In this episode of IAMCP Profiles in Partnership, hosts Anthony Carrano and Rudy Rodriguez sit down with Denny Ghim of Sandler Partners and Promod Antony, CEO of Logic Intelligence, for a compelling conversation about how trust-driven relationships, community involvement, and a shared mission can spark transformative business outcomes.
What starts as a story about two professionals connecting through IAMCP quickly unfolds into a larger narrative—one of purpose, opportunity, and the power of partnership. Together, Denny and Promod share the behind-the-scenes journey of how a simple introduction turned into a major data transformation project for the Oregon Food Bank, and how their partnership continues to evolve with even greater ambitions on the horizon.
Throughout this episode, Anthony, Rudy, Denny, and Promod explore:
- Showing Up with Value: The Art of the Warm Introduction
Denny reflects on his unique approach to networking—bringing value first. Whether it’s offering an opportunity, sharing a contact, or just showing up with a metaphorical (or literal) casserole, his goal is to establish trust from the start. That mindset proved pivotal in his collaboration with Promod, laying the groundwork for a partnership built on respect and mutual support. - Solving for Good: Empowering Nonprofits Through Tech
Promod and his team at Logic Intelligence helped the Oregon Food Bank move from a patchwork of siloed, on-prem systems to a unified cloud-based analytics platform. Using Azure, Power BI, and other tools, they created a streamlined, on-demand data environment that helps the nonprofit manage donor insights, food distribution, and compliance reporting with ease—ultimately allowing them to better serve their community. - The IAMCP Advantage
The conversation also explores how the IAMCP network catalyzed their collaboration. Denny and Promod emphasize the value of in-person connection, especially in a post-pandemic, screen-saturated world. It was through face-to-face IAMCP events that trust was built—and it’s that trust that turned introductions into opportunities. - From Projects to Purpose
This episode goes beyond the tech. Promod opens up about Logic Intelligence’s origins and how, despite having no sales team, the company has grown through thoughtful partnerships and reputation. Denny, too, shares his vision of helping partners like Promod scale to new heights—potentially bringing them into Sandler’s nationwide provider portfolio. For both, it’s about creating win-win scenarios that ripple beyond individual deals. - Advice for the Next Generation of Partners
Their closing message is simple but powerful: show up, build real relationships, and don’t be afraid to lead with generosity. If you’re looking to grow your business through the IAMCP, it starts with being present—and being helpful.
This episode is more than a story about successful business collaboration—it's a masterclass in how trust, community, and purpose-driven partnerships can lead to real impact. Whether you're a Microsoft partner, a nonprofit leader, or simply someone who values authentic connection in business, Denny and Promod's journey will inspire you to rethink how you network, how you show up, and how much more we can accomplish when we work together.
Listener Links / Resources
Guests:
Promod Antony, CEO at Logic Intelligence
LinkedIn Profiles:
- Promod Antony | LinkedIn
- Logic Intelligence | LinkedIn
URL: Logic Intelligence
Curry.TV
Denny Ghim, Director of Channel Sale
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Anthony Carrano (00:06):
Welcome to the IAMCP Profiles and Partnership,
the podcast that showcases howMicrosoft partners and IAMCP
members boost their business bycollaborating with other members
and partners. I'm your co-host,Anthony Carrano. And in each
episode, I'll be talking to someof the most innovative and
successful partners in theMicrosoft ecosystem, The
International Association ofMicrosoft Channel Partners,
(00:28):
otherwise known as IAMCP, is acommunity of Microsoft partners
who help each other grow andthrive. Members can find and
connect with other partnerslocally and globally and access
exclusive resources andopportunities. Whether you're
looking for new customers, newmarkets or new solutions, IAMCP
can help you achieve your goals.
We'll hear their stories, learnfrom their experiences and
(00:50):
discover the best practices andstrategies they use to increase
customer loyalty and growrevenues. Whether you're a new
partner or an established one,you'll find valuable insights
and inspiration in this podcast.We hope you enjoy this podcast
and find it useful andinspiring. If you do, please
subscribe, rate, and review uson your favorite podcast
(01:11):
platform. And don't forget tofollow us on social media and
connect with us on our website,www.profilesandpartnership.com,
where you can find moreinformation, resources and
opportunities to partner forsuccess. Thank you for
listening. And now let's getstarted with today's episode.
But before we do, let me askyou, how can face to face
(01:33):
networking help build trust andturn a challenging collaboration
into a successful partnership?We discussed this and more in
part two of our interview withPromod Antony from Logic
Intelligence and Denny Ghim fromSandler Partners, who share
their riveting journey ofteaming up for impactful
projects and navigatingchallenges together. Join us as
we uncover the strategies,experiences and valuable
(01:55):
insights that made theirpartnership a success story.
And now on to our episode.
Rudy Rodriguez (02:02):
Well, that's great to hear and which will
lead us to another story. I'mvery familiar with the nonprofit
world, and that's why I wantedto talk about the licensing
because maybe you can share alittle bit about that because
that's that's, something a lotof Microsoft partners don't know
about is how the Microsoftgrants work and working with
nonprofits. And having workedwith food banks here in Austin,
(02:26):
Texas area, I know what thattakes and and the noble efforts.
