Episode 76: Human to Human

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Erick and Rich discuss why vendors are introducing partner loyalty programs and how MSPs can cement their position as trusted advisors while locking in revenue by aligning IT budget discussions with a client’s financial planning cycles. Then they’re joined by Jessica McDowell, TD SYNNEX’s senior vice president of North American marketing and digital customer success, for a conversation about AI, community, marketplaces, and the changing relationship between partners and distributors. And finally, one last thing: a look at LegoGPT, the AI killer app we’ve all been waiting for.

Discussed in this episode:

TD SYNNEX Brings B2C Rewards to B2B Relationships

TD SYNNEX Partner Loyalty program

TD SYNNEX PartnerLINK program

LegoGPT is here to make your blocky dreams come true

 

Transcript:

5-21-25 MSP Chat Episode 76 audio export
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Rich: [00:00:00] And 3, 2, 1 blast off. Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome another episode of the MSP Chat podcast, your weekly visit. With two talking heads, talking with you about the services, strategies and success tips you need to make it big and manage services. My name is Rich Freeman. I’m the chief strategist at Channel Mastered of the organization responsible for this show.

I’m joined by your other co-host, our chief strategist, did I say Chief strategist? I’m chief analyst channel Mastered. Our chief strategist is your other co-host, Erick Simpson. Erick, welcome to the show.

Erick: Hey. Happy to share the hat anytime, rich. Thanks for another awesome MSP chat episode, rich, we’ve got quite an exciting episode today.[00:01:00]

Rich: Yeah this is a really good one. Actually, so it and I’ll just preview for folks in the audience. It features an interview segment in the middle with Jess Jessica McDowell. She’s the SVP of north America Marketing and Digital Customer Success at TD Synnex. Erick and I recorded this a few days ago.

As we’re recording this part of the show right now, we were both present, live, and in person at the TD Synnex High Growth Conference in Los Angeles. And Jessica, who was obviously very busy at the show, was good enough to sit down with us. And so you’ll hear directly from her, she’s pretty new into that position.

She’s basically now in the role that used to be occupied by Bob Stenner for folks who know Bob and remember that name. So it was good to to get a chance to hear from her. And in fact, one of the things we talked about with her is the topic that we’re gonna talk about a little bit in our story of the week, Erick.

Awesome. Let’s get right to it, rich. Let’s get right to it. And that topic is partner loyalty [00:02:00] programs. Now if you partner programs obviously as old as the channel itself. There’s nothing new about partner programs. Partner loyalty programs are newer in the channel world now.

They are not new in the world of business and the business to consumer space. We are all familiar with loyalty programs. We are all probably members of programs where you get certain rewards for collecting points or doing a certain amount of business or transacting in some way with a consumer oriented business.

We’re starting to see that kind of concept bleed over into the channel right now. That, now the very first example of that I saw. Was late last year when PAX eight the marketplace operator introduced what they’re calling their Voyager Alliance program. And it’s essentially a a partner loyalty program where the more business you are doing with PAX eight the more benefits of various kinds that you get.

And and qualify for, they, they haven’t [00:03:00] rolled it out yet, but there will be at some point in the future, a points-based reward system as well, very much on that B2C model where you collect points for certain things that you do and you can cash those points in for a range of different benefits.

So that was the first. Thing of that kind that I saw this past week TD Synex during the high growth conference introduced its own partner loyalty program. And the idea, for both PAX eight and for tdn, the context here essentially is channel partners out there have more options, more choices than they ever have before.

It’s not just. Do I, which mainline or broadline distributor do I work with? You’ve got a whole range of different marketplace operators. You’ve got the hyperscalers, like AWS and Azure and Google and so on. There are a lot of people competing for the the attention, the mind share, the hearts and minds of MSPs out there right now.

And we’re starting to see companies do some [00:04:00] things. To attract and earn and retain that loyalty in the form of things like the TD Synex partner loyalty program, where, again, based on your sales activity with them, you qualify for certain benefits that you wouldn’t otherwise get from being a partner with them.

