Episode 10 - Meaghan Sullivan-Moore

Channel Success 2023: Keeping Your Head and Your Heart in the Game

Over the past three years, the tech industry has faced numerous challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues. However, the recent wave of layoffs and cutbacks has been particularly disruptive, leading to a reevaluation of priorities and a need to achieve more with fewer resources. As a result, many channel marketers are experiencing a great deal of stress and angst. While automation and efficiency can certainly help alleviate some of the pressure, it is essential to prioritize the people who are responsible for channel strategies, execution, and programs. In a recent podcast, Meaghan Sullivan from SAP shared her insights on how to keep your head and your heart in the game during times of upheaval. Listen in as Meaghan talks candidly about how to support yourself and others, and keep moving forward, both professionally and personally.

What is Channel Waves by StructuredWeb?

A podcast for Channel Marketers, Channel Waves is a place where channel leaders share success strategies, best practices and emerging trends, brought to you by StructuredWeb.

Welcome to ChannelWaves, the podcast where channel

leaders share success strategies, best practices and emerging

trends, brought to you by StructuredWeb.

Here's your host, Steven Kellam.

Welcome, everyone, to ChannelWaves.

StructuredWeb's view into everything channel.

I'm your host, Steven Kellam and very excited

to have Meaghan Sullivan-Moore, Head of Ecosystems

and Mid Market at SAP joining us today. Welcome, Meaghan.

Thank you so much, Steven.

Such a pleasure to be here with you.

Yeah, look, we started this out.

I'm going to take everyone back a little bit.

We started out, Meaghan did the first

podcast for me at StructuredWeb.

And we had also done several podcasts other places.

And we had been talking about how do

partners need to change, what do they need

to do to not do the status quo?

I got a great quote from you that I've used on

several webinars, by the way, about partners need to change the

status quo and figure out how to drive revenue.

And listeners, we've had lots of great endeavors,

we've had lots of great conversations about that.

But the reason I reached out to Meaghan to

have this one, this podcast in particular, from my

perspective, the grounds has shifted so much, not just

over the past three years with pandemic, supply chains,

everything that's happened to stress out the world.

Now you throw what's happened from a human

resources perspective with this economic downturn and I

don't know anybody who doesn't know someone who

has not been affected by this. Right?

So we're having these conversations about driving revenue,

automating everything, simplifying, all these great suggestions or

great ways to make marketing work.

But how do you do that when you

have less resources without your head exploding?

So, I guess what we want to talk

about today is really the channel psyche.

And I wanted to tap into Meaghan's knowledge

as really, I would say as a manager.

And that when you have to do more with less.

How do you do that?

How do you deal with people?

How do you motivate them?

I think the title of this, just to tell everybody

is going to be: How do you get your head,

and I think and heart, into the marketing game today.

So sorry, that was a long dive into that,

but obviously there's been a lot going on.

I think it's an amazing topic. Yes.

COVID stressed out the world, for sure.

And just when we thought that was

over, the hits just keep on coming.

Now we've got the recession, we've got things

around the world happening that are terrible.

The bank failure going on, multiple layoffs

at companies impacting the entire tech industry.

It's a very stressful world out there.

And so I think it's more important than ever for

leaders to be paying attention to that and to keep

a pulse on what's happening with their employees.

I mean, in simplest terms, where do you start?

Are there three mantras to this in Meaghan's world,

if I'm trying to make all this happen, what

are the three things that you have to deal

with that would help you make your team successful?

I guess that's really where I'm driving.

Well, I think, number one, first and foremost, I always

like to start at 50,000 foot level, at a strategic

level, and we set the tone as leaders.

Our organization, very similar to our CEO, set

the tone as an example for our company.

So it's super important that the mood and the

temperament is going to start with us, right?

So really taking care of ourselves, or myself as

an example, making sure I'm healthy, making sure I'm

taking care of myself, making sure I'm being vulnerable

and being honest about where I am in my

life, I think is very important.

Because if the team sees there's a bit of vulnerability

and nothing's perfect and we're all in this together as

an example, I think that makes people feel better.

And it's okay to not be okay kind of scenario.

So I think it starts at the top and

what kind of tone we want to set.

