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Master the Microsoft co-sell evolution today. Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this deep-dive panel discussion, industry experts Erin Figer, Erika Irby, and Reis Barrie celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Microsoft Co-Sell program by dissecting its evolution from its 2016 inception to today's data-driven, outcome-focused landscape. The group explores the critical shift from transactional sales to modern, frictionless co-sell motions, emphasizing the importance of signals, intentionality, and building credibility with Microsoft field teams. Whether you are navigating the complexities of the marketplace, struggling with reseller enablement, or looking to integrate AI into your sales process, this conversation offers actionable insights to align your organization's go-to-market strategy with Microsoft's evolving priorities and achieve results. https://youtu.be/KV1MGSoyWbQ Key Takeaways Effective co-selling has shifted from autonomous, fragmented motions to a highly collaborative, data-driven approach essential for modern cloud GTM strategies. Credibility is the currency of partnership; without trust from vendors and customers, technical go-to-market motions will fail to produce long-term outcomes. The “REO” (Reseller Enablement Offering) model is an operational unlock for ISVs to go global and sell local without the friction of multi-party private offers. Integrating AI into CRM systems is vital for identifying total addressable market (TAM) signals and maintaining sales velocity. “Don’t automate a bad process” remains the cardinal rule; technology should be used to refine existing, successful motions, not to propagate inefficient ones. The human element—community, in-person events, and empathy—is a necessary differentiator in an increasingly digital, automated B2B landscape. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags Microsoft Azure, Co-sell evolution, Hyperscaler strategy, SMB partner investment, Cloud Marketplace, Veeam GTM, Partner Center alignment, Channel enablement, REO, Cloud consumption, ISV scaling, Go-to-market optimization, Partner-led growth, Azure consumption, Channel friction reduction, Outcome-driven sales, Microsoft ecosystem, Revenue acceleration, Partner alignment. Transcript Erin Figer Panel For Cut Out [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: So when we, so, uh, this all started ’cause I was trying to figure out what was next when I left Microsoft and I had this woman who was doing work, actually starting the co-selling process when we first started doing co-selling. And she was working with one of our partners and she was working with my team when I was at Microsoft. [00:00:17] And then I said, this lady knows a lot about this stuff. So I reached out, I left Microsoft, I said, I think we can help each other. Like, I think we’re gonna, I got these companies that I spoke at Microsoft’s conference. They’re like, can you come help us out? And we teamed up. And, uh, we’ve been friends and doing fun stuff ever since. [00:00:34] And she’s spoken at just about every event in some capacity or another, whether it was on stage or a workshop. Aaron Feiger. And then, uh, I, I found, I also, through Aaron, I met this other gentleman who had another company and he was doing amazing work with ISVs or SDCs, uh, Reese Barry from Carve. And then, uh, when I think we started up the event, I mean, Erica Irby came to one of our first events and spoke on stage. [00:00:58] I was like, yeah, this. The person knows what she’s doing. So I’ve asked the three of them to come up and kind of round out and end the day, but all three of ’em have a tremendous, uh, background in this whole process of co-selling go to market strategies. And I thought you, you can, I’m just giving it over to the three of you. [00:01:17] Erin Figer: I we don’t need [00:01:18] Vince Menzione: a, you don’t needer you don’t need a clicker and you, you know what you’re all gonna be talking about. But these are some really smart people about how to partner with Microsoft. So, yeah. No, thank you for having us. [00:01:27] Erin Figer: Um, hello. Hello. I think this is on. All right. So actually we’re gonna do an exercise. [00:01:32] Um, I want everyone to close their eyes. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. All right. I want you to think back to January of 2016. What were you doing? Where were you in your career? What company were you working for? What was going on in your Microsoft partnership in January of 2016? Okay, Erica, what was happening for you? [00:01:59] Erika Irby: So, uh, is this on? Sorry, I cannot tell. Um, I was at Veeam for the first time. We had just launched our first, uh, endpoint backup, uh, product in April of the previous year because nobody knew what cloud was yet, and people were scared. So we had to launch that product. And we had a relationship with Microsoft in a sense that about 20% of our business sat on Hyper V. [00:02:25] That equated to about, I think like around 90 ish million dollars, which at the time was incredible for us. But to Microsoft was, you know, like, who are you guys again? And, um, we begged and begged to have any type of communication with them. Events. Funding nothing. We did not know what Azure consumption was. [00:02:43] We didn’t have any of that information. And if somebody would’ve told me at that time that nine years later we would sign a five year contract with them and have multiple products dedicated to Microsoft, I would’ve been like, y’all are bananas. [00:02:58] Erin Figer: Reese, what were you doing in January of 2016? [00:03:00] Reis Barrie: Uh, let’s see, Jan, 2016, I was moving from Orlando, Florida to Seattle, Washington, uh, sight unseen with no place to stay. [00:03:10] Uh, to take a job at a place called Microsoft or Consulting Gig, a place called Microsoft. Um, kicking off some of the cool motions that we’re, uh, we’re gonna talk about today, I think. [00:03:20] Erin Figer: Does anybody know the significance of January, 2016 in the audience? Any takers? It was the launch of Cosell officially for Microsoft. [00:03:31] Congratulations. We’re celebrating 10 years of officially. Problematizing how you connect with the Microsoft sales organization in a programmatic at scale way. And try to build meaningful relationships. And I have been helping partners since the inception of Microsoft’s Cosell program. Um, I was on the partner side, Reese was on the inside. [00:03:59] You were at a partner. So we have all seen the evolution of Cosell across all three hyperscalers launching, you know, their co-sell initiatives. So I just wanted to take a moment to recognize. I didn’t know how many people realized that it’s been 10 years, it’s 10 year anniversary. I think it’s a big milestone. [00:04:15] Huge. So. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, you know, when they launched it, I went, I was consulting for a startup outta Boston and we were trying to get Microsoft’s attention, competitor to fame, and I went to the business development guy and said, uh, do you, did you just see this program that Microsoft launched? I think we should include this in our branding strategy and we should use co-sell as a way to get our brand out to Microsoft and be able to tell our story of who we are and what we’re doing and that we’re in their accounts and they don’t even know it. [00:04:55] ’cause we’re the startup out of Boston who switched over from AWS to Microsoft. And we did, and I put every single opportunity in the system I could for the first six months, which was the last six months of their fiscal year. We go to partner of the, we go to, what was it called? Them WPCI think at the time. [00:05:13] Mm-hmm. Uh, in Vegas. And Nasuni won wins like all four wards worldwide. US Education, healthcare Partner of the year because I put 117 deals in the system and then it seeded Na Sunni’s Marketing for the next two years. ’cause Microsoft gave them tons of money and attention and we were off to the races. [00:05:35] Right. And then it was, can you repeat that? And we went and repeated it with Red Hat and Rubrik and Nintex and Quest and. I don’t know, lots more. But it was, it’s been fun journey co-selling. And it’s interesting to see now, um, how we continue 10 years later to evolve co-sell. And so Erica, what were some of the takeaways you had today listening to the conversation about how co-sell, how you’re modernizing and co-sell is changing inside your organization, especially now being a boomerang. [00:06:08] Erika Irby: Yeah, well we call it a Veeam ring ’cause everything a veer ring, everything has to start with with Veeam. Well, one thing I was gonna comment on, I think I’m sitting here thinking how wild is it that back in the day we actually had to define that co-sell was an action that, that, you know, partners and vendors needed to take or, and different vendors and alliances. [00:06:25] I mean, now we can’t even imagine going to market without, you know, that, that attach. But at the time, we were just very autonomous and everybody sold their own product and it, it took like this actual motion, um, to get us working together. But now look at us. I mean, this community is incredible. And we can also see this by, and even when AGU was mentioning earlier, all the bosses he had in his room, I mean. [00:06:47] How many people like know each other. I mean, this is like part of that, that ecosystem. But today, um, a couple of things I took away, and by the way, we want a lot of interactions, so we’re going to kind of throw it back out at you guys. But for me, um, outcomes came up repeatedly that was mentioned multiple times about outcomes. [00:07:04] Um, speed with intentionality. I think that was super critical. We have to go to market. There has to be a sense of urgency, but if we’re not intentional, it’s like, what are we doing? It’s just like a big mess. Um, and then credibility. And this is something I think is super important, regardless of, um, all of our emotions, all of our go to market, all of the, the things that we do, if we are not credible or not building trust with our vendors, our, our co-partners, our customers, we will never be successful. [00:07:35] Um, so those are the three main things that I took away from, from everybody talking today. And I, I thought, I mean, to me personally, I thought those were pretty powerful. [00:07:42] Yeah. [00:07:42] Erika Irby: So we’d love to hear. [00:07:43] Erin Figer: Yeah. And I know Reese, you have been doing a lot around outcomes and changing kind of the cosal, um, intention. [00:07:54] Reis Barrie: Yeah. The, uh, the, just thinking back to today, like that was like such a, it was really a, a big key theme of today. Like everyone talked about, whether it’s pivot of, of sales, partnership, um, even when you’re talking about AI and some of the, the, uh. POC discussions. So the live like type of stuff, everything was centered around that narrative. [00:08:17] And so, um, and it’s the same with, it’s the same with partnerships. It’s the same with your co-sell motion, same with your benefits utilization, um, and the way you’re utilizing partnerships. And so that’s, that’s a huge, huge component of, um, what I also took away from today. Um, and then somebody, I think it was Mark who said it that I’m gonna, I’m gonna steal this because the, the whole, um. [00:08:40] Near and dear to my heart of like, don’t, don’t scale automate ai, A-I-F-I-A bad process. Like as someone who deals with like, for the most part, bad processes, like day in and day out, um, and trying to refine them and improve them. Like, that’s one of the first things that we, uh, that we talk to partners about when it comes to their partnership and, and the processes they have in place. [00:09:03] So those are like two really big, just takeaways from [00:09:06] Erin Figer: Yeah. Nice. So we’re here to learn from each other, right? Like this is an ultimate partner community of learning from each other. So I’d really love to hear from the audience, like what are some of the things you’re doing in your cloud? Go to market approach and co-selling that you’re trying out. [00:09:23] Either you tried it, you failed fast, you learned from that, that you can share those lessons learned or like what’s working and how are you changing to be more outcome driven in your cloud go to market, uh, approach. Any takers in wanting to experience share? Great. Give that man a mic. [00:09:50] Audience Member: The SMB investments. Um, these, these new, I don’t know what they are. I partner accelerators, PBAs, uh, there’s kind of something going on in the SMB space where it just seems like they’re coming outta the woodwork to come help. On deals. I’ve never seen Microsoft really embrace the customer that they, the way they have in SMB in the cos sells. [00:10:10] I’m not sure if anybody else is seen that, but seems to be working. It’s two things. One, you at Data 60 [00:10:22] America. [00:10:54] I think, I think part of the rarity there is that. Typically you wouldn’t get a seller attached, right? They’re unmanaged that they’re kind of in the nobody cares category, but, [00:11:06] um. So Microsoft made a huge investment in the distribution space saying we’re gonna lean on distribution to help enable our 165,000 indirect resellers that we have as a business. And part of that enablement goes back to field sales alignment. So there’s these roles, ca roles called um, partner Solutions Sellers, PS. [00:11:30] And so they’re aligned by, um, solutions architecture, if you will, for Microsoft. So, or cloud solution area, whatever the new term, modern work, uh, or, uh, AI work, AI workforce, um, data and ai. And so they are there to help support your deal. So it’s, it’s a huge investment and one that I would just can say continue to advocate for it if you’re seeing success with it, because I mean, we’re heading into FY 27 planning for Microsoft. [00:11:58] So. Like there, there could be role changes. So I would say if it, if it’s helpful, like make sure you’re talking positively about it. [00:12:05] Reis Barrie: Yeah, yeah. Just to, to your point, like I, I’d say like, um, in the last six to 12 months, like that’s been a, a thing that’s like we’ve to go back and like, I mean we manage a portfolio of a couple dozen, dozen partners at this point, and so we’ve had to go back and rewrite some of our playbooks, reeducate some of. [00:12:26] Uh, some of the partnership folks that we use because, um, historically you kind of get into this like void of, you’re in partner center, you’re picking, you know, account alignment and it’s not managed. And so it’s like, okay, I expect to do nothing with this deal on the Microsoft side from a co-sell standpoint. [00:12:42] Um, but that’s kind of, that’s changed quite a bit, um, in the last six months where, um, it’s not like a, it’s hard to create, it’s hard to create processes and dependence around it ’cause it’s not like a guarantee that you’ll get, you get engagement, but. Uh, you see more eng engagement, more on more and more deals. [00:12:58] Um, and so we’ve had to go back and work with some of our partners to rewrite some of our, uh, deal sharing playbooks to account for, uh, things like that, which is, it’s super cool to see, frankly, um, to see engagement on these, like predominantly. [00:13:12] Erin Figer: So in that motion. So first off, for the folks that are on the other side of this black curtain by the food station, if you guys could please stop the conversation. [00:13:19] It’s really hard to pay attention to what’s going on in this room. Um. Thank you. Thank [00:13:25] Erika Irby: you for saying that. [00:13:26] Erin Figer: That was a great, that was a great, that’s a great point. And what I wanna talk about next is like in order to kind of continue to evolve the playbooks and they’re changing and people are changing, and priorities are changing, what are some of the signals that you guys are using internally in your organization, whether you’re building or buying, um, but would love to learn from all of you. [00:13:46] What kind of signals are you looking at to help you continue to like co-innovate, co-sell, co-market? Um, in your go-to market strategies? [00:13:58] Audience Member: Yeah, [00:13:58] Erin Figer: please. Um, [00:14:00] Audience Member: well, I’m, I’m, we’re building everything from scratch right now because we’re brand is integration. [00:14:39] Like having our, our engineer be able to interact with product [00:14:43] Erin Figer: engineer. [00:14:50] I’m gonna pick on trend ’cause I had just spent last week with them and Sanjay, I think like what you guys are building internally, um, using signals, building it into an AI agent. To help you understand your tam, you wanna share a little bit. [00:15:06] Audience Member: Happy to, and I’ll disclose. The first thing I did was hire Aaron Feiger to run my co-sell operations, uh, for the, for the second time. [00:15:12] It’s [00:15:13] Erin Figer: nice to be a GDI again [00:15:14] Audience Member: for the second, so well planted. Um, but honestly, like I can’t have an environment where I fail my sellers, like this process has to be frictionless in co-sell and marketplace operations. Or I lose trust in my own house, let alone in my channel and in my customer base. So. Uh, building that strong foundation is like job number one. [00:15:34] I’ve been, I spent a decade at Trend. I’m back, uh, five weeks on the job now. Um, but I’d say we’ve built a multi hundred million dollar cloud marketplace business thinking highly transactional. And what we’re trying to pivot to is a highly dated driven approach where we can look at any cloud in any region around the world, figure out roughly how many accounts they have. [00:15:57] Figure out what those customers are spending and things that we can protect from a cybersecurity standpoint, knowing that four or 5% of that total spend will be spent on cybersecurity, doing an overlap of where I have existing customers in that drawing a tam, overlapping that with my incumbent partners to get the Venn diagram of like, where’s my sweet spot to move this forward? [00:16:18] And then where’s my blast radius? So when I sit down with a guy leading France, or a person leading healthcare. I can have a really specific opportunity about how to leverage my cloud partnerships to accelerate deals and expand growth in a very surgical, data-driven, propensity driven way. And it like totally changes the conversation. [00:16:40] And the other thing we’ve done because you get a lot of pushback and when you’re working with Microsoft, uh, I was chatting with a few folks today, like if you’re in cybersecurity, it’s not easy. They got a 25 billion ish dollars cybersecurity business. So you gotta find your swim lanes. And the dialogue I have now internally with my sellers is a major League baseball analogy, which is, if you play major league baseball and if you hit the ball 30% of the time, you’re gonna go to