only show the ads if there's engagement at this level. So doesn't performance, partnership, influencer, marketing type campaign help to get around some things like that? Because in reality, some influencer is marketing on their platform and if they are an influencer and authority, then they've kind of passed through those levels to where now you really are cutting through the clutter, I would think.

Yeah, the biggest difference is that the technology becomes the means and not the ends. In programmatic, the computers took over, over and people had no idea what was running where and were disgusted to find out the types of websites they were running on and the messages and how their brand was being used. And the real difference in what we're talking about is trying to have that same sort of automation and programmatic element by scaling a lot of partners onto a single platform. But these folks have their own audiences. They are the merchandising experts and they really want to control that. If they like a product and they want to talk about it, they. You think of some of the brands that are really growing quickly, the publishers, news sites and Buzzfeed and Wirecutter, which is owned by the New York Times. These are entirely affiliate based models that are driven by the publisher dealing with the merchandising and saying, look, I don't want you to tell me where and how to run it, just give me the catalog. And I like this cooler. I'm going to write about this cooler and put a review on it. I don't want you running a dynamic ad on the cooler. I'm. I'm writing about coolers that are good for suburban yuppies, not coolers that are good for whatever. So there's been a big disconnect in that. I think a lot of, even the networks were touting these programmatic type features and people saying, look, if I want a programmatic, I'd run a programmatic banner ad. I'm really looking to make the merchandising decisions for my audience. That's what an influencer does. And a tacky influencer, an influencer just sells their opinion. That works for a little while, but the best ones are authentic. They turn down offers and they say, look, they're even writing about the thing if they're not paid. And then getting paid is a benefit on top of that. So those are the folks who are most successful in the long run.

It reminds me of product placement, like on TV and things like that. So isn't it similar in the sense that the camera just spans and passes this bag sitting on the table from Walmart and kind of doesn't even pause and focus, but just kind of makes it apparent? So it's not placed in there for any other reason other than. Oh, it just kind of is in your mind. So the point is, when you put some programmatic or in your face ads, people know it's an ad. But if you do it the right way, it feels like it's part of the conversation.

Yeah. You know, people just, they start jamming all of these trendy terms together. I mean, last year someone said something about native, something programmatic. I was like, there was like a complete oxymoron that said it out to me. So people are talking about native, you know, native programmatic. Yeah. It's like, look, these are real people or magazines or people taking an opinion or talking about something. They don't have to be endorsing it. They could be, you know, they could be. It's not a stamp of approval. I could be talking about the pros or the cons or how it compares or a list, but it's just not a hey buy here. And when people dug in, particularly on mobile and programmatic, they found out 90% of these. We had a client who said 90% of these ads were fraudulent. Pop under, out of the way when you're just running on impression stuff. I find it fascinating that 10 years ago you would have gotten fired for buying banner ads and somehow it all came back with new terms.

Well, let's think about someone that wants to delve into this, because in this summit, we're talking about authority, influence, expertise and getting that out there. Well, in our own little pond. As an entrepreneur now, you work with major brands, but let's kind of even dive in a little deeper and think about how what's the size of a brand that should be considering this? Because maybe an entrepreneur isn't saying, I'm not Revlon, I can't work with you. But should they be considering an affiliate type revenue share relationship to get the word out about their business?

Yes. So this is a little bit of depends about how you want to use it. You can. I think most brands should think about an affiliate program and staffing a program and opening that up once they get to a million in revenue. Hard to have the scale below that. But let's say you were doing a lot of partner stuff and business development. You might be better off licensing SaaS or signing up for a network and starting to go to all these partners. And it's not an affiliate program, and it doesn't have to be open, but saying, look, here's how it works. You sign up here, you get an account. Remember, this handles all the payment, direct deposit, and tax forms and all that stuff. Let me set you up with some links you can pull from our catalog, and you could almost treat some of your early business development partners. And this is funny to me, all this blockchain stuff around smart contracts and payment and transparency. That's what these tracking platforms have always been. When you put something in biz dev and you're talking three months to get a contract, and then they read it and then they come back with edits. And I think last night on my iPhone, I accepted an upgrade and I probably gave them the right to sell all my pictures online. I just accept it. So, I mean, the contracting aspect just becomes a lot easier with a system like this as well.