So I always like to say we can wake up

with a headache every day, or we can wake up

feeling great and that we're going to have a great

day and push through it and make it great.

And I really do think it's all in your head.

I can't believe I'm going to actually quote

Buddha on this, but I think Buddha said,

"pain is inevitable, suffering is optional".

But I actually saw that the other

day, because what you're talking about, and

I think that cuts across every leader.

Actually, it's not even just if you're leader a team.

If you're in a team and you're dealing with other

people, what choices do you make on what that day

is like, then that sounds so much easier than it

is to do, because we all wake up today with

lots of things on our minds.

I don't know if it's that hard, though.

Of course, I live in a glass half full world.

I can find the silver lining in anything.

It's just kind of how I roll.

But I really do think that if we can look up

to our leaders and say, you know what, to your point,

they have a lot of pain in their life, but they

have chosen to keep the glass half full.

They've chosen to see the silver lining.

I think that kind of bleeds into everyone.

That kind of incents them to look

the same way in some cases.

Not everyone can do it.

But I do think that we have to stay positive and

motivate and yet at the same time be vulnerable about, yeah,

I'm having a bad day, things kind of suck.

But having said that, I'm going to choose to wake

up on the right side of the bed and choose

to look at the light rather than the dark. Okay.

I think that goes back to

some basic principles of life, right?

For instance, how much do you listen

versus how much do you talk?

And are you truly listening?

Do you choose to, as you say, be positive?

I mean, there's so many things out there.

No one wants to listen to someone complain.

I think that's just like the

simplest things in life, right?

Whether you have with your friendships or with

your spouse or with your partner or whoever,

I think those life lessons can be really

drawn on from the business lessons.

And sometimes, I don't know.

You think it's easy?

Look, I'm an optimist too, but I don't know,

I don't think it's that easy for some people.

I think one easy thing to do that I

do since January 1, I've done this every single

day, is just find one thing to say.

Today I'm grateful for X and my 23 year old

daughter and I exchange a text message every day.

She's now just graduated from college. Every single day.

We have not missed yet of I'm grateful for and

name it, whatever it is, it could be the sunshine.

Today she said, I'm grateful for Zoom calls,

which was great because she didn't have,

her dressy pants on that day. Okay.

I was going to wonder where that was going to go. Sure.

Okay, look, we'll call those optimism hackers.

Optimism hackers. Good. Yeah.

Just be optimistic.

My second thing is how to lead in times of great

turmoil, I believe, is really sharing context of kind of why

you're asking your team to do something for them.

So, for example, I think so often we'll get a

fire drill or something from our manager saying, I need

this, or fill out this template, we got X amount

of time, or do this or whatever.

I think it's really important to share the context

of the strategy coming down from above on why

you're asking people to do things rather than just

kind of ask for a point in time project.

Because if they understand the context behind

what's going on and why the ask

is covering, we hire very intelligent people.

They're going to have some great innovative and creative ideas

that have come out that we didn't think about.

That's why we pilot these people is

because they're experts in their field.

And so the more context we can give them, I

think the greater productivity and innovation will come out.

Once again, I completely agree with you, but

I think that that's good at any time.

But I also think that gets harder when you

have less resources, when you're working on a smaller

team and your work is more and now on

your smaller team, you got more deliverables.

I think it's almost human nature. It is

for me, to go, I just need to get this done.

And I don't think that's right.

I think you're absolutely right.

But I think people have to take that first

thing that you said about taking care of themselves

and kind of get centered on that so they

can remember to be patient and to ask questions

and to realize that others have great ideas.

But I have to force myself look, I have to wrote

down you can't see it up there is to be patient.

I understand my strength and my weaknesses and I literally

every day have to have this up there to remember.

I've got same thing super intelligent people.

And I think today I'm agreeing with you even more that people

want to be a part of that big picture the solutions and

you got to listen and you got to be patient.

I have a note behind me this is slow down.

So in order to know okay, patient, slow down.

About the same thing, I'm sure everyone has that.

But I think it's really critical because I know some

people who are looking at in this time and there's

optimism, but also there's people, I believe that see us

as an opportunity to shine and to do well and

to get their ideas and to be successful.

So I think there's also a lot of that

but as a leader or a coworker, it doesn't

really matter whether it's sideways or up or down.