this little thing called the Hall of Fame, right? [00:17:07] If you bat 300, if you’re in sales and Microsoft, or Amazon or whoever helps you, 30% of the time, you’re gonna go to this thing called President’s Club. That’s the difference between sitting at home in Ohio and sitting with your beach. You know, your, your toes in the sand. So it’s, we’re really trying to change. [00:17:25] Uh, one of the first things I ask my team is, what’s our brand promise to our sales leaders and our sales team? And if you don’t know that answer, you got a fricking problem. So you gotta get that. What’s your Brene Brown would call it? What’s your North Star? What are your values? Whatcha are you gonna deliver? [00:17:38] Right? So you gotta get that right and then you gotta be relentless in making it frictionless. And then you gotta hire Aaron Fier to run your co-sell. [00:17:46] Erin Figer: Okay? Okay. And so, I mean, I think like that’s a trend that I’m seeing across the partners that I’ve been working with is how they’re using data and doing more data driven, um, decision making and getting to their TAM faster so that as they start to then look at this pathway of, okay, now I’m trying to go to market, what. [00:18:11] Programs does Microsoft have or my other partners have that I can use to move me down that path faster. But getting that tam and feeling more confident about it, like, this is the group, this is the subgroup that I’m gonna start with until I see something that says, oh, I need to deviate and do something different. [00:18:30] Um, so I’m definitely seeing that trend. Like what are you seeing, uh, what are you guys doing at Vem? [00:18:35] Erika Irby: Um, so a couple different things. So like you were saying, we, we do leverage, um, AI more, uh, recently for New Deal Reg, um, automation. And we lit, literally just launched it this week. So this is the week that it’s exciting until the, someone tries to use it for the first time and then for. [00:18:52] Um, so I can’t wait to see my emails later, but, um, it, it’s, we’re seeing like that, that that movement, which is, uh, definitely good for that. We have a task force internally for marketing, so trying to figure out how we’re gonna, um, you know, leverage that, uh, um, internally. And I think that Veeam, you know, they, they have been on the forefront of technology for, for a while. [00:19:12] You know, they were the first with the. Virtual backup and, you know, all these things, you know, really trying to be ahead of the thing, ahead of the game. But, um, one thing I, I, I love how many people brought up the intentionality and the mindfulness because I think sometimes we can easily. Put out a whole bunch of tools. [00:19:28] I love that you called out the point about the bad processes, um, because it actually, I think, can just create more confusion, more of a mess, and that, um, really mindfulness will be so much more beneficial, you know, down the road for your partners, for your customers, for everybody that has to, you know, do that interaction business with you. [00:19:47] I did wanna call out that I thought it was lovely that you had a positive comment about Microsoft. I dunno if I, [00:19:53] Audience Member: yeah, [00:19:53] Erika Irby: I like rarely hear that. So like, awesome. I hope that does get back to Microsoft. I hope that they do, um, continue that. I’m sure their SMB is quite a bit bigger than maybe others, but that is a massive install base for, for Veeam as well. [00:20:07] And even though we’re driving and trying to push into the enterprise, protecting that install base is just absolutely critical for success. [00:20:15] Erin Figer: What about you race? [00:20:17] Reis Barrie: So if I’m looking at like signals, I, I think. Uh, I’ll focus on too, I think you mentioned, uh, the, the cycles of change at Microsoft. Like it used to be an annual thing and now it’s like a, then it was a half base thing, and then it was a, now it’s a quarterly thing basically. [00:20:30] Um, but there’s also like, there’s, there’s big signals and small signals, and so annually we still get like that, like the, the, the guiding direction so that we can align. How we talk about ourselves, how we talk about our partnership, how, how we enable our sellers and whatnot. And then we got a lot of programmatic shifts from a, from a quarter to quarter standpoint. [00:20:50] Um, and so focusing on the, like these, um, these signals so we can align our, our messaging and our frameworks to align with, with, with our partnership, um, is, is one thing that’s, you know, super, super important to keep, keep tabs on. Um, and the second one, I’ll, I’ll give, you’ll. Mention is more on the cus sorry, uh, customer side, but like the seller enablement. [00:21:15] And so how is your, on the marketplace side, how, how are your sellers talking to your customers about marketplace? Um, are they, are they bringing up earlier in the, in the qualifying discussions of how does the customer prefer to buy? Um, are there fire drills with two weeks to go, um, till the, till the deal closes and now the customer wants to go marketplace and, and no one knows how to do it? [00:21:37] Um, seen that way too many times. Um, and so, but how, how, like studying kind of the, uh, maturity of our sales org to see well, like where, where, where is our, our, where are our sellers competent to have this marketplace discussion? Um, because I often relate, like, this is kinda a silly analogy, but I, I, simple stuff works really, really well with me. [00:22:00] But I like, have you ever been to a farmer’s market and you’re like nervous to buy something? ’cause you don’t know if they take credit card. [00:22:07] Audience Member: Yeah. [00:22:07] Reis Barrie: And so like to me, I’m like, okay, well, like it’s the same thing with Marketplace to me. And so like, it’s, it’s the same concept of you want your customer to be able to buy, they want the way that they would like to buy. [00:22:19] Um, and you want the person that they’re interacting with to be able to, um, facilitate that, that transaction in, in a way that feels frictionless. Yeah. Right. Uh, and so that’s a lot. Like, those are the kind of, the really two deep signals, um, that we, we look at a lot. [00:22:37] Erika Irby: I wanna make a comment on the marketplace. [00:22:38] So I don’t know if anybody else is experiencing this, you know, Veeam being an ISV, we have a really strong traditional, traditional channel motion. So, to your point about how sellers are, are managing the marketplace, to be totally honest, we struggle on, um, that, because right now it feels like a deal that goes to the marketplace is taken away from a reseller, and that reseller loses out then on that upfront margin and. [00:23:06] Um, there’s not a clean path necessarily for, you know, just because the, the deal happened there. They really, they still need to maintain that because they’re the one pri providing the services. And somebody had brought up earlier that, um, A SMB customer will never be successful without a partner. And I, I totally agree with that, but it’s like that part is missing. [00:23:26] So we almost need like a mindset change. In the channel where the marketplace is just a route to market and how the customer receives the product. It shouldn’t totally matter because at the end of the day, the, they still have to provide the services. It’s like, I could go to Home Depot and purchase a bunch of pipe for my house, but can I install it a thousand percent? [00:23:49] No. I would destroy my house. I used to have to have a plumber. So I think there’s, we could help our channel by changing that mindset, and at the same time, we, we need the marketplace owners to, to provide the benefits so that it is still very attractive for those traditional. Partners to, to push their customers there or else I, I think we’re just gonna constantly have that strife. [00:24:11] Erin Figer: Yeah. Does anyone in the audience, has anyone in the audience activated REO with Microsoft? You have? Yeah. So how’s it, like, how’s it going? Yeah, there’s Bump. Yeah. [00:24:32] Audience Member: How that shifts making people more effective in their roles individually. So we’re early stage of it, but it’s, it’s been a good experience. [00:24:42] Erin Figer: Has it helped to kind of unlock some of that friction with the resellers and continuing to include them to get to the s and b customers? [00:24:49] Audience Member: Yeah, I think the, the challenge that we’re working through right now is, you know, Erica may have said it, but it’s. [00:24:56] It’s not just the, the view of the marketplace taking people out of the equation, it’s how do we use the marketplace for, for co-innovation to keep people in it. So if, if, if it’s gonna take three to five of, of us in this room to deliver that spectrum to innovation for the customer. Um, how do we use the marketplace as a force multiplier of bringing that together and making that transaction easy? [00:25:21] Yeah. If, if our consumers are more and more influenced by Instagram and TikTok Shop Now buttons, like my husband’s texting me about my stuff that showed up today, [00:25:31] Erika Irby: which is none of his business. [00:25:32] Audience Member: None of your business. That’s right. Just put it [00:25:36] Erika Irby: in my room. Thank you. [00:25:37] Audience Member: If people are, people as consumers in the, in the u, us consumer based economy is driving more and more people through like that social experience of purchasing, that is an area where I do think Microsoft could help us and we could help ourselves in marketing how that, how we leverage it to be a force multiplier versus another omnichannel. [00:25:58] Well, [00:25:58] Erin Figer: so on that note, how many of you have put a button on your website? Click to buy? Yeah, [00:26:02] Audience Member: that’s, that’s where I’m at with our marketing team. [00:26:04] Erin Figer: Right? [00:26:04] Audience Member: Yeah. That’s, I think, the next evolution for us in the, in the REO piece. [00:26:08] Erin Figer: Yeah. Yeah. [00:26:10] Audience Member: I, I don’t want it on our website. I want to, I want it on my Instagram, my LinkedIn, my TikTok reels. [00:26:15] That’s, we’re going to, sir, it’s coming next week at our sales kickoff. Yeah. [00:26:21] Erin Figer: Nice, nice. Anybody else? Uh, activated. REO [00:26:28] besides the, you know, RE speed wagon? Uh, it’s the Microsoft Reseller Enablement. Um, offering, so like you activate your resellers to just take your listing and be able to do a private offer so that you don’t have to do multi-party private offers anymore. Your resellers can just take the listing and sell it directly, and they don’t have to wait for you to send them the offer. [00:26:52] Then they have to go do, so it takes out some of the steps and that friction in the process streamlines it and it allows them to like. Add on and do their own pricing. And then the reseller, however you have your arrangement with that reseller, continues to pay you in the back end for, um, selling that through the marketplace. [00:27:11] Erika Irby: I think I’m going to have you come and do a webinar for our Veeam partners to, to help them with that, because to your point, I don’t, I don’t think it’s as prevalent yet. It’s, it hasn’t really caught on. [00:27:21] Erin Figer: Yeah. It’s been really an unlock of, I had a large, um, ISV that I helped. We implemented REO internally, so they have 34 marketplace offerings and they have this initiative. [00:27:36] They wanted to go global, sell local, and so they launched five more publishing accounts and they came to me and said, we need to replicate our catalog five times 34. And I was like, oh God, please, no. And luckily like two months later, Microsoft, like GAed, uh, REO, and I was like, here’s your answer. We’re not going to do that. [00:27:58] We’re going to enable each of your publishing accounts to be resellers of your quote unquote gold standard publishing account, and that we actually implemented REO as an internal mechanism for them to issue their own publishing accounts, to resell private offers in local currencies. Um, and that was really an operational unlock for them. [00:28:25] All right. Anybody you wanna ask a question to the audience? [00:28:29] Audience Member: Okay. I’ll just keep going. [00:28:32] Erin Figer: Um, all right. So what are some other, um, signals or ways that you guys are evolving the way you’re co-selling? Um, does anybody else have some experience shares that they want to, to share with the audience? We’ve got, we’re using data, uh, we’re using some ai, we’re helping us get to our audience faster. [00:28:51] I really loved work span, um, building in an AI tool inside your CRM system, um, so that you can get some of those signals. Any other signals that you guys are using, uh, to change the way you’re co-selling? [00:29:07] It’s quiet on [00:29:07] Reis Barrie: Maybe, maybe I’ll share one, but Yeah. Yeah. So, um, just when it comes to, like, for us, account alignment to me is like one of the most important things and consistently doing, uh, you know, account planning and account alignment against Microsoft their accounts. Um, now it’s a bit interesting ’cause you can include some s and b stuff in there. [00:29:27] Um, but also, uh, Jason you mentioned up there, the. Uh, marketplace rewards, having the propensity mapping. And so looking at not only from an account alignment, um, what Microsoft accounts are, we, um, you know, areas are we most penetrated in, but also of those accounts, which ones are already buying on marketplace. [00:29:47] Uh, maybe have a commitment to Microsoft in, in some way to help us just further, uh, further target and focus on, you know, if we have 500 opportunities that we’re trying to, um. I’m trying to work through, um, to Sanjay’s point, like what’s, what’s the 30% that I’m gonna get my batting average on? Um, and so that constant account alignment to us is like a, is a huge, huge signal, um, for us to focus on. [00:30:14] Um, and then you can even take it a layer deeper to identify, okay, well if I’m looking like, do I have density within Nina had the, the ou up here on the screen. So do I have densities with density within like specific. Uh, verticals or regions, um, or segments that I should maybe if I just focused on that one segment or one vertical, um, you know, then all of a sudden I, I’m super successful having an executive sponsorship in that, uh, in that ou, something like that. [00:30:44] Um, and, but that, that’s all starting with, um, the foundations of that being that consistent account alignment and leveraging some of the, some of the propensity stuff that Microsoft is, is providing. [00:30:56] Erin Figer: And then making sure you’re like bringing it back into your CRM and storing it so that you can continue to use that information ongoing. [00:31:03] And we’re trying to figure out how to embed more and more. [00:31:37] And are you integrating like. Microsoft and other partners into that data as well. It’s like, this is a great partner. Incorporate them at this point in the journey. Yeah, we um. [00:31:50] When [00:31:50] Audience Member: you’re in the process with, with Microsoft, we haven’t opened it up externally, so that’s our crawl, walk, run is we’re, we’re trying this out internally. Let’s see if we can work the bugs out, get the agents working, and then how do we now go to our MSP community and offer this up as an agent they can use within their sales team. [00:32:08] And on the end of. We’re still working in the middle, but front end profiling, it’s helping a ton, um, and giving us a lot of good intel that the sellers are driving through the agent on the back end. It’s, it’s giving us not, um, just propensity data, but what’s resonating. So if we launched 12 products this year and we trained sellers on. [00:32:28] What’s hitting, where’s my pipeline velocity coming from? Where’s my close rate coming from? So that every month when we have our sales town hall, it’s like, here’s the top three sales motions that are actually driving pipeline and fast to cash close rates. [00:32:42] Erin Figer: And I gotta imagine that helps you get to your differentiators. [00:32:45] Audience Member: Oh [00:32:45] Erin Figer: yeah. And refining your superpower story. [00:32:48] Audience Member: That’s right. That’s. Yeah, because it’s for, for our sales team. I mean, we were talking about it earlier, it’s all about simplification. There’s so many options, so much noise. It’s like, just go focus on these three things and this is where you’re gonna deliver impact and outcomes to your customer. [00:33:01] And if we’re doing that, we’re all winning. [00:33:03] Erika Irby: Yeah. I, I, um, just recently, this is why one of the coolest things that Veeam has done, we just launched this tool called, um, expansion iq, and it’s part of our command, the expand motion this year where we’re really. Upselling and cross-selling our, um, install base. [00:33:17] This tool takes all the partners individual propensity data, puts it against four solution plays that we think are the main plays, and then provides them, this is what you could be earning if you took this motion. And then from a marketing perspective, we provide them. And to do this, here’s your campaign. [00:33:37] Here’s your this, here’s your that. Step one, send this email. Like very, very, you know, just, uh, planned out. And I loved what Nina said earlier today when she shared that, um, org chart. Essentially with all the different, um, industry focuses we are driving. One of our go to market actions is a Microsoft healthcare campaign. [00:33:56] That is like very, very specific, but it’s helping our partners in that manner. Could they go to their own database and pull their own and do all this stuff? Of course. But for our sellers to go blink and then give them a report and be like, here it is. It makes it so much more relevant. And then the steps just, they just hand that to their marketing org and then they’re just off and running. [00:34:18] Going back into your team to say, Hey, we rolled out these 12 things, only three landing. You gotta go back to the drawing on the other side. Or We need more money for these three. Yeah, but let’s figure what’s not with customer [00:34:38] to record the. [00:34:47] Audience Member: A better, faster, uh, listening post for, uh, can I talk really loud? Um, it’s, it’s, it’s helped turning on a listening post for our engineering, our marketing, our service delivery organization that would’ve taken months or quarters to get spun up in an executive board meeting or something. Right now they get it real time every week. [00:35:09] Okay. [00:35:09] Erin Figer: So what I’m hearing, like the theme here is to really like. Understand your sales process. Also, your co-sell sales process that runs in parallel with that. And how do you continue to serve up the right data at the right time to help your people take the right next action to continue to drive those outcomes that you’re looking for, but then also using data to circle it back, to say what’s working, what’s not working, to continue to refine that whole motion. [00:35:43] Um, so if you’re not doing that, I think that’s a big aha moment and takeaway, uh, from today’s session or from here today is like, okay, am I really identifying all the opportunities in my process to involve data to help my people continue to drive outcomes? [00:36:04] Audience Member: You [00:36:04] Erin Figer: have a, [00:36:05] Audience Member: you have your head in up back there, Gary. [00:36:06] Yeah. I, I couldn’t tell if, uh, you were prompting me when you asked that question and I, I didn’t want to, you know, do a shameless plug for cloud, but I think everybody [00:36:15] Erin Figer: should shamelessly plug, plug away. [00:36:16] Audience Member: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you brought up a mitt and, uh, the co-sell thing, but it, it does relate to what Reese had said about, um, you know, the being at the farmer’s market and. [00:36:26] Not sure what, you know, can I use a credit card or not? And I think that, um, or [00:36:30] Erin Figer: can I use Apple Pay? I still ask. I’m like, do you, do you accept Apple Pay? [00:36:32] Audience Member: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it’s like, I think, uh, a lot of times you don’t understand the seller in that situation is not sure how to handle that conversation. So, and there’s not a lot of information about their, about that. [00:36:44] Like how to, when it comes to a seller talking about marketplace and asking about the commit. Because the commit obviously is one of the main drivers, right? 