They’re not doing it on a point basis. They researched this, they decided that that the folks they’re targeting with this program. Didn’t actually want a point-based system. But what they also determined from this research is that an emerging generation of decision makers in the channel, younger decision makers, like loyalty programs, they know those from their life as consumer.

Consumer and if you are looking for a way to show appreciation to partners, loyalty programs are very appealing to them. And so PAX eight has one. TD Synex has one. I won’t get into the details, but just last week Sophos announced what they’re calling their MSP Elevate program. Has a lot of elements of loyalty program.

We’re [00:05:00] starting to see these show up, Erick, and for all the reasons that I was talking about, competitiveness and distribution, competitiveness and security we’re Sophos place. I predict we’re gonna see a lot more of this kind of stuff in the future.

Erick: Yeah, I, it’s surprising to me, rich, because it’s borrowing from other industries that have been very successful with these types of programs and I guess for me, I.

Just knowing and participating in partner programs as an MSP and then working with MSPs and vendors afterwards in their partner programs. When you hear a loyalty program being added as an extra layer, an additional layer, can you define what the unique differentiators are between what a traditional partner program looks like?

Because I think anybody that’s in the channel understands that it’s all, it’s basically. Revenue and performance base. There are things like, MDF and other benefits that you can get. So what’s the [00:06:00] unique pro proposition for a loyalty program? What do these partners get that’s uniquely different or adds more value to their partnership with the vendor distributor?

Rich: So it’s gonna vary a little bit vendor by, by vendor. And there is some overlap there. There are, so in the traditional partner program the function of the program there is to enable you to sell more and be more successful so that you and the vendor or distributor are achieving mutual.

Success. The function of the partner loyalty program is a little bit more tilted in the direction of showing appreciation for the value that partners are creating for the host of that program. Now, some of that expression of appreciation comes in the form of like enablement resources. So there is some overlap there, but just as a, for example.

In the case of TD Synex, there are travel benefits for example, that you could qualify for in terms of discounted rates on attending conferences and and maybe hotel rooms. I’m not sure [00:07:00] the specifics, but, so there, there are those kinds, financial rewards, essentially that they’re offering in a loyalty program that aren’t traditionally associated with a, an ordinary partner program.

Erick: I could see how that would be really valuable for Partners Rich, where, you know when a training comes up or a conference and they’re gonna have certification and things like that, it’s sometimes it’s the dollars and cents of how many of my team can I send right. To make that worthwhile and then cover, them being gone from delivering service to clients.

So I think those are pretty attractive incentives if that’s the, the focus of kind of this rewards and appreciation and thank you. And in other areas where the partner program really doesn’t play traditionally. Yeah, it’s very interesting. And now that we’ve got, I Synex along with PAX eight, you predict that others will follow suit.

Rich: Yeah, absolutely. And Sophos. I think over time as more people come into the space, what [00:08:00] you know, logically will happen is this begins to become a bit of an expectation among par my the consumer businesses I I interact with are showing appreciation in this particular way.

Some of the vendors and distributors. Are showing appreciation in the same way. Why aren’t you fill in the blank vendor doing that too.

Erick: Yeah. It’ll be it’ll be interesting to keep up and predict or actually, evaluate the different loyalty programs as well and just how attractive they are for partners.

There’s a retention. Component here, I’m sure, but there’s probably also a recruitment incentive because now you know, there’s comparing these loyalty programs like we do for travel.

Rich: Right, yeah, exactly. Exactly. That’s part of the intended effect. Travel is foreign. MSP for the reasons you just outlined a a budget issue.

Erick, as we move on to your tip of the week this gets us into the realm [00:09:00] roughly speaking of budgeting.

Erick: Right, rich. So I wanna talk a little bit this week about having a different type of conversation with our clients when we’re sitting down and having these strategic meetings, these qbr, these cybersecurity meetings and things like that.