I do think we have to slow down a little bit.

I'm not so sure the world

is sending that message right now.

No, it's go faster, faster, faster, immediate, I

want instantaneous results, all that kind of stuff.

But I do think no matter what level

you're at, if you're asking somebody to do

something for you, you can slow down.

I need to slow down, right.

Give them the context of why you're asking for it

and why you need it done and what needs to

be done, and brainstorm a little bit on kind of

here's my challenge, what I'm trying to figure out.

It doesn't take very long to do that.

And I'm telling you, the results you'll get from the other side

and them lending their ideas and some context that they have, it's

going to be better if you take a little bit of time

or prep just to kind of set the tone.

I think it makes a huge difference.

One thing I've done, we're talking about hacks, right,

is I've had meetings where I've had them very

free flow in the past right here's, an hour

meeting there's four of us together.

I've actually worked and created more context

or broken out in those meetings.

I've done more of an agenda setting not

to tap it down but to make sure

that everyone has their chance to do this.

I should get more organized right next to be patient

and slow down because we can't waste our time as

much but we still want to give as much input.

So I'm trying to figure out maybe this help.

I'm trying to figure out how I

talk less and I listen more.

And the way for me to do it was to

put more structure into my meetings, but not to tap

things down, but so I could get be more prepared.

I'm preparing more for meetings now than I ever

had before so that I don't have to do

some of those things and let other people shine.

Yeah, I love that.

I think, too, there's a beauty

to simplification and stop doing things.

I think especially in bigger companies.

In smaller companies, not so much, but in bigger companies,

we tend to have things that we've done for years,

and they're just kind of innate, and we do them.

When we do that, we do them.

But so much of it is necessary. Right.

So really taking the time to your point of

kind of set the agenda, get ready for the

meeting, what are we really working on?

Like, do we really need to run this report anymore?

We've been running it for six years.

Is anybody even looking at it?

I've had so many instances where we kind

of do this with the team and we

really scrub down and we stop doing something.

Nobody says anything about it.

It's like, okay, well, that was great.

I mean, sometimes one person might care, but I think we

really need to simplify in this day and age as well.

There's too much noise.

There's too much going on. Right.

And I think that all goes back

to your point of letting people know

the context, why you're doing those things.

I had a meeting the other day, and I've

got in the habit of sending the agenda and

writing some of the pieces around it.

It's so funny.

One of the persons sent me back and said, well,

I guess we don't need to have the meeting.

We had an hour, and we

actually handled it all through email.

And it's not that we don't want to be

together or spend time, but we just basically growth

hacked that thing out of there, right?

And I'm like, okay, that's a pretty cool way to look that

I mean, I have an employee that before every one on one,

she will send me her kind of bi weekly one on one.

She'll send me her list of,

here's everything I want to cover.

And it's literally like bullet

points, sub sub bullet points.

And it's so thorough that by the time I get

on the call, we're super efficient because I can say,

okay, we don't need to cover one, three, and seven.

I just want to hit two and five right now.

And it's fantastic.

I think we both feel more efficient for it, and

I think that's a great way to empower people, too.

I'm not telling we don't need to have this meeting.

They're telling me that they can do this and we don't

need, which I think we're all like, that's great.

We'll do it every other week.

And I think in context and going back to it,

that's a great way to ask it in this times. Right?

Okay, we need to do this.

How can we be more efficient? What works for you?

And you find people that are talented like, that can make

things work offline just as they can do it online.

And then for number three.

Are we ready for three?

Well, I think number three plays

very well into all that.

We're ready for number three. Yeah.

So I think there's nothing more

important than empathy right now.

And let's go back to you. Listen.

That listen, that's the second

thing I have written down.

I had to slow down and listen.

Second, they're interrelated, but our employees are

going through so much externally in their

personal lives that we don't understand.

And because we are at work so many hours

of the day, unfortunately they bring that to work

because our lives are so intertwined right now between

personal, so really taking the time to understand where

people are, what challenges are they facing, and how

can we help them through those difficult times, be

empathetic towards their situation?

Because I think when you do

that again, it's that vulnerability thing.

When you open up a little bit, when you

get empathetic, our employees are going to be way

more productive, which is amazing, but they're also going

to feel like they're respected and they're included and

that they have a seat at the table with

you, which I think is super important.