900 billion out there. And committed spend across all the hyperscalers. So how to actually bring that up with a customer and what if they don’t know, right? [00:37:05] So there’s a whole process that, you know, they, they need to be taught this. But the first thing that’s also come up multiple times is activating them also means how to engage them. So an approach there of how to engage your salespeople is critical because if salespeople aren’t in it, they’re nothing’s happening. [00:37:23] You’re not gonna do well with marketplace. And on the co-sell part, it’s kinda the same thing. The typical thing, and I remember talking to Aldo Desal about this at another Ultimate Partner event, but uh, you bring your salespeople into a call, like you set up a call with, with Microsoft and the seller comes in unprepared. [00:37:42] Typically they’re not sure what to say and it’s a little bit intimidating. How, how, how do I, you know, what do you do in this situation? Like, so you start talking about product ’cause that’s what you know, and it’s the last thing you want to do. You, you want to understand what they care about, like em stage and, and, uh, what’s your consumption story and what kind of MRR impact you’re gonna have. [00:38:03] So it’s, these things are just unusual topics for the salespeople to be prepared, uh, to talk about. But it’s critical if your salespeople are gonna be enabled that they can do that. So I think from a co-selling standpoint, that’s just what I want to mention. And by the way, we offered a tool that does that. [00:38:20] Erin Figer: Nice. Awesome. Thank you. Uh, I mean, I don’t know about you. Reese Cloud Atlas. Every time we helped an ISV with their cosell motion, we would say, okay, we’re ready to go share cos sells and drive introductions. Have you done your sales enablement? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve enabled the sellers we have, and then we launch like the first batch of cos sells and then they immediately come back. [00:38:43] Stop, stop, stop. Don’t share any more deals, like we’re causing too much confusion. Uh, we didn’t do our sales enablement. Wow. Grace, [00:38:52] Reis Barrie: I mean, sound [00:38:53] Erin Figer: familiar? [00:38:53] Reis Barrie: It sounds very familiar. It sounds too familiar. Uh, P-T-S-D-A little bit there, but the, uh, sorry, [00:38:58] Erika Irby: but that’s why you guys have jobs. [00:39:00] Reis Barrie: Yes. Go on. It’s, it’s, um, but this, you know, I, I always come back to the, the concept of like, if we showed up to a Microsoft co-sell call the way we do to a customer call, like, oh. [00:39:14] Erin Figer: It, [00:39:14] Reis Barrie: it would, it would be night and day difference of the value you’d get outta your Microsoft partnership and co-sell. That’s all. It’s [00:39:20] Erin Figer: Well, [00:39:20] Reis Barrie: but I think people [00:39:21] Erin Figer: forget Microsoft is your customer too. [00:39:23] Reis Barrie: Yeah. [00:39:23] Erin Figer: They’re your partner, but you have to sell to before you can sell with and through. So you first gotta like master the sell to. [00:39:30] Reis Barrie: Yeah, a hundred percent. So there, there’s there like, and then to your point, [00:39:34] Erin Figer: it’s still true. 10 years later, people, it’s still true. Back to the fundamentals, right? [00:39:39] Reis Barrie: Yeah. It’s, [00:39:40] Erin Figer: yes. Go for it. [00:39:44] Audience Member: The, um, Microsoft being customer, right? So, and I love what you said about sem uh, alignment. So we actually made it a point, um, in our co-sell process, we have a validation checkpoint with Microsoft. If we build a co-sell packages, um, we are an si We’re not primarily ISV, but I think that’s shifting as well gradually. [00:40:10] And ESI kind of becoming a little bit of ISV. Um, so why it’s important, I think like Ree said, like you come up, you show up to co-sell call and you just pitch your services or say, well, let’s do account planning with this and that. Right? But what if it doesn’t work in the field? So that validation became critical for us, and I can tell you that now we have success stories that are actually proven based on that multifaceted feedback, uh, as to it’s one thing to build it. [00:40:46] Yeah. But is it useful for seller, for Microsoft sellers actually in the field? Can they actually position it and help clients to be more successful? Because that’s the ultimate goal. So that validation became, uh, an important checkpoint for us, uh, to make those packages repeatable and successful for customers at the end of the day. [00:41:06] So when we talk about signals, you absolutely right. It’s not just customer signals like we use ZoomInfo, we use all this data points, et cetera, but it’s also signals from the field because while Microsoft is a huge organization, they’re also very dynamic. On very regular basis, a lot of things changed. So taking those signals into account, uh, has created that, what we call like, more of a holistic approach for us, uh, to make it more meaningful. [00:41:33] So [00:41:34] Erin Figer: I like it. And you made it sticky by making it like a required point in the sales process? Absolutely. That everyone stops. Take a moment. [00:41:41] Audience Member: Yeah. [00:41:41] Erin Figer: And make sure that we’re all on the same page. [00:41:43] Audience Member: Yeah. And I think for us as si it’s even more critical. Like I, I, I think there is a lot more to happen in marketplace as, as, as much as we talk about it, but being in si I, we still kind of figure it out, like how Mark marketplace actually becomes a place of transaction for a size. [00:42:01] Yeah. So that’s why, you know, we’re passionate about packages and it’s not just a matter of publishing it and say, oh, it’s co-sell ready? Then what? Yeah. Right. So yeah, so, so that’s why that, that checkpoint is very important for us. So [00:42:16] Erin Figer: definitely, definitely. I think you ladies over here in the corner had some, some hands up, Michelle and, and the other Michelle, Michelle Squared. [00:42:26] Audience Member: Thank you. Michelle Squared. I like it. Um, so. I’ve been a little quiet because I wanna just give my background. So I’m a global VP of channels and alliances and, um, I think it’s a bit of this, uh, the movement, right? So I love your farmer’s market analogy so much. I’m gonna steal that. Thank you. But the reason is because you don’t know unless you’re gonna meet your partners where you are or meet your customers where they are in that journey. [00:42:53] So the first time that they’re selling whatever their goods or wares are, and somebody says, do you take Apple Pay? That’s a clue. And then when you hear it over and over again, you realize there’s a correlation that there’s a need in the market. So in In my life, all roads read to Romes, right? Reseller and VARs, OEM, alliances, MSPs, MSPs, ISVs System integrators. [00:43:17] And as a partner leader, you wouldn’t necessarily think marketplace is first because you feel like you’re going around your partners. But am I meeting my partners where they are in their journey and choosing to procure the way they want to procure? And I think that’s the notion that I have a lot of learning from this team and everyone in this room to understand how do we in a company. [00:43:38] Prescribe the right solution to, to meet our partners in that journey. And I’ll use, kind of circling back to the MSP space, PAX eight, one of Microsoft’s largest partners created a marketplace dedicated to MSPs. And while I was the global Channel chief of SonicWall, a lot of partners said to me, I like you. [00:43:56] I like your products, I like your firewall, but unless you’re on the park, PAX eight Marketplace, I’m not gonna buy from you because they make my life frictionless. And easier to do business with. And I think that’s the motion that every vendor in this room needs to understand is, are we truly meeting our partners where they are? [00:44:14] PS I work for Carrero DDoS Solutions and come to talk to me about that. Thank you. [00:44:18] Erika Irby: Well, and a Guo owes you some money for that commercial right there. [00:44:30] Audience Member: From, we’re actually community first. Um, as an MSP, even though we’re national, like we really focus in on community local touch. Um. Like you said, um, um, Southern seldom me in a southern way. Like that’s what we focus on. I’m your [00:44:45] Erin Figer: huckleberry. [00:44:46] Audience Member: I love that. Exactly. Um, and we’re seeing a ton of success with actual in-person events now. [00:44:53] Like the majority of our business is come in, leads are coming from that right now. And even though, like I, I truly believe in digital first motions, we need to be on Instagram and have that self-serve motion as the next generation comes up in our. Buying and transitioning to their kids or whatever that looks like. [00:45:14] Like we have to remember that there’s also a trend of tactile in person people first coming with it. And so like we, I, I feel like there, there has to be that motion engaged and I would love to hear your thoughts around how are vendors thinking about engaging in that community driven approach, not just the platform itself. [00:45:37] Erika Irby: Yeah, I, I personally also, this is hilarious ’cause we’re like best friends, so we can talk about this later, but, um, from a Veeam perspective, Michelle, um, we are seeing a resurgence in like these thought leadership type of events. And I think there’s, this is, this is sort of related, but just to, this is kind of how I think about this. [00:45:57] Um, Barnes and Noble’s business has like gone through the roof lately, and they are, they’re actually like opening more stores, which is bananas because at one point they were like going outta business because nobody wanted to go and like, touch a book or talk to somebody. But that is changing, thank God. [00:46:11] Right? That is like changing and people are actually like becoming more social because they’re missing this. Um, my kids’ generation refers to places like Barnes and Nobles as the third place. Like this magical place that exists where you can talk to a real human that’s not on your phone. Like it’s, it’s amazing. [00:46:28] But anyways, we’re, I think we’re starting to see this in marketing. We used to like pump everything out digitally, but after a while people get that form and they’re like, I am not putting my dang information in this form. And then your ability to capture that lead completely dissipates. All it is, is, is now an impression, which is. [00:46:47] Fairly worthless. You can have millions of them and nothing happens. So we are definitely investing more into, um, uh, live events, but also with the live streaming because then people can, they’re still watching it live. They still have to register for it. They knew they couldn’t make it. So I think that there’s definitely that digital aspect that’s super helpful. [00:47:05] But a purely digital, you will never make that connection. [00:47:10] Erin Figer: Yeah, I mean, I think. Unfortunately, COVID made us, you know, all do things digitally. But now that we’re past that, getting back to that multifaceted approach, I think if we think about what’s going on in the B2C world, lots of communities within communities, there’s whole company’s getting created, like women are bringing women together to do craft circles. [00:47:37] And literally. Okay. But like I did that digitally. That was pretty awesome. I was like three years. That shameless plug. No, I, no. But like then now there’s like companies that are actually like renting space, bringing people together, like crafting and while they’re doing the activity, um, if anyone’s ever done therapy, a therapist will say. [00:48:01] You know, if you wanna get your kids talking, get them coloring, like distract them and they will start to open up. And so you distract people with an activity and they start to open up. And what they really are, thrive, like what they really need is in this digital world where we’re getting so much information, we still need. [00:48:22] The next layer of filter to help us vet out and validate and confirm like our thinking or like our suspicions on things like, am I in the right going down the right path? Is this the right direction? So there’s still a human element that needs to be involved in that buyer journey, and you’re seeing that with these little micro communities inside communities. [00:48:45] Um, and so I’ve. I mean, I love micro communities inside of bigger communities. I’ve started two of them, three of them. So I, it definitely, like, we need still that in person, uh, interaction and I love seeing it coming back in our space. [00:49:04] Erika Irby: I, I was just thinking about ear, the, the previous panel and the, the topic came up about who can assist partners as they transition from that direct to CSP motion. [00:49:15] And I mean, yes, it, I think Microsoft plays a role there, but I think it would behoove Microsoft to invest in these communities and they would enable that change. Yeah, [00:49:26] Erin Figer: yeah, yeah. There is a person inside of Microsoft who has that remit, but she’s like one person, one person trying to do that. I was like, wow. [00:49:36] Okay. Grace, what are you seeing amongst your partners and also your perspective with working with Microsoft? [00:49:42] Reis Barrie: Yeah, yeah. Um. There’s a really good, uh, the frontier study, the work like door work study that they did, um, which talks really heavily about just like in this, you know, post 20, you know, 2020 culture, how like the amount of busyness has just increased in an insane amount and how a, a really strong use case for AI is to buybacks from that time essentially, um, for us to, you know, return back to a, a normal state and I think social creatures, right? [00:50:10] And so, um, in this. I run a fully remote company, which is like a blessing and also like really interesting to try to create a really strong culture within people that are, you know, 13 times zones apart times. Um, and so it’s uh, it’s a really interesting thing and coming together and, um, into an in-person space or a place here or a place where you can actually talk to your customers, talk to, um. [00:50:39] Step away from that, like that busy day to day where like, I, I can’t even fit a 15 minute break in to grab lunch. You know, days like how much, supposed to find 15 minutes to just have a, a casual conversation and these types of events, which I’m sure Vince is cheering back there that we’re talking about this right now. [00:50:57] But the, uh, but these type of events, they let you decompress from that day and they let you kind of just have these really important conversations that, you know, bring us back to just being humans To me. [00:51:10] Erin Figer: And being human and co-selling with each other. And on that note, we’re 44 seconds over. Yeah, we’ll give it back to Vince, [00:51:18] Reis Barrie: but we were plugging Vince’s events, so I think we’re okay. [00:51:21] Vince Menzione: We One more question. We have one more question from, sorry. Oh yeah. [00:51:23] Reis Barrie: It’s [00:51:23] Audience Member: maybe more a, a shared just as we’re talking [00:51:25] Vince Menzione: by the clip, right. [00:51:27] Audience Member: And to compliment everything that you guys have been talking about around co-sell and. Getting ready in line with Microsoft to speak to the customer and speaking. So the signals that we’re going after are on the actual conversations that are happening in the conversation. [00:51:41] So aside from all the planning, which I agree on, we’re building agents to hear what’s going on on the calls with Microsoft, on the calls with customer, and grab those actual signals. Are we answering the questions in the right way? What types of questions are coming back to us that we weren’t able to answer. [00:51:58] Maybe we forgot some information that we planned on and thought about can we signal and provide that feedback to the user, the seller, or whatnot on the call. And so as we’re doing this, ’cause we’re in the communication space, so we have some self-interest here ’cause that’s sort of the future of our business. [00:52:12] But it’s a really interesting opportunity for us to grab these signals to improve how we’re selling with our customers, how our partners are selling with our customers, with Microsoft. It’s just an interesting way with everything that’s going on full circle, we’re trying to complete that sort of sales journey with AI and, and grab those signals and keep getting better all the time. [00:52:32] Erin Figer: Yeah, I love that. And I think it’s like the ongoing balance of people, process and technology and how do you continue to keep the human in the loop? It, as we continue to introduce and evolve AI and use of data in our companies is like continuing to be mindful about the human in the loop. Um, part of that journey. [00:52:54] So thank you all. [00:52:55] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Great conversation. [00:52:56] Erin Figer: Thanks for all the audience engagement. We appreciate it. [00:52:59] Vince Menzione: Co-selling the house, co-selling the house. [00:53:02] Audience Member: Thank you, Vince. [00:53:02] Vince Menzione: Thank you. And I remember that January, 2016. Yes.

