144 | The secret to navigating marketing complexity

Jon Busby: Welcome again to another episode of the Tech Marketing Podcast. Uh, I'm joined by actually someone who's not been on our podcast before, but who I've spent probably a decade working with back and forth. Um, so very, very pleased to be joined by, uh, Luis. Um, welcome to the Tech Marketing podcast, Luis.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Thanks so much for having me, John. I appreciate it. I am saying hi from Yuba City, California, north of San Francisco, close to Sacramento at my wife's grandfather's fishing shrine. You could see. There's a little gone fishing sign over here, so apologies for the busy background, but yes, uh, it's where the world finds me right now and, uh, it's school holidays.

Our girls are visiting their cousins, and so we keep, we just crack on.

Jon Busby: It's part of the world, the world we're in now where we, we have the ability in some of our roles to, to travel and enjoy the world. So, yeah. Enjoy it. Talking about roles that are in and, and in your career. Like we, we met 10 years ago now when you were back at Intuit.

Yeah. At least like when we were prepping for this. I, I really haven't appreciated just how fascinating your career, career trajectory has been. Luis, like, take us through that. Like where did you start your career in tech and, and where have you ended up now?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: That's really nice of you to say, John. Yeah.

Well, you go back, uh, quite a while. I'll take you back just a little bit before you and I met. I, I got into tech after spending a lot of time in food marketing. So I learned marketing after business school. Got into a big, uh, FMCG or CPG company as most people know them as a food company. Um, marketing Pillsbury Coaster or Strudels.

Nature Valley Bars, old El Paso food, you know, it was W Wild, but eventually got into tech. In 2009 I joined Visa and, uh, found that, you know, I was interested in tech culture fit with Visa wasn't, you know, it wasn't my cup of tea, so I, I ended up moving over to Intuit and so I used to work for the competition of the place where I currently work.

And, you know, life is funny how it works. Uh, but yeah, 2010 I started in the world of cloud accounting. It's wild to say that that's been over 15 years ago. And so, so yes. You and I met while I was part of my, um, leading the QuickBooks ProAdvisor program, which is a big program, you know, uh, focused on accountants and bookkeepers and you, uh, together were helping me with, uh, some marketing tools for accountants and bookkeepers.

It was great.

Jon Busby: That was always, I think everyone always has like one of those career defining projects in their life. Um, and uh, that, that was one of it, one of those for me. Um, I say one, we've, we've got a few of us, a few under our belt. Like that was such a fun project to work on.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Yeah, I mean we were going through a massive transformation and, you know, both Zero and QuickBooks since then have continued to transform.

But yeah, that, that was a. Real moment in time where we, at QuickBooks, were going through a transformation from desktop into online. And that's exactly when we worked together on, you know, building this online portal, uh, for our, our, you know, accounts and bookkeepers back then, John, and you're right, it's like we've never looked back.

Jon Busby: What would you say the common thread has been through all the different firms you worked in? Um, but you know, what, what's been the, the comp. What's been the common thread, really?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Yeah. Well, I would say that I'm, I'm a learner, you know, and it's one of those things you take gallop's, you know, um, strengths finder, uh, you know, um, assessments, and you find out that, you know, like my number one, um, strength is learner.

And so what that means is I really just enjoy learning new things and, uh, asking a lot of questions of a very curious person. And I've continued to want to learn more and more. And in the world of cloud accounting, there's still just a ton of learning. Within the different segments. And so, you know, we'll, we'll definitely get into it, but I've, I've played roles in marketing, product marketing, sales, product management, um, you know, and, uh, knowing accountants and bookkeepers, small businesses, both.

And so, you know, I think that the thread has been certainly learning.

Jon Busby: Yeah, I mean, I always say the same thing as well, Larice. Like I, in fact, I was saying it to a team I, I, I was on, uh, with earlier, which is I'd always stick around until what, till I stop learning. And that hasn't happened yet. In fact, if anything, the learning has accelerated.

So having that a curious mindset, I think is a, is is absolutely vital. Um, like now you've worked, you've worked in some of the biggest names in accounting tech, right? Intuit. Um, and, and now zero. Like how have, how have those different environments. Changed and shaped your approach to marketing.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: You know, I think the, the only name you didn't throw out there, John, but uh, it's a company I work for as well.