And I'll tell you a quick funnystory. When we first started the
IAMCP chapter here in Austin, weheld a Christmas party like
IAMCP chapters do, and we askedeverybody to bring food that we
could donate to the food bankand to donate money.
Well, that night we collected7,000 pounds of food and
(02:49):
collected over $3,000 indonations.
Denny Ghim (02:52):
Fantastic.
Rudy Rodriguez (02:53):
The funny part of the story was everybody left
the party. I had to haul 7,000pounds of food to the food bank.
Nearly killed me.
You know, I had a big LincolnNavigator, so it took multiple
trips. And then I got corralledat the food bank to go, hey, can
you, help us, you know, put foodpackets together? Well, went
(03:14):
back to the IAMCP and Icorralled 15 partners to come
help at the food bank. So I knowwhat you're talking about and
what a noble effort that is andhow much benefit you can bring
to people by doing this. SoDenny, you brought up a good
story and the nature of yourbusiness leads us to one thing.
And can you tell us a little bitabout, you know, has this helped
(03:38):
you develop the criteria forselecting, your partners in your
business? Can you talk to us alittle bit about that? And,
Promod, the same question willcome back to you, how you
partner with other people in thecommunity and through the IAMCP.
So, Denny?
Denny Ghim (03:53):
Yes. Yes. Well, it has helped me, understand more
that there's, again, a wholeuniverse of Microsoft partners
that have these variousspecialities, let's say, in
Dynamics and all the all theacronyms, all the names within
the Microsoft world, which I'mstill trying to remember and add
(04:17):
to my vocabulary. But what I seenow is I see a whole sea of
opportunity within the Microsoftpartner community, literally
just kind of tapping in and justliterally showing them the way.
Here's the here's the way,here's the portal, and here is
what you have access to.
So it's kind of opened my eyes alittle bit to know that I
(04:41):
already know that there are incertain areas of the country.
There are a number of IAMCPpartners that have recognized
this and have been able todouble, quadruple their monthly
recurring revenues, just becauseof the stuff that's been left on
the table. So, it's just simplya few more questions, and then
(05:02):
they have a support team thatcan kind of come to come to the
table. So in that way, it's it'sbeen exciting for me to see that
even Promod has thrown at least,you know, probably a half dozen
opportunities in front of us,and we've been looking at them
together. You know, it'sexciting because one deal that
(05:23):
happens, these are not smalldeals.
These deals are like,government, state deals,
sometimes enterprise leveldeals. And they can be kind of
life changing as far as what itcan do to a smaller
organization, a smallerbusinesses within the IAMCP.
Because, you know, I don't knowthe number of employees, but I'm
(05:47):
guessing typical IAMCP partnersare going to be companies that
have anywhere from five to 100employees. And, you know, adding
revenue to the tune of 10 to20,000 on one nice deal per
month is life changing for thatcompany and for the people there
(06:08):
of building that stability.Anyway, it's, you know, I'm the
Pied Piper of Sandler Partners,kind of evangelizing. The
opportunities are there, andthat's what's super exciting.
Rudy Rodriguez (06:19):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Promod, what is your
criteria? And, you know, havingworked through the IAMCP, you
know, how has this opened upyour eyes and how how to partner
and to help you grow yourbusiness?
Promod Antony (06:30):
Yeah. Sure. So in our case, we are a small
business based in Oregon andWashington. So we don't have a
lot of budget to like marketingbudget to hire, like, a full
fledged marketing person orsalespeople, and we are limited
in that case. So whenever we goto IAMCP events we are seeing
(06:51):
all these partners coming in,looking for opportunities.
Maybe we are good at doing thedata side of the business and
there are other people who aredoing good at other areas. Mean
we don't do networking, we dosome infrastructure but we don't
do like a high endinfrastructure setup and
(07:13):
everything. So when I'mcompeting with a high end
company, there was a King Countyor like a multi million dollar
opportunity that came in when wewere competing with like high
end companies like who have likethousands of employees to work
for them. For us it's a smallbusiness When we had to compete
(07:37):
with a company like that, we aretrying to look for areas where
we can fill in. So I was able toget into like four or five other
IAMCP members and asked them canyou partner with me for this
project and they did even thoughwe didn't get that project we
(07:58):
became the final stages of theproject we were one of the three
companies who were shortlistedfor the final stage but it was a
good experience, partnering withthose other companies filling in
all those other, places likerecruiting.
There is a vendor who, I mean,there was a partner who was
(08:19):
doing Microsoft recruitingspecializing the Microsoft side.
There was Dynamics365 who wascertified in different areas. So
for me it was, to find thosepeople to make that connections.
I didn't thought I'm going to bepartnering with those I mean
those businesses but thatconversation the trust we built
(08:43):
by going to ease networking andeverything that actually helped
me and, again, Denny, findingDenny that's that was the first
one that was the that was alottery I would say the first
one that actually worked andthat gave me that confidence and
the trust to proceed with otherto meet other IAMCP members and
(09:07):
partners.
Rudy Rodriguez (09:08):
That's great. That's great. Well you did
mention one key thing in thecriteria that both of you
mentioned. It's building thetrust relationships between
partners. And that's reallyimportant.
