Scaling Partnerships to 50% of Revenue with Andre Kaufmann

Andre Kaufmann (00:00):

When I got into the partnership broke down. That's really where we actually got the goal. Okay, we need to go above 30% of the total revenue needs to come from partnerships moving forward. And let's put an orstar in there and that's 50% of total revenue that we need to go and get that done. This is the framework, this is the target that I'm still following, and I believe 100% on it.

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Tyler Calder  (00:21):

Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Get It Together. Today, I am really excited for a conversation because we're going to be chatting about one of my favorite things, which is partnerships as a legitimate revenue driver within the organization, a function that sits right alongside sales and marketing and genuinely has a seat at the table. And I'm going to be having that conversation with Andre from RoomPriceGenie.

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Tyler Calder  (01:12):

Andre, how are you? Thanks for joining.

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Andre Kaufmann (01:15):

Very good, and thanks for having me tonight.

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Tyler Calder  (01:17):

For folks listening, what is it exactly that RoomPriceGenie does within the hospitality space?

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Andre Kaufmann (01:24):

So we are optimizing revenues achieved for hotels. How we do that, we go into hotels, we connect to their systems, but then we add different data layers which are watching how's the market performing? Then we look into how are the competitors of these hotels performing? Then we look at what's influencing the revenue occupancy for the hotel itself. And then the algorithms calculating what to do, what initiative to do also, and what rates to place to optimize occupancy and revenue over there. And the great thing for it is literally that we do this for 365 days into the future over there. How did room pricing actually start on this? We actually were looking at a space that many other companies doing similar things have left out, which is the independent hotel space for us as well. So when we look at the history, our founder, Ari, he's coming out of financial industry and in the past he was building algorithm for stock markets over there.

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(02:32):

And then when he wanted to change his career, his area that he wanted to do long term, he decided actually to look into the business that his father did in a hotel in Switzerland. So that's where you still see our company has a base in Switzerland. That's where he used that algorithm to make an impact to hotel occupancy and profit margins over there. And he was so successful with the hotel of his father that he got this idea of building his business. And that was literally in 2017 company 2019, the company got complete and started running that. It was a little bit of a slow motion throughout COVID. However, actually COVID itself with the impact it made to the industry, but also to the staffing challenges that the industry was facing over there was also something that made us grow so far. So now we are company available really in North America, across Europe, across APAC as well with coal markets still being the German speaking countries over there, but we are missing out and we are still focusing on this large amount of independent hotels in the market, but also we are seeing that Woodhill Group's little chains are seeing a need of using our solution over there.

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(03:52):

And we serve them quite well because we have taken the approach then not making things even more complicated, rather taking a simplified approach and making it usable for everyone in the industry over there.

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Tyler Calder  (04:05):

Very cool. And one of the things that we talked about when we did some of our prep and where we wanted to take this conversation, you said something that really stuck with me because candidly I hear a lot of people say it, but not a lot of people execute and operationalize it. And that thing is you got to treat partnerships as at a minimum the third revenue engine alongside sales and marketing. And specifically that means you got to have your own targets, you got to own a number, you have to understand your funnel, you have to understand attribution. You need to show up in a way that suggests you're actually running your business, your part of the org, and you need to make sure that partnerships doesn't get sucked into being a support function or subservient to other functions like sales. You got to be a legitimate revenue driver.

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(05:04):

And I'd love to explore that. You mentioned that there was some semblance of a partner program when you jumped in and took it over, but the organization decided to treat it a little bit more seriously, lean in a little bit more aggressively. So what did the before look like? And then what are the things that you've started to do to accomplish what I just mentioned that you suggest is so important?

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Andre Kaufmann (05:30):

I really can confirm what you just said. Many companies for partnerships is a support center because you need integrations nowadays to run your business in general. And partnership, what they did, they looked at getting the integration, potentially put a commercial agreement behind it and get the integration as smooth as possible without additional cost done. And I've experienced that as well, but I always thought, especially our industry, but I think also in general industries nowadays, they're not only looking at a standalone solution, many companies are really looking into how can I actually get the optimal tech stack for my company so everything runs smooth over there. So when I joined RoomPlaceGenie, the partnership program was there already. And initially there was a belief it will help us getting into the market faster and stronger than if you would just take the regular sales approach. So they have been building on it, they built a relationship.

