Podcasts about partner programs

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram! What do you think?! Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group. This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started. If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Tune in to hear my journey on qualifying for the Youtube Partner Program! Work with me at KatieDodd.com

Jim Louderback, editor of Inside the Creator Economy and the former GM of VidCon, joins The Upload for a wide-ranging conversation about where this whole industry is actually heading. Few people have watched the creator economy longer or more clearly, and Jim doesn't hold back. We get into YouTube's big Partner Program overhaul and what it really means, why organic virality has stopped being a business model, and his four-quadrant "fast food" framework for the new YouTube (from the McDonald's of Shorts to the gas-station sandwich). Jim explains why creators have officially "arrived," how traditional media is now treating them as producers and IP owners instead of talent, and the talent exodus from Hollywood into creator studios. We also dig into how AI could let a solo creator produce at Hollywood quality, why culture is becoming a two-way global street, the rise of micro-fandoms, and his bold 2027 prediction about an AI "crash" and where the real value will actually get built. Plus, why every creator should be spending a slice of their revenue on paid boosting, the most underrated events worth traveling for, and a proper ranking of the best airport lounges.If you want the clearest, most honest read on where the creator economy is going, this one's a must-listen.Jim's links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlouderbNewsletter: https://insidethecreator.beehiiv.com

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram! What do you think?! Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group. This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started. If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: ePlus acquires Daymark Solutions: The solution provider bought the Boston-area Microsoft cloud partner for roughly $36 million, adding Azure, Microsoft 365, and security capabilities. Daymark ranked No. 41 on CRN’s 2026 Solution Provider 500. ePlus says the deal is the latest in a string of about 30 acquisitions and significantly expands its Northeast footprint. Cohesity expands Aspire Global Partner Program: The data security vendor has added new partner specializations in AI data security, cloud services, and backup and recovery, along with broader rebates and simplified training. Cohesity says the updated program, which took effect Aug. 1, 2026, rewards partner teaming and services expertise. Exclaimer launches MSP Connect for managed service providers: The new global program offers consumption-based billing, self-service provisioning, NFR licensing, and PSA integrations with ConnectWise, HaloPSA, and Kaseya BMS. Exclaimer says the program is designed to remove billing and management friction for MSPs selling email signature management as a compliance and brand-consistency layer. In Brief: IBM Consulting deploys thousands of AI agents: IBM says it has rolled out thousands of AI agents across enterprise security projects, productizing agentic AI for cybersecurity use cases. CrowdStrike warns frontier AI demands “greatest mobilization” ever: Chief business officer Daniel Bernard told CRN that AI-accelerated threats require what he calls cybersecurity’s greatest mobilization, outlining how the company is positioning partners to defend against frontier AI risks. CRN publishes 2026 Fast Growth 150: The annual list ranks solution providers by two-year growth rate. Caylent, EchoStor, and Park Place Technologies are among the top 25 fastest-growing companies. ChannelPro names Top 20 MSPs for 2026: The annual list highlights what the publication calls “bold, relentlessly innovative leaders” in the managed services space. Kaseya embeds agentic AI into MSP service delivery: The IT management platform vendor is bringing autonomous AI agents into its core MSP tools, according to an Aug. 24 report. Read Full Transcript Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca, I’m Robert Dutt, today is Wednesday, August 26, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today. Solution provider ePlus has acquired the assets of fellow solution provider Daymark Solutions. According to CRN, ePlus announced the deal on Monday, paying roughly $36 million for the Boston-area Microsoft cloud partner. Daymark ranked No. 41 on CRN’s 2026 Solution Provider 500 and brings advanced Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, and security capabilities to ePlus. The acquisition is the latest in a string of about 30 deals ePlus has done, and it significantly expands the company’s footprint in the Northeast while deepening its Microsoft cloud services portfolio. For Canadian solution providers watching the M&A market, this deal is worth noting because it shows how midmarket Microsoft cloud practices are becoming acquisition targets as larger VARs look to build density in specific geographies. ePlus said in a statement that Daymark’s team and customer base will be integrated into its existing operations. Data security and management vendor Cohesity has expanded its Aspire Global Partner Program with new specializations, broader rebates, and simplified training requirements. The Aug. 25 announcement adds partner specializations around AI data security, cloud services, and backup and recovery, along with expanded profitability through increased rebates and deal registration protection. Cohesity says the updated program took effect on Aug. 1, 2026, and is designed to reward partner teaming, services expertise, and what the company calls “customer obsession.” The program is global, so Canadian partners are eligible for the new specializations immediately. The rebate expansion is the piece to watch here: Cohesity is moving toward outcome-based incentives that favor partners who wrap services around the platform rather than pure transactional resellers, which mirrors a broader trend across infrastructure vendors. Email signature management vendor Exclaimer has launched a dedicated partner program for MSPs called MSP Connect. The Aug. 19 announcement includes consumption-based billing, self-service provisioning, and direct integrations with ConnectWise, HaloPSA, and Kaseya BMS. Exclaimer is also offering NFR licensing so MSPs can run the platform internally before pitching it to clients. The program is global, so Canadian MSPs are eligible from day one. The pitch here is that email signatures have become a bigger compliance and brand-consistency issue as phishing attacks get more sophisticated, and MSPs can fold Exclaimer into their security and productivity stacks without adding billing complexity. According to Exclaimer, the PSA integrations mean invoice line items and tenant management should live inside tools MSPs are already using. IBM Consulting says it has deployed thousands of AI agents across security projects for enterprise clients. CRN reported the initiative on Aug. 25 as part of Big Blue’s broader push to productize agentic AI for cybersecurity use cases. CrowdStrike chief business officer Daniel Bernard says frontier AI demands what he calls cybersecurity’s “greatest mobilization” ever. In an Aug. 25 interview with CRN, Bernard outlined how the company is positioning partners to defend against AI-accelerated threats. CRN has published its 2026 Fast Growth 150 list, with the top 25 solution providers ranked by two-year growth rate. Caylent, EchoStor, and Park Place Technologies are among the fastest-growing companies. The ChannelPro Network has unveiled its Top 20 MSPs for 2026, an annual recognition of providers the publication calls “bold, relentlessly innovative leaders.” Kaseya is bringing agentic AI deeper into MSP service delivery. ChannelE2E reported on Aug. 24 that the IT management platform vendor is embedding autonomous AI agents into its core MSP tools. Full details and links in the show notes or the blog post. Later today on In The Channel, Red Hat vice president of the global partner ecosystem Kevin Kennedy sits down with me to talk about how the partner business has shifted away from swim lanes, where the VMware modernization opportunity stands for Canadian partners, and what data sovereignty actually means in practice. And if you haven’t heard it yet, yesterday on In The Channel, Cisco Canada president Raj Juneja walked me through the company’s new Sovereign Critical Infrastructure portfolio and what trust-based licensing looks like for partners selling air-gapped infrastructure to Canadian public sector clients. That’s how we’re seeing the headlines today. I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, thanks for listening. Have a great day.