Denny Ghim (09:21):
I want to add one thing that Promod's team did
that was like, I just loved it.Loved it. They showed Oregon
Food Bank how to use thenonprofit Microsoft licensing
platform. They actually kind ofheld their hand through that
process. That was instrumentaland hugely valuable.
And I think there's a lot moreopportunity to do those type of
(09:44):
things. But yeah, that's onething that Promod's company and
Logic Intelligence didfantastically well. And, you
know, that was just anotherlayer of confidence that I had
that, you know, oh, wow, youknow, they're doing this. And I
mean, you could see we were onthese type of Teams meetings
(10:05):
and, you know, the leadership,their eyes were bugging out. And
they're like, oh, you can dothat. And that's what you want,
you know? That's what you want.
Promod Antony (10:13):
To add one more thing to that, I just thought
about it. So going to this IAMCPmeeting is not just meeting with
the partners. And it's also fromthe Microsoft side, we are able
to meet those people. It's verydifficult to find these people
like fabric Microsoft. There wasa couple of people who came from
(10:36):
the fabric side from theMicrosoft who is actually
leading the fabric team itself.
So we were able to make thoseconnections with Microsoft at
the same time like this grantprogram. I didn't know about the
grant program, but I think itwas one of those Microsoft
(10:56):
people who actually came to thisIAMCP meeting. That's how I knew
about the grant program. Sothat's how I was able to propose
that solution.
Rudy Rodriguez (11:07):
That's what I was going to ask you was, how
did you learn about the grantprogram? Because that's not an
easy thing to do. And it's aprocess that you you have to
specialize in. And that's one ofthe things about the value of
IAMCP is to learn additionalspecializations or processes of
working with and throughMicrosoft that do benefit that
(11:28):
benefits customers quite a bit.So thank you for sharing that.
That's a great value becausethat's one thing that a lot of
partners don't know about is isthat that program. Anthony, do
you have some more questions?
Anthony Carrano (11:41):
Yeah, absolutely. And this has been
fantastic. We appreciate youguys sharing a lot of really
valuable information. One thingthat I was kind of curious about
is how did you guys find eachother?
Promod Antony (11:52):
Denny, you want to start?
Denny Ghim (11:54):
It was a smoky room and I looked across
the way [laughter]
Anthony Carrano (11:59):
He wasn't one of the guys you were beating up,
you weren't beaten up on film.Right?
Denny Ghim (12:03):
No. No.
It was one of the IMCP meetingsthat Paul Solski is has led and
does a fantastic job.
Anthony Carrano: Was it the POG? The Partner (12:18):
undefined
Opportunity Group?
Denny Ghim (12:21):
No, not that particular group. It's just a
regular IAMCP meeting that wehave every third Thursday of the
month. And and our initialmeeting was, I think, virtual.
Yeah, it was virtual.
And so I saw promoted one ofthose meetings earlier on, and I
(12:42):
was wasn't able to kind of trackhim down. But the second time,
the following month, I actuallygot a hold of Promod and we were
put in the same breakout sessionwhere we make a fictitious
problem. And then we use thepeople in the room with their
introduction and what they do tosolve a problem. And we we make
it up as we go. But in thisparticular situation, I already
(13:06):
had a problem I wanted to solve.And so the people that were in
the room actually had theservices that I needed. So it
was like everything was meant tobe. And then I actually threw
out Oregon Food Bank. And thennot not too much after that, I
reached out to Promod, I said,Hey, you're local. Let's meet
(13:28):
up. Let's let's meet up andlet's talk about this deal. I
think a few days later, weactually did. We sat down and
kind of talking things throughand gave a strategy of so
typically in the solutions thatI have to provide, it's it's
usually giving them, you know,three solutions that are kind of
at the top of the food chain.
(13:50):
And so so they get a good lookat what what's the options. So
that's, you know, that's how Imet Promod, is through one of
those breakout sessions and thenturning what was make believe
into reality. And I think thatwas a way to do great practice.
I have to take my hat off toPaul Solski. He does a
phenomenal job in creating theseenvironments.
(14:14):
And then I tend to just kind ofjump before I look sometimes. I,
in this case, did, too. I gotkind of like, well, this is
great in practice, but, youknow, we're doing this for a
reason. Let's do it in reallife. So, you know, bringing a
deal to Promod, because it wasdifficult, I think, me,
culturally to break into theMicrosoft space and explain what
(14:35):
I do.
So I thought, well, what if Ibring a deal to a Microsoft
partner? And so that's what Idid. And now I'm seeing
reciprocal opportunities comingback. And so those are the
things that I think is helpful,and that's how we met. And so
I'm hoping to get to know morepeople with the IAMCP have those
opportunities, because everybodyhas a very unique solution, even
(14:58):
in our group up there.
Like, as Promod said, you know,we're partnering right now,
working on some projects thatwe're trying to accomplish. You
know, if they turn out well,they will turn out. And as they
turn out and then we startgetting some wins, hopefully
we'll be on this podcast againand talking about those.
Anthony Carrano (15:17):
Well, I'd like to kind of piggyback a little
bit because you said somethingthat I really intrigued where
you mentioned how he was alittle bit of a challenge and
how he, just to kinda presentSandler to the IAMCP community.
And so what you did was you didthat by bringing a deal, which I
find that really, unique. Right?