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(06:32):

It was a pleasure. It was fun for everyone of the other companies to work with Rumbrace Genie constantly as well. And then the company started also putting targets on it. Then I got into the partnership program. That's really where we actually got the goal. Okay, you need to go above 30% of the total revenue needs to come from partnerships moving forward. And let's put an offsta in there and that's 50% of total revenue that we need to go in there and get that done. This is the framework, this is the target that I'm still following and I believe 100% on it. And I get also confirmation from our partners and other industries. So for me, not coming out of partnerships itself, the first thing that I literally actually got into is analyzing what has been working, why did it work, what made the impact over there as well?

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(07:26):

And based on that data, based on this experience of the past, then we could actually start doing the planning and really we are up to speed. We are currently also at 34% of total revenue contribution coming from partnerships already again, and we are about to actually set pace, frameworks, conditions to go even further and really target this 50% ultimate goal on that.

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Tyler Calder  (07:51):

Why 50%? I'm curious if that was a moonshot, if we could get there, that would be amazing. Or was there more sort of tangible data that suggested, hey, if we can get to 50%, this would be really healthy economically for the business and here's why?

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Andre Kaufmann (08:07):

To a certain extent, it has something to do with let's see how fast we can get there and can we get there? What are the needs? What are the solutions that we need ourselves to get close to that over there? So it's just in my eyes on certain points, it's kind of a north star target. However, economically it makes sense completely because when we look at general the cost of acquisition, but also the retention rate within this business, it made completely sense. So going through the partner, it's not as much effort needed to get to conversion then because you're actually buying into the trust of your partner organization already into it as well. The second thing is when the partner is involved, literally what's quite nice and easy is for the client itself, he's going to think twice to cancel a subscription or the contract because he needs to consider he potentially needs to cancel two contracts at the same time.

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(09:09):

He's going to lose two solutions at the same time. So literally when you look at the cost effectiveness, partnership does make sense, but it's also like what kind of sales organization would we need to reach an audience that big? The simplest comparison can be something like a social network where you see you're connected to a few, but amongst the network you actually have a huge audience to target on. And that's kind of similar, the approaches we are connecting to our partner network and we know they have a reach which would take a lot of effort and team contribution, but also team members. So a lot of investment to get there and we just connect into this by actually building value to the partner environment and this way also value to our client audience that we have there.

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Tyler Calder  (10:02):

I love that comparison to social networks. Ever heard somebody make that comparison between partnerships and that, but you're so right. Everybody calls this a way to go to market through your ecosystem, but you're right. The simplest way to think about that is imagine your own personal social network, just how much more reach you get, even through a couple meaningful connections, how much bigger your audience can be. I think that's really great. When you dove into the role and started to evolve it and you had this north star of 50% of revenue coming through partnerships, what were some of the initial problems that you had identified and realized, oh, these are some of the things I got to solve right out of the gate?

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Andre Kaufmann (10:48):

So initially in the first step I was like, how, this is an amazing number of partners that we have already. So I was really surprised when I looked at the total number of partners that we actually had the chance to engage with. In the second instance, we just literally realized the percentage of engaged partners, that's where I was like usually you come in and you see revenues are coming in and you believe, oh, this is really because of the volume of partners you have. But we ended in being a fifth of all partners being active and continuously bringing us partners over there. So that was literally then the first big challenge was saying, I've got something between 75 and 78% of my partners not having sent us a lead, a client for the past three to six months over there. So I've got them sitting there.

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(11:47):

Obviously you look at then what's the size of your own team? So that's where you're looking at what are your own resources to get back to this partner stack to literally get them involved or reengaged again. So that was the first finding, that was kind of a surprise. So it was really the volume of total partners that we had, but also then the amount of how many of them are actually active on it as well. So that was the first finding there is look like, okay, let's look into this. And then the second part was then looking at the performance of partnerships, what was driving actually the big volume until so far? And that's where you could realize then there are always special occasions, special events that happened with the partners together that created a spike. So that literally was the moment when I realized, okay, we're getting a lot of revenue, but it's not because of we've got the right motion of continued amount of leads coming in on a monthly basis from each of the partners that we are engaging with.