Kevin Kennedy, vice president of global partner ecosystem at Red Hat The channel has fundamentally changed – and for a long time, Red Hat‘s partner program hadn’t caught up. That’s the candid starting point for Kevin Kennedy, who joins In The Channel this week fresh off his appointment as Red Hat’s vice president of global partner ecosystem. Kennedy’s career spans just about every layer of the channel – direct sales at IBM and Xerox, close to a decade at Arrow Electronics, and leadership roles at VCE, Dell EMC, and TD SYNNEX before joining Red Hat in 2022. That perspective shapes how he talks about the shift from a model built on clear “swim lanes” – where resellers, services partners, and software sellers all stayed in their own lanes – to the multi-partner, collaborative engagements that define how business gets done today. “It’s really hard to even define a partner today,” Kennedy says. “We can’t go to market by ourselves any longer.” Red Hat’s program refresh responds to that reality with a bifurcated incentive structure: front-end rewards for individual sellers at the deal level, and back-end incentives for firms making deeper investments in Red Hat competencies. Kennedy is direct about what drove the change: “We were putting all of our rewards around the resell of our products. And that ship had sailed.” The conversation also covers the Broadcom/VMware disruption as a modernization opportunity rather than a rip-and-replace play, where AI realistically fits in the partner revenue picture right now, the evolving role of distribution as an ecosystem aggregator, and – for Canadian partners specifically – the growing urgency of data sovereignty as a go-to-market factor. And Kennedy offers a memorable frame for Red Hat’s long-term platform ambition: “Red Hat inside” – the idea that Red Hat increasingly underpins solutions partners build and customers buy, whether or not the name is on the box. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca and your host for the show. My guest today is Kevin Kennedy, vice president of the global partner ecosystem at Red Hat. Kevin’s career spans just about every seat in the channel: direct sales at IBM and Xerox; the better part of a decade, on and off, at Arrow Electronics; leadership roles at VCE and Dell EMC; and then about five years running advanced solutions at Tech Data and TD SYNNEX before coming to Red Hat in 2022. That’s a resume that takes you from carrying a bag, through distribution leadership, to vendor-side ecosystem strategy. That full-channel perspective shapes how he thinks about the partner business in ways that are pretty evident in this conversation. Red Hat recently named him the permanent head of its global partner ecosystem, and the word “ecosystem” in that title is deliberate, as you’ll hear. We get into how the partner business has fundamentally shifted from the old swim-lane model to something much more collaborative and complex; what Red Hat is changing in its partner program and why; the VMware modernization opportunity; where AI realistically fits in the partner revenue story right now; and what data sovereignty means for Canadian partners specifically. Let’s get right into it, my chat with Kevin Kennedy. Robert Dutt: Kevin, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Kevin Kennedy: Thanks for having me, Rob. I appreciate being here. Robert Dutt: You’ve been in so many different seats facing the channel, from starting in direct sales at IBM and Xerox, to distribution, and now, of course, the vendor side. I’m curious: when you look back at the arc of the channel, as it were, over that time, what’s the biggest way the partner business has changed since you started looking at it and watching it closely? Kevin Kennedy: That’s a great question, because there has been a significant evolution, that’s for sure. I think it starts with the definition of what a partner is. It used to be that you had very clear swim lanes. You had resellers, you had services partners, and you had people who always sold software or people who always sold hardware. Everybody had their individual lanes, and that was predominantly the way the channel made money: through the resale of all those things. If you fast-forward to today, it’s completely different. It’s really hard to even define a partner today. You can’t put them in one camp. Take a larger partner like WWT, for example. It used to be the preeminent reseller for a myriad of OEM lines. Today, that may be just a portion of its business. If you look at its total bottom-line profitability, I would say the vast majority of that comes from the services it offers and the contracts it manages for very large customers. Partners have evolved. We used to be able to go sell something individually. With the complexity that now exists in technology and the solutions that customers are demanding, we can’t go to market by ourselves any longer. We’re forced to collaborate and build relationships outside of our historical domains in order to present a customer with a holistic solution that’s going to drive the outcomes or efficiencies they demand. I think all of that dynamic is great. We talked about multi-partner engagement for decades and couldn’t get it to work because, realistically, we were all competing for the same nickel. If I went into a customer with you, likely one of us would get cut out of that deal or eventually be eased out. Today, that’s not true. We’re really dependent on each other. You bring your strengths to the table, I bring mine to the table, and those combined strengths are what the customer is going to realize. I think that’s the exciting component that’s really changed dramatically, especially over the last 10 years, and even more so over the last five. Robert Dutt: That speaks to the fact that you’re coming in as vice president of the global partner ecosystem, rather than vice president of channel sales or vice president of partner programs. I’m guessing, especially from that latter point about the co-sell and multi-partner arrangement becoming much more accepted and more of a default, that it’s a meaningful and purposeful distinction. What changes day to day when you call it an ecosystem, or when you think of it as an ecosystem, rather than a channel? Kevin Kennedy: I think your point is well made. The title and our nomenclature – ecosystem versus channel, or ecosystem versus partner – are intentional. Again, it goes back to illustrating the necessity of multiple people with varying levels of expertise in a variety of domains. All of them are required to bring a customer a solution and drive an outcome. It actually makes things more complex in some regards. From my lens, at the end of the day, what do we want to sell? We want to sell Red Hat products and our platforms into a customer. In years gone by, that might have been a much more simplistic arrangement. Our sales teams would call on a customer, represent only what we’re good at, and get that deal done. That no longer remains the case. I have to make sure we’re selling the value of Red Hat’s portfolio not just to the customer. I’ve also got to make sure the systems integrator sees how we can bring value to the solutions they’re going to represent to their customer base. I’ve got to represent the value of Red Hat to the hyperscalers – why they should care about us and how we may drive consumption in their marketplaces. I’ve got to bring value to the distributors and explain why they want to put resources around our product portfolio. I need to show them how our portfolio is going to help accelerate some of the more profitable lines they represent. On one hand, the ecosystem model illustrates the necessity for all of us to come together. On the other hand, it invites complexity from a go-to-market standpoint because everybody’s my customer. That’s traditionally been true in distribution, where a lot of my heritage comes from. We used to have the adage that we’re nobody’s customer and everybody’s customer, because I have to constantly sell the value of why we exist and why we should matter to you, and how we can help you be successful. Robert Dutt: That must make it an interesting challenge to structure programs when it’s no longer as simple as, “You are a reseller, therefore you fit in box A.” Now you’ve got to get creative with your programs and incentives in order to keep partners excited about what you’re doing, engaged with your platforms, and recognizing where you’re headed and why that might be valuable to them. Kevin Kennedy: I’ve got to construct a program with incentives that look at presales and the whole customer-management lifecycle. It’s no longer just, “We’ve got a product and a contract for that product that’s going to be sold.” Now I’ve got to think about adoption. I’ve got to think about how we make that product more pervasive through an organization. I’ve got to ensure that everything we said was going to be done when we presented the solution is actually coming to fruition, so the customer sees a return on that investment. If they don’t, I’m going to be a one-and-done. If they do, it’s going to give me an opportunity to have conversations around other things we can bring to bear that might provide similar or even better outcomes than what they did initially with us. Robert Dutt: When you did the program refresh, you said it was built around simplicity, predictability and profitability – three words that come up a lot in channel chief conversations, for obvious reasons. I don’t think those are unique to Red Hat, but along with what you’ve already touched on, what did you see or hear from partners about what they were experiencing that made those changes the priority at this time? Kevin Kennedy: That’s a good question. When I joined Red Hat, I observed that we weren’t necessarily meeting partners where they were. We were still thinking about the way things had been in years gone by. We were typically putting all of our rewards – and, by the way, they were plentiful – around the resale of our products. That ship had sailed. The ecosystem had evolved considerably, but we hadn’t necessarily evolved with it. What we tried to do, especially with the incentives we launched in January, was meet partners where they are. That means we have to bifurcate our incentive structure. We’ve got sellers at those partner organizations, and we need to make sure we’re targeting incentives on the front end, at the deal and transaction level, to get them excited about moving Red Hat products. Primarily, I look at that as a great opportunity for customer acquisition. There are a lot of places where we haven’t been, and those sellers are going to be able to introduce us to those customers. They have respected and long-tenured relationships that are going to help us land our objectives, which is to have the Red Hat portfolio consumed there. Similarly, we’ve got to make sure we’re incentivizing the firms to make the investments necessary to upskill their people and ensure they have the technical requirements and technical capabilities to deliver our solutions. We’re showing them a path from whatever managed services they currently provide in the enterprise to how they can include Red Hat as part of that. That’s going to be accretive to their service capabilities and to their profitability. We’re ensuring that we have both the front end and the back end covered. Again, we’re meeting partners where they are in the market, rather than saying that we only care about what they’re going to do for us from a product standpoint. We recognize that services are probably the most profitable component of their business. How do we translate the sale of our products into an increase in their services business, which is going to be accretive to their overall profitability? Robert Dutt: The nice part about that approach, even if you are coming from playing catch-up a little bit, is that there isn’t quite as much need to educate or incentivize partners to come around to where you’re going. You’re setting it up based on where they’re at today. Kevin Kennedy: Exactly. Recognizing that partners need a lot of hand-holding and a lot of our Red Hat engagement isn’t necessarily true. In many cases, partners have a level of sophistication that’s beyond what we would even address in a traditional enablement program. Now it’s about leveraging all those skills and competencies and translating them into what that means for Red Hat and how that accelerates adoption of our portfolio. From a partner standpoint, what does our portfolio mean to them in terms of plugging into what they’re already doing from a go-to-market standpoint? It puts more bullets in the gun when they’re talking to a customer. Robert Dutt: One of the areas of opportunity right now has to be the whole Broadcom-VMware situation, which has created a lot of disruption for partners, customers and pretty much everyone. Red Hat is obviously positioned well in that space, but capturing the opportunity through the channel is different from simply having the right technology on the shelf. How are you helping partners have that conversation with customers, especially those who are frustrated and interested in other options but aren’t necessarily ready to make the big jump? Kevin Kennedy: When the whole Broadcom situation first transpired, I think we all saw it as a generational opportunity to make a land grab. We all had varying degrees of success. And when I say “we all,” I don’t just mean Red Hat, but others that play in this space as well. Where we’ve seen a tremendous acceleration in our opportunity is by changing the conversation. When we go out with one of our partners and talk to customers about what they’re doing from a virtualization perspective, it’s no longer simply about moving off VMware onto Red Hat, for instance. It’s about modernization. It’s about making sure that the customer is prepared for its technology journey – moving from virtualization and modernizing its data centre toward the AI conversation that I’m sure we’ll get to in a moment. Red Hat and our partners can help customers on that journey and accelerate it without requiring a rip-and-replace approach or a complete transformation of their entire infrastructure. They can leverage the things they may do with us today to move off VMware and into a more modernized, virtualized, containerized and Kubernetes-based environment. That prepares them to take the next step into AI. It’s not a step back. It’s not a step sideways. It’s a step forward from their initial investment with us. Robert Dutt: It is 2026, and we’ve been talking for 12 or 13 minutes now, so I am legally required to ask an AI question at this point. You’ve been pretty straightforward in saying that virtualization, automation and hybrid cloud are still the real revenue drivers, while AI is more of a near-future opportunity. I respect that honesty, and I think it probably maps closely with what partners are telling you about where they are today. But where does that leave the partner who’s getting pressure from customers to have an AI story right now? Do you lead with the infrastructure story, or do you lead with AI and then backfill toward virtualization, automation and hybrid cloud? Kevin Kennedy: I think we lead with the hybrid modernization and automation play first, and then segue into the AI discussion. Part of what we’ve seen over the last year, especially, is the need to separate AI reality from AI hype. Everybody talks about AI, and I think the pockets of success have come from partners who are listening to customers and giving them the counsel and advice that they don’t need to boil the ocean. Let’s start with some very specific processes that the customer could look to automate by leveraging AI technology and Red Hat technology. Then the customer will be able to see an immediate win and a return on that initial investment. From there, we can see where to grow. For most customers, it’s not too different from us as consumers. We think of AI and ChatGPT, and all of these things where we’re going to be able to ask a whole bunch of questions and get smart answers back to help inform us about where to go. For a lot of customers, that’s debilitating. They don’t even know where to start. The whole thing is a massive labyrinth of issues they’re trying to sort through. Every partner that can go in and provide consultative advice – saying, “We don’t need to look at everything. Let’s start with some very direct things that you say require a lot of manual intervention or take up a lot of cycles” – can leverage AI technology to circumvent a lot of that. They can make processes that took weeks or months translate into hours or minutes. What productivity increase do you see as a result? That’s an immediate win and a return on the initial investment. I think the partners that understand what collaboration looks like in this space are also going to be successful, because AI forces us to talk to others and play well with others. Even for us, we’ve enjoyed a lot of recent announcements around collaborative partnerships with NVIDIA, Dell, Cisco and others. We’re doing these things together. It’s not because we each woke up one day and said, “I really want to build a partnership with NVIDIA,” or, “I really want to build a better partnership with Cisco.” We were forced to have those conversations because of the outcomes customers expect. We realized that while we have a really important and robust piece of the solution, it’s only a piece of the pie, and the customer wants the whole pie. How do we orchestrate and architect it together so that we collaborate and go to the customer together and say, “Here’s what we can do for you. Here’s your whole pie”? Robert Dutt: You spent years on the distribution side, as you said earlier. A lot of your career was spent there. Now you’re managing some of those same companies, or the companies they’ve become over time, as a vendor. I’m curious: has your background in distribution changed what you actually ask of distributors, or what you think vendors typically ask of distributors but either shouldn’t or should ask more of? Kevin Kennedy: I tell anybody who wants to be involved in the ecosystem that if you’ve worked in distribution, that’s your MBA of channel engagement. You learn so much because, when I was at TD, for instance, I was doing business with every major OEM in the world, each with different expectations and demands. I was running a business on basis points. Understanding how to get the greatest efficiencies in the sales model and how to reap the greatest amount of profit in order to continue investing in the business prepared me better for the ecosystem role I have today. Even when I got to Red Hat, I think the way we leveraged distribution was much more traditional. We appreciated distributors for the financial piece they brought to the equation. That continues to be a critical thing that distribution adds to technology in general: they’re a financial backbone for a lot of the investments we’re all making. But distributors were also viewed as providing logistics and operational efficiencies. While that’s still part of what they do, it’s just a small part of what they do today. I look at distributors as aggregators. We talked about how one, two, five or seven partners may touch every transaction a customer buys. There’s no better place to bring all of that together than within distribution. Distributors have developed their own great level of sophistication. They’ve got technical expertise across multiple vendor lines. They’ve made tremendous investments in AI on their own, and they have specialists who are trained, competent and capable. I’m leaning on them to do a lot of the enablement for me. When I look at how we go to market with all these different partner types – whether it’s hyperscalers, OEMs, GSIs or ISVs – I can go to distribution, which is also doing business across all those same partner types, and say, “How do we work more effectively together to develop a really cohesive go-to-market strategy?” The distributor is the aggregator. It can go to the partners we all share in common – the WWTs, CDWs, Softchoices and Mobias of the world – and say, “How can you bring all this together for us to present to these partners, so they can go talk to a customer and have a holistic solution to put in front of them?” Distributors represent that capability for me. We’re leaning in hard with distribution, certainly on the legacy and traditional things they bring to bear, but more importantly on the forward-looking investments they’re making in their own enterprises that are going to help accelerate partner adoption of our solutions. Robert Dutt: Close to home, data sovereignty is a major issue for Canadian organizations right now. Between government guidance and some muscle being put behind that, there’s a growing concern about where data resides and the whole CLOUD Act question. Do you see that showing up in partner conversations in Canada, and how does Red Hat’s story change in that context, if it does? Kevin Kennedy: It’s a prevalent and very relevant conversation today in Canada, certainly in EMEA and APAC – essentially everywhere outside of the United States. It’s forced us to re-evaluate how we’re going to market in those environments. It changes the perspective on simply talking about the hyperscalers. It changes the perspective on what a sovereign cloud looks like and who the players are. It’s introducing us to players in spaces such as telecom, where telcos are now looking more like the sovereign cloud providers of the future. How do we build a secure solution, working on a public cloud, private cloud or sovereign cloud provider, that will be required – especially in government and GOE spaces – and provide them with the opportunities they’ll need in the future? It started to emerge perhaps at the end of last year, but it’s now a massive topic of conversation with us, and I think that’s going to continue. When we talk about AI, this is going to be a big component as well. How do we protect this data, and how do we have it reside in a secure environment that’s critical to government agencies and how they operate every day? Robert Dutt: Do you see Red Hat partners as having a major untapped or under-realized opportunity right now? Kevin Kennedy: I still think virtualization is a major, major untapped market. We’re hot on the customer-acquisition trail. Traditionally, we’ve grown through established customer relationships that have been great to us over the years. We’ve made mutual investments in those relationships, and we’re certainly going to continue that. But we’ve got to find new business. I think AI is the accelerant in that. It gives us a forum for conversations around what we’ve built. Anybody who has made an investment in our core portfolio has a springboard to get to where they want to go relative to AI. The partnerships I referenced with NVIDIA, Cisco, Dell, HPE and others are great catalysts for opening discussions with customers who perhaps didn’t know Red Hat before. I sometimes think about it this way – and this is probably an oversimplified way to put it – but for years we all bought laptops that ran on Intel chips. “Intel Inside” was a great marketing ploy for a whole host of reasons. I kind of see Red Hat that way a little bit: Red Hat inside. We’re going to be the underpinning of a lot of solutions that customers are going to buy in the future. They may not even know that Red Hat is running in there, and I’m not sure that we care. We want to be that secure platform that provides mobility from the cloud to on-premises environments, with seamless motion back and forth. We want to provide the level of security that’s going to be required, whether that’s in a sovereign environment or in our current state, where data security is the utmost concern. We want to be the underpinning that allows all that stuff to run effectively and efficiently, and gives customers portability and an open concept. Whether or not the customer actually knows Red Hat is there, I’m not sure that matters that much to us from the customer lens. It matters more in terms of how we’re going to work with some of the other partner routes we’ve talked about, especially given the ecosystem discussion. Robert Dutt: I’m curious what you’d like to see partners doing more, better or differently for the benefit of Red Hat, yes, but especially for their own businesses and where the business is going. Kevin Kennedy: I want to be a catalyst for them to sell autonomously. I think OEMs have often seen themselves in an outsized role when it comes to going to market with partners. We’ve acted as though partners need us in order to deliver the solution, or need a Red Hat badge in order to get validated by the customer. Certainly, there may still be an element of that, but I’ve found that partners’ customer relationships and the trust they’ve already earned with those customers supersede our need to be necessarily involved. I’m looking at ways to pour gasoline on that fire. How can I get out of the way and let partners move at a quicker pace than they may have in the past? Certainly, we’re part of the solution. We want to make sure partners have everything necessary, whether that’s training, enablement, demo equipment, proofs of concept or executive briefing centres – whatever they need to ensure they have the utmost confidence to position a solution that contains Red Hat products in the best light with the customer. But we know partners don’t need our help to have that sales conversation. They don’t necessarily need our help to deliver the services after the sale, to do the migration or to provide managed services, because they already have that expertise. We just need to make sure they feel confident that they can incorporate us into that motion. That’s really my focus, even from an ecosystem program standpoint. I want to put the incentives in a place that accelerates all the things partners are already good at and simply includes us in that motion. Robert Dutt: It sounds from those last couple of answers that you’re quite happy being the underpinning, the foundation behind either the customer solution or the partner’s sales motion. How does that shape what you’re focused on personally and program-wise in terms of what partners can expect from you and from Red Hat over the balance of the year and beyond? Kevin Kennedy: My mantra has been to do more with less. What I mean by that is that the partners who already fit the profile I’ve been describing – those with core competencies and skills, strong market presence, tremendous customer relationships, and investments in upskilling their people with the technical and sales expertise to represent Red Hat well in the marketplace – are the partners I want to invest in to a high degree. The partners who may traditionally have just wanted to put our logo on their website and clicked through to become a partner because they wanted to resell or perform more fulfilment activities – that’s great, and I still want to welcome those partners. But those are not the partners around whom I’m going to build programs or in whom I’m going to invest heavily. They’re not the partners where I’m going to continue putting direct resources side by side with them to win in the marketplace. I want to go deeper and wider with fewer partners who have the investments and skills necessary to bring customers the outcomes and efficiencies they’re looking for. Robert Dutt: That’s a great place to leave it. Kevin, thank you very much for taking the time. Kevin Kennedy: Thank you for having me. It’s been a great time, and I appreciate the opportunity. Robert Dutt: There you have it, Kevin Kennedy from Red Hat. I’d like to thank Kevin for his time today. He’s someone who has thought seriously about how this business actually works from multiple vantage points, and that comes through. Thanks for listening as well. A couple of things I’m taking away from this one. The “Intel Inside” framing that Kevin used – the idea that Red Hat is increasingly going to be the underpinning of solutions that customers buy and partners build, without necessarily being the name on the box – is a significant strategic statement. It’s a bet that being foundational is worth more than being front and centre. It’s worth watching how that plays out for partners who are building practices around Red Hat technology, or potentially are. And the ecosystem-versus-channel distinction doesn’t come off as just a title change. When you’re talking about a single customer engagement that might bring together a cloud provider, a services integrator, a software specialist and a reseller, all at the same table, the question of how you build a program and reward structure around that is unsolved across the industry. Red Hat is working on it, but so are a lot of other people. For Canadian partners specifically, the data sovereignty conversation is one to pay attention to. Kevin was candid that it’s reshaping how Red Hat thinks about going to market outside the United States, and the Canadian regulatory environment is only going to make that more pressing over the next few years. If you found this useful, please follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and most major directories. Ratings and reviews are always appreciated. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.