Uh, was Receipt Bank or DExT, uh, outta Shortage and, um, all, all these different names in accounting and, and um, sort of accounting tech. I mean, they've shaped, you know, my view on marketing in that. Certainly accounts and bookkeepers have been through a transformation, right? And as they go through a transformation, we in marketing need to stay relevant for them in different ways.

And so you just have to continue to evolve. I mean, you and I have discussed a lot about how digital marketing is, is a whole different thing now than it was even five years ago. And so what I find is for people like me, even when you stay in the same industry, like your job evolves. So, you know, the industry evolves, your customers evolve and you evolve with it.

And so that's actually, I think, a bit of a competitive advantage that tech companies have when they're looking to engage with people like me who like to learn. You know, it's a great place to be because just by even like standing in the same spot, you continue to grow. So, um, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but I do think that, you know, tech has been changing a lot and which means all of our job descriptions change year after year.

Jon Busby: We've never seen so much disruptions we've seen the last couple of years. Um, you know, not just the, the stuff that happened in 2020, but in the last two or three years we've also had ai. Do you think our jobs have, and this is a bit of a leading question, do you think our jobs have got easier or harder?

And if so, what? Like why? What's our thinking there?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: You know, if you think about the complexity in, in different vectors, you know, whether it's like how to target a customer, like how to reach them, et cetera. I don't see a single vector upon which it's gotten easier. Like everything has gotten, you know, more complex now.

You know, I think part of our jobs is to figure out what is noise and what is the real signal and you know, then focusing on that, um. But yeah, it just continues to get more and more complex. And so what I find, you know, in, in jobs like mine now that are not, not focused on one geography, you know, we're looking at 10 geographies at once, um, you really need to distill, you know, what is most important that we're all gonna focus on.

You try to make it as relevant for as many of our regions as possible. And then you go, right, but, but you can't, certainly can't let, um, analysis paralysis take over because that, that would be very easy to do.

Jon Busby: Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. And I, and it's not just, I mean, for me, it's not just the analysis, it's the kind of feeling that you need to be busy when actually there's a, there's an element of, of just saying, I just need absolute clarity.

I need to know, you know, to use your phrase there, like what is the, what is the signal that I should be paying attention to, and what is just noise that I can put up to one side?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: It's

Jon Busby: true.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: No, there's, you know, there's a lot of noise and more and more, um, you know, if you just, there are more numbers.

There's never, there have never been more numbers, right? We have more dashboards and more tools like, you know, call it Tableau Mix panel, whatever it might be. We look at a lot of different, um, tools. It's easy to become overwhelmed, so we gotta, you know, it's our job to not be.

Jon Busby: You had this great phrase when we were, we were talking before actually, Luis, that, that's really stuck with me.

Um, you know, we, you mentioned about being curious and, and you used this phrase, put me in coach. Um, like how is that, you know, looking at some of the different roles you are currently executive general manager for Global Partner Marketing, if I've got that job title correct?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: That's correct. That's zero, correct.

Jon Busby: And before then, you were in charge of payroll, I believe at at zero, like quite varied roles. You went product management to partner marketing and, and channel like. You know, we, we were talking about this, this attitude of being curious and putting me back in coach. What does that, what does that really mean?

Like, how is that, how do you apply that to your, your career?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Sure. Well, I think that the way it came up in our conversation, uh, John, you were just talking to me about maybe asking me what are some of my philosophies of, for, you know, how to grow a career, et cetera. And I think my simple question was, a simple answer to that was, was if your boss brings you an interesting opportunity, you know.

And chances are, you know, it's gonna be a challenging one, but it's interesting. And where you think you're gonna learn My answer has always been put me in coach. Right? If your coach thinks that you can handle it, your coach thinks that it's important. If your coach thinks that it's hard and difficult, um, I think you should take that opportunity with both hands and just go forward and grab it.

You know, what's the worst that can happen? Our, uh, our CEO at zero. Um, so Kinder ing Cassidy, she wrote a book, um. About, you know, creating possibility. It's called, and basically her thought is our careers are a portfolio of risks. And frankly, by not taking tough, um, you know, opportunities, you're sort of choosing not to take risk.

Which by the way, is probably a risky proposition unto itself because, you know, like careers continue to move forward if you build a career that has a. Portfolio of risks, you're gonna continue to learn and it's gonna, you know, take a nice, nice shape. If you choose not to take risks, then frankly you're opening yourself up to, uh, you know, getting stuck or not growing your career or, you know, really not, um, not growing and, and not developing.