I wanna talk about budgeting meetings, where the focus of the meeting is strictly around. Budgeting with clients. As you can imagine, rich, the last thing that a client wants to hear is, oh, something failed and we need you to write a big fat check so we can address it in this firefighting mode.

I think the more mature partners that we see in the space are actually having tying these strategic budgeting conversations into their q and their strategic meetings and allowing the, that three, dear, that three, three year technology road mapping or five year technology road mapping conversation.

To, to really allow the client to forecast and budget for these improvements and anticipate the extra [00:10:00] value that comes when we’re doing this. So when we’re having a very direct meeting with the client, rich about, not just the assets in the organization, the licensing and the warranties and all that stuff that.

We take for granted that we’re supposed to be managing. What else are we doing with that client to talk about how we can enable their business growth from an efficiency a cost cutting pers perspective, and then adopting additional technologies like our favorite two letter acronym that we talk about on the show all the time.

AI and delivering that value and sharing with the client what it’s going to take. To budget for, from a cost perspective, and then from a timing perspective in all of these different areas and then what the expected outcome can be. So I’m not excluding infrastructure upgrades and all that.

It’s all part of this. So it takes that conversation rich from just an infrastructure licensing and growth perspective and saying what else can we do to [00:11:00] help accelerate your business growth to ease some of your pain? In a more strategic manner and add that to the conversation. So three quick tips, just offering, as you’re working with your A, B, and C clients, let’s say you’re gonna spend a little bit more time with your A clients because they’re probably growing at a little faster clip.

They’re a little bit more strategic. They value your guidance a little bit more so you can have those much more regularly with clients. And then just mapping. These investments which become, rollouts or projects over time and things like that, or adopting new technologies, et cetera.

For your B clients, those might be semi-annual meetings and for your c clients, they might be annual meetings, but the idea is to get all of your clients to agree to that, so at least you’re delivering a consistent value to clients, depending upon their appetite or ability to leverage the value of these meetings.

Number two, introducing kind of these budget friendly prepayment discounts. So let’s say that [00:12:00] you’ve got three or four initiatives you wanna roll out to clients over, the 2025, let’s say now we’re almost into Q3, so maybe there’s two left or something. Maybe without eroding too much of your margin.

Can you get clients to say yes to prepaying for those. Or paying for them on a monthly basis. This is a really interesting technique, rich, as long as you, you’re really good at deploying these implementations in a very consistent manner where you’re not there’s not a lot of, project scope creep or seep, but even then you’re managing project scope creep and seep as it comes along. Can you get a client to pay you either in advance or on a subscription, including some of these projects with your managed service agreements? I’ve seen partners do that effectively as well.

You gotta watch it. ’cause that’s a, again, you’ve gotta be really good at delivering these projects in a very consistent manner, not just doing it for the first time. Like we say. Then breaking services and these upgrades [00:13:00] into some categorized forecasts to meet an a CFO’s expectation.

So maybe budget comes from different areas to address that deliverable that you’re presenting to a client or implementing for clients. So this takes a really good understanding and communication and relationship with the CFO or the business owner to understand. Where did these different budgets come from?

And maybe aligning your product services and solutions to where budget is available. Maybe reprioritizing some things just to show extra value and, to keep growing your revenue. And MRR over time, rich.

Rich: Yeah. What I like about this, Erick, is it’s a dual track suggestion.

On the one hand, you are cementing your position within the account by getting, having the, those regular conversations getting out in front of projects and opportunities that you can pursue down the road. You’re [00:14:00] also, and this was an important part of what you were talking about, moving beyond that sort of licensing kind of conversation into the more strategic virtual CIO kinds of discussions about how can I help you use technology to make more and spend less, which is also going to make you sticky, cement your position within that account.

So there are multiple. Really smart reasons to develop some of this discipline around planning and budgets and budget cycles and and budget related technology conversations with the account.