So what kind of. You mentioned a dollar figure, you know, a million dollars in revenue, and I'm certain that that's in some worlds. But what about someone that has, you know, a shop of five or 10 employees? They're not at a million dollars.

Yeah.

Is there a way to use some of these techniques of partnering with people with a revenue share? Maybe not tapping into major brands, but the mindset, the philosophy of, you've got access to people that I want to get access to. We don't sell competing brands. How can we work together? Isn't it that kind of like partnering up in an interview?

Yeah, I think it's. It's. It's. It's funny. It's wor. I was. I was just doing some. My daughter's babysitting, and I was doing some, like, pricing role play with her, because people are always asking her, like, how much do you charge? And I was saying, look, it's really. Sometimes it's about how you say something in the confidence. So let's look in that example, right? What would happen is these stores would start talking and, oh, we should work together, and how can we work together? And let's think about. Imagine that versus, hey, we actually have a program for this. You just sign up on our website, you get an account, you pick the Link, I'll change your rate. You can be up and going tomorrow. All this, we should do something and it just gets replaced by, we have a program. If you want a different rate, if you want a different duration, like, I can go change those in the things. But this notion that each of these deals needs to be different versus you have a program that people join and oh, do you need a different banner or you want access? Let me put that in the system for you and then pull it down.

And I think that at the end of the day, it just gets down to, we want to do a good job for people. And this partner that you're developing.

You have to treat them like your best client. Right. And you can't just have this little burst and go, hey, great, you did this action, or blog this or posted that. Be consistent. So let's talk about consistency from both sides of the equation, right? You can't just say, I am an influencer. I want to promote these products. Do it one time and let the money roll in. And you can't be a publisher or a product or service and say, hey, I want to get this partnership started. And I know they'll do the right thing and just hope that it goes on cruise control.

Yeah. The four elements that we say a performance partnership has and where it differs from, in some cases, from affiliate marketing. In some cases it doesn't. There's a CPA payout, cash on delivery. That's the core tenant, is you get paid when you get what you want. But then there's transparency and there's relationships and an ongoing partnership. And that actually is different from a lot of affiliate marketing historically, because it was very transactional. It was like, I don't know who they are or care who they are if I got the sale and if I don't like the sale, I'll credit it. What's different now is that again, people are being more open and they're being partnership oriented and they're communicating and they say, hey, Mike, we launched a new product this week. We've got some creative that you could support it. Is there anything that you need? You should reach out. And there's human. This is what I said before. There's a lot of human involved. This world is 50% technology. The technology is the part that makes it scale. The technology is, for me, that I can have these relationships, but I'm not sending you a spreadsheet and sending you a spreadsheet and an invoice and a check. It allows me to layer on a lot of these partnerships but it requires the same sort of BD interaction that you would have. And the fourth tenet which is embedded in this real time tracking and payment. So part of the reinforcement cycle in the old world, I give you a code, you send the people to me, I run a report, I send it to you, you send me an invoice it that's like four months, right? So you find out three months later when I send you this report. In this world you would see, oh my, I made $500 yesterday. What did I do? Oh, clearly my clients like so that real time feedback really helps the people find out. When I first started in this space years ago, I talked about this in the book. The company had built me a real time tracker for my code and one day around it got to be, you know, your Black Friday. And I saw that I made $1,000 and that was really motivating. You know, if they hadn't given me that access, I would have found out a month later, said oh, if I knew that I would have stayed up all night and double what I was doing.

Strike while the iron's hot.

Right?