Because it seems like in a lotof times in these situations,
(15:38):
people are going into andseeing, well, here's kind of
what I can get. Right? And it'sme, me, me, me. But you're
talking about, no. Here'ssomething. Here's an
opportunity, right, that youwanna where, you know, several
people, you know, can eat. Youknow?
Denny Ghim (15:52):
Right. Yeah.
Anthony Carrano (15:53):
Yeah. That's really so, like, how is that,
you know, taking that approachreally helped you versus kinda,
you know, just standing up and,you know, giving your thirty
second pitch. Right? Which I'msure you probably did, but
actually bringing something, youknow, to the table as a way to
introduce yourself. I mean, howwas that have you found that
(16:15):
that has really helped you?
Denny Ghim (16:17):
So I think of it in terms of of this way is, you
know, a lot of times what we'redoing is we're going to dinner
at somebody's a new person'shouse. So I like to show up. My
Asian culture is, you know, youshow up with something. You
know, bottle of wine, acasserole, some sort of dish.
And, man, it is so much nicerwhen you show up with something.
(16:39):
And then that relationshipimmediately starts off with
trust. Because what I've done isI'm saying, hey, man. I trust
you. Here you go. Here's anopportunity.
And by the way, you know, if youwin, I'd love to win along with
you. We may not have anagreement. Let's make an
agreement, and then we moveforward. And I think that is
(17:00):
pretty understood within theIAMCP community. So I very
seldom seen a company give medeals, but boy when when I when
I get a deal from a company, Itell you what my I stand up and
take notice and I say, okay.
You know what? They're puttingtheir money where their mouth
is. They're, you know, throwingsome trust at me, and now I
gotta do a good job. I wish Ihad a hundred deals to give out
(17:23):
to all of my IAMCP partners.And, again, that's, you know,
ultimately my goal is, like,when I have an opportunity, I
wanna pull in the IAMCPcommunity. I wanna utilize and
leverage all of the skill setthere that are out there, but I
wanna encourage the IAMCP too tokinda look at and say
reciprocal, "Hey. Yeah. Youknow, I can bring you a deal,
(17:45):
Denny," but here's what I'mdoing a little bit different is
I'm expanding theiropportunities and going wide and
deep of of revenue. So, youknow, it's just priming the
pump.
That's kind of just my strategy.Sometimes I'm a little bit of a
cowboy and I'll just think ofan idea and do something that's
maybe not normal and just see ifit works.
Anthony Carrano (18:05):
Mhmm.
Denny Ghim (18:06):
It seems to be working.
Anthony Carrano (18:08):
Nice. Nice. And, Promod, how about you?
Like, you know, going back toabout with finding each other.
Is there anything, like, fromyour, you know, point of view
that, you'd like to add to that?
Promod Antony (18:20):
Yeah. I mean, Denny was, I mean, bringing that
opportunity, that was a bigthing for us. I mean, we don't
have a sales team. So we foundthat to be a very win-win
situation for both of us. SoDenny is filling in where we
don't have the expertise and forthe denny side we are filling
(18:42):
the gaps right so the same thingis actually working for other
projects like the King Countyproject I was mentioning here.
There was like six differentpartners for that going after a
big project and there areopportunities like that we
brought up. I mean there wasanother one I brought up to
(19:04):
dennie so this was a deal firstone was from dennie to me there
was another one we are trying toget into some government
contracts we are we hold astatewide contract with state of
washington for IT architectureand IT development, IT
application development. So partof that there is all these
(19:24):
different deals that comes upbut we may be pushing that off
because we may not have theexpertise, some of those so, I
can bring it up as a discussionitem and someone may say oh I
can help you in this part of theportion say I find that kind of
(19:45):
I feel that trust in that, inthose meetings, face to face
meetings and, and, virtualmeetings when we see people who
come often.
Anthony Carrano (19:56):
That's really good. Now there's been a lot of,
you know, just a lot of thediscussions been around there. I
mean, and obviously, you guyshave done a lot of positive
things. I mean, working, youknow, for a great cause with the
Oregon Food Bank, you know,really investing and following
through in areas of building alot of, you know, trust, you
know, relationship between thepartners. Obviously, you know,
being, you know, veryproficient, you know, at at what
(20:18):
you do. It's a lot of reallygreat positive things.
What about though and it's notnecessarily that it's as a
negative per se, but do you guysexperience any challenges during
the engagement? And if so, whatwere they and how did you work
together to overcome it?
Promod Antony (20:34):
So when we started, there is all these kind
of things when you are doing thepartnership. I haven't done this
before. I mean like going aftera business to get a business
like this. How do we go? Firstwe signed the NDA.
Said yeah what do we say we hadto keep it between us and we
(20:55):
don't want- to build that kindof trust and then we actually
have increments in place so thatwe are not fighting each other
we are trying to go along andwe're getting more projects so
everything was in place and thenwe know how are we going to get
paid and everything so we arereducing all those kind of
(21:17):
conflicts way ahead of the game.
Denny Ghim (21:20):
Yeah. Can you repeat the question?