Erick: Yeah, and I think Rich, it’s important, especially whether there’s, economic uncertainty, like what’s happening right now in the economy and, who knows what the cost of, hardware and products and things like that will be, is to have these meetings a little bit more frequently, at least and maintain communication with clients. Let’s say that they, you’ve budgeted or the client’s budgeted for an upgrade or something in the [00:15:00] future, and all of a sudden the cost.

Goes up. You’ve gotta let the client know that, hey, when you’re delivering these forecasts, this pricing is good. As of right now, even though we’re forecasting in the future, we don’t know what the price will be in the future, it’s gonna impact all of us. So just having that conversation and that communication, that understanding that you’re really business partners here working together for mutual benefit with your clients.

They should care as much about you and your organization as you care about their organization and work. Closely together. The best relationships I’ve ever had when I had my MSP Rich were those types of relationships where we really had each other’s backs and the clients would, call us in for budget meetings that might be impromptu, Hey we, we got a little bit of extra budget at the end of this quarter.

Let’s come in and talk about how we can, maximize that budget with your services.

Rich: I’ve gotta believe any any business you’re talking to these days will identify, understand if you’re being frank with them about pricing uncertainty going down the road. It [00:16:00] should be an easier, not easy conversation for folks in our audience to to have.

Now with that, folks, we are gonna move on to the next part of the show, but in doing so, we’re actually gonna move back in time a little bit to a few days ago when Erick and I were both TD Sinek’s High Growth Conference. As I said, we’re going to be joined by Jessica McDowell. Of TD Synex. We’re gonna talk about a number of different issues with her, one of which is that partner loyalty program that those folks rolled out.

We’ll get her take on that and what’s why that exists, what’s significant about it, all that is coming up in just a few moments. Stick around folks. We. We’ll be right back

and welcome back to part two of this episode of the MSP Chat podcast or spotlight interview segment, which as you can tell just by looking at the backdrop Erick and I are doing live. At the TV Cenex High Growth Conference in Southern California. Today we are very pleased to be joined by our host at this conference, Jessica McDowell.

She is [00:17:00] the Senior Vice President of North America Marketing and Digital Customer Success. I wanna come back to the second half of that title in a moment. I. But first for folks in our audience who have not met you before, aren’t familiar with your role at TD syn, tell a little bit about

Jessica: this.

Yeah, no, I’m happy to. Thank you for having me and thank you guys for being here at this conference. We’re very thrilled to have you. My role, so as mentioned, I cover marketing for North America and that’s everything from go to market to our event strategy, to our creative and our agency process.

And everything in between from a marketing standpoint. And then the digital piece is really the. The digital customer success journey, and what are we doing to help our partners from a digital standpoint? And that’s a very broad spectrum, as you can imagine. So

Rich: we’ll dive into that just a little bit because it’s not an unconventional thing for a company like TD Synnex to have, a focus on customer success.

But to call out the digital piece of that what does that say about the partner landscape right now and what’s different [00:18:00] maybe about. Digital customer success for Kes XX Partners? Yeah,

Jessica: I think so. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of things happening in the market and there’s a lot of research that is coming out and specifically around this new generation of buyers, right?

This new generation of consumers, and how do we appeal to that generation of consumers? There’s a lot of stats that say more and more people are focused on digital as a means of resource information gathering. They’re making decisions based on digital information. They’re making purchases digitally.

And so we know that we have to go meet people where they are on that front, right? We’re at the end of the day, we’re a human business. We’re a human to human business, and I will never falter from that. But we also know that the world is changing in many ways. So we have to create digital experiences for our partners.

Erick: Jessica, we’re in an AI security and a cloud event, and AI is the big buzzword. There’s a lot of folks trying to figure out what. What does this mean? How can we monetize ai? How can we [00:19:00] bring AI to, our clients and our strategic partner relationships? Yeah. What do you hope that partners go home with understanding about the opportunity in AI now, and how do you see that maybe growing in the future?