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(12:50):

So that was the second big challenge that I came across. So one was the amount of inactive partners and the second one, are we actually having the motion in place to really forecast on partner leads coming in? And for every business at the end, and when you are going out and youre saying, "Hey, 30% of total revenue is coming in through this, let's call it channel, then you must be able to forecast something on it as well." And this, we weren't able to. And I also have to say, that's work in progress on getting there that we're capable of forecasting on this, but that's also a change of all of a sudden you're talking about partner relationship and you start forecasting on these.

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Tyler Calder  (13:37):

Yeah, I want to come back to the forecast. Let's go and start with the dormant partners. What percentage were inactive or dormant?

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Andre Kaufmann (13:47):

It was roughly 75%.

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Tyler Calder  (13:50):

Okay. So pretty typical. I was literally presenting something today that on average, 75% of partners are inactive or dormant. So you're kind of right there along with every other partner program seemingly. This is going to sound maybe like a silly question. Why was it important to think about how you reactivate some of those partners? What I find with a lot of folks that I speak with and a lot of organizations that have a partner program that's doing, let's say 30% of revenue, their perspective is number one, we're doing 30% of revenue and we feel pretty good about that. The second thing is everybody seemingly has accepted the 80 / 20 rule. 20% of my partners are going to drive 80% of my revenue. So they see that they have 75% of their partners are dormant or inactive, and the story they tell themselves is like, well, that's true for everybody.

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(14:51):

It is what it is. It seems like you looked at it and said, hey, there's an opportunity here. Why is that a different outlook than the majority of partner organizations?

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Andre Kaufmann (15:02):

So the thought was actually, it was a little bit of fear and a little bit of also being capable of saying, I've got a potential sitting there where I don't need resources to find new partners. I'm just using whatever I have. So the fear was literally, what would I do with my partnership system if I wouldn't have that? Let's say it's like it's 300 partners, but they initially, each of them brought in a certain amount of leads, deals, revenue on it as well. So literally the first thought was like, where would have been if I wouldn't have that? And if each of them were only generating three deals in the first moment when I start the partnership throwing a 300, then I'm talking about 900 deals, I wouldn't have that. And that was now across four or five years that we were collecting this partner.

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(16:00):

And I also saw that the effort to gain these partners was not so much. Mostly it was like we met them on industry events, they reached out, we have got a great reputation in the market. So they reached out to us and said, "Hey, I want to do this." And then literally they brought in three, four clients and then they got quiet over there. So fear of not getting these moving forward was one of the component, but the second one was like, I've got 300 partners sitting there and if each of them would actually generate two or three in the next quarter, in the next half year, amazing how much revenue that would be. So if you're talking about low-hanging fruits, that's exactly what it could be potentially. And that is just where we started looking into, okay, how can you reactivate them? That's where we got into the next channel because then we looked at the size of the team and then we figured out that's impossible to do it in the typical way like we were used to.

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(17:01):

And partnership, we think it's about relationship. So typically we think of that means I have to pick up the phone, I have to call them, I have to find out what they're up to, how can I support them, what they need as well. So that was literally with the team that I had over there was like, okay, what are we going to do on that? That's where we started and challenging everything that we have internally as well, how it's set up, the tech stack.

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Tyler Calder  (17:29):

This is Get It Together, the podcast where partnership and go-to-market leaders share the real stories behind programs they've built and scaled. I'd love, like I always do in all of our episodes, I'd love to just understand what got you to where you are today and tell us about the role today.

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Andre Kaufmann (17:48):

So what actually got me in there, it's kind of an early stages already. Actually, I got addicted to this industry that I'm in, that's the hospitality industry. And the first 11 years of my professional career, I had the chance to actually explore and experience it across the globe. So starting in Germany where I'm coming from, moving to UK. From there, going to the US and Chicago, had a lovely time over there. And from there I got back into Germany and was going through different roles, leading different teams. And then I had the chance to, I'm not sure if it is right to say the dark side of the hospitality going into the technology space over there. So this is where, but on the sales side as well. And that really got me excited just because before that I had the chance to work in individual hotels step by step, hotel by hotel.