Which again, so I, I go back to put me in coach, that has been absolutely a philosophy I believe in no matter what. And so, back to your point, you know, I've been at zero just over four years. I started in the go-to-market team, uh, and within about eight months. They brought me over to the product management side of the house.

So I, I ran the accounting bookkeeper division, um, on the product management side. Working very closely with engineering as you can imagine. Um, I had done some product work at QuickBooks and so they said, Hey, cool, you know, product, let's bring it, you know, we need some help in the world of accounts and bookkeepers.

Then they brought me over to payroll products as well. And then a year ago I came back to, uh, marketing, which is frankly. Where I've spent most of my career. So, yeah. Just one more time just to, to repeat it, but I think it is important, you know, when your coach tells you about a tough opportunity, put me in coach is is in my opinion, a great way to go.

Jon Busby: I mean, and there's stuff I really wanna unpick here 'cause I think it's an important point, especially when marketing is going through every role is going through so much disruption, um, that, that approach of, of like, just get involved. Like have you, have you had any instances where you know, you've, you.

You've not been, as, you know, you've, you've been put in, you've been put in the team, you're out there in the field, um, and it's not gonna smoothly as you'd expect. Um, but, you know, or does it, is there a, is there a certain nuance to making sure you're getting the right level and you, and you, and you drive the, the, the metrics and, and manage the risk?

Um, because it can be risky going into a new role. Absolutely. Is.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: No, it is every time. And, and John, I mean. I think part of what comes with put me in coach is you have to be comfortable with me and uncomfortable like that is gonna happen. And that happens almost every time. You know, almost by definition, right?

If you're coming in to learn something new, um, you are gonna go through a bit of a transition period. You're gonna. Have to, at times through trial and error, figure out what is truly important, what are the key metrics you're gonna focus on? And so it's something that I work on very, you know, a lot on, uh, in, you know, early in my roles is am I really aligned with my manager on what is most important?

You know, like what are the key metrics that are really gonna go, uh, and focus on? And, uh, and, and even my, my current manager now, Michael St. Stickman, he's our CMO at Xero. He jokes with me about the fact that, you know, once I figure out what is important, man, I stay, you know. Really, really focused on it, you know, may perhaps even, even too much so.

But I think it's really important to know what's important and then to focus, um, all of your, your efforts and your team's efforts. Because again, you know, analysis paralysis can set in the noise can take you in many different directions. I prefer to stay, you know, and focus in one, one direction and, and just keep the team clear, you know, on that.

And then if direction changes, then you know. Pivot accordingly, communicate widely, and then move quickly.

Jon Busby: There's so much even, even there, I'm gonna be honest as well. When I first heard put me in coach, I actually saw it as put me in coach, not put me in coach. Um, so there's a slight nuance there 'cause I, but I think both work, 'cause I, you know, talking about curiosity, there's also an element of like just removing the um.

Ego element and just saying, I'm here to learn. Um, so actually I read something slightly different to what you were, you, what you were saying there.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Well, but I, I think that the point that goes along with that, maybe this is even a, a third dimension to it, is you, I I, this is another one of just my philosophies, but I think resilience is a really important trait, right?

And it's one that I, I genuinely, absolutely believe if you've read, um, mindset, the book by, I believe it's Carol Dweck. Um. If you're open to learning again, but you have to be open to a little bit of discomfort here and there. Um, you're, you're gonna grow, you know, and when you're put in, in positions like that, and, uh, sometimes you are gonna bump into some, some walls here or there, right?

And you're gonna, uh, but I think if you are resilient, you know, you will continue to move forward. Your career will continue to develop. You will come up with new insights. And so it's, it's just so important to, you know, to not only, you know, be open to being put in by the coach, um, but to just keep going.

And then, you know, obviously over time you then get to coach others, you know, uh, and which is also an exciting dimension,

Jon Busby: iactually queued up mindset, uh, to read next. So I'm very looking forward to that. But like. Cut to the chase, and I completely agree with resilience, by the way. You know, the, the whole grit piece, the Angela Duckworth approach is something that, that I subscribe to.