Yeah, I think that's a really, really good point. And here's something else. I've noticed this trend lately in the last few months where people are talking more, more and more about the advertising platforms that are getting so restrictive, right. And, and they're coming back to the, the principles of relationships and relationship marketing. And what I would say is what you're proposing is this is the marriage of best of both worlds. So it's using some technology, using some trackability so that we can monetize this relationship. But you can't just plop them in a software and go have a night, you know, go to town. You've got to develop that relationship.

You've got to still and that gives you a competitive advantage. And we have a client that just launched a program that's part of a a very large multi billion dollar brand and they want some awareness quickly. So all the tracking is set up but our team calls some folks, calls in some favors, Hey, I can get you a really good rate on this. They've got some money to spend. Here's what we're going to do for you. Can you get this up for me tomorrow? That is where the human piece layers on top of this technology. Why I like it is because, look, SEO, ppc, you're only as good as the last penny you're willing to spend in the next person. SEO, they're these tools that can tell me Your entire strategy and what you're focused on and your keywords and all that stuff. I can't just come online with one of these programs and knock you off. There's a lot of relationships and stuff that is built up there. So I just find the competitive advantage in these sort of programs is much more sustainable.

You know, I want to pause on this relationship and competitive advantage because I think a lot of people hear relationships and going deep. And you know, Bob Berg, I interviewed him in his book the Go Giver, and he's got a new book out, the Go Giver Influencer. And we're just tying all this together. I think too many times people hear it and they agree with it and then they just go right back to their old ways, right? They're just like, yeah, but it's so easy to push this button. But to your point, how long does a Facebook ad, CPC ad remain? As long as you keep eating the machine. And sometimes it's not even an efficient machine. So those relationships are where that, where it's at. And you, you can even feel confident in that relationship because if someone else comes along, they just don't pay attention. Because it's like, me and Bob, come on, we've got a thing.

And look, we represent brands. So we always say the partner program that we run has its own brand as much as the brand does. So we represent brands where people will work with us because they like how we work and they trust us and they will do something that they would not have done for another brand. There are some brands out there whose programs have a terrible.

Reputation for getting back to people slowly not doing things they say they're going to do, coming to them and saying, oh, we made a mistake, we're taking back all your money. And no matter how good the brand is, if the trust in the partnership brand isn't there, then they just don't have as much success.

It's like you're only as strong as your weakest link. And sometimes the best marketing is a job well done. So you can do all this. You can have the best website in the world and all this great marketing and get customers, customers, sale, sale, sale. And then if you don't deliver and the product doesn't do what it says in the customer service, all of a sudden, all that was for naught. So, boy, that the encouragement is to have that holistic, integrated balance with everything from the product to the marketing to the partnership to the relationship. And then when that happens, and it sounds so easy to say that, but.

Yeah, well, you also. It's not all. I mean, you. I think you earn your trust in some of your worst periods.

There's a lot of data to show and in books that a problem resolved results in a customer that is happier than before. There was the problem. I mean, we made a really bad mistake earlier this week, which I'll talk about soon. Everything go wrong. On a podcast that we were hosting with a very well known busy person.

Backup broke. Everything broke. Now, we could just say, it is what it is. We said, look on us like, we should have had a fourth backup. And by the way, we really respect your time. And so here is actually a donation that we've made in your name to value that. And, you know, the person offered to come back and do it again, and you have a chance in those times to really establish that relationship and say, well, I can trust this person. They're going to do the right thing when the rubber hits the road.

I've thought that and said that for years. But I'm glad to hear that you have alluded to research where if you are expecting this service and you get that service, you're a happy customer. In fact, in other words, what you want is raving fans. I did this presentation two, three nights ago, and I said, raise your hands. How many people want happy customers? And they're like, yeah, yeah. I'm like, no, you want raving fans. A happy customer is complacent. They're like, yeah, okay, that's fine. I could take it or leave it. Raving pants. So to the point of, I've jokingly said this so I would never orchestrate this, but it's almost like you want to start a relationship off and orchestrate a hiccup so that you can come in and save the day so that they're like, oh, you're so awesome. You would never do that. Because then that would backfire on you, I'm certain. But I think that that is so huge is if and when something happens, be authentic and human and go. Look, not to make excuses, but the reason is we had nine backups. We should have had 10. And so I'm so sorry. It's on us. You did an awesome job. Here's what we're going to do. If you feel. If you feel it in your soul to come back in the house, and if you had just handled that, like, sorry, here's the deal. They would have been, like, enraged, but yet you went and did some extra things.

