Oscar Glories, Marketing Technology, and Nurturing Partnership Success with Eric Rabinowitz
Welcome to the IAMCP profiles and partnership. The podcast that showcases how Microsoft partners and IMCP members boost their business by collaborating with other members and partners. I'm your co host, Anthony Carrano. And in each episode, I'll be talking to some of the most innovative and successful partners in the Microsoft ecosystem. The International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners, otherwise known as IAMCP, is a community of Microsoft partners who help each other grow and thrive.
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Anthony Carrano:I mean your strategic vendor partner, the one who can complement your skills, expand your reach, and enhance your value proposition. Finding the right partner can be challenging, but can also be rewarding. In fact, according to a recent study by IDC, Microsoft partners who collaborate with other partners generate almost 2 and a half times more revenue than those who don't. That's a huge difference and it shows the power of partnering. Your partnership?
Anthony Carrano:And how do you measure and optimize your results? These are some of the questions we'll explore in this podcast with the help of our guests who are experts in partnering. They'll share their stories, challenges, and successes, and give you practical tips and advice on how to partner for success. Are you ready to join us on this journey? Then stay tuned because we have a great show for you today.
Anthony Carrano:Our first guest is Eric Rabinowitz, the CEO of Nurture Marketing, a leading marketing technology partner who has achieved amazing results, such as the one in the story you're about to hear from his partnership with Nightstar Partners, a fellow IMCP member. Let's hear what he has to say.
Eric Rabinowitz:Well, first of all, I wanna say this is absolutely my pleasure to be here today. Partnering is definitely one of the things that I love, and it's actually been a basis upon, some of the successes that, that I've had. So thank you for giving me this, this opportunity. So when I talk about myself, the first thing I have to do is talk about my family, because that, to me, is the most important thing that, that I have. That's all the blessings is is your family.
Eric Rabinowitz:I've been married for 43 years. I have 2 children. I have a daughter who lives outside of New Haven, Connecticut, and she's a sex therapist. And she, has a husband named Trevor, and we have 2 grand children. One is 2 years old, Dara, and Eliza is just, 2 months old.
Eric Rabinowitz:So it's just such a blessing. Yeah. Oh my god. It's just so fantastic having that. And you know what?
Eric Rabinowitz:It's exhausting. It is absolutely exhausting, but it's that exhausting thing that puts the smile on your face. So my second child lives in Los Angeles. His name is, is David, and David is a screenwriter, and, is, is actively writing for movies and, hopefully, television.
Anthony Carrano:Now now, Eric, I don't don't be too humble. I heard that I understand that he's actually an Oscar winner.
Eric Rabinowitz:Oh my god. Yeah. Well, yeah. He is. And the most surreal day in my life was when he won the Oscar.
Eric Rabinowitz:Wow. We were, we were there with him. My wife was his plus one, and I was in the balcony. And, it was just absolutely amazing, and, it stole. 2018, he won, he won his Oscar for for BlacKkKlansman.
Eric Rabinowitz:He was one of these screenwriters. Right? Yes. So my favorite part of that movie is at the end Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Eric Rabinowitz:Where you see his name. But I also, remember a little bit of a story with IMCP because he was invited to come back to New Jersey to our town because this is our 1st Oscar winner in East Brunswick, New Jersey. Our 1st Oscar winner there. And, he was invited to come, and it just happened to be an IMCP meeting that, that week that he was coming back. And I actually I actually created a box for transporting, not only his Oscar, but his BAFTA, which is like the British Academy Awards.
Eric Rabinowitz:So he took it he took it on the plane. And by the way, it's the only time he's ever used it. And he literally brought it to an I brought it to an IMCP meeting at Microsoft's Islan office, which is now closed. And, it was wonderful. Everybody from the Microsoft side came over, everybody from, of course, we had 30 or 40 people at the IMCP meeting, and everybody everybody took pictures with the Oscar.
Eric Rabinowitz:My son was like, no one touched the Oscar. It was like, he didn't care, and everybody took pictures. And to this day, you know, and it's, like, 6 years later, 5 years later, I'm still getting people who come to our meetings and say, how's your son doing? And, it was just it was just just a fascinating time, and people how often do you have a chance to hold an extra Oscar statue? Yeah.
Eric Rabinowitz:And everybody in our IMCP chapter that was there that day had that opportunity.
Anthony Carrano:That's that's that's a great story. And but it's a great movie, by the way. I mean Oh,
Eric Rabinowitz:you liked it. Yeah. I
Anthony Carrano:Oh, I love that movie. I was and I didn't realize it was a that was a true story. And It is. It is. And little I know this little rabbit trail on this, but I actually graduated high school in from Colorado Springs.