Are YouTube's latest monetization and view metric changes a huge win or a total trap for creators?In this episode, Lauren and Josh break down YouTube's new million-dollar exclusivity deals to compete with Netflix, the shift to counting public views from the first frame, and the doubled Partner Program thresholds. Plus, we cover Meta's massive 29-state lawsuit and ByteDance's new AI copyright deal with the MPA. What you'll learn:-- Why YouTube is paying top creators upfront millions for platform exclusivity-- How YouTube's new 1st-frame view metric changes public view counts-- What the new doubled YouTube Partner Program monetization thresholds mean for you-- The legal battles hitting Meta and ByteDance's new AI copyright framework00:00 New Hair Who Dis01:13 YouTube Pays Millions for Exclusivity07:00 Neil Mohan vs Traditional Media Strategy14:11 Three Types of YouTube Deals18:23 Why YouTube Needs Hollywood Stars20:38 YouTube Changes Public View Metric23:42 Engaged Views vs Vanity Metrics28:50 Doubling YouTube Partner Program Thresholds34:10 29 States Sue Meta Over Kids36:40 ByteDance and MPA AI Agreement38:15 Outro and Final ThoughtsCreator Upload is your creator economy podcast, hosted by Lauren Schnipper and Joshua Cohen.Follow Lauren: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schnipper/Follow Josh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuajcohen/Original music by London Bridge:https://www.instagram.com/londonbridgemusic/Edited and produced by Adam Conner:https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamonbrand

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

You Down With YPP?Episode Description:I break down YouTube's latest changes to its Partner Program, including doubled watch-hour requirements and higher Shorts monetization thresholds ahead of the February 2027 deadline. I also bring in YouTube expert Adam Ivey's take on why the real story isn't necessarily the new criteria, and I share my own channel's numbers so you can set realistic expectations for your own YouTube journey.Then the AI kids stop by for story time as I take a look at Spotify's decade-long history of making big podcasting promises—and quietly failing to deliver on them. From a scrapped hosting partnership to a Creator Fund that never paid a cent, there's plenty to unpack.Plus, Ray Ortega drops by with the shortest—and most accurate—definition of “podcast” you'll ever hear.YouTube Partner Program (YPP) changes, effective February 1, 2027Watch-hour requirement doubles: 4,000 to 8,000 hours in the past year (new creators only; existing YPP members are grandfathered in)Shorts monetization threshold doubles: 10 million to 20 million qualified views in 90 days to get in, then a rolling 10 million views every 90 days to maintain earningsFull monetization tier: 1,000 subscribers, $100 payment thresholdLower tier (500 subscribers): unlocks YouTube Shopping (affiliate) and channel memberships, requires 3,000 watch hours or 3 million Shorts viewsThe real story behind the changesAdam Ivy's stat: 67% of YouTube creators make less than $10,000/yearYouTube's stated pivot: broadening revenue beyond ads, with bonuses for YouTube Shopping, brand-deal incentives, and trend-based earning boostsYouTube says it expects to pay creators more in 2027 than 2026: money is shifting, not shrinkingSteve Stewart (Podcast Editor Academy): "Don't just sell your audience to sponsors, sell sponsors on how great your audience is"Is YouTube worth it? The dataSounds Profitable's Podcast Atlas (slide 23): Clips lead viewers to watch a specific episode (30% often/always, 81% at least sometimes) and to become regular listeners (33% often/always, 84% at least sometimes)Dave's real channel numbers: 3,523 subscribers, ~$2.49 per 1,000 views, one video with 115 views earned 25 centsBottom line: YouTube ad revenue is icing, not cake. Don't budget groceries on itSpotify: a bedtime story for the AI kidsMay 2015: Spotify launches podcasts through a small group of hosting "partners" (Libsyn, Blubrry), framed as a growth opportunity, not monetizationSpotify initially insists on hosting the media files itself rather than letting partners host. Partners build custom engineering to comply, then Spotify reverses course2019: Spotify buys Anchor for $150 million, turning former hosting partners into competitors overnight, with free hostingSpotify quietly submits shows to Apple Podcasts under its own account, hiding stats from creators and sparking creator frustration (often aimed at consultants, not Spotify)2020: Megaphone acquired for $235 million. 2021: Whooshkaa acquired and folded into Megaphone, then shut down2021: Betty Labs acquired, becomes Greenroom (Spotify's Clubhouse competitor)2021: "New Era of Podcast Monetization": paid subscriptions, Open Access Platform, Spotify Audience Network announcedMid-2021: Greenroom launches with a Creator Fund promised for live audio creators. Payment mechanics never disclosed2021: Music + Talk announced ("play music in your podcast"), restricted to the Spotify app, paying subscribers only, after listening to the full episodeSeptember 2021: Q&A and Polls launch, pitched as "the future of podcasting is interactive"January 2022: In-house production studio "Studio Four" shut down with layoffsApril 2022: Greenroom rebrands to Spotify Live; Creator Fund confirmed to have never launched, quietly shelvedMarch 2023: Anchor rebranded to Spotify for PodcastersApril 2023: Spotify Live shut down entirely, two years after the original Greenroom launchFebruary 2024: Music + Talk and Anchor's recording tools killed; users redirected to RiversideJuly 2024: Q&A and Polls shut down, replaced with CommentsSpotify's "walled garden" habits: video and transcripts only available on Spotify, resistance to RSS since it sends listeners off-platform2026: Skip Ahead ad-skipping button testing begins, available only to Premium subscribers, while advertisers still pay for the adAudiobooks added, bundled with music, resulting in lower royalty payments to musiciansWhat it actually takes to make money on Spotify1,000 Spotify audience members (last 30 days)2,000 Spotify hours consumed (last 30 days)At least 3 published episodesFree alternatives exist too: Buzzsprout (90 days free), RSS.com, Red CircleAlso in this episode:Ray Ortega's shortest definition of a podcast: "An RSS feed with audio or video content"Dave will be at the Empowered Podcasting Conference. Say hello if you see himLinks:Podnews (the definitive investigative piece): https://podnews.net/update/greenroom-creator-fund-mirageHollywood Reporter (original confirmation): https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/spotify-greenroom-creator-fund-live-audio-1235132234/TechCrunch (Spotify's official statement): https://techcrunch.com/?p=2302547Tubefilter (stock price angle): https://www.tubefilter.com/2022/04/19/meta-live-audio-rooms-spotify-green-roSpotify's own support doc: https://support.spotify.com/al/creators/article/understanding-skip-ahead-button/Podnews (the deepest industry-side reporting): https://podnews.net/article/spotify-threat-ad-skippingHollywood Reporter (advertiser reaction): https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/spotify-new-ad-skipping-feature-1236670480/Forbes (scale/downloads context): https://www.forbes.com/sites/gabrielalinzainescu/2026/08/10/spotify-tests-ad-skip-button-that-could-upend-podcast-advertising/Variety (original 2024 reclassification): https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/spotify-music-audiobook-bundle-lower-royalty-for-songwriters-1235974942/Music Tech (MLC lawsuit filed): https://musictech.com/news/industry/spotify-royalties-lawsuit-audiobook-bundling/Music Business Worldwide ($3.1bn NMPA projection): https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/nmpa-says-spotify-bundling-move-could-cost-music-publishers-3-1bn-through-2032/Music Business Worldwide (lawsuit dismissed): https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-wins-audiobook-bundling-lawsuit-as-court-dismisses-legal-action-brought-by-the-mlc/Variety (ruling coverage w/ judge's quote): https://variety.com/2025/music/news/spotify-wins-lawsuit-bundling-royalties-1236289823/Time (FTC complaint, $150M NMPA estimate):

YouTube is changing its Partner Program monetization requirements in 2027, making it harder for new and independent creators to qualify for ad revenue. In this episode, I break down YouTube's new monetization rules, including the higher watch-hour requirements, new YouTube Shorts thresholds, and what these changes could mean for filmmakers, podcasters, artists, musicians, and smaller YouTube channels trying to grow. More importantly, I explore how creators should respond: focusing less on chasing the algorithm, treating Shorts as marketing rather than dependable income, diversifying revenue beyond YouTube AdSense, and collaborating with established creators who can help emerging voices reach new audiences. If you're trying to grow a YouTube channel, get monetized, build an audience, or make money as an independent creator without becoming a slave to the algorithm, this episode is about how to adapt while still making work that matters. The episode specifically argues that the increasing thresholds could disproportionately affect niche creators who produce meaningful work less frequently, while reinforcing the importance of memberships, Patreon, products, consulting, affiliate revenue, events, and direct audience support.