Anthony Carrano (21:24):
Well, yeah, all good. It was just, more so just
want to understand, like,obviously it was a very, you
know, highly successfulengagement with, you know, very
good cause. I just want to knowfrom your point of view, what
challenges that you might havehad during the engagement. And
if so, what were they and howdid you work together to
(21:44):
overcome that? Because that'sobviously a part of I mean, the
question assumes that, look,when you got multiple parties
working together, you're gonnahave difficulty. You're gonna
have challenges, and you mighteven have conflict.
And it's not that, you know,having conflict and challenges
is bad per se, but it'sunderstanding, you know, good
partnerships, goodrelationships, know how to work
through that stuff. So I justlike to hear some of that story
(22:06):
in perspective.
Denny Ghim (22:08):
Well, I can speak from the standpoint of my
interaction with the Oregon FoodBank. So my interactions were
with the primary with theproject manager and kind of the
lead person with the project.And they were able to be super
candid with me of, gosh, Denny,this is this, you know, if it's
(22:29):
working well or not workingwell. And so I was able to kind
of hear a very candidconversation. So sometimes
during this process, the peoplethat are leading this would go
on vacation or would have toleave or so forth.
And then Promod's team wouldhave to adjust to that schedule.
And so that was done fairlywell. There were a few times
(22:53):
where in any kind of project,some communication can be lost.
So, you know, they wereexpecting things to happen at a
certain time that weren'tnecessarily happening. So that's
where kind of my piece comes in,where I'm the liaison, right?
I'm the one that can take thetough calls and somebody's
kicking in the side of my head.I'm like, woah, woah, okay, I
(23:15):
got it. Let's let's get on it.I'll take care of it. Let me
relay that information. I givethem a breakdown of, hey, we
need to just reach out and do X,Y and Z. And what's really
wonderful about these kind ofrelationships is you really see
how your partner will respond.And if they respond in a way
that's like, absolutely, I seewhat the problem is. I'm gonna
(23:38):
get on it. Or if they aredeflecting me and say, it's not
really my problem, then you knowyou're really in trouble.
Because then you're like, oh,man, I just put my self out
there and, you know, it's notgood. But I never experienced
that. So that was where part ofthe process of building that
(23:59):
trust and relationship came intoplay is when we kind of went
through those challenges. Andeven during that time, Promod, I
had some, I think, staffchanges. You had some staff
changes, if I remember.
And I recognize that to anorganization, sometimes that can
be a little alarming. You knowhow it is. Like, that you get
(24:19):
used to your person and thosepeople move around and you're
like, oh, now what? And they'rereally worried about it, but
they handled it well. You know,it was just, hey, we're still
doing the work.
We're kinda moving some peoplearound. The key is really good
communication, you know, to havethe very, candid, frank
conversations of, you know, hey,we're moving this person here.
(24:40):
This is how we're handling it.And then, for some of those key
people to be able to continue toreach out to me and say, hey.
Things are going good now. Youknow? Everything's good. Or,
hey. I'm a little bit worried,concerned. Can you make some
suggestions?
So, you know, it's it was areally good team, I think, as we
(25:00):
worked it out. It's like, Ithink that's we kinda need to
have a little bit of good cop,bad cop going on. And so, you
know, I as the consultantsalesperson, I guess that's my
job is to make sure that thatthings move smoothly, that we
have good communication, thatthe candid conversations can
(25:21):
happen instead of just being inthe heat of the moment and and
saying things that, you know,may not be productive. They're
able to have some separation.And so that really helped us, I
think, a ton. And so duringthose things and if there ever
was a perfect type of process,this couldn't have been more
(25:44):
perfect, I think, because therewere very little issues and
there was very little concern orissues that I really
encountered. So then, you know,again, that's important, right?
So then, again, adding to theconfidence going forward. So my
whole goal was like, okay,Promod, I really need to
(26:05):
understand your business a lotmore so that I can identify more
of these opportunities. As myagents are out there talking, I
can talk to them about what whatPromod does and promote what he
does and say, If you find anopportunity, let me know, and
then we could bring them bringthem in. And vice versa, as I'm
just generally havingconversations, I'll know and
(26:27):
recognize those opportunities.
Rudy Rodriguez (26:29):
You guys brought a bring a lot of experience, and
I'm glad you guys had a goodpartnering experience. Let's
talk a little bit about on thecustomer side, you know, putting
together this deal together. Howdid this help the the food bank
in, you know, in improving thework that they do? You know, how
satisfied were they? I'm notgonna concentrate on too much
(26:51):
revenue because it is anonprofit, although they do they
do need to raise funds.
Right? They do need to raisefunds to make their business
more successful. But how didthis partnering experience help
in this engagement and help themimprove their business processes
that makes them a much moresuccessful organization? Promod?
Promod Antony (27:12):
Yeah, sure. So the main thing is they were
coming from an on-premenvironment to a cloud
environment so that itself isactually big win for them and
they were able to reduce thetime on the network engineers so
they don't know it's a virtualserver It's a it's not an on
(27:33):
prem server. It's a high in thecloud virtual server. So they
were able to reduce the cost alot in the spend on the IT
infrastructure. Someone theydon't need to have someone
monitor all these kind ofnetworks and and all this
everything is hunky dory.