Anthony Carrano:So I'm watching this movie, and I was like no. It was way after when the time period in the movie occurred. But I was like, I had no idea that that, that happened there in Colorado Springs. So, it's Seth.
Eric Rabinowitz:Ron Stallworth was a great is a great guy. Great guy. He was at the Oscars also, and I met him at the premiere as well. He's just a really good guy. Yeah.
Eric Rabinowitz:And he was so supportive. And Spike Lee was supportive also. People always comment to me, Oh, Spike Lee dominated the acceptance speech. He didn't really. I mean, he did.
Eric Rabinowitz:But this was his chance to win an Oscar. And, the boys, my son and his writing partner, Charlie Wachtell, they were all too pleased to give, Spike his his his, his moment. Because if it wasn't for Spike Lee, they they probably would not have won the the Oscar. And Spike Lee did add a lot to the, to the screenplay, the beginning scene and, the ending scene. Yeah.
Eric Rabinowitz:The ending scene was was certainly, Spike Lee. So, you know, so let me go a little bit more into my background. We got we got we're talking about Ron Stallworth, Spike
Anthony Carrano:Lee and now, Eric Rabinowitz. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's not. So,
Eric Rabinowitz:my background is in technology. Most people don't know I was a developer. I worked on Wall Street for many years. I started my career at at Citibank, and then I worked walked worked at a investment banking house. And it was it was a very interesting time because I started out as a developer.
Eric Rabinowitz:I was writing options valuation programs, and so which was highly technical. And I, I was okay at that. Not incredible. There were a lot of people who were a lot better at that than I was, but I showed initiative, and I also, was promoted to be sort of a team lead. And I sorta showed myself as being pretty a pretty good team lead.
Eric Rabinowitz:About 2 years after, I got my first promotion there, I was actually promoted at the age of 28 to vice president. And I was responsible for 70 people and about 35 different teams, 35 different people on teams. And it was the most exceptional type of experience you could ever imagine. And I'm gonna tell you right now, I sucked at it. I was the worst because I had no experience in this area.
Eric Rabinowitz:I was never a leader before. And although it sort of goes back to what we talked about before, it was almost everything I learned about leadership was from the movies, which is completely wrong. I mean, you know, you have to have experience. But I learned, like I said, I just learned so much. It was, it was an incredible learning experience.
Eric Rabinowitz:I, I continued my career. I ended up working at a at a consulting firm where I created a a help desk technical support staffing and consulting practice. And then, when I left that company, I'm sort of I'm sort of like Rudy in a lot of ways. I'm like a serial entrepreneur. I like to start different things.
Eric Rabinowitz:And and it seems like that's the way my career has gone. And then, I started, you know, the IH the help desk practice. And then after the help desk practice, I started nurture marketing with with my mentor, my life mentor, James p Cecil, who's the person who actually coined the term nurture marketing. My IMCP, where I started with IMCP, is, in probably around 2,008. And I joined the New York chapter.
Eric Rabinowitz:And I switched to New Jersey when Lisa Iraakis was the president. And then when Lisa Irakis handed off the reins to, to Jeffrey Goldstein, I became a member of the board. And I was in charge of events. And we did incredible job. What Jeff and I used to do, and this is something that's like a perfect thing that I would recommend for all IMCP board members and presidents, we used to meet in August and plan the whole year's events before.
Eric Rabinowitz:So we used to actually plan every single month. We did not look at the speakers. If we thought of a speaker, we would we would write it down, of course. But our thing was that we knew enough people in the industry that would be willing to come and talk at the New Jersey chapter. And it was, it was very, very successful.
Eric Rabinowitz:We had some unbelievable speakers. We had some duds also. But even the duds were a lot of fun. I mean, because, you know, we were you know, we we the New Jersey chapter, although New Jersey, you think of the beginning of The Sopranos, and we have a reputation of not being really very, very friendly, we are such a friendly of people. We welcome people.
Eric Rabinowitz:We just love having guests come to our meetings, and it's just a it's just a wonderful, a wonderful thing. And then after Jeff, became, I guess, the president of US, I became the president of the chapter. I served 2 years as president of the chapter, continuing on getting some great speakers. And then Tom Ireland is on his 4th year as president now, and he's really what we're gonna be talking about today, our partnership with Tom Ireland. And that sort of gives you a clue to some of your future questions and how am I gonna answer those questions.
Eric Rabinowitz:But, but Tom is an amazing an amazing president and intellectual. He's a Wharton graduate. He doesn't brag about that, but I do. So, you know, that that's not easy. Go into Wharton.