YouTube has quietly become one of the best platforms for ocean science communication, and in this episode Andrew breaks down exactly why. Fresh off yesterday's 2,000-episode milestone and the new Pisces Oceans licensing agreement, Andrew explains why he's diving back into YouTube after stepping away last spring, including the launch of a brand new daily show, Ocean Decoded Live. Andrew walks through his own history with video, from the early days of Speak Up for Blue TV through burnout, a rebrand, and now a fresh start under Ocean Decoded. He breaks down why YouTube's search-driven discovery beats subscriber-driven platforms for reaching new audiences, how B-roll and AI-assisted visuals solve the storytelling limits of audio-only podcasting, and why going live and unscripted brings back an authenticity that AI-written scripts were starting to erode. The episode closes with a practical look at YouTube's two-tier Partner Program, how the ad revenue and fan-funding splits actually work, and two real-world case studies in ocean science: Kristian Parton's Shark Bytes channel and KPassionate's marine mammal content. Andrew also previews tomorrow's interview with Amy Weldon of Blue Collar White Coats and shares where you can catch him talking workflow at IMCC8 in Edinburgh this November. Takeaways: YouTube is search-driven rather than subscriber-driven, which makes it a strong discovery platform for niche science content Andrew is relaunching Ocean Decoded Live, a Monday–Thursday livestream (expanding toward Friday) at 4 PM Eastern covering ocean news YouTube's Partner Program has two tiers: 500 subscribers unlocks fan funding (memberships, Super Chats), 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 watch hours or 10 million Shorts views in 90 days unlocks full ad revenue Standard ad revenue splits 55% creator / 45% YouTube; Super Chats, Super Stickers, and memberships split 70% creator / 30% YouTube Going unscripted and live restores authenticity that Andrew felt was eroding when he leaned too heavily on AI-written scripts Kristian Parton's Shark Bytes and KPassionate are cited as examples of ocean science creators building sustainable income on YouTube Andrew will be discussing content workflow at IMCC8 in Edinburgh, Scotland, November 13–17, 2026 Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube  

YouTube has increased the requirements to be part of the YouTube Partner Program. It feels like they've moved the goal posts for small creators. In this episode, we discuss the new requirements and get into a bit about why they've made this change. Additionally, Instagram has updated some of their design elements, and a new post from the @creators account helps you think strategically about your Instagram captions. Links: YouTube: Updates to the YouTube Partner Program (YouTube) YouTube: YouTube Partner Program Changes - Explained (YouTube) Instagram: Built to celebrate creativity: the new Instagram brand identity (Meta Blog) Instagram: Strategy for Captions (Instagram)         Leave a Review of the Podcast: Apple Podcasts   Connect with me on Instagram: @danielhillmedia Connect with me on Threads: @danielhillmedia Connect with me on YouTube: @danielhill_media   The Equipment I Use: Microphone: Shure MV7+ USB-C & XLR Podcast Dynamic Mic with Stand (Amazon) Headphones: Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Wireless Bluetooth Earbuds (Amazon) Laptop: Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable Detachable 2-in-1 Laptop Tablet Touch | 13" (Amazon) Phone: Samsung S25 Ultra with S-Pen included (Amazon)     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Send us Fan MailGet vidIQ Boost for an exclusive price! https://vidiq.com/podcastWant a 1 on 1 coach? https://vidiq.ink/theboost1on1Join our Discord! https://www.vidiq.com/discordWatch the video: https://youtu.be/_kUOrWhNynwYouTube announces major YouTube Partner Program changes for 2027, and we break down what's real, what's scary, and what's actually a win for creators. We map the new numbers to practical strategy so you can decide whether to double down on long form, commit to Shorts, or use fan funding while you build. • three-part update to YPP earnings and eligibility • Premium Light global expansion and what it pays • Shorts creator pool changes plus new incentive programs • requirement to maintain 10 million Shorts views to earn on Shorts • new YPP entry thresholds for 2027 at 8,000 qualified watch hours or 20 million Shorts views • fan funding access staying at 500 subscribers plus lower thresholds • why YouTube says higher thresholds lead to more meaningful payouts • what “qualified watch hours” actually counts and what it excludes • staying active rules and how easy they are to meet • live chat Q&A on watch hours vs subscribers, clipping, and live streams You gotta come over to the YouTube channel and watch what we're about to do

Today in the business of podcasting:With the Premier League banning front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships from the 2026/27 season, Sport Social's Ryan Barker argues official team and fan podcasts are the natural landing spot for betting brands, pointing to a Sky Bet partnership across 20 football podcasts that reached more than one million listeners.Bumper co-founder Dan Misener explains why Apple Podcasts play counts are inflated: Apple counts every tap of the play button, not every listener, making the metric impossible to compare with Spotify plays or YouTube views.iHeartMedia reported Q2 2026 podcast revenue up 20.7% year over year to $162 million, now 16.5% of total company revenue, alongside a new video podcast deal bringing shows to Disney+ and Hulu.Magellan AI's Q2 2026 Podcast Advertising Quarterly Benchmark Report finds podcast ad revenue up 23% year over year, with average ad load rising to 8.75% of runtime, or roughly five and a half minutes of ads per hour.YouTube is doubling its Partner Program requirements effective February 1, 2027, raising qualified watch hours from 4,000 to 8,000 and Shorts views from 10 million to 20 million, raising the cost of entry for podcasters leaning on video.To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:With the Premier League banning front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships from the 2026/27 season, Sport Social's Ryan Barker argues official team and fan podcasts are the natural landing spot for betting brands, pointing to a Sky Bet partnership across 20 football podcasts that reached more than one million listeners.Bumper co-founder Dan Misener explains why Apple Podcasts play counts are inflated: Apple counts every tap of the play button, not every listener, making the metric impossible to compare with Spotify plays or YouTube views.iHeartMedia reported Q2 2026 podcast revenue up 20.7% year over year to $162 million, now 16.5% of total company revenue, alongside a new video podcast deal bringing shows to Disney+ and Hulu.Magellan AI's Q2 2026 Podcast Advertising Quarterly Benchmark Report finds podcast ad revenue up 23% year over year, with average ad load rising to 8.75% of runtime, or roughly five and a half minutes of ads per hour.YouTube is doubling its Partner Program requirements effective February 1, 2027, raising qualified watch hours from 4,000 to 8,000 and Shorts views from 10 million to 20 million, raising the cost of entry for podcasters leaning on video.To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

New URL for the Podcast: http://www.miniaturemodelspodcast.com Podcast questions and inquiries? Email us: mattandmattoscaletrains@gmail.com   The Miniature Models Podcast Crew begins a new series interviewing our hosts about their journeys in Model Railroading. Tonight we discuss John's many, MANY endeavors and find out why he can never seem to make his mind up about what scale he wants to pursue!     Join Our Community Discord Discord Server Link: https://discord.gg/5rpxw8F4DY Please note that you will need to read the rules and click a box to verify that you understand them before you're able to join the server. We want this community to be a welcoming and respectful place.   The Miniature Models Podcast is part of the Trainz.com Partner Program. If you plan on buying from them, please use our Affiliate Link: https://www.trainz.com/MMOP You can also use our unique Promo Code: MMOP for $10 off a single purchase on the Trainz.com website   Show Notes and Links: Miniature Models Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MattandMattTrainsPodcast Miniature Models YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/@miniaturemodelspodcast Miniature Models Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/miniature_models_podcast/   Miniature Models Podcast Merchandise https://www.redbubble.com/people/MandM-Podcast/shop   Sunset 3rd Rail Brass Models https://www.thirdandtownsendmodels.com/   NPL Customs Store https://www.etsy.com/shop/NPLCustoms?dd_referrer=   This Podcast is now available on Spotify and Amazon Music / Audible. We are also available from our usual sources like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and YouTube. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0OOWgO2vvI38ZFOtF4BxkU?si=2a853e2b36a44f80 YouTube Music Podcasts: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbs761BIEfXYancom0rY3kTQSjFbGvsnJ&si=cjCOiYwOQhxMPV4R Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/miniature-models-podcast/id1527505788 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f8fe369d-985c-4d14-af1f-dc4abf112b06/the-matt-and-matt-o-scale-trains-podcast   Where you can find the Hosts: Matt R (WC Model Railroad) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wcmodelrailroad Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/westchicagorailroad Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wc_model_railroad/ Matt Z (TrainLover9943) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@trainlover9943 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trainlover9943 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matts.hobbies/ Johnny N (Audamus) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Audamus Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Audamus-Trains-100075521222163/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/audamus_trains/ John S (RetroMikado) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@retromikado Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/retromikado96/ Sid (Sid's Trains) YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SidsTrains Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/sidney.flumbaum Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sidneystrains/ Questions about upgrading your engine with Sid? Email him: sidstrains773@gmail.com   Music: Good Vibe by Twisterium from Pixabay   Please Note: The primary purpose of this Podcast is to educate. We do not constitute advice or services. Please seek advice from an appropriate legal professional in your state, county, or city.

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Learn how the Genetic Data Partner (GDP) Program from Select Sires helps drive dairy genetic progress through real-world data collection and young sire sampling. In this episode, Preston Sheets, Dairy Development Programs Advisor, explains how partner herds contribute fertility, production and type data to develop more reliable, proven sires. Discover how the program benefits producers with early access to genetics while shaping the future of the dairy industry.

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

This is episode 854. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. This is a Women in Sales Leadership sub-brand of the Sales Game Changers Podcast.  Watch the video of this podcast on YouTube here. The Sales Game Changers Podcast was recognized by YesWare as the top sales podcast. Read the announcement here. FeedSpot named the Sales Game Changers Podcast at a top 20 Sales Podcast and top 8 Sales Leadership Podcast! Subscribe to the Sales Game Changers Podcast now on Apple Podcasts! Purchase Fred Diamond's best-sellers Love, Hope, Lyme: What Family Members, Partners, and Friends Who Love a Chronic Lyme Survivor Need to Know and Insights for Sales Game Changers now! On today's show, Gina meets with Elisabeth De Dobbeleer, Senior Vice President of Partner Programs at Cisco. Find Elisabeth on LinkedIn. ELISABETH'S TIP: "Don't let the little voice in your head tell you, 'You can't do it. It's too early.' You should really not allow all these self-limiting beliefs to stop you. You should be bold and ambitious in terms of what you're able to achieve and what you're able to do."

This is a YouTube video as well that you can watch here:  https://youtu.be/ddrcNxwuLVY Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Plus: AI market research firm AlphaSense nets $7.5 billion valuation in new funding round. And U.K. regulators will let publishers keep content out of Google Search's AI tool. Danny Lewis hosts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen talks with Martin Scholz, founder of CEG Consult, about why most partnership initiatives miss the mark, and what actually separates transactional deals from true, strategic relationships. Drawing on more than 20 years of partnership experience across startups, scale-ups, and enterprises, Martin cuts through the noise to explain why partnerships fail when they lack clear alignment, why "giving to get" can create toxic dynamics, and how to identify which partners actually deserve your resources.For more insights on partnerships, ecosystems, and integrations, visit www.pandium.com

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Cat & Cloud Podcast  Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ From Soil to Service Part 1: Inside the World of Green Coffee - Ep# 449 In this episode of the Cat & Cloud Podcast, Chris Baca and Casey Ryan sit down with Director of Coffee Dulce Venancio to explore the journey of coffee “from soil to service.” Dulce shares how her background in agriculture, her connection to producers in Mexico and Central America, and her growth within Cat & Cloud led her into green coffee buying. The conversation dives into how coffee is sourced, how relationships with producers and importers are built, the realities of the global coffee supply chain, and the intentional work behind selecting coffees that reflect Cat & Cloud's values. Along the way, they discuss cupping, flavor development, competition culture, mentorship, and the importance of consistency, transparency, and community throughout every step of the coffee process. Chapters 00:00 Soil to Service Series 03:00 What is a Green Buyer 05:02 Origins and Early Trips 06:39 Dulce Backstory and Motivation 08:30 Landing the Green Role 11:21 Imposter Syndrome and Learning 18:17 Money Flow in Coffee Buying 21:13 Mills Exporters Importers Explained 25:36 QC Lab and Flavor Decisions 27:51 Building a Tasting Palate 30:30 Training Your Palate 31:52 Competition Feedback Loops 34:22 Baby Steps Cupping 35:43 Pressure of Green Buying 37:39 When Coffee Gets Rejected 40:22 Direct Trade Versus Importers 42:49 Building the Coffee Menu 46:58 Respect for Producers 50:14 Origin Country Cafe Culture 53:58 Competing and Creative Goals 55:50 Closing and Green Coffee Jingle Cat & Cloud: Instagram: www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore: Buy Our Coffee! www.catandcloud.com/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan May 2026