Like what advice, you know, having gone through those different roles and the, and the different elements of your, of your career, what advice would you give to a, an aspiring leader looking to reach kind of your level in a marketing company today?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: I mean, I, I think in general it's easy to say this, that it's harder to do, but.

I find it really eye-opening when you have a conversation with your manager and say like, what is really keeping you up at night? What are the toughest challenges you're dealing with? And if they're thinking about it, there's probably a lot of learning that can take you from where you are to where they are, right?

And, and what they're thinking about. And so if you, if you continue to a, learn about those topics, but b. Take them head on and you know, or at least move in that direction, you can go wrong. And so you know how they talk about, um. Embrace the biggest possible challenge ahead of you. Like I, I believe that works sometimes that can put you in very uncomfortable situations, but it leads to the biggest learning, you know, and at the end of the day, these careers are all about learning.

And honestly, you know, we talk about this too, John, I'm sure at some point, but you wanted to talk about it. Uh, so I'm, as I just mentioned to you, I'm in marketing now, but I've done a lot of product management roles in my background, you know, sort of over the last, you know, 20 years. Product management has made me a better marketer and I can now easily see that.

But man, while I was going through learning product management and how to work better with, with engineering teams and how to create better experiences, I never would've thought that. But yeah, I'm a better marketer now because I did product management. I'm a better marketer now because I have had some sales roles where I've led sales teams.

All those things really round me out and you know, again, I couldn't have said that. Even three years ago, but now I can't. And, um, I'm thrilled that I have those, uh, arrows in my, in my quiver.

Jon Busby: Let's dive into that. 'cause, you know, at the moment we are all becoming, especially with the pace of change and how we're moving into ai, all of us are becoming a little bit of a product manager, I would say.

Like, what is, what are the particular skill sets you've brought from product into marketing that have made you, uh, made you better?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: There's some things that are, you know, very similar and can make you, if you're a marketer and you're a really good marketer, can make you a, a decent product manager. You know, at the core you need to be focused on the customer and you need to understand, you know, what are their pain points, what's really holding them back?

How do you unlock, how do you make things easier for them, and how do you unlock growth for them? Uh, but I think the key thing that I've taken away is in marketing, we see a lot of numbers. We see a lot of funnels, and. Through a funnel, you can start seeing where the friction might be in a, in an experience or in a, you know, in a journey.

For me, what is very clear now is if I see a funnel that looks like it's breaking, there's a big sort of piece of, you know, friction or, you know, conversion goes from 50% down to five in one step. My mind very quickly goes to in what is that experience that customer's going through between here and here?

Why is there so much friction? What is, what is wrong with it and what are some potential solves? So tho those things I, you know, would've never put together a few years ago. Now that's just where my mind goes. Cool. The, the, the funnel's breaking. What are those experiences? How do we create experiments in order to improve that experience?

Jon Busby: You've hit on something there that's not in any of our talking points, but I wanna drill into use the bo both the term funnel and journey. Like, do you, do you think they're the same thing? Um, and what do you think has, do, do you think anything is changing in that space recently? Um, with the changes in B2B by behavior and, and some of the, some of the technologies that have, that have hit our industry.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Do I think they're the same thing? No. I mean, you know, an, an experience is something that a customer lives through and a, a funnel, in my mind, a funnel is just the, the scorecard, you know, it tells you, you know, are are things happening, you know, in a way that. That the customer actually is able to keep moving with the experience.

You know, a, a dashboard or a funnel will tell you if, if the experience is broken or if it's working well, but the experience, you know, that that is literally all the things that are going through their mind, how they're experiencing that, um, that product, that experience. So for me, at the core, you know, you wanna drive a seamless, easy, consistent experience for our customer.

And anything that gets in the way, results in. You know, changes in the funnel. But no, I don't think they're the same thing. And um, I think, you know what's impressive nowadays, John is like all the tools that we now have. To diagnose, right? If something is really changing in that experience, um, we use Mixpanel a ton, but honestly, I can't tell you how much we talk about instrumenting every part, every possible part of, you know, a product in order to understand where are the drop-offs, what are the changes that we can again experiment with?

But, you know, I don't know that we discussed this last time, but. One of the most exciting per exciting parts about most of our jobs now is if you do it right, um, to get better at our job quickly. Your job is to design a portfolio of experiments, and what you have your team do is just experiment on an ongoing basis in order to keep moving in the direction of growth and a better experience.

