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There wasn't a business reason for him to do this.
I didn't contribute to his quota. I didn't help him do his work. I didn't give value back in any way.
But he did it any way. He just wanted to be a friend and to pay it forward.
Here are 3 lessons he taught me about partnerships and life:
Lesson #1: Growth comes from being outside of your comfort zone.
When I just starting out, I wasn't very good at stretching myself outside of my comfort zone.
For example, when I first started my career, I was actually pretty shy and would get nervous in conversations if I was put on the spot.
My mentor knew this was an area I wanted to improve on, so he found moments to help push me in this area.
For example, one day I was eating pizza with him at a lunch and I got pizza sauce on my shirt...which was white.
Erik encouraged me to go up to group of people and ask them for a tide pen to get out of my comfort zone. I nervously agreed, walked over and asked.
And funny enough...one of them actually had a Tide pen.
To this day, sometimes when I feel any resistance internally to going outside of my comfort zone, that story of the Tide pen will pop up in my mind.
How could this apply to your role in partnerships?
Some examples below:
1. Stepping out of a big company partnerships job to build it from zero to 1 at a startup (or vice versa)
2. Challenging yourself to work with a new partner type you haven't done before
3. Taking on new partnerships initiatives that have larger business impact and perhaps executive visibility
Lesson #2: Be Genuinely Curious
Whenever Erik would meet with partners, I noticed he would ask a lot of questions about themselves personally and about their business.
He loved learning about others and how he could help.
He also treated it as an opportunity to learn from others.
Being genuinely curious is a super power in partnerships and in business.
Because he cared about their personal and business lives, he would build really strong relationships with our partners.
And he would learn about the challenges they were facing...which in turn helped him understand how to help.
For example, imagine a partner meeting where you check in with specific details that show you care:
1. How did that 2 week vacation in Lisbon with your family of 4 go? Was that easy to manage? (Builds rapport)
2. I read your recent newsletter about cloud hyper scalers and sent it to our sales team - thanks for sharing the lessons around driving revenue! (Builds rapport)
3. We recently won (insert deal name) - which is great! What do you think we could learn and replicate from this? (Drives learnings)
I think you get the idea. :)
Take the time to show partners that you care.
Ask questions. Be genuinely curious about them and how you can help.
It can make all the difference.
Lesson #3: Having a Growth Mindset
When I ran into challenges as a partner manager, I would complain to Erik.
He would patiently listen, ask questions and talk through potential solutions with me.
Once we felt we arrived at a potential solution that could work, he'd switch the topic to something positive to help prevent me from dwelling on the negative energy.
He made the best of things.
And it worked.
This taught me to critical think through tough challenges, but to also to learn to let go.
As I've gotten older, I've learned the latter can be just as important as the former.
And this embodies the growth mindset.
You'll always encounter challenges - especially in the role of partnerships - and the key is to learn from those and iterate so that you get to better outcomes.
And make sure you have fun along the way. Life's too short to do it any other way.
Erik used to do this by doing the worm on the street to get us to laugh after work. I know this sounds crazy, and it kind of is, but...
Did we laugh like crazy and did it take our minds off the stressful work stuff?
You bet it did.
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