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Cat & Cloud Podcast Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Episode Summary This episode explores what it really takes to build a café from the ground up—starting with a blank slate but bringing hard-earned experience along. The conversation moves from practical decisions like choosing the right neighborhood and building authentic community connections, to deeper reflections on mindset, motivation, and the emotional realities of ownership. Along the way, the hosts break down coffee program philosophy, hiring approaches, and the importance of aligning values with operations. The episode closes with a candid look at the mental load of running a business, offering a grounded perspective on sustainability, self-awareness, and building support systems as things grow. Chapters  00:00 – Climbing and a Shout out to Kiera 04:00 – Starting a Café from Scratch 06:30 – Why Location Matters Most 10:30 – Building Community Before Opening 14:30 – Authenticity vs Over-Marketing 18:00 – Feeling Like You're Doing Everything at Once 22:00 – Defining Values and Systems 26:00 – Designing the Coffee Program 30:00 – Innovation and Brewing Concepts 33:00 – Choosing the Right Roasting Partner 36:00 – Space, Buildout, and Constraints 40:00 – Hiring for Culture and Fit 44:00 – Motivation and Early Ownership Mindset 47:00 – The Mental Load of Ownership 49:30 – Sustainability and Building Support Systems
  Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/. é Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan May 2026

In this episode of Shift Happens, Jeff Edwards sits down with Kevin Brown, VP of Partner Management at Insight, to unpack what it really takes to build durable partnerships in one of the most disruptive moments in IT history. With a career shaped by crisis management at RSA, ecosystem design at Vectra, and years of deep collaboration with Cisco, Kevin shares why trust—not transactions—is still the ultimate differentiator. From his candid perspective on The Cisco 360 Partner Program to Insight's bold pivot toward becoming an AI-first solutions integrator, this conversation explores how the best partners are shifting from simply moving product to architecting long-term business outcomes. Along the way, Kevin reveals his practical framework for evaluating partner investments, why “human APIs” matter more than automated portals, and how Cisco + Insight may be sitting on one of the biggest growth opportunities in modern IT—if they execute it right. Why Listen: •

Cat & Cloud Podcast Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ The World of Coffee Reflection: Observations, Stories, and Lots of Love for the Community of Coffee - Ep #447 In this episode, Chris, Casey, and Director of Coffee Marc Gessler, recap World of Coffee San Diego 2026: the caffeine overload, the booth shifts, the reunions, the strange travel moments, and the bigger feeling of being part of the global coffee community. What starts with jokes about over-caffeination turns into a thoughtful reflection on why events like this matter—not just for products or trends, but for connection. The crew talks about Cat & Cloud's place in the larger coffee ecosystem, the rise of home coffee enthusiasts, the continued importance of hospitality, and how meaningful it is to see people from all corners of the industry gather around a shared passion. It's part event recap, part coffee culture reflection, and part reminder that this industry is really about people. Chapters  00:00 Over-Caffeinated at World of Coffee
 04:00 Morning Coffee, Energy, and Showing Up
 08:00 First Expo Memories and Changing Goals
 13:00 Casey's First World of Coffee Experience
 18:00 Memorable Conversations and Cat & Cloud Connections
 23:00 Booth Life, Dialing In, and Serving at Expo
 29:00 Hospitality as the Bigger Conversation
 34:00 How World of Coffee Has Changed
 39:00 Home Coffee Enthusiasts and Prosumer Gear
 45:00 Big Trends, Big Setups, and Coffee as a Hobby
 50:00 Team Energy, Partners, and Community
 55:00 Weird Travel Moments and San Diego Stories
 Cat & Cloud: Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Links – The Truth! Colombia Truji y Angelita Thermal Shock Natural https://catandcloud.com/products/colombia-truji-y-angelita-thermal-shock-natural Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan April 2026

Cat & Cloud Podcast Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Coffee and a Danish Barista Champion, Christopher Hoff - Ep #446 Summary: In this episode, Jared and Casey sit down with Danish Barista Champion Christopher Hoff, a top-six finisher at the World Barista Championships, to talk about competition, coffee, and the deeper story behind both. Christopher shares how his world routine centered on the coffee variety Wush Wush, a tropical and complex coffee that became a metaphor for his own journey of trying to become something he wasn't before learning to compete from a more grounded, authentic place. The conversation moves from signature drinks and competition strategy into bigger reflections on storytelling, hospitality, personal growth, and how coffee professionals can invite people into new experiences instead of gatekeeping them. It's a thoughtful, wide-ranging episode about craft, identity, and what it means to share something meaningful through coffee. Cat & Cloud celebrates this relationship to the world community of coffee and our desire to connect with friends from around the globe. Chapters 00:00 Welcoming Christopher Hoff to Cat & Cloud 03:20 What Barista Competition Actually Looks Like 09:10 Breaking Down the Signature Drink 13:00 Wush Wush and the Coffee Behind the Routine 20:00 The Three Principles and the Meaning of the Presentation 26:00 Competition Pressure, Overthinking, and Performing Authentically 32:00 Discovering Coffee Through Cat & Cloud and Coffee Collective 38:00 Denmark vs. California Coffee Culture 42:00 Hospitality, Encouraging Taste, and Bringing People In 45:00 The Community of Coffee Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Links – The Truth! Colombia Truji y Angelita Thermal Shock Natural https://catandcloud.com/products/colombia-truji-y-angelita-thermal-shock-natural Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan April 2026

This is a YouTube video as well that you can watch here:  https://youtu.be/ddrcNxwuLVY Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Cat & Cloud Podcast Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com Taking Care of the Pack w/Leah Wolff in HR - Ep #445 Summary: In this episode, the team sits down with Head of HR Leah Wolff to explore what it really looks like to build people, culture, and leadership inside a growing coffee company. Leah shares her journey from starting as a concierge during the pandemic to stepping into an executive leadership role, offering a candid look at how growth happens through ownership, feedback, and continuous learning. The conversation digs into the difference between traditional HR and a more human, culture-driven approach—covering hiring, training, communication, and the realities of managing a transient workforce. Along the way, they unpack how strong values, intentional onboarding, and honest conversations can shape not just better employees, but better people. Chapters: 00:00 Meet Leah Wolf and Casey Ryan 04:30 Leah's Journey from Concierge to Head of HR 10:00 Knowing When You're Ready to Lead 15:30 Feedback, Directness, and Learning to Communicate 21:00 Orientation, Training, and Setting the Tone 27:00 Hiring for Values and Cultural Fit 33:00 The Challenge of Staffing a Cafe Business 39:00 How Cat & Cloud Built Better HR Systems 45:00 Advice for Small Business Owners Hiring Their Team 51:00 Team Chemistry, Standards, and Accountability 57:00 Why Clear Expectations Matter 1:01:30 Gratitudes and Final Thoughts Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Links – The Truth! Colombia Truji y Angelita Thermal Shock Natural https://catandcloud.com/products/colombia-truji-y-angelita-thermal-shock-natural Jared Truby Interview https://youtu.be/KaTFcHxjumk?si=wlTAbJ7ZCvZleM7B Jared Truby Zine https://www.flipsnack.com/965BBFD6AED/letter-to-young-coffee-owners-issue-with-jared-truby Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan April 2026

In the latest episode of Shift Happens, Jeff sits down with Gary Wolfson, Director of Global Partner Communities at Cisco, for a behind-the-scenes look at what it really took to co-design The Cisco 360 Partner Program—not just in theory, but in practice. This isn't just a story about partner programs—it's a masterclass in trust. Gary breaks down the difference between listening and hearing (and why partners know instantly which one you're doing), and introduces a simple but powerful framework: listen → interpret → act → be accountable. Sounds simple… until you try to do it at global scale, across thousands of partners, in the middle of massive change. What unfolds is a story of courage, vulnerability, and consistency—where trust wasn't built through words, but through action, rhythm, and follow-through. From early skepticism in Dublin to confidence at Partner Summit, this episode captures the real shift: when feedback stops being a checkbox and becomes your identity. Why listen: •

Cat & Cloud Podcast  Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ What We Think Matters vs. What Actually Matters w/ Chris and Casey - Ep# 444  This episode opens with an introduction to Casey Ryan—his background in filmmaking and eventually as an independent school principal, and how he found his way into Cat & Cloud—but quickly shifts into a deeper conversation about hospitality, coffee culture, and business. At the center is the question of what guests actually care about versus what coffee professionals think they care about, leading to a thoughtful breakdown of service, empathy, and meeting people where they are. Chris reflects on the tension between passion and practicality in specialty coffee, how to build excitement without overwhelming people, and why creating a welcoming, human experience ultimately matters more than showcasing expertise. Chapters 00:00 Casey Ryan's Path from Education to Cat & Cloud 08:00 What Guests Care About vs What We Think They Care About 17:00 Passion vs. Business in Specialty Coffee 22:00 Santa Cruz, Coffee Culture, and Meeting People Where They Are 29:00 Service as Soft Skill, Performance, and Human Connection 29:00 Training, Teaching, Enthusiasm and Not Overloading People 40:00 Coffee Curiosity, Guest Journeys, and No Gatekeeping 47:30 Gratitude for Team Cat & Cloud: Instagram: www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore: Buy Our Coffee! www.catandcloud.com/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Links – Cafe Imports Event at World of Coffee: Moderated by Chris Baca https://www.eventbrite.com/e/source-where-do-we-go-from-here-tickets-1983895046489 The Truth! Colombia Truji y Angelita Thermal Shock Natural  https://catandcloud.com/products/colombia-truji-y-angelita-thermal-shock-natural Jared Truby Zine https://www.flipsnack.com/965BBFD6AED/letter-to-young-coffee-owners-issue-with-jared-truby World of Coffee/SCA https://usa.worldofcoffee.org/ Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan April 2026

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Cat & Cloud Podcast  Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Coffee Futures Fund: Community and Support for Emerging Coffee Shop Owners - Ep# 443 Summary In this episode, the crew sits down with Akshat Khandelwal, founder of Coffee Futures Fund, to unpack the reality of coffee shop ownership—and why so many founders struggle in silence. Drawing from conversations with hundreds of operators, Akshat shares how the industry has focused heavily on product quality while overlooking the people behind the bar. The conversation explores loneliness in ownership, the myth of “figuring it out alone,” and how mentorship, community, and shared experience can dramatically shift outcomes for emerging shop owners. From funding models to values-driven leadership, this episode highlights a growing movement to support independent coffee businesses in a more human, connected way. Chapters 00:00 Akshat's Origin Story and Why Coffee Pulled Him In 08:00 Why So Many Coffee Shop Owners Said “Don't Do It” 16:00 From Romantic Dream to Coffee Futures Fund 24:00 Building a Village: Mentorship, Community, and Capital 32:00 Why Coffee Shop Owners Feel Isolated 40:00 Values, Clarity, and What Makes a Cafe Actually Matter 48:00 How the Cohort Works: Goals, Mentors, and Growth 56:00 Funding Without Equity: A Different Way to Support Shops 1:04:00 Letters to Young Coffee Shop Owners and the Future of Coffee Futures Fund Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Links – The Truth! Colombia Truji y Angelita Thermal Shock Natural  https://catandcloud.com/products/colombia-truji-y-angelita-thermal-shock-natural Coffee Futures Fund: Jared Truby Interview https://youtu.be/KaTFcHxjumk?si=wlTAbJ7ZCvZleM7B Jared Truby Zine https://www.flipsnack.com/965BBFD6AED/letter-to-young-coffee-owners-issue-with-jared-truby Roundtable Event https://coffeefutures.fund/Roundtable.html World of Coffee/SCA https://usa.worldofcoffee.org/ Cafe Imports https://www.eventbrite.com/e/source-where-do-we-go-from-here-tickets-1983895046489 Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan March 2026