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(18:35):

But all of a sudden I actually had the chance to work and collaborate with multiple hotels at the time. And then I did this starting out of Germany, but then all of a sudden I was looking after whole Eastern Europe, got to know the world. It's also one of the opportunities that I got actually to explore the world. So I see a lot of what I've seen so far because I'm having the chance to travel. I was working on new business areas on sales. So I never actually got into going into a company where I had to look at after an existing portfolio or after an existing market. It always was about going into new market or getting a market new established for the company over there. And yeah, then I got into RoomPriceGenie. First in the initial space was like, how can we drive expansion faster than it was before?

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(19:26):

And after a while we actually said there's a different way of going into new markets, but also establishing markets stronger. And RoomPriceGenie has already done a lot before to establish partnerships quite strongly. But then that was the decision, let's go different. Let's be really honest with this partnership approach. And this is how I've transitioned then from expansion into leading the partnership department. First time for me ever in partnerships over there, that's what I'm leading since now December last year over there. So it's various roles, various experiences, multiple technology company that have actually brought me in here just now.

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Tyler Calder  (20:10):

Let's get into that exactly. What are the things that you had to start to challenge? I know one of the things we talked about was simple consistent language. What's the definition of active and inactive? Would love to explore that very tactically. How did you start to tackle that problem?

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Andre Kaufmann (20:24):

And first, and we did this with all revenues coming from partnership, we looked at it as a whole. So literally then we had partners that were supporting us globally, then we had some partners that were supporting us regionally over there. But what we could actually segment it into was then are these resellers, are these referral partners, are these business needed integration partners? Are these affiliate partners as an example? That gave us kind of an idea, okay, this is where we can focus on. And we actually spotted where we actually have the potential to really scale with one of these segments. But then we looked at it locally and all of a sudden we saw patterns and that where we initially found out in some regions this works and the other component doesn't. And then we looked at what have we tried until that moment to keep partners active?

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(21:18):

And that's where we actually came to the component. We need a technology support that's enabling us to keep partners active on the go without someone actually having to pick up the phone and remind them, "Hey, we are still there." And also Lucian has improved. As we heard in the conversations over there as well that many partners are saying, "Yeah, but they're doing this as well. They're doing this as well." So we needed something where we can actually build really. In CRMs, you would call it cadences. I think then in partner tools, we need to build the engagement road individually based on what the partner actually needs as well. And that's where we started exploring how can we, and we call it now the long tail partnership stack, pack or whatever. So it's like these, let's call it again, long hanging fruit partners that haven't been active for quite a while.

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(22:19):

And we continue to gain these low performing partners as well. They kept on continuing coming in and generated their three to four deals, but then a little bit got quiet. So really we're looking something that keeps them engaged, is pushing them additional information, is pushing them information what's happening on the market, what's happening on the product, and literally is also telling them, "Hey, you haven't been active for three months or four weeks. Let's schedule something. Let's engage. This is the team member you want to talk to." And that goes as far as we are looking into what kind of leads did they get in? How long did these leads stay in the sales process? And we made experience that usually the sales process is very short on our side. So how can we support the partner on converting these leads so they would get their commission as well over there?

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(23:13):

That's what we started looking at how can that be supported? And obviously with this volume and we expect this volume to be even higher, it's not a human aspect that can do that.

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Tyler Calder  (23:26):

Through this problem solving effectively exercise, what other assumptions did you maybe have that turned out to be incorrect? So far there was this, I think, again, it might sound obvious in hindsight, wow, we got all of these partners that are inactive. What if we just reactivated them? What if we just got a couple referrals? It's one of those things where it sounds so obvious when you say it out loud, but you actually did it and I see so many partner orgs not do it. They chase new partners. There's this sense of, well, if I get a new partner, they're going to be easy to activate right out of the gate because they're excited. The ones that are inactive, they're probably inactive for a reason. So I think you kind of solved the first big hurdle. Anything else pop up that you realized, oh, we've been thinking about this wrong that led to other realizations in how you operationalize this?