That's exciting to me,

Jon Busby: and I think that's like coming right back to the, the point we made around, um, uh. Moving into put, putting me in, and sometimes being aware of the risks. I think it's also important that all of us are resilient enough to know that sometimes we won't always be successful. But actually you're talking about AB testing, really what you're mentioning there.

Talking about testing anything in a product or in a marketing sense. You know, Microsoft did some research a long time ago now. Said every good idea. Like we all love wish casting in meetings, especially in product like, well, wouldn't it be great if it did our homework for us if it walked our dog or, you know, looked those lines and they, Microsoft found that a third of all ideas actually have a detriment, detrimental effect on.

Customer a third do absolutely nothing, and a third actually have a positive effect, which is why if you use that stat and just think about, you're back to the put me in coach element. You, you mentioned a moment ago, like, you need to be resilient enough to know that you're only gonna be right maybe 30% of the time.

Um, and maybe even less than that. A lot of it. So, but how do you, how do you dev devise that kind of safety in your team so that they're comfortable only being right a third of the time?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Yeah, I think, you know, it starts with having clear conversations, John, about, about just that, which is, you know, even if you have, you know, really good intuition and you've been in an area of the world, you know, and, um.

You're probably gonna be right just over 50% of the time. You know, like that's just the way it like goes. You can't, um, just because something is true to you doesn't mean it's gonna be true to most of our customers. You know, very often we're not our customer, you know, and so you can't just assume that's gonna work.

So it starts with a bit of humility, you know, creation of commerce. Everybody. Like, we just gotta test it. Let let the test tell us where it goes. I think secondly, um. You know, you, you start by rewarding the right behaviors and, and the bottom line. I, I can tell you again, you know, our, our CMO, Michael St.

Stickman, he, um, a lot of his background is in Uber performance marketing. So at Uber can, you can probably imagine the number of, you know, experiments that they ran and, and, um. He turned a very complex business into a much more simple one. So it's taking a lot of, you know, what he learned there and, and teaching us how to do it.

It's pretty, we're going through just massive transformation. That's, uh, a lot of kudos to him. Um, but, but at the end of the day, you know, you, you need to be able to look at all those experiments and. Build a portfolio of them knowing that some of them will fail. And so, you know, a, a big part is communicating to the team.

This is just the way we're gonna get better. We need to experiment. 'cause frankly, you've heard of, you know, the, the hippo's opinion, uh, the, the highest, you know, paid, uh, person in the room, you know, that can take over. Um, but that matters. Nothing. Um. What matters is what your customers actually do. And that's why we do AB testing left and right.

Jon Busby: Completely agree. So you, you also mentioned, um, sales a moment ago as well. So like, you know, thinking, thinking back about all of the different experience you've had across go to market and product and, and sales, like, how has that, let's talk about your current role. Like how has that shaped how you approach your partners, um, or your accountants in this, in in bookkeeper space?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Frankly, like I said, I, I do believe that sales makes, has made me a better marketer. And the, the reason it's relevant is even within an organization like Xero, right? When we're trying to reach, um, accountants and bookkeepers, our partners, sometimes we do it directly through marketing, and it might be digital means, you know, we, we go through Google, we go through Bing, we go through a variety of other, you know, of channels to try to reach them directly.

Sometimes we go indirectly. Through sales, right? We create materials, we create websites that our sales team uses in order to reach our partners. And, um, what's made me a better marketer is, um, having led sales teams, I understand some of the things that might hold the sales teams back from being effective in chatting with our accountants and bookkeepers.

And so my, my point is. Um, I work better with a sales team because I've led one before and I can understand, you know, what they might need and when they might be running into issues. But at the core, you know, we're all talking to customers. And so, you know, one piece of advice I got long time ago was, uh, in order to have effective communications, you know, broadly in marketing, but also in sales.

You gotta speak to the customer in their own words, right? Like, we could make things very, very complex, but if you speak back to them in their own words, they're more likely to hear you. They're more likely to realize, okay, this person speaks my language. And engage in conversations or engage in, you know, trialing new products.

So that, that's the part where my sales experience has helped me be a better market.

Jon Busby: How do you translate that to the channel and to, to accountants and like, is there, is there something. From that, that, that, then do we have to change that approach when we're dealing with partners?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: You know, I don't, I don't think so.

