Google’s Channel & Strategic Partner Leader Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

Google Cloud is approaching a $30B business, and its partners have witnessed remarkable success in driving bold digital transformation journeys for customers. In this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering, you’ll learn how Rob Harper, Director of Channel Sales and Strategic Partnerships at Google Cloud North America, is applying his many years of experience to shape and grow Google Cloud’s partner business. How he’s shifting the focus and transforming these partners from transactional to solutions, and why marketplaces are a key part of his strategy. We’ll also discuss how he’s applying Precision Partnering to create a “win-win-win” for partners and how organizations like yours can achieve their most outstanding results by engaging with his team to drive mutually successful outcomes.

About Rob Harper

Rob Harper is the Director of Google Cloud’s Channel Sales and Strategic Partnerships at Google Cloud. With a wealth of channel experience and expertise, Rob is at the forefront of shaping and growing Google’s Channel and Strategic Partner business. He brings a deep understanding of the industry and a passion for driving transformative change in the world of technology. Rob’s leadership and strategic vision have been instrumental in helping partners transition from transactional models to solution-driven approaches. His commitment to creating mutually successful outcomes for partners and organizations makes him a valued asset in strategic partnerships. You can connect with Rob at RobertHarper@google.com.

What You’ll Learn

• Rob Harper, Director of Channel Sales and Strategic Partners, his role & mission? (2:26)
  
• Precision Partnering, a blueprint that creates end-to-end solutions for customers (7:17)
  
• Why do Partners work with Google Cloud? (12:54)
  
• How is Google Gloud approaching Generative AI ?(15:44)
  
• One thing that isn’t taught but is true to partner with Google Cloud successfully? (18:55)
  
• Rob’s Journey and his four seats at a dinner party? (23:43)
  

Exclusively Sponsored By Google Cloud

This episode of the podcast is exclusively sponsored by Google Cloud. Google Cloud’s mission is to accelerate every organization’s ability to digitally transform its business. More than any other top cloud provider; Google Cloud as unique capabilities to meet customers’ needs across four areas. Data, Trust, Open Infrastructure, and Collaboration, all underpinned by Sustainable Technology. Learn more at cloud.google.com

On becoming, The Ultimate Partner™

At Ultimate Guide to Partnering, we bring you the leaders in this industry, the best in the business from the leading tech organizations and the hyperscalers, who drive the greatest influence and impact to our world of ecosystems.

With this exciting new Masterclass Series, Ultimate Partnerships becomes The Ultimate Partner™ More than just a new look, The Ultimate Partner is doubling its commitment to helping YOU become the Ultimate Partner by getting it right. Do you want to be The Ultimate Partner? Visit our NEW website.

Other Noteworthy Episodes Featuring Google Cloud

https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/episode/180-what-makes-a-great-services-partner-google-clouds-leader-decodes-it/

https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/episode/179-precision-partnering-with-google-cloud-unlocking-a-30-billion-opportunity-for-tech-leaders/

https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/episode/159-google-transforms-the-future-of-healthcare-and-what-it-means-to-you/

https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/episode/146-a-top-google-sales-leader-investing-in-partners-to-fuel-hyper-growth/

https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/episode/140-one-google-executive-applies-10x-mindset-to-improve-healthcare-outcomes/

Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Many Typos

Ultimate Guide to Partnering – Robert Harperv1

Sat, May 20, 2023 5:09PM • 33:24

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

partners, google cloud, solutions, organizations, marketplace, ultimate guide, sales teams, customer, rob, google, dwayne wade, business, sales, grew, services, resell, ai, build, isv, play

SPEAKERS

Vince Menzione, Rob Harper, Announcer

Vince Menzione  00:00

Ultimate Guide to partnering we bring you the leaders in this industry, the best in the business from the leading tech organizations and the hyperscalers, the ones that are driving the greatest influence and impact to our world of ecosystems. With their latest earnings results, Google Cloud is approaching a $30 billion business ranking at number three of the leading cloud providers. This creates a massive opportunity for you as partners to help Google’s customers take full advantage of their cloud environments by providing the ecosystem of additional services, platforms, and expertise only partners like you can provide. So if you’re a technology leader, looking to learn how to effectively grow your business, then you’re not going to want to miss this exclusive Ultimate Guide to partnering series precision partnering. In this series, I’m joined by the Google leaders driving the partnership business to help define what it takes to effectively partner with Google.