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Andre Kaufmann (24:20):

So basically the thinking process was really at the first moment is like we potentially have looked at the wrong partners. We need to source differently. That was the first thought on going in there. And then we explored the market on what could be then the ideal partner profile. And we really created that for each of the segments that we have. So be it reseller, be it referral, be it affiliate partners. And then we looked at how many of them potentially will be available in the market. Then we looked at how long is this going to take to acquire them? That's where we said, or we realized also, and at the time when we started also, the team size wasn't at the stage where it is today. So we really had to look into how much can we achieve with what we have just now and how much would we need to actually source new partners that going to help us even scale faster in the long term?

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(25:20):

So at the moment when the team wasn't at the stage where we are now, we literally said, okay, we have to measure, we have to calculate with the partners that we get without too much effort on it as well. So instead of turning around and saying, hey, we need different kind of partners, you said they value us and they appreciate us as well. And potentially they even built a great brand awareness of us on as little as they might be in the business that they are, but as a whole, they generate a lot for us. And that's where we actually started looking into, and obviously it's also about what's the deal size then behind it? Is that acceptable? If you've got a bigger partner, you potentially need to sacrifice a bit more of the revenue that you want to share with them as well. So really the first thought was changing it completely, but then coming back and saying, literally, no, I don't want to be ending up in six months saying, because we are changing and sourcing completely new partners, we are going blank in the next six months.

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(26:30):

And that's where we, instead of saying we do large partners and large partners only, or we do small partners and smaller, we actually found a way to do both in each of the regions and we found the right messaging for each of them. And we were really talking heavily to them about what are they looking for, what do they need? They helped us even developing our platform to a better stage. So the next instance, what we are thinking of is actually having these expert round tables where we get the user, the partner, the technologies themselves together to explore what's working for them and that really helping us as a company over there.

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Tyler Calder  (27:12):

How did you balance the two? I'm curious about that. When you actually got into these effectively what feels like two tracks, how did functionally that work? And again, I asked the question for context sake. I hear a lot of partner teams suggest we're strapped for resources, we got to focus, doing big and small at the same time, it's going to distract, we're not going to be able to do either well, but seemingly you kind of crack that open. What was that approach?

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Andre Kaufmann (27:45):

So literally the approach is only then automization then in that sense over there. It's literally the long tail and we found out really what's the need of these partners that have been silent for a while, how many touch points do they need? And it's not so frequent. So actually it's not complicated, but you just have to find a way to treat them in a certain way so they actually will not forget about it. We also actually automated a lot of the components that work with the large ones on that side as well. And this is where I'm also, again, very, very grateful for this organization because they said at the end, if we find the partners that actually go that road with us together, we're going to develop a tool that has a pure partner focus. So actually we added in widgets through technology that's visible on both sides of the technology.

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(28:48):

So instead of just going side by side by recommending each other and selling each other, all of a sudden we implemented part of the technology that part of the value that our solution is providing into our partner's environment. And that gave us the framework actually to really start looking into, okay, this is now where we have the ears and eyes of the larger partners in the market, but we also realized how long that's going to take. So really again, over there is how are we going to create the touch points? What kind of communication is valuable for them? But then at the end, when relationships all of a sudden came in and started working, what did we realize? What's the critical component? How did these leads come into the organization? So we had a framework, we had a partner portal over there, but that's where we realized that we are missing on the partner side quite a few because we are not giving the opportunity to our partner organization to send us business through the channel of their choice.

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(29:55):

And that nowadays is something like Slack, that's like an email And that's where we literally realized then we need to look into what options can be offered where people don't have to go into a partner portal to get any information. We want to make it available on the go. When people are meeting people at an event, and obviously this is the moment when many are saying, "Oh, this is the main focus for me in the next six to nine months." Then usually they want to provide value to this person that they're talking to. And then they come up, "I know the perfect company you're talking to. Let me send this through to you or let me introduce you to the organization and they will reach out to you." This is literally what's the next level, next step that we actually had to look into. Because when we are engaging, and it really is still difficult to get these big partners that we are working with activated, that we make information that are happening on one part of the globe that are being distributed to the other side of the globe over there.

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(30:58):

So everyone is on the same level of knowledge over there and knows how to bring this to the person they want to talk to constantly. This is where we really actually found then also the way on this is how we are offering partners to send us these deals then to the solution.

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Tyler Calder  (31:18):

Through all of this work, was there any discovery or realization of parts that could successfully be automated versus parts that couldn't?