In a world of noise and distraction, there is a trend in “Bringing Simplicity Back To Investing.” RICK FERRI and I talk about why it’s important for investments and why it’s important for individuals. You’re going to leave here understanding a new framework for looking at your investment portfolio and hopefully bring some peace of mind as you go forward. https://youtu.be/8EFnt_UTjEA Rick Ferri has been a good friend to the podcast. He shares his insights on simple investing, emphasizing the importance of clarity, discipline, and understanding the core principles of investing. He discusses the pitfalls of complexity, the value of index funds, and how to maintain a disciplined approach amidst market noise. https://open.spotify.com/episode/743dxOLLgZjUzKszZo4Owy?si=57mqK1ZmQ0a7LPdcwVoQ-g Keywords investing, index funds, simplicity, portfolio management, financial planning, discipline, asset allocation, tax efficiency, global growth, investment philosophy Key topics The philosophy of simple investingThe stages of investor learning: darkness, enlightenment, and simplicityThe importance of cash flow and intrinsic value in investmentsAsset allocation based on liabilities and time horizonTax-efficient investing strategies for taxable and retirement accountsRisks of alternative investments and private equity in retirement plansDiscipline and automation in maintaining investment strategies Chapters of “Bringing Simplicity Back to Investing” 00:00 The Philosophy of Simple Investing07:03 Stages of Investment Understanding11:19 Financial Planning and Purpose17:57 Implementing a Simple Portfolio23:01 Discipline in Investing30:46 Navigating Complexity in Wealth Management Resources Rick Ferri’s Website – https://rickferri.comBogleheads.org – https://bogleheads.orgIndex Fund Book by Rick Ferri – https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Rick+Ferri&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 Website – https://rickferri.comTwitter – https://twitter.com/RickFerri Skeptic’s Guide to Investing Outline: “Bringing Simplicity Back To Investing” Introduction: Three parts to simple investing: Philosophy, Strategy, Discipline Part 1: Philosophy: Overview: Embrace Simplicity – the Education of an Index Investor – 4 stages 1: Born in Darkness (who you ask, chasing returns, naive research) 2: Finding Enlightenment (measure, compare, enlightened) 3: Complexity Traps (slice'n dice, factors, the fallacy of perfection) 4: Embrace Simplicity (global equity, specific fixed-income as needed) Part 2: Portfolio Strategy Overview: Making the Philosophy Work for You 5: Setting Goals (family – culture, career – taxes, risk tolerance) 6: Managing Risk (three ways to allocate assets: required return, risk avoidance, cash-flow) 7: Tax Management (three account types, asset class tax, tax avoidance) 8: Investment Selection (ETF vs fund, balanced funds & TDFs) Part 3: Discipline: Overview: Implement, automate, stay the course 9: Implement fully (consolidate, tax issues, lump sum vs DCA) 10: Maintain regulatory (automate new, rollovers, TLH) 11: Adjust as goals change (accumulation vs distribution, tax situations, legacy) 12: Stay the Course (recommit occasionally, continue ed., conferences) Transcript of “Bringing Simplicity Back to Investing” Frazer Rice (00:00.962)Welcome aboard, Rick. Rick Ferri (00:02.3)Well, thank you for having me. Frazer Rice (00:04.258)Well, thank you. First of all, want to thank you for a kindness you showed me way back in time and having me on the Boggleheads podcast. It was probably worth at least 25 % of my book sales and it was a lot of fun to do and never forgot it. So it took a while, but here we are back on my podcast. And what I want to do is go through a little bit about really the three parts to simple investing, which I think is something, especially now with the proliferation of alternatives, a lot of noise with crypto. That sometimes we kind of lose sort of the forest for the trees as far as what’s the right things to be thinking about in terms of an overall investing philosophy sort of embrace. And so maybe let’s start with that. How do you think about the parts to a good investing thesis and what is your overall worldview on that? Rick Ferri (00:55.804)So I’ve been in the investment advisory industry now for 40 years. And what I have learned is that the simpler you can make investing and the simpler you can make the portfolio, the better for you, the better for your family, the better for those who will inherit your portfolio. Don’t make it complicated. Complexity is just job security for those people who are selling you things and trying to manage your money. And in the end, you don’t benefit from that. They do in the form of fees. And if you just had a simple portfolio of a few good index funds and maybe some individual securities, you’ll be much better off and your family will be better off in the long term. And that’s the philosophy of simple investing. Frazer Rice (01:50.947)Mm-hmm. Rick Ferri (01:53.208)The second part is a strategy. How do you go about doing this, particularly if you’ve had a complex portfolio? And the third thing is discipline, which is how do you stick with simplicity as an investment philosophy? Frazer Rice (02:06.318)Sure. and without the second two, it’s great to have high-minded thoughts and so on, but if you can’t do it, it’s all for naught, and then if you can’t stick with it, then the best laid plans just kind of go asunder here. So let’s go back to the philosophy for a second here, and as you think about, it’s almost like the life cycle of discovery and learning about how these things work. How do you think about that from an ARC perspective? Rick Ferri (02:12.561)Ha ha. Rick Ferri (02:36.05)So generally when you’re new to investing, you’re going to ask other people for advice. I where you get that from, might be a friend or family member, maybe a professional advisor, might be coworkers, maybe you’ll just get on the internet and start searching. I don’t know, but 99.9 % of the time you’re gonna run into advice that is not very good. And the advice will be, you should put your money here, you should put your money there. Use these 10 different funds. It’s just a lot of confusion, quite frankly. I call this stage darkness because you don’t, you you’re just investing in the dark. You don’t know. And a lot of the advice is going to be very short based upon short-term performance. So recency biased people are going to be recommending, but you know, growth stocks because the Magnificent Seven has done well in the past. Or buy crypto because crypto went up a lot in the past and so therefore you should buy it now. And so most of the advice you’ll get in darkness is going to be recent based upon recent performance and rather than looking at it over say how should you be investing over 10, 20, 30 years and that will end up being quite different. So darkness is where we all begin. And most people stay in darkness. They never get out of darkness because they don’t put the brain cells to work to look at how am I doing? I mean, how has that done for me? What seems to be happening in my portfolio? Really? Do I really know what’s going on? And then the ones who are very fortunate start asking questions about, what if I just Frazer Rice (04:06.125)You Rick Ferri (04:31.334)bought the market and bought an index fund and just got the return of say the US stock market or the international stock market and that’s all I ever did. Would I be better off? And the answer to that 98 % of the time is yes, you would be better off if that’s all that you did. And if you come to this realization, I call it the second stage, which is enlightenment, where you now realize that, okay, all the stuff I’ve been doing may have been okay. I’ve been moving in and out of things, but now I need to start looking at just buying the market and holding it for the longterm. And that’s enlightenment. But for some people, it doesn’t stop there. And they start to dig into this idea of indexing. When you start doing that, it’s good that you’re learning, but you’ll start running into a whole lot of noise. That is alternative indexes, enhanced indexes uh… explore strategies all of these things that you’re going to take this nice simple concept called indexing and make it complicated again. So you start adding all these things to your portfolio because it has the word index in it or maybe the word passive in it and uh… advisors are notorious for doing this it’s called complexity for job security Frazer Rice (05:39.148)Right. Rick Ferri (05:54.066)Basically, are, you know, you take the idea of indexing and you just add a lot of things all around the edges of it and you make a simple portfolio complicated. So the third stage of this process of simplicity is complexity. In other words, you’ve made something simple complex. Okay, so the last stage is Frazer Rice (05:54.221)You Rick Ferri (06:18.544)Simplicity. That is that you realize this is going on. You realize that all the stuff that you’re adding to your portfolio is just making it all complicated again. And that the people who are benefiting from this are not you, but the people that are selling you all this stuff. And you say, that’s it, I’m done. I’m going back to my second epiphany, if you will, which is simplicity. I’m just going to go back to a simple portfolio of a few broad index funds, US stock market index fund. An international stock market index fund that covers the whole market and a couple of bond funds, municipal bond fund and maybe corporate bond funds or treasury bond funds. And you could use index funds for those as well. And it’s a really low cost, very tax efficient and very simple. Frazer Rice (07:05.953)A couple of quick asides here. The first one is for people who are coming into this in and they’re in the darkness, but they are informed maybe from the TikTok world or Robin Hood or Kal-She or these or these betting orientations and distinguishing between betting and investing. How do you think about that and kick people over to the positive side of the force so that their emergence from the darkness into the enlightenment and simplicity doesn’t take them in a place where they really touch the stove in a bad way and have a bad experience that’s simple but bad. Rick Ferri (07:32.988)Right, okay. Rick Ferri (07:51.484)So there’s a concept called intrinsic value. You may have heard Warren Buffett speak about this. Well, you want to buy things that have cashflow. Bonds, for example, have cashflow. They pay interest. Stocks have cashflow. You have companies that are going concerns. They earn earnings and pay dividends. They buy back stock and they reinvest money. So you can value these things based upon these cashflows. Real estate has cash flow, it pays rent, or maybe you own timberland that you can cut the wood or you own a farm where you can harvest or lease it out. mean, these are cash flows. So the first thing that I have for cut in investing is cash flow. How do my investments generate cash or will generate cash later on down the road? That’s different than say buying gold or Bitcoin or currencies or commodities. Those things don’t have a way of generating a cashflow. One bar of gold put in a safe is one bar of gold a thousand years from now. It doesn’t become two bars of gold. doesn’t get little bars of gold. It doesn’t pay interest and so forth. mean, so unless you’re good at Frazer Rice (09:12.994)Right. Rick Ferri (09:16.966)Buying low and selling high, you can’t really expect to make anything other than maybe the inflation rate. And with commodities, you actually earn less than the inflation rate. Gold has earned a little bit more than the inflation rate. Where Bitcoin is going to end up, I have no idea. But the speculative assets are the ones that usually don’t have any intrinsic value. People are just betting on price because that’s all you have. I f price is going up, let’s buy it. Because the price went up. I don’t know where it’s going, but the price went up, so let’s buy it. And maybe someone dumber than us will buy it at a higher price from us, and then we can make money. But I mean, you have to trade these things. And what information do you have? None, really. It’s very difficult to come up with information that the market doesn’t already have. And you’re not a professional trader. So you might get lucky. I mean, people do get lucky. You you can flip a coin. And pick heads 10 times and if it comes up head 10 times it doesn’t mean you’re a good coin flipper you’re just lucky and so you can get lucky and you can make money doing this but it’s not a long-term investment strategy to do that it’s best to buy things that have cash flows or will have cash flows in the future. Frazer Rice (10:30.175)As I like to tell people, you not only have to be right, you have to be right twice, and then you have to be systematically right twice in order to make a living out of it. even professional traders struggle at that. And to think that you’re going to be better equipped than a lot of those folks is folly. And so I try to talk people out of that whenever I can, because I think… Rick Ferri (10:35.42)Correct. Frazer Rice (10:58.101)It’s just very difficult to play in that space and have that turn out to be a success. Okay, so we kind of have some ideas here around the philosophy and sort of the idea of, you know, sort of garnering luck versus skill and those types of components in that portfolio strategy, that second phase, maybe take us through that a little bit and how you take a good philosophy of simplicity and make it work for you. Rick Ferri (11:22.18)Right. So this gets into a little financial planning at the beginning of it because you can’t invest without a purpose. I you have to have a reason why you’re investing. It might be to pay future liabilities such as college for your children or retirement, or maybe you want to leave a legacy or maybe just trying to build wealth for the family, whatever it is. I mean, you have to have a purpose. And so what is the purpose? What are you trying to do? And you have to look at your life and you have to say, are my liabilities? What are my short-term liabilities? Do I want to buy a house? Or do I want to send my kids to Ivy League school? Do I want to retire early? And what are my liabilities? And sometimes it involves other family members. Maybe you have parents who need your help or siblings who need your help. So that’s a liability. The first thing you have to do is look at what are my liabilities? And included in that is how much you want to leave to your children. I often ask people, okay, you’ve got $10 million. How much do you want to leave to each of your three children? And they don’t have any idea. I said, do you want to leave more than 10 million or you want to leave less than 10 million? And a lot of people would say, well, they’ll get what’s left. Well, that changes the whole concept of investing if they’ll get what’s left. Frazer Rice (12:43.318)Sure. Rick Ferri (12:43.634)Versus, yes, I want to leave each of my child five million dollars when I die and I’m starting with ten. Okay, well that changes how you invest your money. So these are the liabilities. So that’s where you start with. And then you start looking at well, what are the short-term liabilities and what are the long-term liabilities? And long-term liabilities can be funded with equity. Meaning things that are ten years or longer out. I usually I tell people anything you’re to be spending your money on between say, Now and 10 years from now probably shouldn’t be in equity. You’ll be getting dividends and interest from your portfolio, which is fine. You could just spend that money. But in addition to that, I big chunks of money that you might be spending to buy a vacation home or whatever it is really should probably not be in equity. But the money that’s going to be not used for 10 years or longer, 20 years or maybe ever in your life, that can be in equity. don’t differentiate that first. A lot of times asset allocation, that’s what we’re talking about, starts with, well, what do you want between stocks and bonds? What do you want your portfolio to look like? What percentage in stocks and what percentage in bonds? I don’t think you really get to that number until you know when you’re going to be needing the money. If you’re going to be needing the money 10 years out, fine, that money can be in stock. So that would allocate a portion of that long-term money to stock and that might be a percentage. Okay, so that’s what we start with. A real basic look at who you are and what do you need and when are you going to need it and what are you trying to do for your heirs. And then that leads to an asset allocation between stocks and fixed income. The stocks again, I’m not investing in any stock money in liabilities that I have in the next say 10 years. So it’s long term. Okay. Now we have to look at the stock side. That’s the easy stocks. Stock investing is easy. I quite quite frankly, I’m working on a book right now about this, but stock investing is very simple. It’s much easier than fixed income and bond investing. Stock investing is simply we buy the global equity market. We’re just trying to buy the growth of global economic growth, global GDP growth. We’re trying to capture that, which has been going on. Rick Ferri (15:08.594)Fairly steady for about the last 250 years and continues to be that way as more and more countries shift more towards capitalism and away from fascism and communism and so forth and realizing that capitalism is the way if you want to take care of your people and you want to increase standards of living all around the world, it’s done through capitalism. much a fact of life. Capitalism works. Well, I’m well. Frazer Rice (15:31.185)I think many can agree with that, although it might not be popular here in New York. Rick Ferri (15:37.425)The reason New York existed was because it was a port for capitalism at first. So I mean, is the financial capital of the US still is New York. So you could disagree with it because you live in New York, but you’d be in a minority and you’d be outside of reality and history as well. But the idea is that it’s all I’m trying to capture this global growth of… Frazer Rice (15:41.686)That’s right. Frazer Rice (15:55.648)Exactly. Rick Ferri (16:03.026)Global economic growth, which is about 2 % per year in real terms. So if I get from equity, if I get the inflation rate and I get 2 % real growth and then I get about a 3 % dividend yield and that comes from both cash dividends and then buybacks, we’re looking at about a 7.5 % expected return from global equity. And that’s good enough. I mean, that’s all I need on my equity side. I’ll be outperforming inflation by about 5%. I’ll have to pay some taxes, but I’ll still have an actual real after-tax return of about 3%, which is good. Okay. The rest of it then goes into fixed income. And what type of fixed income? Well, that depends on what type of account that you have and what your taxes are. So if it’s in a taxable account, it could be municipal bond income, because it’s probably your best bet if you’re in anything other than a 22 % tax bracket. Or if it’s in your retirement account, could be corporate bonds. And depending what state you live in, it could be treasury bonds. But you don’t expect the treasuries or the corporate bonds or the municipal bonds really to give you much of a return over taxes and inflation. If you could pick up 1 % over taxes and inflation over 20 years or so by being in fixed income, I mean, you’re actually doing well. So that is more of a stabilizer, meaning you don’t want to be all in stock because you can’t handle the volatility of the stock market. It goes up and down too much, even though the asset allocation would say, well, you should have an awful lot of your money in stock because you have a lot of money that you’re not going to be needing in the next 10 years. But a lot of people can’t handle having a lot of money in stock. So you have fixed income that at least keeps up with taxes and inflation over the long term. And that becomes part of your asset allocation as well. So it’s kind of how you This is what you do first before you go out and pick any index funds. You have to go through this process. Frazer Rice (18:00.116)And then as part of that, I spend a lot of time basically all day, every day thinking about the tax management side of things and helping people understand their appetite for volatility and how that impacts their long-term goals and things like that. The creation of these buckets to understand where you are in your tax situation and where you’re going to be, that can have a pretty significant impact on how things do. And from your perspective, I that’s really just, that’s a function of projecting out the purposes that you described before with your current situation and then the vehicles with which to invest in. Rick Ferri (18:38.226)Right. And you’re not trying to hit the ball over the fence here. I mean, you’re just trying to get your fair share of the returns that are available to everybody. And through index funds, and this is where index funds come in, you can get exactly that. I mean, you could buy a global equity index fund, a global equity, covers the entire globe for a few basis points, 0.05 % per year fee. It’s very tax efficient. And that wasn’t the case. 30 years ago, 40 years ago, but it is now. that’s the way you should do this. You don’t want to leave out all these ideas that you’re going to go out and hire people who are going to outperform that because they don’t. A vast majority of them don’t. Frazer Rice (19:21.963)And so the machinery to implement these portfolios, ETFs are sort of standard tax-efficient ways to do things. Mutual funds distribute gains at the end, which is sometimes a nasty surprise for people who are learning about this. Maybe take us through your analysis on how to implement this index investing in a way that stays simple and tax-efficient and at the same time helps you take advantage of what’s out there. Rick Ferri (19:52.883)So we have to divide up the world between your taxable money. Again, you already have a portfolio. So you have all these legacy assets in a portfolio, in your taxable portfolio. Then you have your retirement portfolio, 401k, 403b, 457 IRA, rollover, Roth IRAs, tax-free portfolio. So you have to look at taxes first. To implement a…simple portfolio say in a 401k if you have access to a target date index retirement fund like a Vanguard or an iShare or a State Street very low cost Fidelity has one too but very low cost index target date retirement fund this does it all for you you don’t have to do anything you just have to buy one fund based upon what the asset allocation is underneath the hood of that particular fund. How much in stock, how much in bond. That’s all you need to do in a 401k. You could roll your own in a 401k by buying individual index funds like a US stock market index fund, an international index fund, and say a bond index fund. So you could do your own allocation if you wish. But a target date fund works really well there. In a Roth account, you probably just want to have equity because there’s no tax in a Roth account. So you want to get maximum growth out of that account. So I would you look at the Roth account and I’d say, well, I’ll just buy the global equity index fund and my Roth account. And that’s it. All I have. So you’ve got your retirement accounts, which are target date fund. Very simple. You’ve got your Roth accounts, which are just a global equity index fund. And the only thing you need to worry about is your taxable account. Taxable accounts always have issues because people will come in and they will have this list of stuff that they already own and guess what there’s a lot of embedded long-term capital gains in there and if you just sell it and go to a index portfolio you may not be doing the clients a good service because they’ll pay a tremendous amount of taxes and if they’re over 65 they’ll have to pay more for medicare ermor they’re going to lose their over 65 deduct i mean lots of bad things happen when you just sell out of a taxable account Rick Ferri (22:04.722)So there you’re going to be a little bit more tactical. know, you’re going to wait. The market will give us some opportunities to trade out of some stocks or some investments that may have losses. So you can then take those losses. You could sell other things to that have some gains to offset the losses. And I mean, you may never get out of everything that you’ve got in a taxable account. But the idea is to have this portfolio out there of say, a US total stock market index fund and a municipal bond fund. That you want to move towards. So as you’re selling these things off, you’re just putting the money in a US total stock market fund. And the reason I say US total stock market in a taxable account is because they’re so tax efficient. The dividend yield is down about 1.2%. They don’t distribute capital gains in an ETF. And that’s a great fund for a taxable portfolio. But you just can’t sell everything and buy it. You’ve got to crawl your way out of what you currently have. Frazer Rice (23:05.715)No, you have to do it thoughtfully or else you create hits that are unnecessary. So as we segue to the discipline portion here, one thing that’s popping up is the, I think the discipline to stay simple. The world out there, the US in particular, is making retirement accounts safe for alternative investments like private credit and private equity. Rick Ferri (23:10.256)Right. Frazer Rice (23:31.211)I just bristle and shudder because I think there’s a level of complexity and illiquidity that is misunderstood and it is going to be difficult, nay impossible, to properly educate people on where those things sit in the asset spectrum to the point where they justify their fees or anything like that. Maybe take us through what you think on that as we get to the discipline portion of how you sort of stay the course with this mindset. Rick Ferri (24:00.924)Well 401ks are allowing these private equity investments and private debt investments in, but I personally have not seen any of my clients and I have a lot of clients and I charge an hourly fee. So I’m not trying to sell anything or manage anybody’s money, but nobody’s asking for these things. where, where are they getting the idea that they should own them? Well, they’re getting from the people that were selling them, right? The people who are making fees from them. I haven’t seen any useful data that says that these things actually enhance your return. Alpha goes to the manager. I say that over and over again. If these things actually produced a higher rate of return than say just a corporate bond index fund, you’re not going to get it. It’s going to go to the advisor, it’s going to go to the manager, and all you’re going to do is take the risk. You’re going to take the risk and they’re going to get the excess return in the long term through fees. They don’t make any sense. You don’t do it. It’s just the rehash of active management and mutual funds, which has already been dismissed as not producing anything for you, the investor. It only generates fees for the people in the investment industry. This is just another iteration of that and we’ve already seen some cracks. Isn’t that what Jamie Dimon said? What are they cockroaches? I think is the word that he used in the private equity market. And yeah, I mean, this is not new. This is just a repackaging of ideas just that now they’ve been allowed to go into the 401k market. But you have to ask yourself why haven’t they been allowed to go into the 401k market for the last 40 years if they’ve been so great? It’s because the SEC Frazer Rice (25:31.978)Right. Rick Ferri (25:58.703)The Department of Labor said, no, we’re not going to allow these things in there. you give people enough rope to hang themselves. They’re not going to hang themselves, by the way. Somebody else is going to put the noose around their neck. And that’s the advisors who are doing that. Frazer Rice (25:59.499)Department of Labor and right. Frazer Rice (26:19.066)And I mean, a different podcast probably, but it’s something where the liability really is going to shift to the planned sponsors. I don’t care what happens and you know, they’re going to present these things and something’s going to blow up. And it’s like, know, you may you gave me the option and they’ve already those lawsuits already already proliferate. OK, so back to discipline a little bit here. What should people be doing in order to make sure they can carry carry out the. Rick Ferri (26:39.367)Yeah. Frazer Rice (26:47.147)What they’re doing in a systematic way and keep themselves safe from being distracted by all this noise. Rick Ferri (26:52.86)So again, that’s why we start out with the philosophy. You have to believe in the philosophy of simplicity and simple indexing. You can’t just jump to it because some TikTok video said buy index funds, okay? If you’re just jumping to it that way, then you’re not gonna have the discipline to stick with it because it’s just another phase or fad or whatever in your mind. You don’t really truly understand. Frazer Rice (27:14.346)Mm-hmm. Rick Ferri (27:22.32)Why you’re doing it this way. So it gets back to the philosophy. Really got to understand the philosophy and why this works better than 98 % of everything else out there over your lifetime. And then you create the strategy for yourself and now you’re working towards completing that. Again, in the retirement account it’s done quickly, but in your taxable account it could take a while. The discipline is while you’re getting your portfolio in line, the first thing you need to do from a discipline standpoint is actually do it. Actually go to your 401k and change what you’re investing in. Because so many people will do the strategy, but it never gets actually implemented. Or maybe it gets 50 % implemented. It never gets old. It doesn’t, I don’t want to say never, because I have a lot of clients who do fully implement it, but I also have clients that I’ve given them the plan and three years later or five years later they come back and they haven’t done anything. Okay. And so I say, you need to implement the plan. Nothing has changed. So you got to, the plan first off has to be implemented fully. And then once it gets implemented fully, it’s a lot easier to maintain it. But if it never gets implemented fully, then of course you can’t maintain it. So implementation of the plan fully is the first discipline, the first part of discipline. And then once that’s done, maintaining it. In other words, not being drawn off course. Yeah, it’s fine to say, the price of oil is gonna shoot through the roof because what’s going on in the Middle East, so I’m gonna buy an energy index fund. That sounds like something I should do. No, it’s something you could think about. Something might be interesting, but it’s not something you should do. So discipline transcends the urge to do things. In other words, like John Bogle said, don’t just do something, stand there. And that takes more going back and remembering why you have this philosophy, going back and looking at the data. Rick Ferri (29:46.151)going to the right place to find information. And I’ll mention the bogeyheads.org website to go back and remind yourself why you’re doing this. If you’re gonna stick with it and these things help you stick with it. The more you automate things too, the better it is. Like we’re in a 401k just automatically invest in the target date fund and don’t do anything else. So automation helps you as well. Frazer Rice (30:05.736)Hey, hey. Frazer Rice (30:14.109)No question, if you can take these things out of your own hands in many ways and delegate it out and it happens automatically, just a chance of success on that front. And then if life intervenes and things need to be adjusted, you deal with it at that point and not have CNBC or the world news whipsaw your viewpoint on these different things. So as we wind down here, just talk a little bit about the service that you provide, sort of these larger family office clients, because I think in a lot of times they gravitate toward complexity, they gravitate toward FOMO investing and how you help to center that back to this worldview so that they get where they’re going at scale at sort of that ultra high net worth world and remind them of you how they got there and how to not be how to not leave by by getting cast aside into these different whirlpools that are out there Rick Ferri (31:13.778)That’s a great question. So you got to pick your advisors well. So some of my clients have a net worth over a billion dollars. I have several clients that have several hundreds of millions of dollars and believe me, They have simple portfolios, total stock market, total international municipal bonds. It’s all they have. And it may seem strange, but they don’t have these limited partnerships that you can’t get out of or syndicated deals that may sound good. I say to them, you don’t have enough money to own those, meaning that if you’ve only got $100 million, you’re just chump change to the Goldman Sachs of the world or the Morgan Stanley’s. When it comes to who’s going to get the good deal on a the next private equity deal or venture capital fund. You’re the person they sell the leftovers to. I know it’s hard to people to accept this. They think they have a lot of money if they have a hundred million. But the fact is they don’t. I mean, if you’re not sitting on five, ten billion dollars, you’re not going to get preferential treatment. You’re going to get you might get lucky. Just like everything else, the coin flip idea, but most of the time you’re not going to end up coming out ahead. That’s not the way they make you feel when they sell you these things. They make you, even if you had a million dollars and your Wells Fargo broker is trying to sell you some limited partnership, they’re going to make it feel like you’re very special and that this is a very special deal that is just for you. Frazer Rice (32:46.505)You Rick Ferri (32:50.322)And that’s how it’s going to be sold to you. But in the end, when you look at your performance and you say, I want to get out of this thing and you can’t, you realize at that point that maybe you shouldn’t have done it to begin with. And I’ve had experience going back 30 years working with some of the very largest families in the country, some magnificent seven IPO families, and they all want to get back to simplicity. They want to get rid of all of the stuff that they had gotten. And it’s true. And it’s better for estate planning as well because you need to transfer these things eventually to somebody else’s name. Frazer Rice (33:35.785)you’ve triggered me. I’m dealing with this on multiple levels, on multiple different things, and I’ve had to be trustee on some of the complexity and sort of sit Indian style and try to own your way through it. It’s brutal. So. Rick Ferri (33:53.81)Wouldn’t it be so much nicer just to have, let’s say, a single total stock market ETF to have to deal with rather than all that other stuff? Frazer Rice (34:01.807)No question. OK, so as we wind down here, how do listeners and watchers find you? Rick Ferri (34:09.478)Well, they can find me at Rickferri.com. I’m not currently and I won’t be taking on any new clients. I’m sorry for that, but I have a set clientele and that’s all that I am working with and I won’t be expanding my clientele. But there are other people that do this that believe in what I do. And you can go to Rickferry.com and you could find their names there. But me personally, you can find me on Rickferry.com. I’ve written several books about this. I’m writing another one. And but I apologize that I’m not off the market as far as hiring me personally. Frazer Rice (34:45.645)I love it. But at the same time, your books and your other ways that get out there, they are on RickFerri.com. So we’ll have that in the show notes. In the meantime, Rick, thanks for being on. Rick Ferri (34:52.07)Yes, exactly. Thank you. https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