Jessica: I think first of all, I hope partners understand that we can help them, right? I think that’s really the name of the game, and I think when you think about ai. I think there’s a lot of momentum to try to keep up with the hype, and it reminds me of cloud years and years ago when cloud first started, being the latest and greatest.

And I think there’s a lot of that surrounding ai, right? There’s a lot of hype, there’s a lot of noise, there’s a lot of fear of missing out to some degree. Partners are trying to come up with what their AI story is and how they’re playing there. But I think I think we’re all still figuring it out to some degree.

I think the opportunity to monetize AI comes with being strategic. How you are implementing AI, both in your own practice and how you’re offering to help your partners, and I think that’s where we come in, right? We created our destination ai, our AI accelerator [00:20:00] program, and it’s all of that, right?

Meeting a partner where they are in their AI journey. Are are you working with the large partners like Nvidia? Are you working on the large scale AI infrastructures or are you at step one trying to figure it out? And I think that’s where we come in, right? Because we help across the entire spectrum.

So what do I hope partners walk away with? I hope they walk away with the knowledge that there are a lot of resources and tools and subject matter experts here internally at our company that can lend a hand and they don’t have to try to figure it out on their own. And we are behind the scenes helping partners scale and say yes to more opportunities.

Rich: That’s a great lead in to something I wanted to ask about. ’cause Erick and I interviewed an executive from a another distributor on a recent episode of the show. We got into a whole conversation about how. The relevance of distribution hasn’t changed in recent years, but the role has a little bit.

Yeah. We’re well beyond pick, pack, and ship. Solution providers are moving beyond just selling packaged goods. When you think about [00:21:00] the high growth markets that you folks are focused on at this event right now what is the role of distribution, particularly on the MSP side of the equation, but the vendor side as well.

Yeah. What is it that you’re doing now that maybe dd from what a copy like TV Cenex would’ve been doing?

Jessica: Yeah, no I love that question. ’cause I can say without a doubt that I’ve never been prouder to work at a distributor. And it does absolutely mean something different than it mean meant years ago.

I think the role of the distributor is, again, it goes back to that scale, right? We help our partners say yes more often. We help our partners finance opportunities that they may not have been able to finance on their own. We help our partners, deliver services that they may not be able to deliver on their own.

We’re very much an augmenter. That’s really what I see our role as. We’re an augmenter and a support arm. So we hire. Have on staff the subject matter experts that allow our partners to get in the door more often, allow our partners to, to have [00:22:00] conversations that they may not be able to have on their own.

Because I do think, lemme go back to ai, even security to some degree. There’s a skills gap, there’s a talent shortage. I think there’s been a talent shortage in the security market for a while. I think we’re, there’s some catching up that. That’s happening. But ai, there’s, there’s you’ve gotta be able to skill the partners up and support them behind the scenes offering white label services and offerings and the digital piece.

So an augmenter, I guess is the to put it in one word.

Erick: Yeah, that’s. That’s what partners need, right? Yeah. They need the ability, the flexibility, the support no matter what their business model is. To help grow these days.

Jessica: Yeah.

Erick: So you introduced a partner loyalty program. I did.

Which is a little different than what we typically see in typical partner programs. What’s in it and. Why did you create it?

Jessica: We created it because our partners are starving for it. And we surveyed and interviewed and talked to many partners and it was really built and based on the feedback that we got from the partners.

We’re really proud of it. It’s a one-to-one. It’s not [00:23:00] necessarily a points based. Loyalty program, it is activity based, right? And it’s personalized. So if we have a partner that’s very focused on cloud, they’re gonna receive activities that they need to complete that are specific to what their focus is, and they are rewarded accordingly.

So it’s not a one size fits all. It’s a meet the partners where they are and it’s to reward them to get skills, certifications and a multitude of different types of activities. But I love it that it’s personalized and we created it because the partner said, Hey, we love this and we need it. And. Going back to the, one of the first questions you asked around, the new buying journey loyalty programs are big.