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Andre Kaufmann (31:28):

So automated is literally, and this is what we are aiming for, so we are not finished with that yet, is these regular catch-ups. Nowadays, you need to find the right communication channel for that or you need to find the right messaging on that as well. What's never going to be replaceable by a solution or automation is literally the human element. But this human element in this aspect actually, you want to go to a situation where simply when the human aspect is coming, it makes a huge impact. It comes at the right moment, it comes with the right communication, it provides value and it gives the partner this comfort. There is this person in case something's going wrong because that's nowadays where you need human elements always usually when something goes wrong. And this is where partners want to have the confidence on, I know who I can reach out to.

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(32:30):

And whenever I did so far, this person was there, he/she was there, was helping, could help my client even though, and we solved it together over there. So this is relationships that became more and more critical. And I think COVID showed it to us as well, what can happen when you don't have these relationships to the sense like what's these personal meetings? They make an impact because all of a sudden you talk more, you talk about things you wouldn't do on the screen because you're standing next to each other, you get close, you spend more than just half an hour together. They're different occasions. That's like many, many companies that focus on there's innovation happening. Many of them are saying they're not happening in front of the screen. Innovation happens in many occasions at a coffee machine, at a drink after work where all of a sudden these great ideas are coming in.

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(33:31):

I'm 100% sure. And I also saw that this partnership idea and the partnership drive of this company was also driven by these relationships that we started having in the markets with our partners, with ideas that came up on industry events, potentially industry events where no one showed up. So it was just a partner coming in. And this is actually how I got to know Roomplace Uni. It was one of these events. We were investing heavily. We were prepared for showing something great and no one showed up on that occasion. That happens, but it opened the door. It opened the door for conversations on an exchange on how can we do this and how can we achieve it? At this time it was like, how can we avoid this happening again that no one's showing up? I mean it was bad weather conditions, whatever came into that moment over there.

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(34:27):

But I think there's so many things we can automate nowadays and AI is going to be a big component on it as well. And we believe in existing platforms, technologies, and we want to use AI by looking at what can the existing technologies do together with AI, but now we are also looking into how can we change and then use an AI first solution and then build everything native by AI so we can automate as much as possible. So we're giving capability to the people that are doing the work for us to come into the partner motion when it's needed and when they have the chance to actually make a personal impact to the relationship.

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Tyler Calder  (35:15):

We were kind of touching on one of the last questions that I always ask, which is around AI and you've sort of answered it, but I'll ask it directly. What role should AI play? What role shouldn't it play? Kind of similar to the automation question, but if it leads us down another path or a different path, I'd be curious.

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Andre Kaufmann (35:35):

What it 200% should be doing is the repeatable task. The repeatable task, and I'm seeing it in two ways. One is literally because they're time-consuming. If we get our team members to do these time-consuming tasks which need to be done and you need to continue them doing it, they actually don't have the time to actually look into new ideas, finding new partnerships, finding new ways, crazy ideas potentially that could generate a big ticket or something like this because that's what we need them for. That's why we are hiring creative people over there. So all these repeatable tasks where literally an influence on what can it do and what can it impact on, that should be done by AI. It also will be helping on finding new ideas, just speeding up the process on it. What it never should do is actually replacing the element of relationship because that's what's great.

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(36:36):

That's what we are human for. And I think this opportunity, but also this capability of making decisions on the spot which are showing empathy, but also business accrual, for example, that's kind of something that I don't want to ask for a machine to do. It also wouldn't show the value to our partner if this is a machine actually doing over there. So that's the part which I believe shouldn't be taken over. However, we need to look into how much of decision making can be influenced also from AI. So this is literally where we nowadays need to see the amount of data and then we are looking into what we just discussed earlier as well. We actually at the beginning only had the total revenue of partnership recurring revenue that we had on an annual basis. And then all of a sudden we split it down into the segments, then we went down into the regions.

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(37:38):

What we changed then, how can we actually see it on a multi-touch attribution channel? What's being influenced by it and how much does it influence long-term? That's where we all of a sudden have a data set where it's going to be hard for us humans to evaluate to the total extent over there. So literally that's where it can help us making this decision. But it really is like the human element is going to make the difference. And especially in our industry, it's about the humans that we are interact with. And to a certain extent, technology will be a piece of luxury that we're experiencing because it's taking away the element of uncomfortable situations like queuing in a reception because there's not enough staff and people are checking in. Can be done by online check-ins, that's technology and there are other solutions that can do this as an example.