(27:53):
I mean and then regarding thedata, I mean instead of having
everything run on a quarterlybasis they were able to get all
the data from all thesedifferent affiliates into one
place in a single place andbuild that unified data platform
(28:14):
to bring more insights so theyhave on demand reports, built on
top of Power BI and, it's thesame pool of reports. There were
all these silos means if someonehas to run a report they may be
running a silo a load of thedata and the next person may be
(28:37):
doing another silo so it'sdistributor but we were able to
bring everything together sothey have better decision and a
firm decision to make.
Rudy Rodriguez (28:48):
Denny, do you have some input on that? This is
something that you've talkedabout, you know, bringing
bringing Promod's team into intothe engagement. How did you keep
up with, you know, how satisfiedthe customer was and how did it
help improve their businessprocesses to help them go
forward to become a much moreefficient and successful, you
know, business operation?
Denny Ghim (29:09):
Well, I think, what Promod's team did in helping
them create that repository is ablueprint for all the other
organizations. So it's workingwell to the point where I think
it brings them confidence andthey're happy with the end
result. So I think it's helpingthem meet their also guideline
(29:32):
requirements from a much larger,I think, Feed America or some of
their larger organization feedsinto them and they're seeing
what what they've accomplished.So I think that number one, it
kind of shows, hey, you know, wejust did something that others
can follow. And that's that'swhat I'm kind of excited about
(29:53):
is like helping the Oregon FoodBank continue to build the
reputation within that ecosystemthat they live in.
And then also helping them justas organizationally flow more
better. Right? So they're a lotmore efficient with how they're
distributing their food, wheretheir food comes from, managing
their donor list. All of thosethings are super important. And
(30:17):
now they have the tools to dothat.
And, you know, the changemanagement, all of that stuff is
happening from Promod's team.Just fantastic. You know, it
really is. And other than givingPromod a big hug, I don't know
what else to say. It's like hereally knocked it out of the
park and he made me look goodwith that organization.
(30:40):
That's really important. Andbecause that particular
organization is so important tome. So, you know, I'm happy to
try to find more nonprofits as Ihave, you know, lots to go knock
on doors and and our currentclients and seeing how how we
can implement. And we'reactually in the process of doing
that now.
Anthony Carrano (30:58):
Well, that's what I was gonna ask you. So
what's next?
Denny Ghim (31:02):
Well, I had a number of clients that I've talked to
that have different needs andunderstanding more about
Promod's business with regardingdata analytics, ERP development,
and so forth has kind of helpedme understand, okay, now I have
clients that are going throughthese digital transformations
(31:23):
that have specific needs. I cango into the Sandler portfolio
and I can pull half a dozenproviders, but I also can bring
Promod along? And ultimately, mygoal, hope would be is I make
Promod's company big enough sothat he can be a provider in the
Sandler portfolio, by the way,has 10,000 agents across the
(31:44):
nation. And if we can blow upPromod's company to that point,
I think that's a greatest rewardI can have is to see that
success with one of my partners.And, you know, I don't know how
many I can pull in therebecause, you can imagine, if you
have the eyes of 10,000 agents,there's a lot of people knocking
at your door?
But to me, that's kind of thethought process in my head, is
(32:07):
like, I can bring him along, winmore deals together, kind of
build that revenue for Promod,help him get to the stage where,
you know, in the case withSandler, to be in the provider
portfolio, it's kind of pay toplay. You have to have a little
bit of revenue upfront, a littlemonth of recurring, have a
commissioning platform. There'sall of these little things. But
(32:30):
I feel like we can get there,you know, and I don't know how
many more I can bring along. Butthe more I do, I think the more
we can all win together.
Rudy Rodriguez (32:37):
This has been a really excellent story,
gentlemen. Really excellentstory. There's great information
here for the IAMCP membersacross the world. In closing,
what advice you know, would yougive companies like yours
regarding partnering? Becauseyou've mentioned a lot of good
things.
So what advice would you givepeople? And by the way, I know,
(32:58):
Promod, 10,000 new deals wouldbe wonderful, right? Besides
that advice, what advice wouldyou give partners?
Promod Antony (33:10):
Yeah. For me, thought this networking, we came
out of the pandemic and that'swhen we joined IAMCP. We thought
going to Seattle, I mean we goto Seattle IAMCP events, is
virtual, we could attend thevirtual one but then I like to
see people face to face. We'vebeen working from home for a
(33:30):
couple of decades now. We'vebeen successfully doing all
these different projects but Ilove the chance to do networking
face to face, meet people andthat actually helped. We didn't
know that's actually workinguntil we actually met Denny in
like a year later maybe like sixmonths or something later we
(33:51):
actually met Denny and then weare into the project and then we
slowly start to see there areother people who are we are
partnering with and it's becausewe do that we spend that time
going to the event andnetworking with face to face
with people and making thatconnection.
I would suggest that's the Iwon't say it's an adverse, but
(34:15):
that's my experience here Iwould say.
Denny Ghim (34:18):
I'd add on to what Promod says so you know I think
in this world of metrics andautomation and so forth, the
more opportunity we have to seepeople in person to take
advantage of it, because howelse are you gonna stand out
amongst the the the sea of Teamsand Zoom calls in this world? So
(34:41):
if you have an opportunity tobuild a partner where you can
see them in person, shake theirhand, have those few
conversations, And then the nextstage, you know, do the teams.