Yeah. And by the way, yeah, people have canceled on me five Minutes before a podcast that they had asked me on or forget to tell me they're on vacation. And they just say, sorry, you know, it's like, look, I'm not coming back on your pocket. I don't seem to value my time at all. Right. I do really think it is how we, you know, act in those moments that some of the basis of real relationships are formed.

Well, I was just thinking when you said that the word partnership, it goes both ways. Isn't. I mean, you're partners in this relationship, and I'm sure that there's some, you know, Latin root that means something. But I'm just thinking, just logically, if you're in a relationship and you're talking about performance partnerships, a partner gives 100% and then the other partner gives 100% so that you guys are all in. So kind of speak to some of the mistakes that people make when they finally see this light bulb and they go, I will start developing strategic alliances and partnerships and revenue shares. What are some things that people need to watch to avoid?

I think you just need to avoid the wrong incentives. You need to make sure that. One of my favorite quotes and I use in the book is Charlie Munger, which is, show me the incentive and I'll tell you the behavior. I mean, sometimes I get that wrong, but that's the general spirit of the quote. So sometimes you may think that we want to reward X and the partner is driving that behavior and it's actually not the right outcome. When you go look at, oh, yeah, he's getting a lot of leads, but we're calling all these people and they're not interested. So I think they're. Then in the transparency, you could. Here's what some people do. Hey, your leads suck. We're cutting your commission and we're blah, blah, blah. That's one way to do it. The other way, be like, Mike, we're looking at these leads. They're not converting. Can you tell me a little about where they're coming from? I really don't want to have to lower your commission. I'd actually rather that we could find a way to up the quality, but I'm not going to be able to pay for these at this price. So there's two ways of handling the same thing. And a lot of times we're an important buffer between our client and the partner in terms of having that discussion and tone it down where the client is all upset that the outcome is not there. They want to tell the partner to go, you know, bleep. And bleep. And look, let's, you know, maybe they're just doing the wrong thing. Let's, let's talk about it. Let's look at the data. Let's take it to them now. We take it to the partner, and they're like, look, I deserve to make money. I don't care how well your business is doing, that's a good sign. That, that's probably not a good partner.

You know, I read this a few years ago, and I don't know whether it was your book, but the example you just mentioned made me think of this.

This one guy goes, when I have people come out to my house to quote me to do work, the tendency is give me the lowest price and then I'm going to negotiate and barter to get low, low, low, low. But he goes, what I do is I look at the invoice and I say, this is not going to work. And the person goes, oh, I can lower it. He goes, no, no, no, I want to pay you 20% more than this. And the person goes, what? He goes, this invoice you are giving me, this quote you're giving me is for this job. And I think you'll do a good job on the job, but if I give you 20% more, you are going to focus on it. You are going to bring your A game, and I want to pay you more than this. And this person, this example of the author was saying that they get such great results and that goes right back to the leads. It's not necessarily.

Belittling that person. Oh, your leads are horrible. But it could be like, you know what, I've researched your brand and you've got some great opportunity. We're just not digging in deep enough to get those leads. What do you think if we did this or would this be feasible? And I think that that comes full circle back to that word partnership. Because if you're in a partnership, you're approaching it the right way and then they're willing to listen.

Right? Yeah. And in partnership, I have an article coming out on this too. But a partnership starts with what you can do to the other people. I love when people write me all the time, we'd like to talk about a partnership. Well, let's dig into that. What they want me to do is to sell their thing to my clients. That's not a partnership. And I can't imagine anyone applies to this email when I've written emails on a partnership, and when I get a 90% response rate are, hey, dear Mike, People are asking us for this service and we don't do it. And we're really looking for a partner to send these referrals to. Do you think you could jump on the phone? You're gonna jump on the phone right? When people say partnership billed as I'd like you to do something for me, really a partnership is about doing for others first and showing that you're a good partner.