Eric Rabinowitz:He's, he's worked for AT and T for years. He's retired from AT and T, and he's a wonderful writer. He's a wonderful president, and it's a pleasure for me to be, on his board. And I'm the immediate past president. Matter of fact, as long as he remains president, I'm gonna be the immediately immediate past president.
Eric Rabinowitz:So I wanna keep that role. I hope he's on for 10 years. No. It's not. He's I think he keeps on tell threatening that he's gonna he's gonna be the immediate past president.
Eric Rabinowitz:So that's, that's a little bit, about my, my career. Yeah. You know, IMCP, we do a lot of
Eric Rabinowitz:business with IMCP
Eric Rabinowitz:members. And the members do, with IMCP members, and the members do business with me as well. And it's all about what we're gonna talk about in a couple of seconds.
Anthony Carrano:That's excellent. I'll tell you. I know I've had, as the Austin chapter president, I've had some interaction with Tom. And Tom, he actually helped me, when I was getting started as chapter president. He spent some time with me, showed me some things.
Anthony Carrano:So Yeah. I've, my interactions with him have been fantastic. So, definitely, if he, you know, did what he like, just the the help and the support for me in the Austin chapter, what he did here in this in this initiative, I can only imagine it's gonna be, just a really a rich story. But before we get there, I'd like to, one thing, Eric, is, like, I didn't realize that you actually helped, found Nurture. So could you briefly maybe just share a little bit about why, you know, why you started the company?
Eric Rabinowitz:Well, I started the company because I I was part of a a CEO group many, many years back called TEC, the executive committee. It's called Vistage now, by the way.
Anthony Carrano:Oh, okay. Yeah.
Eric Rabinowitz:Yeah. So Vistage. It was called TEC. And Jim Cecil, was a guest speaker. And, the way they have it is the first half of the day, you have a guest speaker, and the second half, you talk about issues that are important to you and your company.
Eric Rabinowitz:So Jim Cecil was a guest speaker, and I had just started IHS Support Solutions. And I was doing about $250,000 worth of business. And we were struggling. And, I met with I met with, Jim after. It was a wonderful conversation that we had, and we hired Jim.
Eric Rabinowitz:And Jim had this concept that he created called nurture marketing, and I went with Jim. And, you know, and when I separated from IHS, Jim said, Why don't we create a company together? And so that was it. It was imagine being able to take one of the people in business that you respect more than anybody and that person asks you to join him as a partner in a company. It was it was it was one of the highlights of my life.
Eric Rabinowitz:And Jim and I went all over the country talking about nurture. He did most of the talking. I did some of the training and stuff around it. But, that's why, that's how we, we created nurture marketing. And, you know, it was just something that was within me within me.
Eric Rabinowitz:And, I had the opportunity working. Now, unfortunately, Jim has passed, but it's funny. When anything happens in our company, I go back to our legacy. And I said, our company is based upon somebody who created the concept that everybody's talking about right now and that's nurture marketing. Mhmm.
Eric Rabinowitz:And we should be proud of that legacy. So some people get a little tired about it within our company. It's like, you know, Eric, you're not gonna talk about Jim again. I say, I am the CEO and founder of this company. I am going to talk about it.
Eric Rabinowitz:So, and I do that and you know, and people understand. I said, you know, there's a lot of folks who work who don't work for companies that have somebody who created a whole genre, and we do. And and I wrote a book with him and stuff, so it's pretty cool.
Anthony Carrano:Yes. So on that note, like, what's interesting about this is we're featuring, you know, interviewing various, you know, IMCP partners, you know, on this podcast as they came together for a technology, like solutions. But your your guys' background in areas of specialization is a little bit different. So tell us about, nurture's area of specialization.
Eric Rabinowitz:Oh, that's a great question. And so I'm gonna actually surprise you a little bit because we've sort of changed a little bit based upon what our clients have been asking us. So for years, we were a digital marketing agency. And, but over the years, we developed a specialty in marketing techno marketing support technology. And I know that's does not exist, and it's something we're trying to come to grips with at, at at at Nurture Marketing.
Eric Rabinowitz:We're trying to come to grips with it. But what that is is developing technology solutions that support marketing initiatives at our clients. Who are of our clients? Our clients are technology companies, usually large technology companies, that sell through a channel and they're channel partners. But for these large technology companies and for some of these folks that are that are part that that are their partners, we've developed technology.
Eric Rabinowitz:And let me give you an example. We do and this the first example is what we're gonna talk about more, and so I'm not gonna go into a whole bunch, which is the Explora, large technology company that we developed it for, but it's a technology solution that facilitates the marketing of this client's products and services. So it's it's actually IT. So I'm actually going back to my past a little bit and utilizing my IT type of experience. Now I can't code c plus plus.