A Christian devotional on Colossians 4:1, calling leaders to treat others with justice, fairness, and accountability before God.

This post was cross posted to LessWrong TL;DR: One of the largest talent gaps in AI safety is competent generalists: program managers, fieldbuilders, operators, org leaders, chiefs of staff, founders. Ambitious, competent junior people could develop the skills to fill these roles, but there are no good pathways for them to gain skills, experience, and credentials. Instead, they're incentivized to pursue legible technical and policy fellowships and then become full-time researchers, even if that's not a good fit for their skills. The ecosystem needs to make generalist careers more legible and accessible. Kairos and Constellation are announcing the Generator Residency as a first step. Apply here by April 27. Epistemic status: Fairly confident, based on 2 years running AI safety talent programs, direct hiring experience, and conversations with ~30 senior org leaders across the ecosystem in the past 6 months.The problem Over the past few years, AI safety has moved from niche concern toward a more mainstream issue, driven by pieces like Situational Awareness, AI 2027, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, and the rapidly increasing capabilities of the models themselves.During this period, over 20 research fellowships have launched, collectively training thousands of fellows, with 2,000-2,500 fellows [...] ---Outline:(01:18) The problem(03:41) Why the pipeline is broken(05:59) Why this matters now(07:31) Counter-Arguments(10:11) The Generator Residency --- First published: April 13th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/k3nq7FxBCsrNFmAYi/ai-safety-s-biggest-talent-gap-isn-t-researchers-it-s-2 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Message from Guest Speaker on April 9, 2026