I think a lot of consumers are expecting loyalty programs and it seemed natural that we would come in and create one of our own.

Erick: Yeah. The key that I heard there was it’s personalized

Jessica: Absolutely.

Erick: For the partner.

Rich: Yeah. That’s unique.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. We’re very proud of that.

Rich: That’s actually something I’d like to ask because, and I was thinking about that this morning in the general session a little bit, and you said yourself just a few moments ago [00:24:00] digital customer success, digital experiences are important, but this is a human to human business.

Yeah. And personalize, personalization is coming up. How do you think about that balance right now? Because you, you think about cloud computing and a lot of that is, person to website. AI is person to machine. There, there’s a lot of sort of non-human interaction going on that you’re talking about at the show, and that your partners you set yourself on stage at one point.

The partners don’t wanna talk to a salesperson anymore.

Jessica: I know it’s a scary statistic.

Rich: So how do you think about that balance between the technologies and the sort of, up and coming generations of people who are less interested in that? Human, human, and. Preserving, growing, maintaining that personalized human kind of element in what you guys do?

Jessica: Yeah, I think it’s just that, I think it’s, I think it’s absolutely a balance. We have to create the vehicles because that is where people are going to procure information to, make their purchases. But we need to [00:25:00] keep doing things like having these large events, having our road shows, getting out in front of our partners.

There was a recent stat, I believe it was IDC if I’m not mistaken, that said 40% of complex buying decisions in terms of picking up new technologies and figuring out which types of products to add to a line card. 40% of those decisions are made at in-person events. So it’s an interesting dynamic.

Back to your point, you have all this digitization, you have all of this. Behind the scenes types, type of interactions happening. But at the end of the day, people still crave that face-to-face, that human element. We’ve gotta find the balance ourselves. And I think it starts with making sure that we’re creating opportunities for people to be face-to-face and to have those conversations well.

At the same time, making sure that we’re creating the method and the mode for partners and consumers to, to purchase in the way that they wanna purchase.

Erick: A theme that we come back to a lot on the podcast is, the variety and the choice that partners have in terms of the distributor relationships.

They [00:26:00] align themselves with the marketplaces. How many they should have. It’s sometimes it’s a guessing game. What’s your guidance at TV Cenex on how partners should think about these relationships?

Jessica: I think, I think everybody should choose us for everything. But I think the biggest thing that partners need to consider is it goes back to that personalization that we were talking about earlier.

When they’re making choices it’s looking for somebody that’s going to meet them where they are looking for somebody that’s gonna help with the personalization. Not trying to fit something into a one size fits all type of modality. I think it’s. It’s all about customization and personalization because we can, we have the ability to customize and personalize.

We have the ability to look at data analytics and predictive insights and to create reports and really understand what a partner profile looks like now and what they need to support their business. Now, by no means are we here to tell partners how to run their businesses because that’s not our role, but we are here to say, Hey.

Based on what the data says, we think that you should be playing here and you have an opportunity here [00:27:00] and you have a potential line card gap here. We’re able to do all of that. But I think when it comes to guidance on how do I pick in a sea of offerings, it’s look for who meets you, where you are and your journey.

Look for who can help you personalize based on your business and the way that you go to market.

Rich: Another theme that comes up pretty regularly on the show is community and how unique the role of community is in the channel, how important the role of community is in the channel as it happens.

Just a few weeks ago, TD Synex introduced a new community called Partnerly. Yes. So tell folks a little bit about what Partner Link is how it benefits the members, but also maybe how it reflects your thinking about community at TD Cenex.

Jessica: Yeah, I think community is about, sharing and it’s really about partnerships, not just between.

Us as a distributor and our partners, but between the partners themselves, how can they share best practices? How can they really work to, with each other to leverage where it makes sense? [00:28:00] So we created Partner Link because we saw a need to. Again, go back to that customization and be able to really focus in on what do the partners need, right?