Eric Rabinowitz:Give me a COBOL program. Give me a FORTRAN program, a PL 1 program. I'm in. D bass 3 even, I'm in also. That does not exist.
Eric Rabinowitz:I I think COBOL does exist in a way right now. But, you know, that's that's not me. So we depend on our partners that at Nightstar Partners, which is our our partner here that we, that we're talking about today, to actually do the development. But that's for the explorer. But we've done something that we call nurture Goldrush, which is also an IT application.
Eric Rabinowitz:What we've done is we've taken intent data and we've trended it from several sources. We have a data scientist that works for us from several sources, and we've created an intense score. And that's all based upon behavior that people are actually showing on the Internet specific interest in topics that our clients are either selling products or services to. And so what we've done, and we use Power BI, which is our user interface. And we trend it over weeks and it's being used by clients in order to take a look and to actually figure out where they should be putting their sales resources because these are people who are showing actual behavior of interest.
Eric Rabinowitz:So that's good. That's that's great. We also have developed something called active graphics. So we all know what, you know, graphics that, that you see with, you know, charts and stuff like that. Right?
Eric Rabinowitz:What we've done is we've taken those graphics and we've made them come alive. You can actually hover over the graphic and it'll come out with information that is specific about what you're hovering over. We can do text. We can also do video. We can also do audio.
Eric Rabinowitz:So it's almost like and the way I got this idea was I went to I've gone to museums, and I went to a museum, and I went to an exhibit that was exactly like this. It was an infographic, what we would call an infographic, and you sort of point to the different areas, And based upon where you're pointing, something would come alive and engage. So we've done that. And that takes an that's a very unique skill because you you need to use Adobe and you need to have Adobe programmers to be able to do it, and they're few and far between. So that is also something that we've done.
Eric Rabinowitz:And we also have started to use variable data. So what's that? Is we can actually and this is all IT applications, but if it it it goes right into the tech the marketing technology. So what what what that does is very simply, we can take a let's say an infographic again, or we can take a, we can take a PDF, a 1 page PDF or multiple p PG PDFs and even videos, and we can plug in our clients' information like their logo, contact information, and even get down to specific information about the different you know, we can actually change what's in the, on an active basis what's in the infographic. So it's a way that we can do that.
Eric Rabinowitz:Instead of doing one infographic at a time, we can do 100 and even 1,000. We've never done 1,000. So I'm not even gonna say that, but the the the theory is there that you can do 1,000 of these. It's just just amazing. And and, of course, our core is in as a digital marketing agency, we're working a lot with creating content.
Eric Rabinowitz:We have a really big data practice. Gold Rush is what we took and augmented our data practice, but we still sell data. We have our own, what we call our data lake. Plus we have several third party providers that our data scientist takes and consolidates data, and that's how we can, give data scores or intense scores based upon behavior, not from one source, but from multiple sources.
Anthony Carrano:Tell us a little bit about specifically, like, or where I know where you and Nightstar, you know, collaborated in creating this, you know, solution, you know, for, for a customer. Tell us a little bit about, like, you know, you don't have to get into the, like, the client's name, but specifically just, you know, the client size, industry, You know, what were some of the challenges they were facing?
Eric Rabinowitz:I don't think they're a $1,000,000,000,000 company for market cap yet. Like, you know, some of the big guys that are out there, like Microsoft, for instance, is is has an amazing market cap. But they're pretty, instance, is is has an amazing market cap. But they're pretty darn close to a $1,000,000,000 company. And they're into technology.
Eric Rabinowitz:The they're into mostly hardware, and they're technology. The they're into mostly hardware and software, and they supply this technology to data centers, large and small. So that's that's what they do. You probably can guess who they are, but, you know, I can't say who they are. As you mentioned.
Eric Rabinowitz:As you mentioned. So their challenge was to get into the SMB marketplace. And that was the whole reason they came to us. We have this experience in the SMB marketplace, And they came to us, and they said, it's an underserved marketplace for them. And we have an idea for 2 applications, an explorer and a configurator, or what we call a selector now.
Eric Rabinowitz:And, later on, they went ahead because they wanna go with the Explorer first, and still we have the configurator sort of in in the background. And, so it was all to create this market penetration into the SMB marketplace, which they saw as a incredibly incredible opportunity and very much underserved.
Anthony Carrano:So I know at the beginning, you know, we talked a little bit, you know, we were about with Tom and with Nightstar. There's obviously a little little bit of interesting background there because I I don't think initially they were your vendor, you know, your partner of choice. So maybe share a little bit about how, you know, how you you you decided to eventually kinda go with them. What were some of the criteria you were looking for?