Announcer  01:06

This is the ultimate guide to partnering the top partnership podcast. In this podcast, Vince Menzione, a proven partner sales executive shares his mission to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. And now your host, Vince Menzione.

Vince Menzione  01:26

Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and today, I will rob harbor is the director of North American Channel Sales and strategic partners at Google Cloud. And he joins this special series of the podcast precision partnering a masterclass partnering with Google Cloud. In this episode, you’ll learn how Rob is applying his many years of experience to shape and grow Google’s channel and strategic partner business. How he’s transforming these partners, from transactional to solutions, and why marketplaces are a key part of his strategy. We’ll also discuss how he’s applying precision partnering to create a win win win for partners, and how organizations like yours can achieve their greatest results by engaging with his team to drive mutually successful outcomes. I hope you enjoy and learn from this discussion as much as I enjoyed welcoming Rob Harper. This episode of the podcast is exclusively sponsored by Google Cloud. Google clouds mission is to accelerate every organization’s ability to digitally transform its business more than any other top cloud provider. Google Cloud has unique capabilities to meet the needs of customers across four areas. Data Trust, open infrastructure and collaboration, all underpinned by sustainable technology, learn more@cloud.google.com. Rob, welcome to the podcast

Rob Harper  03:11

vets. I am so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I look forward to a good discussion.

Vince Menzione  03:17

I am so excited to welcome you as a guest on Ultimate Guide to partnering and so excited to have you here with our listeners.

Rob Harper  03:23

It’s going to be great. I have a lot to discuss. Some of it will be obviously around Google and how we partner. I also look forward to some questions maybe outside of the Google partner ecosystem. But yeah, we’ll go ahead and take this in any way possible.

Vince Menzione  03:38

I am so excited for our conversation today. Rob, you’re the director, Channel Sales and strategic partners, Google Cloud, North America. But for our listeners, can you give us a brief introduction to you your role and your mission at Google Cloud.

Rob Harper  03:57

And so I’ve been with Google Cloud for almost four years now, which at Google Cloud is almost an eternity. I’ve seen a lot of changes over the past four years. Prior to Google Cloud. I’ve worked at companies such as Citrix Systems. I’ve also worked at VMware, worked at box. Now a lot of these companies are obviously household names now. But when I started with them, they were startups really helped them to evolve to enterprise software organizations. That’s the same thing with Google Cloud. When I started, Google Cloud was really just trying to figure out its way within Cloud getting started within the partner side of the business. And it was really figuring out who are those partners that want to invest with Google, and also go ahead and drive our products, our solutions and our services. My mission today is really to go ahead and drive sales through partners. And when I say sales, that’s a collection of resale but it’s also a collection of services. In fact, we are really trying to pivot our partners to have much more of a services and solution focus my team is held responsible for that with some of those smaller partners out there, not necessarily the GSI. Guys, I also have a team of PDM partner development managers, where we are investing within partners that we’re in essence taking a bet on that we want to do more with. And so I have PDFs that, go ahead and drive those strategic engagements out there. Starting within North America, of course, those are also starting to broaden on a more global standpoint, some of those, we’ve put strategic agreements in place to go ahead and drive a certain amount of services, and solutions throughout organizations as well. So from a mission standpoint, making sure the field understands who these partners are, and making sure that they know how to execute with those partners. And partners understand how to work with our field. That’s really what my team is responsible for.

Vince Menzione  05:51

You know, it strikes me when you’re discussing your role and the scope of your mission. Like we talked about channel channels been around for a long time we think about transaction. Yep. But I think you’re keying in on this whole transformation to solutions and how these organizations need to evolve their model, tell us how the team is organized. Do you think about scale partners, as one group of partners, maybe smaller resellers, as another group of partners, are you organized in that type of fashion,

Rob Harper  06:21

we are organized in that type of fashion. However, I would also say that we’re starting to go ahead and morph and bring the two together, I’ll give you an example. So for the longest time, we had a section of partners that we caught our MSPs, or our managed service providers, over one of the things that we found is that yes, they do resell, yes, they do manage services, but they do a lot more. So we’ve now changed that group name to our sales and services partners. And in essence, it’s not just the MSPs. But it’s also some focus partners that are brought into that group as well. So you’ll find that we are in those typical silos. But as our partner organization evolves, we’re starting to break down those barriers, and move some of the groups together, we now have a collection of different types of partners that are pivoting to more of that solutions approach as well, you know, you mentioned solutions, we create that blueprint, but our partners are much better at creating solutions. And even we are right, so they’ll take that blueprint and then go evolve it and bring in maybe some ISV solutions. And they also may bring in some of their own personal IP that they built to go ahead and augment and build on top. And then it’s more of an end to end story. And it’s not necessarily just a Google solution. At the end of the day, that’s what our customers want. And so by creating that blueprint of solutions, and giving them an idea of where to start, they can go ahead and create something much more powerful. And that’s something that we’re bringing in all of our groups within partnering across Google Cloud,