We have a lot of people approach us and there's nothing I can't stand more than they talk about this partnership and there's a list of things that we can do to help.

Yeah. Yep. And it's like, I'm sorry, what was your last name again? Because I don't remember where we even met, if we even met. But what. Yeah, that's huge. So. So let's now talk about some of the upsides for, you know, the small to medium sized brands that are looking to get into this. I mean, of course the larger brands, it's kind of like you're a locomotive, go down the track. So a little bit of polish here, tweak there, it's just amplifying it. But for the people that are looking to start developing these performance partnerships, what are some of those upsides that they can look for to achieve in terms.

Of the financial upside or financial.

And even I would even interject into that potential other project opportunities because you got this going and that trust is being built and they go, you know, I got this other idea and maybe it then builds from there and you never knew that that opportunity existed.

Yeah, well, one of the opportunities I don't think people realize is that you could be reciprocal. Right. You might decide that you actually have traffic that you can monetize for other people's offers and that as you start testing this, you realize you could be a really good publisher. So you do this. Well, I think the other opportunity for small and medium is just more businesses are going direct to their customers. So as they go direct to their customers, then they find the people that are advocates of that brand and you partner with them and you work with them. It's becoming much harder to be a middleman in the Internet world. In the Amazon world, I should say.

Yeah. Because which mega organization did they buy yesterday? I mean it's just all the time something. So. Yeah, you're exactly right. But, but it just comes down to relationships. So let's speak a little bit, a little bit about your. The deliverable for your software, your company. What does that look like for someone that wants to explore you know, I'm a brand publisher. I need to get an audience or you know, I have an audience, I want to monetize it. What does that look like?

Yeah. So if you're a brand and you're thinking about an affiliate program, there are tons of resources on our site@accelerationpartners.com kind of 101. How do I think about this? When do I get started? You probably want to look at some lower cost affiliate networks and think about a cheap way to set your program up and not have to have a lot of minimums and costs as you get going. If you're someone out there who said I have influence, I have content, how do I get connected to all these programs? You probably want to work with a company like Brand Cycle. That is a company that we spun off years ago. What they do is they simplify all the issues about working in the affiliate space. Because in the affiliate space you got to join these networks and platforms and find these programs. They've just found the 300 or 400 programs that everyone wants and they've integrated it so you can join once, be part of those programs, get paid with one check, get ideas and all kinds of stuff and not have to learn how to be an affiliate. A lot of bloggers or people that have influence sign up and just the next day they're monetizing the traffic that they have already.

In that example, what are some of the brands you know, like for instance, how broad are the brand offerings that you could, you know. And I'm sure it just changes all the time, right?

Yeah, it changes and actually respond. They respond to requests. So they say, hey, I want to work for this brand. Can you go get us integrated? But it's a lot of the brands in the lifestyle market, so we try to follow from people who are getting married to having kids to buying furniture at home. Those tend to be the brands that people use over and over again. But it's like the 8020 rule. We find it's better to go find the 20% of programs that are driving 80% of the volume for people and make those accessible work.

Yeah, exactly. So let's just wrap up with what is the best way that people can pick up a copy of your book Performance Partnerships and reach out and learn a little bit more about your programs.

Sure, yeah. Best way is to go to performance-partship.com youm can download the first chapter for free there. Check it out, see if you like it. And all the digital links. We're actually depending on when this runs. It's going on a couple week campaign the digital version for $0.99, so you may be able to even get that for 99 cents over the next few weeks. And there's a lot ofresources@accelerationpartners.com and if you want to find any more information about me, you can go to my Robert s as in samglazer.com website.

Awesome. Well Robert, thank you so much for your time. It was great catching up with you again.

Thanks Mike.

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