Eric Rabinowitz:So there's one reason and one reason only we went with Nightstar, was trust. And that's what IMCP is all about. I trusted Tom and Nightstar partners do the right thing for us. And I'm gonna tell you, they came to bat like MVPs in the World Series hitting grand slam home runs all over the place. They were and continue to be absolutely incredible.
Eric Rabinowitz:So let me take another step back. We went with another company. And the reason we went with this other company, which is not an IMCP member, was that about 5 years back, they did an application for us, this other company, that was sort of a questionnaire type of application and then came out with a kind of a cool report at the end, which we said, oh, my God. That's the same thing that we're working with here. It's you know, so this should be an easy jump for this other company.
Eric Rabinowitz:And, so, we went and talked to them, and they said, yeah. We'd be willing to do it. And, we, we went with them because to us, it was just a logical thing. They had the previous application was, you know, from time to time, you develop for clients where you develop something and everybody likes it, but then everything changes at the company and it's not put into production. Alright?
Eric Rabinowitz:And this is the case for that thing that we did 5 years ago. So it was never put into production. Not really. So we went to them and they developed the application, and they soon discovered that maybe they underbid it tremendously, and they were, taking a whole bunch of shortcuts. Frankly, it's my belief I could be wrong, so that I could be wrong, but that they used AI to develop a bunch of it and that it really wasn't working.
Eric Rabinowitz:And we found that later on that what they gave us was compiled code when they delivered it to us. So it made it almost impossible for Nightstar partners to come in and make changes. You can't make changes to compile the code. I did that in y two k. I know a lot of folks weren't born then, but that was yeah.
Eric Rabinowitz:A lot of it was how to go to y two you know, and y two k is to deal with compiled code, and you had to you had to decompile it. There's something to call it, decompiling. So it was, so, it turned out that they became extremely not interested in working with us anymore. And we were between a rock and a hard place. And and we delivered the first level, but then that was only the beginning.
Eric Rabinowitz:Those folks, like a lot of the folks that are listening to this, and I'm talking as a developer, know that, you know, development is a continue has a continual life cycle. There's a roadmap to development. You develop the first iteration and you know there's gonna be multiple iterations. Alright? They had no they have no wanting to be, you know, to develop anything about multiple iterations of this stuff.
Eric Rabinowitz:It just it just wasn't something. And so I started at that point to look for another another vendor. And the first person I spoke to was, was Tom. And, Tom was saying, yeah. We can do this stuff.
Eric Rabinowitz:And he had me talk with his team, Nalandan and Amit, to, 2 folks out of India, which was fantastic because, not only, you know, we were getting fair pricing, but it was also, you know, something that we could we we could and our client could, could afford. And, and we we saw we give that over to our client, of course. And, the the first issue was we had something that we had to deliver in 2 weeks. And I was like, oh, my God. And Tom, who's doing a lot of work with IMCP also, he has a lot of clients as well as a lot of clients also, He just took his whole team and he put it on this.
Eric Rabinowitz:And we didn't even talk about money. It was like we just got it done. And and he got it done in a way that was wonderful. And the way he dealt with my team, was just fantastic. He he he was always and and the way he made sure that if we needed the technical people talking, that was fantastic also.
Eric Rabinowitz:He he was able to talk the same language, of development. So so to answer your question, it was really the fact that I can trust him, and that trust was proven time and time again.
Anthony Carrano:So you you what you're sharing is just kinda there's a springboard of a lot of questions coming to mind. One of the ones, obviously, you had to change, you know, change partners, during the engagement. You mentioned about, having, like, a 2 weeks to kinda deliver. What are can you maybe expound upon me, like, some of those other challenges during the engagement? And then in addition to maybe what you just shared, how did you and Nightstar, you know, work together to overcome those?
Eric Rabinowitz:Okay. Well, the first thing was that we got the compiled code, and that was not good enough. So I had to go back to the to the, to the previous company, and I had to make a case for getting the compiled code. And what they did was Nightstar did some things that were just amazing. They did coding around the compiled code that got us a little bit of the way.
Eric Rabinowitz:But then we started to get more and more intricate requirements. And as we got those intricate, we we learned that the compiled code would not do it. So that was one of the challenges, and Nightstar went in. Also, as you know, you know, we're you know, because I have my IT background, I know that when you're dealing with clients, you know, they want things as quickly as possible. And, you know, that was also a challenge.
Eric Rabinowitz:And not only in the first iteration, but also in future types of parts of the project. You know, we needed to get stuff done, and and the client would frequently come to me and say, we're having an issue with HubSpot's integration because the way the product worked is that we created a URL that gets embedded in the SMBs website. Alright? So if they there's all sorts of environments out there. I mean, we all know that.