Winning the AI Trust Race Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this compelling discussion from the Ultimate Partner Winter Retreat, Vince Menzione sits down with Marc Monday of ServiceNow and marketing expert Ashleigh Vogstad to deconstruct the “tectonic shifts” currently hitting the tech industry. As the market moves from AI excitement into a period of “POC fatigue,” the conversation pivots to the essential groundwork required for success: clean data, governed workflows, and the transition from an attention economy to a trust-based machine economy. They explore how Gen Z's massive spending power is reshaping marketplaces and why simply automating a 27-step bad process with AI is a recipe for failure. Whether you are a partner manager or an entrepreneur, this episode provides a roadmap for staying human in a machine-to-machine world. Key Takeaways The market is experiencing “POC fatigue,” making it critical to transition from experimental AI to real-world value driven by central databases and knowledge graphs. ServiceNow is shifting focus toward “Control Tower” solutions to govern and orchestrate how various AI agents interact with mission-critical data. We are moving from a human-centric “attention economy” to a “trust economy” where machines make high-stakes decisions on behalf of users. Automating an existing 27-step approval process without rethinking the workflow first results in an “automated bad process” rather than a solution. By 2030, 75% of B2B buyers will be Gen Z, a demographic that favors authentic voices and direct-to-fan platforms like Substack over traditional channels. Hyperscaler partnerships are becoming essential “third-party validation” layers that allow AI agents to verify a company's win rates and credibility. 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 ServiceNow, Marc Monday, Ashleigh Vogstad, Ultimate Partner, AI Fatigue, Agentic AI, Control Tower, Trust Economy, Knowledge Graph, Workflow Engine, Gen Z B2B, Marketplace, Hyperscalers, Machine-to-Machine, Data Governance, POC Fatigue, Substack, LinkedIn, Digital Transformation, Co-Selling, Partner Programs, ERP Intelligence, Uncanny Valley, Marketing Lag, Shared Business Planning. Transcript Ashleigh and Marc Monday Audio Episode [00:00:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: But the reality is, if you’re not using AI in a very meaningful way in your sales and marketing functions of your businesses, I mean you’re just way behind. [00:00:13] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Come join me now for a compelling discussion on the impacts of the tectonic shifts we’re all seeing. Maybe just a second about roles and responsibilities. Most of you know Ash from previous, uh, things you’ve been doing with us. [00:00:34] Vince Menzione: But, but maybe for you, Martin, this is your first time. [00:00:36] Marc Monday: Where should I [00:00:37] Vince Menzione: look there? Alternate partner. Their lives [00:00:38] Marc Monday: there? [00:00:39] Vince Menzione: Uh, yeah, over here is good. Either one. [00:00:41] Marc Monday: Look over there. Which would you prefer? [00:00:43] Vince Menzione: Um, this is good. [00:00:44] Marc Monday: Great. It’s, [00:00:45] Vince Menzione: and, but right now I’m just asking you for everybody, tell everybody who you are in your role. [00:00:49] Vince Menzione: ’cause you just shifted roles at ServiceNow. It’s [00:00:51] Marc Monday: true. It’s true. Hello everyone. My name is Mark one day and I lead the America’s partner business, uh, partner sales business at ServiceNow today. And effective Monday I’ll lead the global partner team. Uh, Jen Odes, who’s been on the podcast. Yes. She’s been and I are switching roles. [00:01:07] Marc Monday: Jen’s gonna go run the patch and I’m gonna run the programs, uh, effective next week. [00:01:11] Vince Menzione: That’s fantastic. [00:01:12] Marc Monday: And I live in Seattle. [00:01:15] Vince Menzione: You live in Seattle. Yeah. And you made the trip out here. I really appreciate that. It’s a long journey. And Vancouver or Whistler? So both of you came from the, from the West coast. [00:01:23] Marc Monday: This may be the first snowboarding panel in history of ultimate partner. [00:01:29] Ashleigh Vogstad: I liked the question earlier. Somebody asked, did anyone leave the snow to be here? It was literally a blizzard. I did not know if I would make it driving at 4:00 AM to the airport in a total whiteout. [00:01:41] Marc Monday: You’re getting zero sympathy from me Live in Whistler. [00:01:44] Vince Menzione: So, so Service now has been, uh, I would say on the forefront of this AI thing. I mean, like you were early in and control towers, that I always get the, the nomenclature wrong, but I do feel like we are seeing some, a level of fatigue right now. And I keep seeing, I mean, it feels like every, we’re getting whiplashed at least the last few weeks. [00:02:03] Vince Menzione: Are you seeing that? And what are the two or three biggest blockers you’re seeing now in the market? [00:02:10] Marc Monday: I think there’s, there’s a lot of excitement obviously in the marketplace, but there is a bit of AI fatigue. There’s a POC fatigue, I think that’s going on. I think the reality is we have to make AI real, and the reality is it starts with good data, uh, a, a central, uh, a database, and really making sure that that’s extensible through a knowledge graph. [00:02:31] Marc Monday: And then that provides us the ability to identify that workflow. Then importantly, um, making it real and, and as fast as possible. And I think that’s really important for the customer. One of the value props of ServiceNow, of course, is that we’ll meet the customer where they are with whatever their estate has, [00:02:47] Vince Menzione: right? [00:02:47] Marc Monday: So any hyperscaler, any workload, any core dataset, um, any LLM and, um, our history is as a workflow engine, and so we can bring that level of knowledge to their business. And then importantly, we bring together the governance and orchestration from a control tower perspective. [00:03:08] Vince Menzione: Nice. Ash had perspective on this, on the kind of the whiplash we’ve been feeling. [00:03:13] Vince Menzione: From From the marketing agency side? [00:03:15] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. I mean, what comes to mind is the Miriam Webster dictionary said that LOP is the 2025 Word of the Year lop and Satchin Nadella actually came out with some press immediately following on that, saying that essentially that LOP is an exactly a useful construct to be having a conversation around the future of media. [00:03:37] Ashleigh Vogstad: But I think what this is pointing to is just we’re all navigating. Exactly how much AI is good ai, and maybe we will get into a little bit later, but what is the difference between selling to a human being and selling to a machine? Um, and really when we’re getting into this age agent landscape, it’s much more about that machine to machine conversation. [00:04:01] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s not necessarily. Human eyeballs on recommendation links that is paid for by advertising. It’s more of a trust economy actually, where machines wanna be able to make decisions on our behalf with high trust so that you continue to enable that machine to make those decisions for you. [00:04:22] Vince Menzione: We talked about the data. [00:04:23] Vince Menzione: I thought we’d double click a little bit on that. In fact, that point it would normally have been here, but because of the snow wasn’t able to, they focus in on this governance and this data element. I was thinking maybe we could talk a little bit about that, because it doesn’t seem like AI will work properly if we don’t have the data to stay governed and clean, right? [00:04:42] Marc Monday: I think this is the amazing opportunity for the partners out there. They do this already. This is one of those assessments that’s so quick and not easy, but clear to deliver a value prop as a partner. Let’s get you ready for ai. Let’s make sure that we’re ensuring that your data’s in a extensible in a way across, uh, some sort of knowledge graph that can be accessed across a number of different, um, use cases. [00:05:09] Marc Monday: And oftentimes that’s multiple data sets. And so how do you get those columns and rows organized in a way that’s extensible for an agent, that we’re basically asking to do something that is an unique opportunity for partners right now. And I, I think that we maybe missed that step. So I see what I see happening right now is we’ve gotta come back to that as a starting point for the partners. [00:05:31] Vince Menzione: Let’s talk about agent ai or you also have orchestration AI as well. I wanna talk about their, your new service platform specifically, but maybe if you could double click with this on that. [00:05:42] Marc Monday: Well, I think that, you know, everyone is kind of trying to figure out how do we get there and who’s gonna orchestrate and govern what AI agent is calling on, what data set at what time, and what sequence. [00:05:54] Marc Monday: You may have a mission critical application that needs to have immediate access, and you may have other agents that have casual access. How do you control that in a meaningful way is gonna be become increasingly important. So we have the idea of this product that we call control tower. The control tower gives you the ability to manage that orchestration as well as the governance. [00:06:14] Vince Menzione: Any perspective on this? [00:06:17] Ashleigh Vogstad: I think I’ll share the perspective. As an entrepreneur, I know many people here represent. Companies that are our clients and are, are massive in scale and, and hyperscalers. But I think there are some people in the room who are running their own organizations. I think when I came out, Vince asked, you know, Ash growth mindset, how are you actually living this? [00:06:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: And we’re going through a journey in my business right now around what are all of the data sources that we have and how can we get that into an enterprise resource planning type system so that we can then overlay more intelligence. And that’s kind of where we’re at in the, it’s funny ’cause when you look at those maturity curves, they try and fit you in a box. [00:06:57] Ashleigh Vogstad: Nobody here likes being in a box. Um, and we’re in a corner. Yeah. In some ways it’s like we’re in that agentic box. I built an agent last week, funny enough for Microsoft actually, um, an executive comms agent, but in one hand we’re on that end and on the other, our data’s a mess and we really can’t apply a lot of intelligence to the majority of the data sources within our organization. [00:07:20] Ashleigh Vogstad: So we’re getting that all together right now. [00:07:22] Vince Menzione: When you came out, we talked a little bit, you were, you were mentioning having an advertising agency, marketing agency. The changes that are going on right now. Right? The attention economy and the trust economy. And I thought maybe you could double click with us on that. [00:07:35] Vince Menzione: ’cause that’s, uh, very interesting to see this shift. [00:07:39] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s a huge shift. So, uh, 1964 Canadian philosopher, Marshall McCluen, he comes out and he says The medium is the message. [00:07:49] Audience Question: Yeah. [00:07:49] Ashleigh Vogstad: And so you wanna think about how is agenta a different medium and what are the biases that this medium inherently has? So in my media world, you know, you get these storytelling tools rolling out at Speed Chat, GBT, soa, and in the beginning they’re really at that low end of the curve. [00:08:08] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, they can produce a shitty first draft, uh, but the content that they’re creating is really low emotional resonance. If you take kind of a neuroscientist perspective on this, and I’m definitely not a neuroscientist, but the part of your brain that’s responsible for that pattern recognition, your cortical sal circuit, that’s what’s kicking in. [00:08:29] Ashleigh Vogstad: And when you’re looking at, say, an advertisement, you’re starting to think, you know, is what I’m looking at actually commensurate with what I expect to see? And when it’s not, you can trigger that what psychologists call your uncanny valley. Now some will argue that on County Valley is really diminishing these days because AI generated media is getting better and better. [00:08:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: And I do think that it’s something you want to lean in, but you also wanna think intelligently around how you’re using this new medium and exactly what its, what its biases are. [00:09:03] Vince Menzione: Is that the gut syndrome? Like when you feel something in your gut? Is that what you described? [00:09:07] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the classic example is Coca-Cola. [00:09:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: So 2024 Coca-Cola rolled out their very nostalgic for many of us holiday campaign, and they decided to use tools like Luma Dream Machine to make this whole Santa Claus North Pole, but AI generated universe. And it had that classic stuff around, you know, six fingered people and it gave you this. Kind of creepy post-apocalyptic vibe and the campaign completely tanked in market. [00:09:37] Ashleigh Vogstad: Or more recently, last year, mango rolled out a new fashion line Mango’s a huge global fashion retailer. They rolled out a new fashion line, and in their advertisements they had AI generated models and AI generated clothing. Like to sell a real line. So, you know, you, you have to really be thinking about, again, when we come to an attention economy based on human beings or a machine economy based on trust, many of these companies are still selling to us human beings. [00:10:09] Ashleigh Vogstad: And I, I think they can forget that at times. [00:10:12] Vince Menzione: So what’s your guidance to customers today and to this audience and viewers watching us today from a go-to market motion? In this world of ai, like what? What are you telling? What? How are you counseling these organizations? [00:10:25] Ashleigh Vogstad: You need to have an authentic voice. [00:10:27] Ashleigh Vogstad: We, we’ve heard this a million times, so I’ll try and put a bit of a, a different spin on it at platforms direct to fan platforms, things like Substack. Substack grew 48% last month. I mean, we are seeing this skyrocket, and that’s a new channel where you can have an authentic voice. Many people in this room, myself included, we live on LinkedIn as the business to business platform. [00:10:50] Ashleigh Vogstad: Consider expanding out into, into a new channel, um, would be one of my recommendations. Interesting. [00:10:57] Vince Menzione: Any, anything else from, uh, what you developed or what you use and ai and what do you, what, what tools do you recommend they use and what. [00:11:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: There. [00:11:06] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:11:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: What are we seeing with our, so I can give this example of this executive comms agent that we built. [00:11:12] Ashleigh Vogstad: Or even part, yeah, we’re building agents all the time, so what we try to do is think about what is our customer seeking to solve. We heard a lot today about outcomes, and then we challenge an AI first lens, which is how can we build something with AI to make this easier, better, faster, more creative? We’ll even do things, we’re a marketing agency, so we’ll even do things like beat the bot, pitch competitions. [00:11:37] Ashleigh Vogstad: So this is where you’re inviting your agent into the room and you’re asking it to put the pitch together, say for ServiceNow and Microsoft, and what can it come up with? And then we put it in a room of human beings and see who can out pitch. Bot, um, and come up with a more novel, creative idea. But the reality is, if you’re not using AI in a very meaningful way in your sales and marketing functions of your businesses, I mean, you’re just way behind. [00:12:07] Ashleigh Vogstad: And I see it a bit more advanced in all honesty and sales because I think some of your large. Organizations push the AI down to the sellers. Mm-hmm. Um, so they’re somewhat forced to use it, but in marketing, I’m still seeing a real lack, which is funny since generative AI came out in 2022 and everybody thought the marketing function was the one to really be disrupted and displaced. [00:12:30] Ashleigh Vogstad: I do think your marketing teams need to be leaning in more. [00:12:35] Vince Menzione: We were talking about trust earlier. I wanna weave this into the conversation. Right. How do, how do you. How do you think through trust and applying trust in the area I world, I’ll ask you both this question under service. Now think about it. How do you think about it or transcend? [00:12:54] Marc Monday: Maybe I’ll take a step back. I, I think just to kind of go back to the previous question, I think we’re in this age of massive complexity. Incredible complexity. Nina said it earlier, the customers kind of want us to tell them what to do. What are the steps? We’re at this dichotomy of this level of complexity that’s almost unimaginable and we have to make it simple. [00:13:18] Marc Monday: I think that’s the first one. And then that, that is put up against this notion of we have to go incredibly fast ’cause the market’s moving faster than we can even understand it. [00:13:28] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:13:29] Marc Monday: And then we have to add on this veneer, and this is where the partner community becomes so important of how do we scale? [00:13:35] Marc Monday: So how do you take simplicity, speed, and scale and bring it to market? It starts with the data, of course it starts with the workflow, but I might just take a giant step back and say one of the things that another partner opportunity you might run to really consider is automating a bad process, even with AI is still a bad process. [00:13:58] Marc Monday: So again, a partner opportunity is, let’s zoom back out and say if your approval. Takes 13 steps in 27 days, building an AI process around that. Without rethinking it might not be the right solution. So I think part of it is also like rather than just dictating all of the steps, part of it, to the point of telling the customer the steps is getting them to participate in that conversation. [00:14:29] Marc Monday: Why do you have 27 approval layers? Well. It’s the most dangerous thing in the language. It’s because we’ve always done it that way. Well, what if we did it differently? Yeah. And so I think that’s an area where the trust is a two-way street and you can’t just the part, the customer shouldn’t just outsource all of their decision making to you. [00:14:50] Marc Monday: At the same time, you have to bring them into that discussion of what are you trying to accomplish and what is your, um, risk appetite relative to that. [00:15:02] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, that, that’s great, mark. I mean, trust is a really important conversation. I think about the Amazon versus Perplexity lawsuit right now that some are headlining the end of commerce. [00:15:14] Ashleigh Vogstad: Um, and so really this precedent setting case, what this is about is perplexity. Essentially is disintermediating the Amazon platform. So you know it’s making purchase decisions on your behalf, so, so this idea of trust in the agent world is something I think about a lot. And how do you optimize trust for this agentic world? [00:15:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: The professor I was mentioning, Eric Zow, who has this attention economy and the trust economy for agents where my research is leaning in is really around what is the hyperscaler layer on top of that. My working theory is that hyperscaler partnerships are just gonna become more important because the machines need to verify via trusted third party data sources what it is that you’re up to. [00:16:02] Ashleigh Vogstad: So how many deals have you done? Uh, what is your win rate percentage? This kind of information is incredibly valuable to the agent world, and so I think we’re gonna see an. Increasing lean in to these third party validation co-selling systems like partner center. [00:16:22] Marc Monday: I mean, just to add onto yeah. This idea, I mean, we do talk a lot about trust, but attention is probably underserved if I think about the role of a partner manager or an alliance director, it’s all about the trade-offs of what am I gonna spend my time on today? [00:16:37] Marc Monday: And you’re being pulled in a million directions, and I dunno about you, but it’s probably 900 to 10,000 unread emails and maybe you’ll respond to your immediate messages and if something happens, you’ll respond in in text. Part of it is also delineating between the busyness and the impact, and I think a lot of that’s also part of this discussion of how do we get focused on the outputs that matter. [00:17:02] Marc Monday: Really helping the customer get there through that discussion, which again goes back to it has to be a dialogue with the customer rather than just, this is the solution. Here’s our SOW. We’ll see you in six months. [00:17:14] Vince Menzione: Agree. We have a couple extra minutes. I was thinking of maybe opening it up for you. Any questions? [00:17:19] Vince Menzione: We have a mic in the back and I’m sure people have questions about this topic is, is fascinating to me and I wanna make sure that we’ve covered any of the questions we have. We have one right in the front from Shannon. [00:17:30] Marc Monday: Send the hard [00:17:31] Vince Menzione: questions over there. Not Yes. I’ll take the Easy books. Yeah. [00:17:36] Audience Question: You referenced marketing lag. [00:17:38] Audience Question: I think all of us would love to see marketing leading. [00:17:41] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yes. [00:17:42] Audience Question: Um, so how are you infusing within your marketing team at different levels around content creation? Um, there’s so much, uh, ego right on being a graphic designer or an editor, a copy editor that they. The human inflation in that conversation is a, is a hard thing to get them over. [00:18:02] Audience Question: And now AI can help this. How are you? [00:18:04] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, let’s have a conversation after. But you just brought up a funny No, I’m gonna answer as well, but you brought up, brought up a funny, uh, conversation we had internally, just in the last 24 hours we’re interviewing for a new creative director and one of our candidates said, yes, but I don’t do Figma. [00:18:20] Ashleigh Vogstad: I’m not a UX person. I just laughed and I said, you know, the day is coming where It’s a designer, it’s a UX person, it’s a project manager, a program manager, a copywriter. You know, AI is condensing a lot of roles in that way. So I think being multidisciplinary in your skillset is, um. Is quite valuable, but I’ll also take this into a hyperscaler direction and say, no. [00:18:46] Ashleigh Vogstad: Here audiences, 75% of it buyers are going to be Gen Z by 2030. They have 12 trillion in spending power. I was in Silicon Valley yesterday, uh, helping a customer with a wind story. They did a $12 million transaction through Marketplace. Now that’s very impressive, but it would’ve been more impressive two years ago. [00:19:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: There are more and more, 10 million plus. Deals happening through marketplace. And so if you look at that Gen Z and start to understand them and their buying behavior, like another example is, I think it’s 80%, no, no half, sorry, half of Gen Z last month made a purchase via Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. They are used to making these online transactions and average purchase price is going up. [00:19:35] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, $500,000 plus is starting to be the average in some of these enterprise selling platforms. So as a marketing team, how are we kind of going in and leading the marketplace? Conversation I think is really critical and there’s technical elements to that. [00:19:52] Marc Monday: Maybe the caveman view of that would be, um, the other side, which is I think someone earlier said, we have to know where our customer is at. [00:20:00] Marc Monday: And a lot of our, we are very lucky. We live in this very insular tech bubble and we’re thinking about, you know, where we are 10 years from now and the customer’s gonna are gonna get there eventually, and it’s gonna happen faster. But I would say in marketing, I mean the two easiest use cases right now are around localization. [00:20:16] Marc Monday: Language localization and then specific market localization, like we don’t have to solve world hunger right now. There are some steps and those steps are some of the easy things. Localization probably is a big component of your marketing budget. That’s something that you can get really good, really fast language localization, addition market localization. [00:20:35] Marc Monday: This market is a healthcare market. This market is an SMB market. Those are two areas where that through partner marketing motion can to get accelerated very quickly and has a tremendous ROI. [00:20:47] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Great one. Nina, you had a question [00:20:50] Audience Question: three Mark. You, you just, you just hit on part of it is that value proposition message is, it’s really easy in AI to, to fine tune that. [00:20:59] Audience Question: The other thing that I’ll be very transparent about, um, at least in my organization and America’s partner, we only work with um, third party. Marketing vendors now that are AI first period. [00:21:12] Audience Question: Nice. We [00:21:12] Audience Question: completely cleaned out who the vendors are that we will approve to work with. Wow. Um, so because we can also see the cost reduction, but it is a mindset change. [00:21:22] Audience Question: They have to, they, if, if they’re gonna be positioning this, it has to be inherent. It has to be part of their culture of, at. [00:21:29] Marc Monday: Ashley made a really wonderful point. I mean, this bad first draft is so key and so, you know, in the past we would’ve spent. A couple days or maybe even a week on a really bad first draft. [00:21:40] Marc Monday: And the bad first draft is just to generate feedback. You can generate a bad, a good, bad first draft in a couple of minutes with the right prompts. [00:21:48] Vince Menzione: Yeah, good. Point. Point questions to the back, Steven. [00:21:55] Audience Question: Mark, as you guys are building out agents, the orchestration to manage them, is that taking you into workflows outside of ServiceNow? [00:22:05] Audience Question: Yes. [00:22:07] Vince Menzione: Repeat the question, sorry. Yeah. Just in case people aren’t getting [00:22:09] Marc Monday: Yes. The question is, um, for ServiceNow specifically, um, is that taking you out of your traditional business? And I think he, he means it’s probably business in it, and the answer is yes. So our value promise is that we can go north, south, east, west, across the estate. [00:22:24] Marc Monday: Regardless of the workflow. So there are scenarios where we are expanding. Of course, we have a commitment to driving the CRM business, moving beyond just customer service management, but all the way through the process to CPQ and we’ll productize many of those things. But the reality is, if the workflow touches, let’s say. [00:22:42] Marc Monday: Uh, a, a big database, you know, from one of your known providers, uh, an HCM system, your our traditional IT system. This is maybe around service delivery of a particular set of kit to a new employee for onboarding or offboarding across a number of those systems of record. Yes, we’ll continue to do that, and honestly, it’s the value promise for us that because we are capable of working with. [00:23:06] Marc Monday: Every hyperscaler, every application, every data set, we can go up and down and across the state. [00:23:12] Audience Question: Hi everyone. I’m Jen Pauls. Hey, Jen. I have a um, I have a question for you. So when you’re incorporating AI, and also you mentioned trust, how do you make sure that the offerings that you’re coating on are feasible specifically for that whole individual partner and client? [00:23:34] Audience Question: And you’re not repeating. Something. Does that make sense to you? Yeah. Like how do you make sure that there is an individualized component that is original in thought, even though you’re feeding this pipeline, all these combined thoughts? [00:23:51] Marc Monday: I, I don’t wanna push back on the premise, but I do think in some instances, partners, implementers will have competing solutions that do effectively the same thing. [00:23:59] Marc Monday: Ideally they’re differentiated, but I do think publishing a, a standard. Particularly from a security and a reliability perspective, what that traditionally we would’ve called that API standard, and then a level of validation, either via human validation or systemic AI validation is really key. Um, the solution that gets marketed, let’s say, in our marketplace should work and it should be secure and it should be reliable. [00:24:25] Marc Monday: So we processes to manage that, if that’s the question. [00:24:29] Audience Question: Right? Well, it would, you know, yes. Yes. But. Um, when you’re trying to create a dispute or an offering, right, that’s specific to that particular partner, this is where I’m going. How do you make sure that the thoughts that are coming in are specifically, I guess, individualized for that one partner and what they’re doing and how they’re going to make a new, um, new, uh, track or a new journey in what you’re selling? [00:24:57] Ashleigh Vogstad: I mean, I would answer that I think with differentiation is still really important. And if anything, if we had an 80 20 rule for 80% of the lift is coming from ai, we’re all still here and employed because there is a rule for the, the human, at least currently in that 20%. And I would say. Running teams who are often building new offers and products, both on the ISV and SI side of things. [00:25:25] Ashleigh Vogstad: Getting that unique differentiation is critically important. Like that’s where a lot of value is created. Or you could look at, I mean Nabil probably has stories about this all day in the MSP world is it’s really challenging for MSPs to differentiate on top of their core offering, but that is where value creation happens. [00:25:43] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. Nina more, I’ll [00:25:44] Audience Question: just piggyback on that. My recommendation to a lot of, of our partners today is build out agents at that 80% watermark. Right? And that’s a little bit what you were talking about, the 80, 20, 80% of that functionality. Quite honestly, if you’re looking at an call center or something, is something that can be ported. [00:26:05] Audience Question: The, the magic is working with the partner on what X 20 is that differentiates their business, their experience, how, uh, the applicability to. So I, I will, I, to your point about ology, the premise, I mean it, to me, I think repeatability is, is awesome. It’s a superpower. It’s gonna get us there faster. It’s in that 20%. [00:26:31] Audience Question: Yeah. [00:26:34] Vince Menzione: Thank, perfect, thank you. [00:26:36] Marc Monday: Maybe I’ll close with with one really simple use case just for all of us that are in the partner profession and we work in alliances or partner management. The easiest and best, most effective use case for us as power users today is a shared business plan. Here are the goals and objectives of us as a vendor or a platform provider. [00:26:57] Marc Monday: Here are the goals and objectives of us as the implementer or a resell partner. Um, and in the past I used to describe this as a really complicated bow tie. On one side, you’d have our goals, and on the other side you’d have the, the, the implementer’s goals. And you’d spend all this time weaving together a knot and try to tie it together. [00:27:16] Marc Monday: That activity can happen in about five seconds with the right prompt. And you can very quickly say, oh, you guys think about a CV. We think about a RR Oh, your fiscal year is, is offset. Your fiscal year isn’t, oh, you call this product something different. Um, we care about platform revenue. We care about services revenue. [00:27:35] Marc Monday: You can reconcile that into a pretty darn good shared scorecard and business plan in a matter of seconds. Yeah, and that is a huge time saver. I [00:27:45] Vince Menzione: love that. [00:27:47] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s just an ama uh, it just thumbs up for me because that joint business planning just doesn’t happen enough. I, I’m in some of the biggest alliances on, on the planet really, and it’s shocking to me how little joint business planning is done. [00:28:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: And for the marketing question, Shannon, like how can marketers lean in? I mean, market development funds are made available based on things like joint business plugs. [00:28:09] Vince Menzione: That’s right. Yeah, really great point. Great voice. Thank you so much. So good to have you finally have you here. Thank you, mark and Ash. [00:28:17] Vince Menzione: Thank you so much [00:28:18] Audience Question: Owens. [00:28:19] Vince Menzione: Don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.