Vince Menzione  07:50

it ties into this precision partnering conversation. So I think about customer intimacy, really, they’ve been working with the same organizations for many years. And to your point, right now they’re moving from this, we’re just gonna sell it one and done. Yep. And bringing you said, they’re bringing bias fees as an example, where, in the past, some of those organizations weren’t even in the cloud, they had licensed software models, is now on Google Cloud, right? And they’re stitching it all together as a complete solution for the customer.

Rob Harper  08:17

In fact, there’s even some partners out there today that have traditionally done millions and billions dollars worth of business with some of these ISPs out there. And to your point, they’ve been on prem, they’re looking to move to the cloud. Now, these these partners are also figuring out, hey, how do I take advantage of marketplace? Right? And how do I go ahead and, and take that, and also, not necessarily just resell but take that person’s product, that ISVs product and also stitch a solution with that as well, to really make it more powerful for the customer. And the customers love it, because they may have a certain size commit with Google Cloud, and that helps burn down that commit. And they absolutely get value from a wallet size. But then they also get value from the solution that they couldn’t necessarily get before. And so this is also opening up the door to more partners. And we can go ahead and bring into the Google partner ecosystem as well. It’s truly truly powerful. We’re making a lot of investments within our marketplace that continues to evolve. And that really helps bring that solution aspect to fruition.

Vince Menzione  09:22

I’m glad you mentioned marketplaces. I had this conversation with Jim in an earlier interview Canalis, one of the analysts firms, has said that we’re going to see $45 billion go through marketplaces in the next two years. 80% of that’s going to be through the three big hyperscalers I can believe that. Yeah. And I refer to this as the non fungible token. And it helps objectify partnering, where you can take Google Cloud for a customer or maybe a set of workloads, layer in an ISV solution on top of that layer in some professional services. And now you have Something you can offer as a partner to partner approach.

Rob Harper  10:04

That’s absolutely correct. And, and going back to what I said earlier about, some of these partners have their own IP, right, that helps stitch it together even more so. And that’s something we’ll look into evolve the marketplace. So they can also go ahead and offer that IP as well, let’s face it, we don’t like to talk about it. But it is happening out there cost optimization because of this economic environment that we’re in, you know, some of our partners are looking to offer tools and services like that within the marketplace. Now, it also helps a customer because it’s a one stop shop, it’s very easy to go ahead and locate and find. And then if they do use a tour resource like that, it also opens up the door for the partner to go ahead and identify even more within that particular account. And at the end of the day, if it’s done right, going back to your point around workloads, it also should uncover some additional workloads that maybe we didn’t even know about. But it was because the customer was able to take advantage of this type of IP that they hadn’t been able to offer, or take advantage of in the past.

Vince Menzione  11:05

So Rob, does the resellers marketplace offer allow the customer to burn down their commitment

Rob Harper  11:15

with Google? It does. So reselling through marketplace is now something that we offer. And we actually have a beta in place right now. Where you could have a partner, they could go ahead and resell something through marketplace in the past, it would only burned down against a commit if it was also resold by that same party, we’re now offering up a beta around this work and burn down against a commit of a direct customer. So it’s in beta today, this is something we’re looking to go ahead and offer if everything works, as we feel that it will and it should at the end of the year. So we have a collection of partners today that are taking advantage of this. And these are partners that do a lot of reseller have done a lot of resell in the past. But it’s also going back to my earlier point partners that maybe didn’t necessarily do a lot of resale with Google Cloud, but they want to because of the tight ISP relationships that they have. And they also already offer some of these on prem solutions from a reselling standpoint. So we’re bringing other partners in into this to take advantage of and in fact, these newer partners are giving us even more feedback of things that we hadn’t necessarily thought of before. So anyway, it’s in beta. We’re looking to go ahead and offer this in the future.