Eric Rabinowitz:And so there's times when you're putting it in and it's not working. And so we had to troubleshoot that. So to be able to go in and troubleshoot it was very important. Also, the fact that I was able to talk and my team was able to talk with the developers. A lot of times, it's the it's the account manager that handles all this and, you know, Tom would be considered account manager.
Eric Rabinowitz:But sometimes, it's very helpful to get stuff done and get stuff done quickly to actually talk with the actual developers. And since I was a developer, you know, they've told me multiple times how it's really good, the fact that I understand. Because there are times, as you know, something to a user can seem like a very, very simple type of change. But when you get down to it and you need to change the code, it's much more complex. It's much more complex.
Eric Rabinowitz:And being that it's much more complex, you know, you have to explain, be able to explain to the client, you know, this is not something that's gonna take 10 minutes, and this is not something that's gonna cost $5. It's gonna be it's gonna take longer, and it's gonna take more. And that working hand in hand with, with Nightstar partners was, was, was there. Also, you know, there were always challenges in terms of the types of, development that we needed to do. One of the latest pieces that we did was we took what amounts to be, and this is something that a client came up with.
Eric Rabinowitz:So at the end of at the end of the product, after answering a whole bunch of questions and getting a neat little report, the form would come up and say, enter your information. How many people you think actually entered information? Raise your hand if you say 0. And and right now, we have, you know, we have about 35 clients worldwide that are using this. So and we have we I don't know exactly because we're working on, you know, on a on a Tom is working on a measurement tool for us, but, you know, we've got none of that.
Eric Rabinowitz:So the client came back to us and said, okay, can you change the tool so the form is before we give the results of the survey that we're doing, the questions that we did. So it's it's the responsiveness. I'm I'm hope I answered your question.
Anthony Carrano:No. No. No. So that actually leads to, so you mentioned you've got, about, you said, 35 clients now utilizing this.
Eric Rabinowitz:Yeah. 35, yeah, partners.
Anthony Carrano:What a part that's fantastic. What, I don't know if maybe you wanna answer this in the aggregate or maybe, you know, highlight a couple of specifics. But based upon on that, what, what type of results are they getting as the the your the the customers of this, you know, this joint effort between you and Nightstar, what are they experiencing?
Eric Rabinowitz:Okay. So there's a couple of things. Like I said, before, we're still working on the metrics. Mhmm. What we're finding is that there's, from the from the partner's point of view, they're very pleased with the way it's going, and they love, like, the way the the product works.
Eric Rabinowitz:We're also in the process of putting a self-service onboarding tool in place. Matter of fact, it's, the API we created, we, meaning Nightstar Partners, created, is gonna be delivered on Monday. And what that's all about, it's going to be able to be within a marketplace that the client has, and people will be able to click on it. And there are over 800 of this client's partners, which, by the way, is a strategic partner of Microsoft. I didn't mention that before, but I should mention it now.
Eric Rabinowitz:They're a strategic partner of Microsoft. And so they're gonna be able over 800 partners are gonna be able to utilize this, this product. So what we're getting is, anecdotally, we're getting a really, really, really good results. But be I can't be specific because I don't have specific data, and it's something that, it's part of our road map and is actually has not been approved yet, but it's probably gonna be approved in the next quarter. So we can actually I could actually come back here and actually tell you the actual numbers.
Eric Rabinowitz:But from the partner point of view, we're getting only positive because we always ask that. Good. I said, how do partners like this? They love it. And I think what people are using it as is what ifs because I love playing with the tool also.
Eric Rabinowitz:I go in and I put in what ifs and see what pops up, and it's like a lot of fun. Yeah. I then it tells me what I need to buy. It tells me what, you know, what is good and what is about to, you know, about to expire. It tells me all those things, but then it's up to me, the client to actually go back to the, you know, to the partner and say, I wanna buy it.
Eric Rabinowitz:That's why we've moved the form up in the process. And, and and like I said, that has not been implemented yet, but it's, it's, it's being, part of that's being delivered. And by the end of the month, that should be implemented.
Anthony Carrano:So as, you know, as, you know, an experience I mean, you're veteran, like, in in technology, in the Microsoft, you know, ecosystem, and, you know, experience, like, when, obviously, with partnering and with IMCP. What's one thing that you say you've learned that, from just this experience, like in partnering with Nightstar, that's enabled, you know, nurture marketing to improve?
Eric Rabinowitz:This is a very, very good question. Because because of Nightstar partners and their responsiveness, whenever I get a request from the client, I answer with 3 words. I 4 words. I am on it. That's what I say.