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(38:33):

But again, once there's a challenge, and we always will come across of individual situations where challenges occur, their behavior is different, their patterns are changing. This is where the human element needs to spot that actually and the data's telling and then we need to action on it as it was the way of rumbration deciding we see this potential with our partnerships so big time that we are going to develop a solution just for the purpose of having value sharing with our partners over there. That's the human element that made that step, that saw this and that's seeing, and this is opening the door for us across the globe of companies saying, we do see you are investing in it, you're spending time on it and you're trustworthy as well. You hold onto what you're saying and this is why we want to work with you.

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(39:28):

I think this is an element technology would potentially do a rational decision. We did this against rational saying be investing first because we can calculate and measure the outcome afterwards.

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Tyler Calder  (39:42):

Yeah, I cannot agree more with that sentiment. I think that's a perfect perspective on AI and how companies should be thinking about it. And it's a long-term view as well. I think it's how we should be thinking about it over the next couple years. I think that's great.

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Andre Kaufmann (39:59):

This brings me back to my previous experience when I was still a receptionist and one of the hotels that I used to work for. I mean, at the end I did a three years apprenticeship. I made a lot of experience in other hotels and at the end I was still standing at the front desk asking guests to fill in the registration form and guide them to their room. And I did five years experience on that, just doing that. I was like, okay, that's not what I did this for. And I think with the young generation that we have coming our way nowadays, in order to motivate them and provide them a great working environment and working space, we also need to show them we are sexy, we are cool, you can use the tool and we are going to actually guide and support you on using it in the right way so you don't challenge the safety or the security environment of the company, but you benefit from the opportunities this solutions will provide.

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(40:53):

And in return then you're going to be so much more efficient doing your work and focus on making an impact. And I think this is what the young generation want to do. They want to be valued, they want to make an impact, they want to do something that stands for them. They cannot do it completely, but taking off these repeatable boring tasks off them is going to get them far more excited than working in their company over there. And that's what we are seeing, but I also see this pace and the dynamics that come up all of a sudden by using this technology and just trying to find the right way to embed it into your processes and frameworks.

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Tyler Calder  (41:34):

I love that. I think sexy and cool is a good place to wrap up. I think that's amazing. We talked about how to get on your path from 30 to 50% of revenue source to partnerships, how to reactivate dormant partners. We talked about AI, we talked about having a sexy and cool experience. I think that's a pretty good conversation. I do have one final question for you. You hinted to me that the proper pronunciation of your name is maybe a little bit more German than I'd be able to handle. What is it? What's the proper pronunciation? Lay it on us.

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Andre Kaufmann (42:13):

No, no, it's just literally. No, I didn't say it's not going to be able to pronounce it. It's just Kaufman. Everyone knows, oh, that's a German guy kind of over there. That's literally where I moved to England 24 years ago. That was the first time for me being a foreigner somewhere. And since then I'm Andre, so my last name didn't matter that much anymore. It only changed then when I got kids, then all of a sudden I was only the dad of this one, that's where I lost my name completely. But yeah, Kaufman, that literally is so German and I think people like it as well, but in most of the occasions I don't use it really. Cool. It wasn't about pronunciating it.

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Tyler Calder  (43:00):

Got it. If folks want to get in touch with you, maybe ask any follow-up questions, get some insights from you, how might they go about doing that?

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Andre Kaufmann (43:07):

The email address is [email protected]. You're coming directly through there. That's the best way. Find me on LinkedIn. Absolutely. That's the second instance and I'm happy to go in contact with you over there. Absolutely.

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Tyler Calder  (43:21):

Amazing. Well, Andre, thank you so much. I think this was super valuable, a lot for folks to take away. Appreciate it, as I'm sure everyone does.

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Andre Kaufmann (43:27):

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure for myself as well.

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Tyler Calder  (43:30):

All right. Take care everyone. Thanks for listening to Get It Together. If you want more resources to help you build and scale your partnership program, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app and get more proven tips and tools at partnerstack.com/getitogether.

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