Welcome to the AoH Operator Series! We're excited to peel back the layers on the smartest minds in short term rentals / vacation rentals who are in the weeds leading teams, building businesses and driving amazing results. We're thrilled to welcome CJ Johnson, Regional Director at Fairly to talk all things about Fairly! We learn how many properties they have (hint: it's already over 1,000 in just over 12~ months), where they are seeing growth, what makes their model unique vs Vacasa/other PMs, how "everyone can win" and a LOT more. Enjoy!⭐️ Links & Show NotesAdam NorkoConrad O'Connell CJ JohnsonFairly

Bob Casper joined DJ & PK live from Augusta National to preview The Masters. 

⚖️ How to Divide Assets Fairly Without a Lawyer | Los Angeles Divorce Dividing assets in a Los Angeles divorce doesn't automatically require hiring a lawyer—especially when both spouses agree and want a fair outcome. California follows community property rules, which generally require equal division of marital assets and debts. But fairness starts with full financial disclosure and accurate documentation. You can't divide what hasn't been properly identified. This video explains how couples can divide assets cooperatively, what community property means, and why clear paperwork prevents future disputes.

Eric Zorn, Publisher of The Picayune Sentinel, joins John Williams to talk about his list of 7 proposed rule changes for basketball, the local media coverage of the murder of Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman, and his thoughts on the DUI arrest of Tiger Woods.