Eric Rabinowitz:I say actually, I said, I'm on it. I actually don't put the AM there. I just say, I'm on it. And then I go right back to Nightstar, and I say and and right away, we come back within a few days, I'm able to actually give that information to the client. And the client loves when I say, this is when we're gonna come back.
Eric Rabinowitz:Mhmm. You know, and I actually come back. Even if it's 5 days, they don't mind. They hate when you say I'm gonna come back tomorrow, and it's 2 weeks later. You know, that's something.
Eric Rabinowitz:And also another thing so that's one thing. To be able to say I'm on it is is is one thing. And this is some also another another piece that I wanna, talk about is over communicating. So over communicating is so important. People tend to under communicate these days.
Eric Rabinowitz:Almost everybody I know, they don't communicate enough because they feel that they need more information to give a complete story to the client about what is going on. And I disagree with that a 1000%. I think what you need to do is you need to over communicate. You need to say, this is what's happening and this is what's happening at this point. When you get new information or even if you don't have new information, you ought to be communicating with a client extremely often and the clients love that.
Eric Rabinowitz:They love that, they're friendly, and they it's just it's just a positive thing. So being able to say I'm on it right away, respond the second you get it, You haven't even read the email, but you say, I'm on it. Right?
Anthony Carrano:I'm on it.
Eric Rabinowitz:Then you get back and you say, I am now and then you get back with your partner, Nightstar Partners in this case, you go at and you say and then you get back and you say, it's gonna take me a couple of days, and then maybe you add a little bit. And then you write the client back again, and it say it's gonna be I'll have something for you Thursday. And sure enough, Thursday, you're able to, you know, to deliver the, you know, deliver what what the client has asked for in terms of, you know, maybe in terms of an SOW statement of work, and sort of, you know and that includes, you know, the time frame and the pricing and all that other good stuff.
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. No. That's that's fantastic. That is fantastic. Great advice.
Anthony Carrano:So in addition to a lot of the I mean, the just the the insights, that that you've given, I'm just I think about, like, in closing, if you could maybe summarize it maybe in, like, you know, 2 to 3, you know, key points of, like, what advice would you give to companies, and and IMCP partners, you know, regarding partnership? So I know I know you mentioned, like, I'm on it. You talked about over communicating. What would be, you know, one more nugget you have there for us, Eric?
Eric Rabinowitz:Yeah. Well, I'm gonna give a nugget now. Partnering is hard and it doesn't always work. Alright? I have as many I have more bad experiences with partnering than I have good experiencing.
Eric Rabinowitz:So my one nugget that I'm gonna give is partnering needs to be a two way street. It has to benefit both partners. My I have a pet peeve. I have a bunch of pet peeves. But my, a big pet peeve is people who come to me who wanna sell me something, and they said, we wanna be your partner.
Eric Rabinowitz:No. You don't wanna be my partner. You wanna be you want me to be you you are a vendor of mine, and I am your vendee. That that's all you're not looking for partnership. You wanna sell me something.
Eric Rabinowitz:Maybe it's good stuff, and I'm not saying it's not good stuff, but it's not a partnership. Partnerships have to be both ways. It has to be work for both. And, if it doesn't work for both, it's just not gonna last a very long time. You wanna have that thing that, you know, you wanna have that partnership that, that lasts a long time.
Eric Rabinowitz:Also, you wanna have I know I'm adding a 4th. You wanna be honest with your partner also. You wanna you wanna be absolutely honest with them. And and if there's if there's something to talk about, you need to talk about. We had one of those conversations today I had with Tom.
Eric Rabinowitz:I'm not gonna go into specifics, but it was where where our client might have misunderstood something that was sent to them. And I went and Tom gave me a call, and he said, okay. And, he understood. I said and it was actually something that Eric Fransen, who is an incredible partner, my partner in business, he came up with. He's a lot more sensitive to some some things that a client might think than I am.
Eric Rabinowitz:And, you know, I consider myself self sensitive for a lot of things, but this is something I didn't pick up on. So I called I called Tom, and we spoke about it, and and and we corrected it. We corrected it right away, and it wasn't major. Matter of fact, I don't even think I don't even think the client realized that maybe if you read between the lines, there was a little bit of aggression there or an aggressive type thing. But it just talked it just we talked it out for 5 minutes, then we got the team on, we talked about it for another 10 minutes, we wrote an email together and it was beautiful.
Eric Rabinowitz:So just this ability and, you know, you know, to to work with each other, to trust each other, to trust we're all doing, we're all doing for the right thing. Also, you know, it's, it's all about IMCP. I need to give a I need to give kudos to the IMCP. It's, I would never have met Nightstar Partners. I would have not met a half a dozen other companies that we've worked with within if it wasn't for IMCP.