So what do you think about

the difference between sympathetic and empathetic?

It's the classic term, right?

Sympathetic would just be like, oh, I'm

so sorry you're going through that.

Empathetic is really digging into

it and feeling their feelings.

Or like, if I had an experience in my

life that were similar to that, I'm going to

feel that empathy of what they're going through.

There are many times where I can't be empathetic. Right.

What they're going through, some of it

is unimaginable because we've been together for

a long team, large team.

We've been through a lot of life together.

And some of it, it just breaks my heart.

But I can't be empathetic.

But I can sympathize with them and

understand they need space or time or

more support or whatever that could be. Yeah.

Look, I think it all goes back

to everything you've tied in the context,

the asking the questions and listening.

I think the only way to be empathetic

is to listen and to figure out, especially

when we're in this world where people are

in different areas, they're doing Zoom meetings.

You don't have as much of the personal side for us.

We're still remote, right.

Most of us are still working remotely.

And I think you have to listen

and you have to ask those questions.

And I think the biggest thing is

when you ask those questions, actually listen.

Yes, I think so.

And I think by giving them that empathy or sympathy

or whatever, whichever side of it, I'm down with empathy.

I think empathy is way better.

I think people both in sympathy all the

time, and I think they should be empathetic.

I completely but again, I think by doing that, though,

your employees will be more productive and more loyal, and

they'll be able to be better employees because of it

if you just give them a little bit of love. Right.

I just think in today's day and age, there are a

lot of stresses going on for everyone at every level.

Yeah.

So why don't we wrap it up with this, right?

So what do you think about genuine and not genuine?

Because everything we talked about,

people are very perceptive.

I think people have gotten

well, curious what you think.

I think people have learned to even figure out

and are perceptive about genuineness, even on remote.

I think it's almost impossible to hide that these days.

And I'm not so sure everyone's I'm not

sure everyone's great at being genuine yet.

Well, you got people people and

you got non people people. Right.

Not everyone is going to be

skilled in leading with the heart. Right.

There's a lot of people that will lead with

data or lead with mind, and that's awesome too. Right.

They're completely two different skill sets.

But I think if you can be authentic

to who you are, that's going to show

whether you're genuine or not genuine.

I mean, I lead with my heart, right?

What I aspire to be is very authentic.

I am who I am at work as I am who I am personally.

I'm not two different people.

If you're someone who leads with your mind

and leads with data and not so much

in touch with the heart, that's okay, too.

If you listen to your point, listen

to your employees, try and understand.

Let them know that I really would like to understand

what's going on so that I can help you.

You don't have to kind of lean in and cry

and have a hug out, but I think as long

as you're really listening and really trying to hear them,

that helps a lot in the genuine side.

Okay, so any last thoughts? Here,

I'll ask you this.

What do you think it looks like for

the next we'll just wrap it up.

What do you think it looks like

for the rest of the year?

What does 2023 look like

from Meaghan Sullivan's perspective?

Well, the optimistic side in me now, the realist in

me, says it's going to be a tough year.

Even the collapse of some of the banks last week.

I think that we're at the tip of the iceberg.

I think there's a lot more coming on that

that's going to have ramifications on businesses throughout.

I think the recession is going to continue to get

deeper with so many layoffs and people looking for jobs.

I think we've got that stressor in the market.

I think 2023 is going to be a very stressful

year and is exactly why I am expressing gratitude every

day to find the positive and to remember to keep

myself kind of in that stay positive.

Because I do believe in you, and

I have talked about this before.

I believe what you put out in

the universe will come back to you.

So if I personally can be positive and grateful and

know that there's goodness out there, I think the universe

will serve up what I need this year.

Well, Megan, thanks for joining us.

I greatly appreciate listeners.

Thank you for joining us.

And we do hope that the rest of the year

is good for everyone, as good as it could be.

And I do agree with if you're genuine about it

and you're positive about it, it's amazing the impact and

the change that you can make with people every day.

But for me, I got to do it every day.

I have to remind myself every

day because I know my weaknesses.

And, Steven, today, I'm grateful for you. Thank you.

Okay. I'm grateful.

All right.

Every and have a great day.