Vince Menzione  12:25

This is significant, because with the economic headwinds, we’ve been seeing budgets all tightening up, you’re saying that the partner could take advantage of what I call a durable cloud budget that’s already been established with Google.

Rob Harper  12:38

That’s absolutely correct. Yeah, budgets already in place, they can take advantage of that. And oh, by the way, going back to what I said before, if they that they have a commit with Google Cloud, and more than likely they do, which is part of the reason why they’re looking at our marketplace, it’ll help burn it down. And then from a from an ISV standpoint, it’s very easy for them from a transaction standpoint, in order to go ahead and get this done. We have 800 ISVs, part of our marketplace today, more and more, we’re targeting and working with to go ahead and develop their applications to be able to run on Google Cloud to be deployed through marketplace. There’s ISPs out there that maybe you are i, we don’t really know yet, but they’re developing on Google Cloud, they’re going to become the next Splunk, they’re going to go ahead and become the next data dog. And so we are also going after those startups, we want them to go ahead and start with the Google Cloud Cloud Marketplace. So when they become that next big ISV, they already know how to partner with us, and they’re ready to go

Vince Menzione  13:39

reminds me of a conversation I had with Darren Maori about the digital natives and some of these early stage organizations that nobody’s really paying attention to yet, because they’re that early.

Rob Harper  13:48

We think that’s a huge, huge market for us. We have an entire team, right? It’s under Darren Mallory that is looking to go and partner with the startups. We want to go ahead and work with them faster than anyone.

Vince Menzione  14:02

I love what you have to say here. So Rob, we’re on an elevator ride. I’m a potential partner. And of course, we know your role. What would you say to me now? Like, what’s the compelling reason why maybe the elevator pitch, if you will, on why I should work with you and Google Cloud?

Rob Harper  14:20

Yeah, so it’s funny. And I don’t know if it’s the compelling pitch. But this happened to me. Last week, I was I was meeting with a partner. They’re not a Google Cloud partner. They’re thinking about becoming a Google Cloud partner. They do a lot of business with AWS already. They also do business with Microsoft. They’ve been doing business for years, much more of a services oriented company, also very focused on AI, which is also part of the reason why they reached out to go ahead and find out more around Google Cloud. So I met with the CEO I met with the the VP of sales and some of the team and I was taking taking the elevator ride down with them and the CEO just said, Hey, Rob, I just want to say thank you for stopping by. I I have meetings with AWS and with Microsoft all the time. But he said the hour we spent together, I felt like you wanted to be there. I felt like you wanted me to be part of the family, the Google Cloud family. You know, a lot of times I’ll go ahead and meet with your competitors. And it’s just checkmark this checkmark that have you filled in the box. It’s very programmatic, formulaic, but you were asking questions about my company, to go ahead and try and figure out more, you wanted to understand what was the value that we could go ahead and derive out of this partnership? I don’t necessarily get those types of questions in the past. So I just wanted to say thank you. So I thought that was interesting, right? And I thought about that a lot more. You know, at the end of the day, they answer your question, we know we’re third, right. And so we have to do things a little bit differently than some of our competitors, we’ve got to build that family, we believe we have to build that ecosystem, we have to make it profitable for them, we have to make sure that they find value, otherwise, they’re just going to default to what they were doing before. It’s very easy. They’re already doing that today. At the end of the day, we need to sit down with them and put together that roadmap in terms of if you go ahead and do this, if you hire these people, these are the types of people we need you to hire both on the sales side and the technical side. These are the KPIs and we will go ahead and drive together. And but by the way, they’re not just that KPIs are going to benefit Google Cloud, there are going to be KPIs and there that also benefit you. Right. If if you want to go ahead and get paid from a services standpoint, what is that number, right? What are the number of people that you need to get utilized? What’s that percentage to make sure that you’re seeing a profit? These are all things that we go ahead and build into the plan. And it’s not just one sided, right. So definitely take the partners interest to heart and make sure that their side is built to that plan as well. So going back to, you know that that question, it’s making sure that we understand the value that we can also bring to the partner side,

Vince Menzione  17:01

or low value approach to the equation and playing fast catchup as well. Yes. Yep. So AI has been on everyone’s lips these last six months. I mean, you can’t go into a room and not have somebody talk about what’s been happening with generative AI and chat GPT and open AI and so on. How is Google Cloud approaching this? Call it AI arms race?