Eric Rabinowitz:Rudy being, you know, a past president of the US, I mean, helped build it and made it into a very, very special organization. So kudos to you, Rudy, and the international president also. I don't wanna miss that. Kudos to you and to the fine work that, IMCP does. The one thing I don't understand about IMCP is why there aren't a lot more members.
Eric Rabinowitz:You know, you know, everybody I mean, one of the things that when we go into an IMCP meeting that is, and we have an incredible speaker is and we have 30 to 40 people that are there, and maybe there's another 15, 20 people that are listening in. I always say to myself, this would have been beneficial to a lot larger group of people. They would have enjoyed this amazingly. And why, you know, why don't we have more members? And it's, it's a tough nut to crack.
Eric Rabinowitz:I've tried to crack it. Tom is trying to crack it. I know I know, the, you know, the US board is, is trying. International's trying to crack it, But, it's something that we have to we can't give up on. We have to keep on trying to expand this organization and get more members because, you know, a lot of us are doing business with each other.
Eric Rabinowitz:There's a lot of money be had between the partners.
Anthony Carrano:Well, I think that by, you know, sharing the stories on platforms like this with profiles and partnership and building that, it'll help share the story, which, you know, validates, the the value proper position behind becoming a member of IMCP. So that's we're looking forward to helping expand that membership through sharing, you know, great stories, you know, like yours with the the larger tech audience.
Eric Rabinowitz:So Yeah. You did it here. Thank you so much. This is great. Thank
Anthony Carrano:you. This was fantastic. I mean, I know, it's, they don't give out Oscars for podcast interviews, but, if I could, I'd I'd put you up there with, Spike Lee, man. That was awesome. Anyway, we really appreciate it.
Anthony Carrano:And just, as we kinda wrap up our time together, how can where can folks find you, find more about this solution? You wanna just kinda
Eric Rabinowitz:share some? Yeah. So, I can be found at ericr@nurturemarketing.com, and it's nurture with an r. Many people leave the r out. We are not newture, neuter marketing.
Eric Rabinowitz:That's, that's my funny statement. We're not neuter marketing, we're nurture marketing. And my, telephone number is 732-421-2670. And our website is nurturemarketing.com. And marketing.com.
Eric Rabinowitz:And Excellent. Check us out. We're great. And I love working with IMCP members, and I love working with Microsoft partners. They're fantastic folks.
Eric Rabinowitz:Very talented.
Anthony Carrano:Excellent, Eric. Well, until next time. We really appreciate having you. Thank you.
Eric Rabinowitz:My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Anthony Carrano:Wow. That was a great episode and really appreciate Eric, for making time for us today. Rudy, what was, your main takeaway from the episode?
Eric Rabinowitz:Well, I I have lots of great insights into Eric Rabinowitz now, but I really enjoyed his his thoughts on, what partnership was all about, especially the trust relationship that you can build through the by being a member of the IAMCP. That's one of the things that we teach in how to partner, with other partners and building that trust relationship and getting to know your partner is one of the great one of the great, pillars of building your business. As he mentioned in his, his speech, it was really is partnering is hard and yes, it can be. But when you work at it, it will help you grow your business. And that's what we wanted want all our members to know about, being a member of IAMCP.
Eric Rabinowitz:So Anthony, what did you take away from this from Eric's presentation?
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. Similar, you know, point. I know when he was talking about the partnership, partnering can be hard. But specifically when he really emphasized there was 2 things. 1, that you have a partner to where then if you get a request from a customer, your response can be is I'm on it.
Anthony Carrano:I love that. But also the the the point that was driven home about he, you know, that partnering goes both ways. And it has to benefit both partners as they're co creating
Eric Rabinowitz:to ensure that there was gonna be, you know, a
Anthony Carrano:superior solution, you know, to ensure that there was gonna be an, you know, a superior solution, you know, for their customers. That really hit home for me.
Eric Rabinowitz:Both you guys did an outstanding job on this podcast. I wanna thank all everyone who has joined us for this episode on, the IMCP profiles and partnership powered by Dunamis Marketing. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and find it useful and inspiring. If you did, please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Eric Rabinowitz:One of the
Eric Rabinowitz:best ways to partner for success is to join IAMCP, a community of Microsoft partners who help each other grow and thrive. IAMCP members can find and connect with other partners locally and globally and access exclusive resources and opportunities. Whether you're looking for new customers, new markets, or new solutions, IAMCP can help you achieve your goals. To learn more, visit the website iamcp.org.