So it’s not a one size fits all community. It is a it is a community that focuses in on high growth technologies, and then we have we have different elements within the community as well. So Partner Link is focused on partner enablement. Creating opportunities for partners to get together and meet in a space where they’re playing, right?

So you’re gonna have the high growth partners, within one element of Partner Link. And then you’ve got partners that are focused on things like Endpoint and Edge and another element so that we’re creating commonalities between those partners. It’s about enablement, it’s about support and it’s about creating the means for partnership between not, again, not only us and our partner, but our partners themselves.

Erick: So we’re in, or shall I say economically uncertain times right now. What are you hearing from partners and [00:29:00] what are you how do you respond to that input? Here and in the near term?

Jessica: Yeah I think partners, yes, it is uncertain for sure. I think we’re hearing a lot of wait and see from partners.

But business has to go on. So I think they’re looking for assurance. I think they’re looking for guidance from us. And I think with our financing capabilities and things like that, we have, we have the means to support the partners in uncertainty.

Rich: There was an IDC analyst on stage today talking about how, because of the uncertainty IDCs growth projections in it for the year are, 5% of below and 9% at ba.

And I like the sound of 9% better than 5%. No,

Jessica: only both.

Rich: Yeah. But 5% sure sounds better than negative five. Mean at the low end projection isn’t a catastrophe. So that’s that’s probably good news and. Even better in the high growth markets.

Jessica: I agree and I think no matter what the economic uncertainty is, business goes on, right?

You’re still gonna have AI [00:30:00] that’s evolving things. You’re still gonna have a heightened security threat landscape with, with AI coming onto the scene. Even on, even in uncertain times, there still has to be spend and budget to make sure that you’re securing your business and that you’re supporting.

Yeah, that you’re supporting the end customers from a security standpoint. And you can’t, we can’t just sit around and twiddle our thumbs, right? We have to make sure that we’re creating opportunities for our partners to thrive, even in uncertain markets. But yeah, I like 9%. It’s better than five, but yeah.

All of it’s better than negative. All of it’s better than a red number. Yes. We don’t want that. Yeah.

Rich: Jessica, very busy few days for you here, so we really appreciate you making some time for us. For anyone in the audience who wants to get in touch, learn more about you, learn more about your organization at TD Synnex, where should they go?

Jessica: They should go. You could email me directly or we can you can email high-growth [email protected].

Rich: Fantastic. All right, Jessica, thank you very much. Thank

Jessica: you. I enjoyed this. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Rich: [00:31:00] Folks, Erick and I are gonna take a quick break here. When we come back on the other side, we’ll share a few thoughts about this conversation with Jessica McDowell.

Excuse me. We’ll have a little fun wrap up the show. Stick around. We are gonna be right back

and welcome back to part three of this episode of the MSB. P Chat podcast. Once again, we thank Jessica McDowell tv Synex for joining us on the show in the middle of their conference. Busy time for her, but it was good. This was really my first opportunity to speak with her at all. Actually let alone face to face.

And I very much appreciate that. What a lot of interesting things came up in the conversation. Erick, a lot of things to chew over, but the thing that I think is kinda lingering with me is this idea, she now has digital customer success in her title. And we are clearly in an age where.

More and more of what businesses do with one another, they do digitally. And being [00:32:00] able to deliver for your business partners, your customers, that way is important. And at the same time business continues to be person to person, human to human. So it’s interesting to see TD Synex explore and try to strike a balance between maintaining that human connection and dimension in business while also meeting.

The growing expectations. And as you deal with younger and younger decision makers, the expectations are only growing that I’m gonna have this seamless, friction-free digital experience with you as well. And it’s something that obviously the TD Synnex of the world have to think through, but really all of us do.

Erick: You ripped the phrase outta my brain when you said striking a balance, because that is the interesting part and probably the biggest challenge because. You’re right, we have, the traditional partners that are more kind of relationship driven are used to talking to their account manager or their sales [00:33:00] engineer, whatever, at their vendor and distributor support and things like that.