There's a, there's a couple things that are relevant in terms of, um, how we work with partners. 'cause we, we work with partners at Xero, both, you know, obviously they, they recommend our product to their, their customers, but, but we build product for them too, right? So they're both a customer and a channel and I think we're very comfortable, um, with that notion.

Um, we need to understand, you know, that, that accountants and bookkeepers. Didn't get into the business of accounting and bookkeeping to sell their services. Like that's just not something they're very comfortable with, and that's okay. You know, um, they, most accountants that I talk to, you know, they are there to help small businesses succeed.

They're in the business of helping. Um, so what I've found that to be true, and I think, you know, John, you and I, um, found this a long time ago, is accountants love to be educated. They love to learn how to use products, how to use them to their full potential and how to use them to make small businesses lives better.

So in my world, you know, education is a really important tool. It's a really important, uh, almost. You know, base that we can all build on. So a world of creating webinars or certifications that help accounts and bookkeepers better understand a product and the value it adds to their clients, that's a no brainer.

And so, um, you know, there, there are certain things that, that are not salesy. They're just true. Right? It, it's universal education is really important. Um, but it helps an accountant get more comfortable recommending a product, right? And so we can all. That, you know, we can all do something with that and add value in ways that.

Seem counterintuitive.

Jon Busby: I think, you know, the way you describe it there, it's, it's, you know, you are dealing with the common challenge of like, speaking to what is quite a technical audience. It's the same with developers, right? We don't like being marketed to, but if you can teach us that something is better and sh and educate us and enable us, um, then we're more often to feel comfortable recommending it and talking about it.

Um, and so I think there's a, there's a kind of very logical element there that sits with, sits with those kind of individual.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: There. There's a framework that we've used of many places where I've worked on, which is if in this case, you know, an Accounter bookkeeper, um, if you want them to recommend a product on this side of the spectrum, they need to know your product first.

They need to be made aware of it. They need to use it, they need to love it in order to recommend it. So. No use love in order to recommend, you know, there's a spectrum there and you can play that out across any product, right? Are they actually, do they, do they even know it exists? Once they do, are they using it?

If they're not using it, it's gonna be hard for them to recommend it and unless they love it, you know? And so this is when you know if, if an accountant bookkeeper is talking to you about something and they feel really passionate about it. They probably know it. They use it and they love it. Um, otherwise they wouldn't be making that recommendation.

Jon Busby: Yeah, I mean, we, we saw from some of the projects, remember us deploying into Australia and the UK when we were speaking to accountants and bookkeepers. Just there was a, there was a hockey stick curve when they started to use something, um, that, that, that would just mean that they would go from kind of not feeling comfortable to then using it nearly daily.

Um, and so we had to, we had to get them to hit that hockey stick.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Yeah. And, you know, so I'm not surprised, you know, I think the, the playbook now for most technology products that work with accounts and bookkeeper says you give it away for free to an account or bookkeeper, just get them to use it because you know it, they'll pay you back in spades.

Um, but you know, if they're not using it, that's, that's almost like, you know, you're stuck at, you know, zero.

Jon Busby: Talking about partner enablement, kind of going on a different tangent here. I think this is something that I'm very. Very passionate about you. Now you've worked across, you mentioned Receipt Banks, sage, visa, Intuit, like all these, uh, uh, finance and accounting companies.

Like what, what would you say they're doing? And I think at the moment also there's a big drive towards let's just deploy more technology. Let's deploy a, a learning system. Let's educate them. Uh, what would you say companies do well and what would you say they, they need to improve on to enable their partner?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: More and more we're learning from each other what works well, and we're trying to build those into accountant partner programs, if you see what I'm saying. Um, I think what we, what companies don't do as well is just spend quality time with accountants understanding their pain and how we can solve their pain.

I think what, what I've found, uh, as much as I like to say that most. Of the insights are universal and they're global, and many of them are is sometimes it's that last little localization, like we call it like last mile. Um, localization is what drives a lot of value for accounts and bookkeepers. And so, I mean, I can tell you just from a, a specific, um, use case, when I used to work at QuickBooks, there was a product team in Australia that all they did was build.

Last mile localization efforts for small businesses and accounts and bookkeepers. And it was that team that was adding probably the most value of all the product teams because they were really spending a lot of time with the local customers, understanding, you know, and some of the stuff they did, a us accounter bookkeeper, a US small business would've never, you know, thought of it as as important.