Cat & Cloud Podcast  Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Monday Morning Coffee Industry Check-in - Ep #442 Summary In this episode, Chris, Jared and Casey cover a wide mix of coffee-industry updates, behind-the-scenes projects, and big-picture reflections on what makes specialty coffee compelling. They preview upcoming events including a Bay Area roundtable with Coffee Futures Fund, their plans for World of Coffee in San Diego, and Chris's upcoming Cafe Imports panel focused on the real challenges business owners are facing right now. The conversation also dives into the design and philosophy behind the new third version of the Chris Baca Dial Tamper, exploring how tools can become expressions of craft, ritual, and identity. From there, they wander into a thoughtful discussion about trade shows, coffee culture, Blue Bottle's evolution under corporate ownership, and the tension between hospitality, scale, authenticity, and business reality—while still keeping the whole thing loose, funny, and very Monday-morning Cat & Cloud. Chapters 00:00 Coffee Futures Roundtable on Cafe Business Ownership 06:00 World of Coffee in San Diego: Why This Year Feels Big 10:00 Chris's Cafe Imports Panel: Less PR, More Reality 15:00 The Third Dial Tamper and the Beauty of Overbuilt Tools                            26:45 Why Coffee Gear and Design Geek Out 35:00 Blue Bottle, Big Business, and the Arc of a Brand 40:00 Nestle, Specialty Coffee and Cafes Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Links: Coffee Futures Fund: Jared Truby Zine https://www.flipsnack.com/965BBFD6AED/letter-to-young-coffee-owners-issue-with-jared-truby Coffee Futures Fund: Roundtable Event https://coffeefutures.fund/Roundtable.html World of Coffee/SCA https://usa.worldofcoffee.org/ Cafe Imports https://www.eventbrite.com/e/source-where-do-we-go-from-here-tickets-1983895046489 Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan March 2026