Rob Harper  17:28

Yeah, so one, I’m just gonna say we will win the AI arms race, Google Cloud will win the arms race, let me declare that we are taking that mindset that we will win. We know that there’s a lot that we need to do, right. So Google Cloud has been in AI for for quite a long time. But we also need to be smart. In terms of this as well. We’re looking at our our family of partners today, we know which ones that already have aI practices, or ensuring that they are up to the latest and greatest in terms of what we’re doing from a product standpoint and worked with them to go ahead and build out solutions, or, as I said, augment the solutions that we already have. We also know there are a lot of partners out there that are also doing AI and ML that are not part of the family. And so we need to go ahead and recruit them in putting together the right solutions, the right products, and making sure that they understand what those are. Last week, we held a webinar that was opened up to all the partners out there, we had 3000 registrations. So that’s what we’re doing from the partnering side, from the customer side, we’re mapping them with the correct partner to go ahead and start trialing piloting, making sure the right workloads are built around this. And that’s something that’s actively happening today. And these are customers that are signing up saying, Hey, I’m ready to get started. So we’re being fast and furious. We’re being smart about it as well. It’s a full court press.

Vince Menzione  18:56

So you and I have been around partnering pretty much our careers. And I love your perspective on this. Rob, is there one thing that you believe isn’t taught but you believe is true to successfully partnering with Google Cloud?

Rob Harper  19:13

I don’t know if I can say just one thing. I may say a couple and may point back to some of the things I’ve said. But I guess the first thing and the over underlying theme is persistence, right? So don’t just think that you’re going to go ahead and you’re going to fill out the paperwork, and you get that green stamp of approval that your Google Cloud partner, everything is going to be rosy, right. I would love to say that that’s true, but it’s not, you’re going to need to show up. And going back to what I said before about sitting down and defining what those KPIs are, you’re going to want to find whether that be a partner advisor, whether that be a partner development manager, whether that be a regional partner development manager, you’re gonna want to sit down with someone from that partner organization to go ahead and define what will be successful for you, and then also what’s successful for Google Cloud. and map that out. And you’re going to have to keep coming back and coming back. Because at the end of the day, you’re also going to want to partner with the sales teams out there, yes, you’re going to go ahead and you’re going to do things on your own. And we’re going to expect that you’ll go ahead and find new opportunities on your own, you’re going to go and expand and build solutions. But you’re also going to want to figure out who’s who, in the zoo around that partner sales organization, because you’re going to run into them when it counts, right? Because they’re out prospecting as well. And so then you’re going to want to build that plan with that Google Cloud salesperson. And in essence, you’re not going to want to work in parallel, you’re going to want to work together. And so that’s a big piece. That’s all that persistence comes together. Now, we had also talked about the ISV side of the equation. And that’s a whole nother piece of value that you can go ahead and bring because more than likely, if you’re a partner, you’re not just partnering with Google Cloud, you might be partnering with ISV organizations out there. So how does that complement in terms of what you’re doing more of that partner to partner type of motion. And so that’s also something that our sales teams and the customers need to understand, because of the point I made earlier, you want to basically bring a comprehensive solution, not just a Google solution, a comprehensive solution, that’s going to bring value to the customer as a whole. And so that persistence is going to definitely play out and pay out for you. If you go ahead and stay on top of it.

Vince Menzione  21:24

I love what you have to say here, I talk about the fact that many organizations, they sign up at the big meeting, if there’s not the follow up, that happens, right? The how you show up in an aggressive but diplomatic way. In other words, you need to continue to knock on the door, you need to be present in the equation, you need to show up in your term. And I also talk about the shiny quarter and a bucket full of shiny quarters, because there’s a lot of other options out there and you want to get the team’s attention. And that what’s our Better Together, right? Why I as a partner, I add additional value, maybe differentiated value versus another organization?