Eric Zorn, Publisher of The Picayune Sentinel, joins John Williams to talk about his list of 7 proposed rule changes for basketball, the local media coverage of the murder of Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman, and his thoughts on the DUI arrest of Tiger Woods.

Eric Zorn, Publisher of The Picayune Sentinel, joins John Williams to talk about his list of 7 proposed rule changes for basketball, the local media coverage of the murder of Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman, and his thoughts on the DUI arrest of Tiger Woods.

Send us Fan MailDr. Robin Steinhorn, Professor and Vice Dean for Children's Clinical Services at UC San Diego and President of Children's Specialists of San Diego, tackles one of neonatology's most uncomfortable conversations: compensation. She breaks down how to identify reliable benchmark data, explains why neonatologists are generating more RVUs than ever while pay has not kept pace with workload complexity, addresses gender discrepancy trends in the literature, and offers practical strategies for individuals and division chiefs to use rigorous national data when advocating for fair compensation at the institutional level.Support the showAs always, feel free to send us questions, comments, or suggestions to our email: nicupodcast@gmail.com. You can also contact the show through Instagram or Twitter, @nicupodcast. Or contact Ben and Daphna directly via their Twitter profiles: @drnicu and @doctordaphnamd. The papers discussed in today's episode are listed and timestamped on the webpage linked below.Enjoy!

Escape rooms let your family cooperate in new and interesting ways. But do you prefer a physical, in-person escape room, a video game, or a board game experience? 0:00:00 Fact for 418 HTTP code 418: “I’m a teapot” Sponsor Message If you want help planning for your kid’s college education, set up a time for a free 15-minute call by going to firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers. 0:05:00 What We’ve Been Playing Embers (our review)Lands of AmazementAspensVerdant Arizona 0:12:50 The Family Gamers Community We’re so happy to welcome new members! You can join the community on Facebook too. 0:13:30 #Backtalk You shared your purging regrets on Facebook and the #backtalk channel of the Discord. 0:19:25 Escape Rooms Physical escape rooms – we’ve done a few. Very cool but can feel high pressure. They’re great to do in a group, letting everybody work on different things. Doing it as a family is expensive! Video games are a much cheaper way to capture this style really well: Portal, The Room, Escape Academy Board Game “Escape Rooms” These range in size and playtime. Some are more puzzley, some are more narrative-driven. But any of them can be a great family experience. And we have reviewed a bunch of them – we’ll talk about six series here: EXIT series – Fairly immersive, with a plot and setting that hangs together. Everything you need is in the box. Wide variety of puzzles to write on, manipulate, cut, etc. But comes with a downside – that wide variety means you almost always run into a puzzle in the game that is not figure-out-able (for us). They come in a huge range of difficulty, including several that are appropriate to do with younger kids who are just barely reading. Unlike the other games in this list, we think they’re best with more than 2 players. There are also EXIT Kids games now! (Check out the EXIT games we’ve reviewed.) Unlock series – These require an app. Other than the app, completely card-based and re-settable to pass on to a friend to try. These also have a juvenile line now – Unlock Kids. Our experience has been really uneven. Some really great (Wizard of Oz, Star Wars). Others are just really weird, with puzzles don’t make sense. We generally recommend these, but use caution. Holiday Hijinks – probably our favorite compact escape-room type game. Packs a ton of puzzles into 18 cards and a web app. Full of puns, trivia, and holiday cultural references. Still best for very small groups, since there’s such a small space to work in. Family friendly, although younger kids will probably be frustrated that they don’t have the trivia knowledge to contribute unless they’re very knowledgeable about the holiday. (Check out our reviews and interviews about Holiday Hijinks.) Deckscape – feels like a “choose your own adventure” narrative. Mostly a deck of cards, but with a few accessories that made it more immersive. Puzzles could not be attempted more than once, which made the choices feel high-stakes. Best with 2-3 players, because you’re only looking at a few cards at a time – unless you’re willing to take your time and pass them around the table. (We reviewed Deckscape: The Mystery of El Dorado.) Backstories – not really an escape room, more of a narrative adventure. Work through decisions one at a time as a group. But not only re-settable, it’s replayable, with branching paths and different endings depending on the decisions made! Not exactly family-friendly. Lots of violence and some death. (Check out our Backstories reviews.) Star Trek: Cryptic – as Trek fans we really loved this one. Work through three different “chapters” in a Starfleet officer’s life, with very thematic puzzles. Pretty much re-settable, but you’ll get great value out of this one even if you only play it once – it takes 3-4 hours to do the whole thing, split into several sessions. Coded Chronicles (we reviewed Scooby Doo & The Goonies games) – also very narrative driven. But spreads out the responsibility to progress the narrative to all the players! There are multiple books to read in different character “voices”, even though the team is making decisions together. Also re-settable. Very family-friendly, even for kids who are unfamiliar with Scooby Doo or The Goonies. 0:42:00 New Backtalk Question Have you ever done an in-person escape room? If so, what did you think of it? If not, why not – cost, family-friendliness, or something else? Tell us on the #backtalk channel on our Discord, or in our Facebook community. Find Us Online: Facebook: @familygamersaa and thefamilygamers.com/communityTwitter (X): @familygamersaaInstagram: @familygamersaaTikTok: @familygamersaaBluesky: @familygamersaaThreads: @familygamersaaYoutube: TheFamilyGamers or join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord! thefamilygamers.com/discord Or, for the most direct method, email us! andrew@thefamilygamers.com and anitra@thefamilygamers.com. PLEASE don’t forget to subscribe to the show, tell your friends about the show, and leave us a review at Apple Podcast or whatever your podcast subscription source is. We’re also on Amazon Music, TuneIn, and Spotify. You can also now find us on YouTube Music! So pull it up and give us a listen while you’re toiling away at work :) Music for The Family Gamers Podcast is provided with permission from You Bred Raptors? The Family Gamers is sponsored by First Move Financial. Go to FirstMoveFinancial.com/familygamers to learn how the team at First Move Financial can help you pile up the victory points. The post Episode 418 – Escape Rooms appeared first on The Family Gamers.

Hour 1 of Jake & Ben on March 16, 2026 How do we feel about the seeds for BYU & Utah State in the NCAA Tournament?  Top 3 Stories of the Day: Cody Williams Career Night last night, Utah Mammoth suffer 4th loss in a row, NCAA Brackets Revealed.  The Aggies won the Mountain West Championship on Saturday, and our guy Scotty G had an amazing call. 

Nuestra locutora Andrea Ojeda, estuvo conversando en #ZEGeek con Fairly Gab, quien nos contó que está súper emocionada porque ya está por comenzar su nuevo tour donde compartirá un montón de dinámicas muy divertidas relacionadas con el mundo de los videojuegos y que estará recorriendo ciudades de toda Venezuela, como por ejemplo: Maracaibo. Además, todos los participantes podrán interactuar con distintos creadores de contenido y disfrutar en cada una de las regiones del país.Lo

Failed diplomacy in the lead-up to the conflict; rationales for military action; windows of opportunity and the road to war; the prospects for regime change in Iran; the track record of strategic bombing campaigns; the economics of missile interceptors; what all this means for China and Russia; and Marcus wants to get some figures on the tableThe opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.Please subscribe to Cheap Talk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice to be notified when new episodes are posted.See all Cheap Talk episodes

This week's episode is all about challenging ourselves to open our minds to growing and developing as a professional.  Yes, "PD" can be time-consuming and terrible, but it doesn't have to be!  Start advocating and getting involved!  Be a part of the solution and not the problem.  Professional development provided by your school or other organizations should supplement your own efforts to grow as both a content specialist and classroom manager.  Explore topics and become an active learner yourself.  Engage in your craft so you can better lead students and your process.    

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

0:00 Intro2:00 Elimination Chamber Thoughts17:29 RAW thoughts including the opening of the show & CM Punk & Roman Reigns promo battle #242:02 Cody Rhodes vs Drew McIntyre this Friday on SmackDown and what WrestleMania now looks like for the SD brand1:04:25 Penta winning the IC title and getting closer to Dom Mysterio vs Finn Balor1:08:38 Jade Cargill and Rhea Ripley go at it on social media1:24:21 The podcast engagement on TIkTok this past weekend1:27:56 Fairly critiquing wrestling1:32:49 Lash Legend and Nia Jax winning the tag team titles1:35:08 Demolition being inducted into the WWE HOF and “1st ballot” Hall of Famer's+ MUCH MORE!Watch exclusive episodes and segments from the TFW Podcast:

In today's Tech3 from Moneycontrol, industry veterans NR Narayana Murthy and Aditya Puri in a rare interview say fears of AI-led job losses may be overstated as adoption takes time. The government warns social media platforms to ensure fair revenue sharing with creators or face legal action. Apple Pay's reported India entry plans trigger a fintech stock reaction, and the government holds firm on the new three-hour content takedown rule for online platforms.

Over half of Irish workers feel that their pay does not fairly reflect the skills and effort that they bring to their role, according to a new survey published by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).Owen Reidy, general secretary of ICTU, and Neil McDonnell, chief executive of ISME, join The Last Word to discuss the level of job quality in the Irish employment environment.Catch the full chat by pressing the 'Play' button on this page!

More than half of workers in Ireland believe that their pay does not match their skills and effort. That's according to new polling published today by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, whose Secretary General Owen Reidy spoke to Anton.

HOLLIE ANTHWAX / THE FAIRLY REGULAR TECHNOID-ISH SHOW #34 ON TOXIC SICKNESS / FEBRUARY / 2026 by TOXIC SICKNESS OFFICIAL

Firing employees is one of the worst parts of owning a home service business — and the bigger you get, the more often it happens.In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson is joined by Jack Carr (Jack Acquisitions / TriR) to break down a practical framework for terminations that's fair to the employee and protects the team.They walk through how to diagnose whether performance problems are caused by the employee or your systems, how to use clear expectations + coaching + PIPs to create a clean decision path, and why keeping a toxic “top performer” can quietly cost you your best people.What you'll learn:The first question to ask before any termination: “How did we get here?”GWC: Do they Get it, Want it, and have the Capacity to do it?How to run a Performance Improvement Plan that's real (not vibes)When to make a fast decision vs. when to coach longerWhy the “people who got you to $1M” usually aren't the people who get you to $10MThe hidden cost of avoiding the hard conversation: culture + trust + retentionIf you're struggling with when to coach, when to cut, and how to do it without guilt — this episode is the playbook.

In this episode the team take on one of the most subjective debates in football deciding whether every member of the current Chelsea squad is overrated, underrated, or fairly rated.We're not judging potential. We're not reacting to one good or bad game. And we're definitely not doing hot takes for the sake of it. This is about perception versus performance, how each player is viewed compared to what they're actually delivering right now.The team also talk the latest from this week's news and as always also answer some listener questions.RUNNING ORDER:00:00 The Start & Shevva's Shoutouts9:14 News: Nicolas Jackson Will Return18:00 Underrated, Overrated or Fairly Rated1:09:24 Burnley Preview1:14:48 Quaresma's QuestionsIf you have a question for the team then contact them on Twitter at @AtTheBridgePod(This episode was recorded on 19th February 2026)*** Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/b3arBztQjnThis episode is proudly supported by Head In The Game, a charity using football to support mental health and wellbeing. Check out their free programs at headinthegame.co.uk and follow them on social media to learn more._______________________________________________Get In Touch With Us:Twitter - twitter.com/AtTheBridgePodInstagram - Instagram.com/AtTheBridgePod#CFC #CHELSEA

In hour 3, Mark is joined by Tanner Nau, a Fellow at The Free Press. He discusses his latest article which is headlined, "How the FBI is Searching for Nancy Guthrie." Mark is later joined by Tim Sommer, a Music Journalist, Former Record Executive and a Contributor to The Rock and Roll Globe. They share their reactions to Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show, some trending new music from Charli XCX, The Beach Boys and more. They wrap up the show with the Audio Cut of the Day.