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Cat & Cloud Podcast  Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Finding Joy in Every Season of Work: Part II – Ep #441 Summary In part two of this conversation on finding joy in every season of work, the team (Chris, Jared and Casey) digs deeper into the shift from barista life into leadership, ownership, and building something that lasts. Chris and Jared reflect on how early work experiences, both inspiring and dysfunctional, shaped the kinds of leaders they wanted to become and reinforced the importance of community, fun, and genuine human connection in coffee. The episode explores how easy it is for owners and leaders to lose sight of the original passion that got them started, especially under the pressure of business realities, but argues that joy can still be created intentionally through trust, teamwork, better systems, gratitude, and a commitment to improving the experience for both staff, guests and for yourself. Ultimately, it's a conversation about staying connected to purpose, remembering where you came from, having gratitude, and building workplaces where success and joy are not enemies. Chapters 00:00 Welcome Back: Finding Joy in Every Season (Part 2) 4:00 The Transition from Barista to Leadership 11:00 Early Lessons from Tough Work Environments 20:00 Creating Culture Through Energy and Hospitality 30:00 When Business Pressure Steals the Joy 36:30 In a Tough Season of Business Ownership, Where to Next? 41:00 Where Did You Come From? Where Did You Go? 46:45 What Still Fires Us Up Today Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan March 2026

Cat & Cloud Podcast  Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Finding Joy in Every Season of Work: Part I – Ep #440 Summary In this episode, Chris and Jared (plus Casey) reflect on the early days that pulled us into specialty coffee and how those experiences shaped the work we're still doing today. From skateboarding friendships and barista competitions to building cafés and leading teams, we talk about how the things that bring joy evolve over time. As careers grow and responsibilities expand, the work changes—and sometimes the parts you loved most become harder to hold onto. We explore the idea that every season of life and business brings different sources of meaning, and that part of the real work is finding the through lines that keep the joy alive. This conversation looks back at where it all started while asking an ongoing question: how do you stay connected to the things that made you love the work in the first place? Chapters 00:00 – Missing the Old Days: Skate Culture, Community, and the Idea of “a Place”
 05:00 – What Attracted you to Coffee and the Industry?
 10:30 – Origin and Drive Around Being a Competitive Barista
 15:00 – Competition, Connection, and Energy
 20:00 – Competitions as a Frontier of New Ideas, and Judging 27:10 -- Barista Origins and Attitudes in the Business DNA Today
 31:00 – Competition and Competition Evolution 38:00 – Transitioning to Career Focus 40:45 – Moving Forward and End of Part 1 Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan March 2026

Two other episodes you might want to check out: How to BECOME a Wedding Planner BTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business Tips Share your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you! Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals! Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE. Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources: Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients! Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!) Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFF Honeybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya! P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Cat & Cloud Podcast  Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ On-Stage, Off-Stage: Why Owners Stand in Line (And Other Hospitality Go's & No-Go's) – Ep #439 Summary In this episode, Jared, Chris, and Casey riff on authenticity and then dig into hospitality as “on-stage vs off-stage” work—treating a café like a live performance where everything guests see, hear, and feel (cleanliness, order, smell, noise, staff energy) shapes the experience before they even taste the coffee. They unpack “clubhousing” as a major no-go—when staff get lost in their own conversations or tasks and fail to include guests—and argue that the goal isn't robotic service but a shared framework that helps people be more present and human. A key leadership practice is cafe/restaurant owners standing in line and experiencing the business like a guest to spot friction and keep perspective. Chris closes with his biggest hospitality deal-breakers: letting the register conversation drag while a line builds, ignoring “hovering” guests who need help, and creating perceived unavailability—because being seen and acknowledged is often the difference between a tense room and a great one. Chapters 00:00 Cold Open 05:00 On-stage vs off-stage behavior in service 08:00 First impressions: cleanliness, orderliness, and “do they care?” 17:30 Club Housing: what it is and why it's toxic to guest experience 26:30 Loving something vs Loving it and acts of service 30:30 Leadership Habits: Witness user touch-points, and Standing in Line 36:40 Remember to Place yourself in Guest Mindset 42:40 Hot Takes and Hospitality No Goes! 46:45 Perceived unavailability + the easiest fix: acknowledge people 52:30 Strong Opinions matched with Empathy and a Growth Mindset Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ Roasters Choice Subscription www.catandcloud.com/collections/subscriptions Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Become a Wholesale Partner! Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/wholesale Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them.  The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.  Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by Casey Ryan Feb 2026

Cat & Cloud Podcast Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Specialty Coffee Ambassador: Meeting Guests Where They Are - Ep# 438 EPISODE SUMMARY Chris, Jared, and Casey dig into a classic specialty coffee problem: the gap between “coffee nerd language” and what customers actually need to have a great experience. They unpack why trust and hospitality come before origin stories and point scores, and how to guide people with simple, confidence-building choices instead of overwhelm. Along the way they riff on the limits of the 80+ point mindset, why the market ultimately decides what's valuable, and how cafés can create “stair steps” that help guests level up over time. The thesis is simple: make it welcoming, make it relatable, and help people win on their first step. CHAPTER TITLES 00:00 Cold Open: Fruit and Chocolate, and Casey on the Mic 05:00 Scrum Boards and the “Smallest Viable” Way to Improve 15:00 Sharing in Specialty Coffee: Engage and Build Trust 21:00 It's a Party not a Club. Welcoming others into Specialty Coffee 26:00 Specialty Scores, Coffee Assessment, and What “Value” Really Means 35:00 Specialty Coffee Industry Shifts 45:00 Knowing and Responding to the Guest Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ We LOVE our Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/pages/wholesale Links – The Home of Scrum: scrum.org Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time - by Jeffrey Sutherland and J.J. Sutherland (book) Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them. The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations. Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by: Casey Ryan Feb. 2026

This is a YouTube video as well that you can watch here:  https://youtu.be/cptmWCYlKe4Two other episodes you might want to check out:How to BECOME a Wedding PlannerBTS: Join Jamie on a Real Sales Call | Wedding Planning Business TipsShare your thoughts on this episode over on Instagram!  What do you think?!  Take a screenshot and tag @wolferandco so we can hear from you!Join the amazing discussions over in the Wedding Pros Facebook Group.  This is a group for aspiring, new, and experienced wedding planners and wedding vendor professionals!Jamie would love to help you get started with your wedding planning business or optimize the one you have already started.  If you'd like personal guidance from Jamie, access to her community of VIP wedding professionals, and the opportunity to be listed on her preferred wedding planner listing that is shared with thousands of engaged couples every month, consider joining The Union Mastermind. You can find out more about that program HERE.Our Favorite Wedding Business Resources:Generation Tux - join their Partner Program and start earning affiliate money recommending a reputable suit vendor to your clients!Timeline Genius - create detailed timelines for your events (automated text messages, emails, and more!)Legally Set - Get all your legal contract templates you need; use code “UNION” for 20% OFFHoneybook - keep all your clients organized; use code “UNION” to get the current deal Jamie locked in for ya!P.S. - The links above may use affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and/or purchases, and I would love it if you used them! It won't cost you anything extra, but affiliate links are RAD because they help creators like me to fund the free content we provide.

Cat & Cloud Podcast The Evolution of Leadership: From Barista to Business Owner - Episode #437 Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Summary In Episode #437, Chris and Jared explore the real shift that happens when you move from barista to business owner. What once felt like fast-paced camaraderie and clear wins on bar becomes a slower, more complex game of systems, sacrifice, and long-term responsibility. They talk through the hidden cost of leadership, the tension between collaboration and independence, and why owners often see a hundred problems before they see progress. The takeaway: leadership evolves, satisfaction changes, and the key is choosing agency—building momentum on purpose instead of drifting through the role. Chapters 00:00 “Is Someone Dead?”: Walking Into a Silent Roastery Meditation 06:00 Love and Hate with Chris Baca 14:00 From Barista to Boss 20:00 The Cost of Leadership, Herb Brooks and Miracle:The Boys of ‘80 26:00 Where do you find satisfaction? 31:00 Business owners often only see what needs to be done 41:00 Agency: Stop Drifting and Choose Your Next Season Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ We LOVE our Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/pages/wholesale Links – Miracle: The Boys of '80 | Official Trailer, Netflix 2026 Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them. The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.

What Matters Most When Opening a Coffee Shop- and Where to Spend Your Money - Episode #436 Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Summary Thinking about opening a coffee shop? Here's where your money actually matters—and where it doesn't. In this episode, Chris Baca and Jared Truby…aka Dale ;) unpack what actually matters when you're opening (or refreshing) a café: create a real feeling of place without overspending on flashy build-out, “blow the bag” on the essentials (espresso machine, grinders, and water filtration), and don't get distracted by optional prestige projects like roasting, direct trade, or origin travel before the core experience is dialed. They also zoom out on how café design has evolved since early third-wave homogeneity and land on a grounded definition of “sustaining excellence”: either innovate with intention or “plus the show” by obsessively maintaining the details that signal care—because culture is what people learn to accept as normal. Chapters 00:00 Monterey and Coffee 07:00 Opening a New Coffee Shop? 13:30 Business reflects the people who started it 21:00 Should I Roast Myself? 29:00 Homogeny in Coffee Shop Design 33:20 What's Worth It vs. What's Hype 42:00 Plus the Show Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ We LOVE our Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/pages/wholesale Links – Six Over Coffee https://www.instagram.com/sixovercoffee/?hl=en Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them. The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.