And sending over things and saying, Hey, I need to quote. And then you have this new generation of business owners coming in that are born in the cloud, right? They’re. Their apps are all on their phone. And bridging the gap between those two and providing a unique experience where, you’re gonna meet, we’re gonna meet you where you are as a partner, but I kind of sense that, all business, not just, you know, in, in our channel, but all business.

We’ll be moving more and more toward that digital experience. But you’re right, rich, there’s still that human element that folks want to have connection with. Like when you have an issue, I love doing stuff digitally, myself, rich, because it makes things really fast. But when I have a problem, I don’t wanna talk to a chat bot.

I don’t wanna talk, through chat when obviously this should have been escalated, 30 minutes ago. Can I get somebody else or can I. There’s a lot of businesses where you cannot talk to [00:34:00] somebody on the phone like I used to be able to do back in the past. So that’s, I think that’s the challenge here.

But when you’re building up, a partner channel like this, it’s important to maintain, the opportunity to communicate and engage with partners in the way that they wanna engage. And I think that’s one thing that I also picked up from our conversation with Jessica, is just this personalization.

Approach to each partner, which I thought was very unique and interesting.

Rich: Yeah. And an interesting way, of using the digital tools to create more of that personal connection. Yeah, in interesting conversation, I’m glad to have had the opportunity to meet and speak with Jessica.

We thank her for joining us on the show. And with that folks, we have time for just one last thing on the program. And, we’ve talked who knows how many times on the podcast here about ai. And by golly, Erick we’ve just been waiting for the killer app. Really what is the killer app for ai And researchers at Carnegie Mellon [00:35:00] University have finally found it.

We have finally found the killer app for ai in the form of a tool that they are calling Lego GPT. And basically this is an AI tool that helps you create Lego designs in 20 by 20 on a 20 by 2020 grid. Here, big complex, physically stable designs with Legos, so you’re not just guessing and figuring out on your own.

Looking to see that the folks who wrote about this for the register were saying, don’t think you can do the Sistine Chapel complex. Up to a point. But but, people are I’m looking for some examples. People are creating some some interesting designs there.

And finally at last a reason to justify that chat, GPT plus account at 20 bucks a month.

Erick: Yeah. And it’s very interesting, rich. ’cause I was thinking I saw that article as well independently, and I thought they have these big Lego challenges where these competitions where [00:36:00] people just, build these amazing, incredible things out of their own, expertise in, in Legos and they’re, and the blocks, so they know all this stuff.

I wonder how they’re gonna figure out it’s colleges and schools is like, how much of that was AI generated? And will that be a penalty if they start making these designs using this AI platform? But super cool. Very cool concept.

Rich: And again with that folks, that is all we’ve got for you on this episode of the show.

We thank you so much for joining us. We’re gonna see you in a week’s time with another episode of the show. Until then, I’ll just remind you, this is both a video and audio podcast, which means that if you are listening to the show, but you’d like to check us out on video, go to YouTube, look up MSP chat if you’re watching us on YouTube, but you’re into audio podcast as well.

Go to Spotify, Google, apple, wherever it is. You get your audio podcast, you’re gonna find us there too. And however it is, wherever it is you find us, please subscribe, rate, review. It’s gonna help other people find and enjoy the show just like you do. This program [00:37:00] is produced by the Great Rust Johns. It is edited by the also great Riley Simpson.

They’re part of the team with us here at Channel Mastered. They’re already willing and able to create a podcast for you. But podcasts are just the tiniest sliver of what we do for our clients at Channel Mastered. If you wanna get the big picture, go to www.channel mastered.com channel. Mastered has a sister organization called MSP Mastered, that’s Erick working one to one with MSPs to grow and optimize their business.

You can learn more about that. www.mspMastereded.Com. So once again, we thank you for joining us. We’ll see you in a week’s time with another episode of the show. Until then, please always remember as we urge you to that you cannot spell channel. Without [00:38:00] MSP.