But that's, you know, later. Butif you can actually shake the
hand, talk and and have thoseconversations where it's really
difficult to have. Aconversation sometimes when
(35:03):
somebody is super busy, right?
And so, like, I'm guilty of it.Like, as we're having this
conversation, I probably gotseven emails that that popped in
that I just quickly respondedto. But the fact that if we're
in person, you have my fullattention. So to speak to
Promod's point, you know, whenyou meet in person, that's
(35:24):
what's so important about thisIAMCP meetings is I know we're
all busy, but let's all take amoment and get to build these
relationships because, you know,I consider Promod a friend now.
Like, you know, I call up Promodand say, "Hey. Hey, bud. Let's
go. Let's go grab some lunch."And we can do that. So that's
because we built thatrelationship.
(35:46):
So I would say that get to theIAMCP meetings, build those
networks. Don't be afraid toshow up with a deal and and say,
hey, we work this with me andyou'll see what happens after
that. Because I think literally,if we can build this IAMCP
community stronger, I mean,we're you know, this is pretty
(36:07):
much everybody says this. We'rebetter together. And I mean,
that's so true.
We are better together. Becauseas we bring our talents to the
table from all standpoints andwe can, coordinate those
efforts, There's so much powerwithin the network with the
IAMCP. So let's do that. Thatwould be my message.
Rudy Rodriguez (36:28):
Okay. I wanna thank you for that message
because I'm one of the foundersof the original IAMCP. I've been
around since 1995 when IAMCP Sothis is a message I wanna, I'm
gonna take this recording, andwe're gonna share this across
the country. So thank you verymuch for that.
Denny Ghim (36:46):
Yeah. Absolutely. Rudy, Anthony, you guys are
awesome. I appreciate you guysdoing this.
Anthony Carrano (36:50):
Yeah. Well, this this has been fantastic.
This, a lot of fun as there'sbeen a lot of great lines there
as I'm kinda playing around withtitles and whatnot. But, really
looking forward to getting thisout to the community. But before
we wrap up, where, can peoplego? What are the best ways to
find out more, you know, aboutyou and, how to connect?
Denny Ghim (37:11):
You could reach out to me directly, via email at
dghim@sandlerpartners.com, whichis my email. And then, you know,
I still talk on the phone a lot.So, like, you can call me on my
cell phone and that that'ssomething crazy new, right? But
(37:33):
my cell, (503) 957-1143. So, youknow, if you're old fashioned
like me, Promod probably knowsit. He knows this. I just call
him. I go, hey, what are youdoing? He goes, Oh, I'm busy.
I'm like, Okay, well, where canyou talk?
So I can take calls. I can doemails. That's how you reach out
(37:57):
to me. And then we can have aconversation. That's yeah.
That's for me.
Anthony Carrano (38:02):
Nice.
Promod Antony (38:03):
For me, through LinkedIn. LinkedIn is another
best way and our website iswww.logicintelligence.com. And
email is okay, but then theremay be a lot of people emailing.
Anthony Carrano (38:20):
What we'll do is we'll put the email, we'll
put all this information in theshow notes below for those that
are listening so they can have,you know, that, you know, direct
access and, Promod, let's notalso, let's not forget about
Curry.TV.
Promod Antony (38:36):
Yes, sir.
Anthony Carrano (38:36):
I did kinda check it out here while
we've been talking. It's a nicelittle website. So let's get a
nice plug in for that if youwant good, you know, healthy
food.
Promod Antony (38:46):
Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
Anthony Carrano (38:50):
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. Really
appreciate you and enjoy therest of your day.
Denny Ghim (38:55):
Alright. You too.
Promod Antony (38:56):
I appreciate it.
Rudy Rodriguez (38:56):
Thank you. Nice meeting you both. Thank you.
Promod Antony (38:58):
Nice meeting you too. Bye. Thank you.
Anthony Carrano (39:02):
Well, that was a fantastic episode. I really
appreciate both Promod andDenny's willingness just to
share, be very candid, and itwas just it was just refreshing,
just their overall approach.
Rudy Rodriguez (39:14):
Absolutely. And, you know, it was a great
learning experience because itit reminded me of previous
experiences through the IAMCP.And both Promod and Denny used
the IAMCP to learn about eachother's businesses and about
programs that Microsoft offersthat brought them together on on
(39:35):
an opportunity and to work on anopportunity right away. And
that's just a great learningexperience about being a member
of the IAMCP and how to build abusiness relationship, you know,
from learning about thedifferent programs that exist
for the benefit of partners, andthen how to leverage those and
(39:58):
to turn that into an ongoingbusiness opportunity for both
companies. That was really greatlearning.
Anthony Carrano (40:04):
Yeah. And I really appreciate the fact that,
you know, especially in today's,you know, digital age of, you
know, things full of virtualmeetings one after the other
that they just really emphasizethe importance, you know,
building your network andbuilding relationships by
meeting people in person reallyto establish, you know, that
especially in establishing atleast that initial connection
(40:26):
and just how they, you know,repeatedly kinda touched on that
and talking about just even,like, the business impact and
value, you know, of doing that.It also kinda then as a, you
know, as a segue just even justin how to engage, you know, in
IMCP the right way and how itjust basically just open up
their eyes to the universe ofwhat's available, you know, what
(40:49):
type you know, just of theMicrosoft partners, but also
just the sea of opportunitiesthat exist within the Microsoft
community when you do it theright way. And I just thought
that was just a great point ofemphasis there.