Rob Harper  22:03

Absolutely. I’ll give you another example. Right? So there was a partner that was basically saying to us, hey, for whatever reason, I don’t feel like I’m getting the attention of your sales teams. And one of the things that we explained to them was, hey, one of the biggest things that we as a sales organization are looking at this year is net new customers, net new logos, we feel like this is something that you can go ahead and help us with. Because you do a lot more partnering with just Google Cloud, you have an incumbency out there. And some of our partners that have grown up with Google Cloud, don’t necessarily have that you’ve got some true value there. Can you go back? And can you create a sales play around net new logos that would bring value to our sales team, in essence, helped bring the teams together. And they did, they did their homework, came together with the sales play. And now this is taking off, they’re finding more net new logos, gain the attraction of the sales teams out there. And now they’re knocking on the door and saying, Wow, this particular customer is showing up? How do I do more with them. And so the net new logo pays its value to Google Cloud, it’s a door opener. And now they’re getting bigger opportunities as well, much more services rich opportunities, rather than just around the net new logo that they didn’t necessarily have before. And that persistence, again, is paying off. Because they didn’t just say, hey, we don’t feel like we’re getting what we’re getting, and then go away. They came back and said, we’re not getting we’re getting, can you help us and went ahead and really found value for both sides of the equation? Yeah. And

Vince Menzione  23:35

I think what I heard there, too, is they also made the commitment to Google Cloud, right? I made the commitment to go do the work, the hard work to make that happen? Absolutely. Well, we could talk partnerships all day today, Rob, I love we’re gonna get together one of these days in North Carolina and talk through this in more detail. But as you know, from listening to other episodes, I’m fascinated with the career journey, and how you got to this spot in your career. Was there a pivot point inflection point, a spark that set you on the path to get to this amazing role at Google Cloud?

Rob Harper  24:09

Yeah, I started out my career journey on the technical side. So I started out more on the sales engineering side, and always had more of an aptitude of building out those solutions. more from a technical standpoint, in fact, I always had a spark in terms of whether it’s helping figure out solutions with customers and or with partners. And so I gravitated more toward that sales partnering side. And, you know, there was a pivot point for me and it was over a Citrix to go ahead and gravitate over to working with the GSIs. And that’s really where I started more on the partnering side, it was sitting down with the centers of the world and the Deloitte of the world and the HCl is and their teams of building out solutions around Citrix back in the day, and then I gravitated more toward man Jim, those types of partners, but that pivot point was trying to figure out solutions back in the Citrix days, and then over to VMware to start their GSI business back in the day. In fact, I still remember the first time sitting down with Deloitte and them saying to me, we’re not sure that this virtualization stuff is going to take off now obviously, did. They invested. And the rest is history. But it was really educating and helping different partners build practices around different areas,

Vince Menzione  25:30

that VMware store is actually a very fascinating story about how they got started. And yes, yes. And how that business became such a partner led business, we could talk all day about that. Absolutely. So Rob, this is a favorite question of mine. And I asked it of almost every guest because it, it takes us in so many different directions, but you are hosting a dinner party, and you can host this dinner party in anywhere in the world. And you can invite any three guests from the present, or the past, whom would you invite to this amazing dinner party? And why?