When we first welcomed Chris and Karla Hines to The Redeemed Man two years ago, Chris, a former pastor and businessman, had just founded the Marriage in Focus ministry in Auburn, Alabama. Since then, Marriage in Focus has grown by leaps and bounds, Karla has joined the ministry full time—and they've celebrated 30 years of marriage. Chris and Karla talk with Nate Dewberry this week about what they've learned from guiding dozens of marriage retreats and what they share with those couples about communicating openly, “fighting fairly,” encouraging vulnerability—and keeping God at the center of it all.Segments/chapters0:00 Intro/A little bit of Chris and Karla's backstory4:19 The mission of Marriage in Focus and recent developments in the ministry11:08 What MIF's premarital counseling entails18:34 How their counseling work has helped Chris and Karla's marriage grow24:55 Tips on “fighting fairly” and communicating well31:09 How men can better articulate their true emotions in times of conflict39:53 How women can encourage their husbands to be honest and vulnerable48:22 Every couple's situation is different—but God's love is universal53:53 Finding hope on the other side of infidelity and betrayalVisit The Redeemed's website for downloadable discussion question sets, show notes, inspirational articles, more resources, or to share your testimony.Join our Exclusive Newsletter: Signup today and be the first to get notified on upcoming podcasts and new resources!The Redeemed is an organization giving men from all backgrounds a supportive, judgment-free environment, grounded in Christian love without demanding participation in any faith tradition, where they can open up about their challenges, worries, and failures—and celebrate their triumphs over those struggles. Have a redemption story? Share your redemption story here. Interested in being a guest on our podcast? Email Nate@theredeemed.com Follow The Redeemed on Social Media: Podcast YouTube Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Twitter

Here's my latest forecast for Monday. A Bit Less Cold This Week

It's been a full week since Savannah Guthrie's mom has been missing, and the latest update comes from President Trump himself, who told reporters on Air Force One that law enforcement is close to having some answers. We've also learned that another ransom note has been sent to the local Tucson affiliate, the FBI has returned to search Nancy Guthrie's home and there may be a vehicle of interest. While the investigation continues, Amy and T.J. also discuss the incredible, heartwarming response of the NBC family, and the impact of seeing Hoda Kotb return the set of "Today" to support Savannah. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a full week since Savannah Guthrie's mom has been missing, and the latest update comes from President Trump himself, who told reporters on Air Force One that law enforcement is close to having some answers. We've also learned that another ransom note has been sent to the local Tucson affiliate, the FBI has returned to search Nancy Guthrie's home and there may be a vehicle of interest. While the investigation continues, Amy and T.J. also discuss the incredible, heartwarming response of the NBC family, and the impact of seeing Hoda Kotb return the set of "Today" to support Savannah. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a full week since Savannah Guthrie's mom has been missing, and the latest update comes from President Trump himself, who told reporters on Air Force One that law enforcement is close to having some answers. We've also learned that another ransom note has been sent to the local Tucson affiliate, the FBI has returned to search Nancy Guthrie's home and there may be a vehicle of interest. While the investigation continues, Amy and T.J. also discuss the incredible, heartwarming response of the NBC family, and the impact of seeing Hoda Kotb return the set of "Today" to support Savannah. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a full week since Savannah Guthrie's mom has been missing, and the latest update comes from President Trump himself, who told reporters on Air Force One that law enforcement is close to having some answers. We've also learned that another ransom note has been sent to the local Tucson affiliate, the FBI has returned to search Nancy Guthrie's home and there may be a vehicle of interest. While the investigation continues, Amy and T.J. also discuss the incredible, heartwarming response of the NBC family, and the impact of seeing Hoda Kotb return the set of "Today" to support Savannah. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Message from Guest Speaker on February 5, 2026

0:00 - Some texters accused us of making excuses for the Avs! We never faily criticize the players or the coaches. We're too soft. Is that the case? Are we not being hard enough on the Avs who are clearly sputtering right now? Or are they elsewhere mentally and in desperate need of the Olympic break?11:15 - Nuggets are in Detriot taking on the Pistons. What are the Keys to a Nugs victory?Which winter sports are we keeping? Which ones are we getting rid of? It's time for our time-honored Olympics tradition where Moser evaluates every sport one at a time. 33:32 - Vic is live at Radio Row for the Super Bowl Media Week, and he ended up sharing a table with some dude from Wichita. Does he have anything good to say? Let's put him on the mic. Why not?

The Head of Instagram answers questions like "why can't Creators make money off Reels forever?" and "does boosting dampen your reach over time encouraging you to post more?" He also explains how to see who viewed your Story after 24 hours using the Stories Archive, and  takes on feature suggestions like "why not 2x for Stories?" Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From Trump's proposed 20-Point Peace Plan, to Israel's resistance to his invitation for Turkey and Qatar to join a Gaza “Board of Peace,” to his pledge to free the Iranian people from a tyrannical regime, Trump, Israel, and Iran have dominated the global news cycle. In this episode of the Blessors of Israel Podcast, Dr. Matthew Dodd and Pastor Rich Jones unpack these volatile developments and offer a biblical lens for understanding how current events may be setting the stage for the rise of the Antichrist.Visit the Blessors of Israel Website: https://www.blessors.org/ Thank you for supporting Blessors of Israel. Donate Online: https://blessors.org/donate/Please Subscribe and Like our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUfbl_rf8O_uwKrfzCh04jgSubscribe to our ⁠Spotify Channel⁠: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blessorsofisrael Subscribe to our Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blessors-of-israedl/id1699662615Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlessorsofIsrael/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlessorsIGettr: https://gettr.com/i/blessorsofisrael Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-1670015Thank you for watching. Please like and share this video.We would love to hear your comments.Those who bless Israel will be blessed (Genesis 12:3).Pastor Rich JonesPastor Matthew DoddDr. Matthew DoddRich Jones Blessors of IsraelMatthew Dodd Blessors of IsraelBlessors of IsraelBlessers of IsraelTags:Pastor Rich JonesPastor Matthew DoddRich JonesDr. Matthew DoddRich Jones, Blessors of Israel, Rich Jones, Blessers of Israel, Matthew Dodd, Blessors of Israel, Matthew Dodd, Blessers of Israel, Blessers of Israel, Blessors of Israel, Two-State Solution, Palestine, Modern Palestinian Problem, Israel, Jesus Christ, Anti-Semitism, Prophecy Update, End Times Prophecy, Latter Days, Bible Prophecy, The Great Tribulation, Hamas, Gaza Strip, Terrorism, Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, Persia, Gog and Magog, BRICS, China, CCP, Persia, Iran, Turkey, Russia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, Yahya Sinwar, Nasrallah, Ismail Haniyeh, Deif, United Nations, Terrorism, Antisemitism, Syria, Bashar al Assad, HTS, Damascus, Mount Hermon, Erdogan, Netanyahu, Trump, Putin, Ceasefire, Hostages, al Jolani, al Sharaa, Holocaust Day of Remembrance, China, Egypt, Iran Nuclear Deal, Trump, War, WWIII, Hamas, Anti-Semitism, October 7, 2023, Trump's 20-Point Peace Plan, Qatar, Egypt, Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Erdogan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Board of Peace, Iranian Riots, Iranian Revolution, Davos,

Two people, one remote, and absolutely no plan. Cole and Alex break down why The Fairly OddParents letting Cosmo and Wanda have a kid changed everything, why Rugrats still quietly rules, and why hotel rooms unlock a higher state of TV watching. It's cartoons, nostalgia, and the joy of watching whatever's already on.

It’s a new year, and that means new goals! Cody and Justin share their top tips and tricks to help you set yourself up for success in 2026. The guys are already hitting the ground running with their 2026 goals: Cody is already testing out snowbirding down in Florida Justin is actively recruiting for his first international group trip Don’t forget to share your goals with us in the Facebook Group. To kick off the episode, the guys break down how the methods they’ve used to successfully meet their goals, which include: Tracking is Key “What gets measured, gets managed.” You need to know how you're doing currently to improve For finance, use apps like YNAB, Monarch Money, or a spreadsheet For fitness, use apps like MFP, TrainHeroic, etc. For any goal you want to actually reach, there needs to be tracking Inputs vs. Outputs “I'm going to invest $1,000 every month” vs “I'm going to increase my net worth by $25K” “I'm going to work out 5x per week” vs “I'm going to lose 20 pounds.” Accountability Join online groups or local groups Groups that have people ahead of where you currently are are a big bonus Share milestones/goals with friends Keep talking about it to the point where you'd be embarrassed if you didn't finish Set punishments and rewards for your actions Goal Sizing Goals shouldn't be so big that they paralyze you They also shouldn't be so easy that you hit them without much effort A “good” goal should require quite a bit of effort, but still be possible If you hit your goal too early in the year, you may lose steam (you can always level up your goal, too; it’s just important to know your personality) A / B Goals Many runners/athletes in competition have an A and a B goal, maybe even a C goal.  A -> The stars align perfectly, you can see a path to it, you're putting in the work, but it's a reach B -> Fairly confident, little room for error, still can be very proud of the outcome C-> as within your control as possible, room for error, a backstop to avoid just giving up if your more aggressive goal fails Becoming a person who ____ “I'm the type of person who saves 50% of my income.” “I'm the type of person who runs marathons.” “I'm the type of person who volunteers.” Let go of the fear of failure by playing the tape forward If you can look yourself in the mirror and be proud of your effort, what is really the biggest drawback to you trying and failing? Celebrate the wins along the way Maybe your goal is a 10k this year Celebrate your first 5-mile run Celebrate your new 5k PR Cody and Justin’s 2026 Goals! Here’s a sneak peek into the goals we shared publicly in this episode: Cody's Goals: Fewer decisions driven by money Make decisions bc I want to do them (regardless of money) More regular fitness challenges Ironman, Hyrox, 100k steps, etc Spontaneous adventures Always discovering and exploring new places (even at home) Book launch Goal is April/May release, podcast tour, book tour, etc Gold City Ventures Nail down an ad strategy, continue to grow business Real estate Keep running existing properties, only “buying” new properties via syndication. Scaling back a bit feels good Justin's Goals: Run a Marathon in December (CIM) A goal -> sub 3:15 B goal -> sub 3:30 C goal -> sub 4hr New PRs 5k / 10k / half marathon / Deadlift Hyrox Double with Leslie Lead a group fitness-focused trip A goal -> 12+ person international B goal -> any number domestic C goal -> any number in Austin Build Fitness Community Host 6+ in-person fitness meetups Design 12 12-week beginner Hyrox guide Post weekly fostering community This goal is in support of the fitness trip goal Hang out with at least one friend every week we're in Austin Run the greatest number of annual miles of my life A goal -> Avg  30 miles per week post Achilles rehab B goal -> Avg  25 miles per week post Achilles rehab C goal -> Avg  20 miles per week post Achilles rehab Finish House Remodel in Mississippi A Goal – Full remodel, landscaped, short-term rental B Goal – Full remodel, long-term tenant C Goal – Liveable for personal use Complete another amazing multi-month International trip with Leslie Build out Recipes A Goal – 50+ fully documented recipes posted on Substack with social posts B Goal – 50 Recipes Designed, 25 documented and posted on Substack C Goal – 50 Recipes Designed Finish documenting the 2025 trip on Substack We hope you enjoy getting these tried and true methods for hitting your goals. If you found value in the episode, please share it with a friend! Links from the Episode Spain Fitness Retreat Share Your Goals With Us The Ultimate FI Spreadsheet YouTube Interview https://youtu.be/KXe07xlJzRA Join the Community We'd love to hear your comments and questions about this week's episode. Here are some of the best ways to stay in touch and get involved in The FI Show community! Grab the Ultimate FI Spreadsheet Join our Facebook Group Leave us a voicemail Send an email to contact [at] TheFIshow [dot] com If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave a rating/review! >> You can do that by clicking here 

Shaun Morash and Tiki Barber discuss how fair it is to call for Aaron Glenn's firing when the Jets' roster is this gutted.

Alex finally boards a Qatar Airways flight, and finds how to get a premium economy seat in this airline that doesn't have premium economy (not through that ethernet port though). Paul completely changes his mind about United, a true Christmas miracle (and a possible playbook for BA), what an incredible crew. Farewell to SeatGuru, nothing truly replaces you (AeroLOPA is the nearest). When your boarding pass gets denied at Hanoi airport, and you unwillingly discover the bowels of Hanoi airport (a gripping tale by Alex!). And more.Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all. See you in 2026!Creators & Guests Paul Papa (Paul Papadimitriou) - Host Alex Hunter - Host ____Click here to watch a video of this episode. For video, subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lay_oversor Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4JaAXzE6CNLIZXv1buXuTTReview us on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/layovers-air-travel-and-commercial-aviation/id965163837Reach out to the creator: https://instagram.com/paulpapa.ioComment on YouTube, Spotify orInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lay_overs/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/layovers.podcastMore links on our website: https://layovers.to

Nick and Jonathan share their takeaways from their conversation with Ross Tucker and debate whether or not we can make a fair evaluation on Shedeur Sanders based on what we've seen from him this season.

Every year at the USTFCCCA Convention, we do a LIVE taping of the Gill Connections podcast. Leading up to this year's LIVE taping on December 15th, we'll be showcasing last year's interviews. Look for information on where we'll be hosting this year's event, as we typically host on YouTube LIVE but are also looking at potentially adding Twitch to the mix. Check out the new Twitch.tv Gill Athletics channel in the meantime and we'll see you on December 15th!

Paul Gregory visited Dealey Plaza to assess the assassination, concluding the shot was fairly easy as the presidential limousine slowed down to turn. He emphasizes that the route was chosen only four days prior, undermining long-term conspiracy planning. Paul and his father were later targeted by conspiracy theories linking them to radical Russian interests. The discussion focuses heavily on Margarite Oswald's testimony before the Warren Commission, where she behaved like a deranged woman, insisting her son was a hero and demanding legal representation and subpoena rights. The Commission allowed her to speak to demonstrate her instability. Her influence is identified as a major explanatory factor in virtually everything Lee Harvey Oswald did. Guest: Paul Gregory.

SB Nation's Ricky O'Donnell joined the show to discuss the Bulls 6-1 start.

What happens when the creator of “The Fairly OddParents” and “Danny Phantom” gives his life to Jesus? In this episode, Todd White sits down with Butch Hartman — the legendary animator turned Kingdom creative — to talk about his radical salvation story, his wife's miraculous healing, and how God called him to bring light into entertainment through “The Garden Cartoon” and Butch Hartman Studios. This powerful conversation will inspire you to say “yes” to God's call on your life — no matter what sphere you're in. Whether you're an artist, a parent, or someone just hungry to make an impact, you'll walk away stirred with vision and faith.