Uh, so, so my point is like you just gotta spend time with them in their office feeling their pain. Uh, I think most, most. Technology companies are not doing enough of that.

Jon Busby: Yeah, I mean, it comes back to what you, we were mentioning just a moment ago, like, know your customer. In this case, your customer is your partner or bookkeeper, reseller.

And if you're not spending time with them to understand them, it's, um, I, I think the challenge I always have with that being really honest is, is how you then justify the. Expense, the time to go and spend time with one, you know, one or two partners. Um, like it can, it can be quite difficult if they're not making sales yet to say like, I wanna go and, you know, go deep with them.

And that's the, that's the bit that logically doesn't, I, I find quite hard to add up.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Yeah. I, I think I tell you what the, the only other thing you just kind of, um, triggered for me, Don, is, um, at zero I've just found. We, we've a, we're a bit of an experiment factory. You know, it's, it's a, it's a great thing because you very quickly can tell if something's working or not, and, you know, and you can, if it works, then you can pour gas on that fire.

If it doesn't, you pull it, you know, away. And you, you, I think many people believe that accounts and bookkeepers will react negatively to experiments. And I don't believe that to be the case. And, and what I mean by that is, you know, their customers just like you and me. And they, they like it when we, as you know, vendors, like create value for them.

Sometimes the best way to do that is, you know, create an experiment. And it might be around partner enablement, it might be about anything you want, but I think they're, they're logical. They understand that, you know, we, we all have businesses to, you know, make work as well. And so. I think most of us are not experimenting enough with accounts and bookkeepers, but we, we certainly experiment a ton with our small businesses.

I don't think we experiment enough with accounts and bookkeepers.

Jon Busby: I think you've answered my next question with that, which is what's the one piece of advice you would give to partner marketers looking to stay adaptable? And I think it's to experiment right? It to to be comfortable experimenting

Luis Felipe Sanchez: experiments that are more likely to work.

You know, you do need to spend that time to put in that elbow grease, you know, in the office, you know, trying to understand. What are the things that are, you know, keeping 'em up at night that are, that create a lot of friction for them and then experiment along those lines. But yeah, I think, you know, they, they understand and, um, sometimes we're gonna get it right, sometimes we're gonna get it wrong, but there's nothing wrong with experiment.

Jon Busby: So. So my last question just to sum up here, 'cause this has been, I think, really, really insightful. Like, what's, what's the one, you know. We started right at the beginning talking about your career from FMCG to, to Visa, to Intuit, to Receipt Bank, to to zero. Like what's been the one lesson that's stuck across every role that you've had?

Um, what, what would be the big, the big call out or piece of advice if you were to, could speak to yourself 20 years ago?

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Yeah. You know, it, it probably. I mean, at the, at the, the risk of sounding repetitive, it's, um, it's related to put me in coach. It's around, you know, don't be afraid to lean into a risk.

Don't be afraid to lean into and, and take the opportunity that feels a little bit scary at the beginning. Um, honestly, what's the worst that can happen? You know, a job doesn't work out and then you go, you know, and you learn about a new one. Chances are. If your manager knows that you are trying really hard and you're putting all of your efforts towards making something happen, most of the time I've found they'll give you a chance and they'll give you more than one chance because you exhibit that resilience, you exhibit that, you know, willingness to learn.

But it is all, but it is all in your mindset, John. And so I, I do think, um, it's a great read, uh, checkout, um, mindset and, uh, and grit by Angela Duckworth as well. Um. If you stick with things and you're willing to learn and you kind of persevere, uh, you, you know, it's very interesting where the world can take you.

I can't believe I'm a Guatemalan sitting in California, you know, with, you know, kids that were born in and born in America, but we now live in Australia. It's crazy. Um, but, but that's what happens when you stick with things and you, you know, you get educated and you continue to learn. It's exciting where life can take you.

Jon Busby: Love it. Um, Luis, it's been a real pleasure to have you on the tech marketing podcast. We've a lot, like I say, when we started, we've known each other a long time, so it's been a long time coming to, to get you on. Um, and yeah, wish you all the best in the next, the next few career moves. Um, keeping, I think putting back in coach, uh, and uh, yeah, keeping that curious mindset.

Luis Felipe Sanchez: Thanks, John.