Rob Harper  26:04

So people who know me well probably already know the answer to this particular question. I know we’re not showing video, this is a podcast, but people who do they always see a certain type of shoe in the background. And that’s, that’s the original Air Jordan, that it’s actually mine from middle school. I’ve grown up loving, Michael Jordan, and my middle school coach would not allow me to wear those shoes, which is why they still look pretty good. And they sit on the shelf. So Michael Jordan to answer your question would definitely be one of those and being in Raleigh, North Carolina, you get kicked out of the state if you’re not a fan of Michael Jordan. So I would love to go ahead and invite him. Like I said, I was a fan of his I lived in Charlotte in the 80s. And so, you know, grew up watching UNC basketball, which is where I got to know of Mike Jordan before he became Michael Jordan. The second would be for those who also know me, well know that I like to play golf. The next logical question is, am I good at golf? No, not really. But I love to play. And so I also am a huge, huge fan of Tiger Woods. And so I have lots of Tiger Woods apparel that I will wear on the golf course in conjunction with my air jordan golf shoes. And so Tiger Woods would definitely be one. I remember the very first time I got to see Tiger play was either in middle school or high school my parents took me to Bay Hill. At that time, it was known as the Bay Hill classic Arnold Palmer’s tournament. And I snuck a camera in with me, right of course, there were no cell phones back in those days, you weren’t allowed to bring cameras in stuck a camera in climbed a tree around the green just so I could try to get a nice photo of Tiger. So I’ve got some phenomenal photos of Tiger Woods in his early days. And when he first started playing on the tour, I then promptly got kicked out of that tournament because you’re not allowed to have cameras and they saw me in the tree. My parents were not happy about that. So Tiger Woods would definitely be the second person. The third person would be Dwayne Wade. So if you catch the theme, I’m a huge basketball fan. So you know, Vince, I know you live in Florida. You know, in my Citrix days, I lived in South Florida. At that time, I had season tickets to the Miami Heat when Dwayne Wade was just getting started. So grew up being a huge fan of Dwayne Wade from his Miami Heat days, when Dwayne Wade first started, they couldn’t get people at the games, really. And so my friends and I, there were eight of us who we signed up to get season tickets, we had section 123 Row 23 Because of Michael Jordan, those are the seats we wanted. In fact, you could pick your own seats because nobody wanted to go the heat games. That’s funny, signed a five year deal. And our seats were $42 apiece, and they were great seats. Now obviously, Dwayne Wade and then Shaq comes. Next thing, you know, right? These seats are worth 1500 $2,000 apiece because they’re going to the playoffs we got a chance to meet him. And I even have an autographed jersey of Dwayne Wade’s because again, they’re trying to get more and more fans to come, you could go ahead and do meet and greets before the games. Very, very humble person, very, very nice person. So I was lucky enough to to get an autographed jersey, which I don’t have in my office because my office is too small, but it’s displayed outside. fourth person Steph Curry. He went to Davidson, which is not too far down the road from Raleigh, North Carolina. I got to see Steph play at Davidson. In fact, I went to basketball camp at Davidson when I was growing up probably the best NCAA first round, second round tournament game that I saw him play. I didn’t know who he was. And you know, he ends up scoring over 40 against Georgetown. From then I watched his career. So huge, huge fan. In fact, I even got a autograph Davidson journey, jersey from Steph as well. So I love talking basketball. I’m more passionate about basketball than I am about golf. I grew up playing basketball. In fact, in high school, I played all four years I got undercut going To the hoop, I have a metal plate in my right arm, the screws are still in there. That was my sport, even if five foot nothing. So while yes, I like to play golf, I’m not good at golf basketball I was. And so I would invite basketball players to learn more during the dinner party about them from them. Of course, Tiger Woods, I would go ahead and add because I do have that golf passion. But those, those are the three to four people I would invite. I love it.

Vince Menzione  30:25

I love it. Rob, of course, you know, you didn’t mention where you would host this party. But two of those individuals live here in Jupiter, Florida where I am. We could host your house, I think it’d be great. Actually, I think tiger or Michael’s house. Now Tiger would give you the water view. Michael is on the golf course, the bears Club Golf Course. But you know, certainly either of those locations would be wonderful.

Rob Harper  30:47

I think they would be fantastic. Yeah, great.

Vince Menzione  30:49

This has been fascinating. It’s been a really great time getting to know you better Rob, getting to know your business, and your mission for your organization. And having our partners better understand how to work with you and your team. Any closing words of advice for our listeners, mostly partners out there on optimizing for their success working with Google Cloud,

Rob Harper  31:12

what I’d like to say is, and I open this up a lot, and anyone who knows me, might my email address is Robert harper@google.com. Right? If you’ve got additional questions that you want to ask or just reach out to me, feel free, I have people reach out to me all the time through LinkedIn, this is either an easier way just to get direct access to me is just send me an email directly at the google.com email address. I’d love to talk to you. If you’re a new partner, you’re figuring out how to join the Google Cloud family. Reach out if you have a question in terms of how you can do more with Google Cloud, reach out, we’d love to talk to you. We’re gonna put that in our show notes. Robert harker@google.com. No dots or dashes, no dots or dashes.

Vince Menzione  31:50

We’re gonna we’re gonna insert that in our show notes. Rob, I want to thank you for a great interview. Great time today high energy interview as well. Thank you for joining us today.

Rob Harper  32:00

No, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks, Vince.

Vince Menzione  32:03

So there you have it. Another amazing guest joins Ultimate Guide to partnering. And I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did. Odds are if you’re a technology partner, executive, and hearing my voice, chances are you too, are looking to accelerate your success through partnerships. I mean, let’s face it. We all have seen partnerships that look good on paper, but never live up to their expected results. There are a lot of reasons why partnerships fail. And at ultimate partnerships, we help you get it right by applying a proven set of best practices and framework that’s used by leading partners working with Microsoft, and other technology giants. If you want to learn more, follow the link in the show notes, or visit our website at Ultimate Guide to partnering.com.

Announcer  32:55

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to partnering with your host Vince Menzione online at Ultimate Guide to partnering.com and facebook.com/ultimate Guide to partnering. We’ll catch you next time on The ultimate guide to partnering