Rudy Rodriguez (41:01):
No. It was great to to hear from both both
gentlemen. It was a greatpartnership story. So in
closing, I wanna thank all ofyou for joining us on this
episode of IAMCP Profiles inPartnership powered by Dunamis
Marketing. We hope you enjoyedthis podcast and find it useful
and inspiring.
If you did, please subscribe,rate, and review us on your
(41:21):
favorite podcast platform. Oneof the best ways to partner for
success is to join IAMCP, acommunity of Microsoft partners
who help each other grow andthrive. IAMCP members can find
and connect with other partnerslocally and globally and access
exclusive resources andopportunities. Whether you're
looking for new customers, newmarkets, or new solutions, IAMCP
(41:46):
can help you achieve your goals.To learn more, visit the website
at www.iamcp.org.
Welcome to the IAMCP Profiles and Partnership,
the podcast that showcases howMicrosoft partners and IAMCP
members boost their business bycollaborating with other members
and partners. I'm your co-host,Anthony Carrano. And in each
episode, I'll be talking to someof the most innovative and
successful partners in theMicrosoft ecosystem, The
International Association ofMicrosoft Channel Partners,
(00:28):
otherwise known as IAMCP, is acommunity of Microsoft partners
who help each other grow andthrive. Members can find and
connect with other partnerslocally and globally and access
exclusive resources andopportunities. Whether you're
looking for new customers, newmarkets or new solutions, IAMCP
can help you achieve your goals.
We'll hear their stories, learnfrom their experiences and
(00:50):
discover the best practices andstrategies they use to increase
customer loyalty and growrevenues. Whether you're a new
partner or an established one,you'll find valuable insights
and inspiration in this podcast.We hope you enjoy this podcast
and find it useful andinspiring. If you do, please
subscribe, rate, and review uson your favorite podcast
(01:11):
platform. And don't forget tofollow us on social media and
connect with us on our website,www.profilesandpartnership.com,
where you can find moreinformation, resources and
opportunities to partner forsuccess. Thank you for
listening. And now let's getstarted with today's episode.
But before we do, let me askyou, how can face to face
(01:33):
networking help build trust andturn a challenging collaboration
into a successful partnership?We discussed this and more in
part two of our interview withPromod Antony from Logic
Intelligence and Denny Ghim fromSandler Partners, who share
their riveting journey ofteaming up for impactful
projects and navigatingchallenges together. Join us as
we uncover the strategies,experiences and valuable
(01:55):
insights that made theirpartnership a success story.
And now on to our episode.
Rudy Rodriguez (02:02):
Well, that's great to hear and which will
lead us to another story. I'mvery familiar with the nonprofit
world, and that's why I wantedto talk about the licensing
because maybe you can share alittle bit about that because
that's that's, something a lotof Microsoft partners don't know
about is how the Microsoftgrants work and working with
nonprofits. And having workedwith food banks here in Austin,
(02:26):
Texas area, I know what thattakes and and the noble efforts.
And I'll tell you a quick funnystory. When we first started the
IAMCP chapter here in Austin, weheld a Christmas party like
IAMCP chapters do, and we askedeverybody to bring food that we
could donate to the food bankand to donate money.
Well, that night we collected7,000 pounds of food and
(02:49):
collected over $3,000 indonations.
Denny Ghim (02:52):
Fantastic.
Rudy Rodriguez (02:53):
The funny part of the story was everybody left
the party. I had to haul 7,000pounds of food to the food bank.
Nearly killed me.
You know, I had a big LincolnNavigator, so it took multiple
trips. And then I got corralledat the food bank to go, hey, can
you, help us, you know, put foodpackets together? Well, went
(03:14):
back to the IAMCP and Icorralled 15 partners to come
help at the food bank. So I knowwhat you're talking about and
what a noble effort that is andhow much benefit you can bring
to people by doing this. SoDenny, you brought up a good
story and the nature of yourbusiness leads us to one thing.
And can you tell us a little bitabout, you know, has this helped
(03:38):
you develop the criteria forselecting, your partners in your
business? Can you talk to us alittle bit about that? And,
Promod, the same question willcome back to you, how you
partner with other people in thecommunity and through the IAMCP.
So, Denny?
Denny Ghim (03:53):
Yes. Yes. Well, it has helped me, understand more
that there's, again, a wholeuniverse of Microsoft partners
that have these variousspecialities, let's say, in
Dynamics and all the all theacronyms, all the names within
the Microsoft world, which I'mstill trying to remember and add
(04:17):
to my vocabulary. But what I seenow is I see a whole sea of
opportunity within the Microsoftpartner community, literally
just kind of tapping in and justliterally showing them the way.
Here's the here's the way,here's the portal, and here is
what you have access to.
So it's kind of opened my eyes alittle bit to know that I
(04:41):
already know that there are incertain areas of the country.
There are a number of IAMCPpartners that have recognized
this and have been able todouble, quadruple their monthly
recurring revenues, just becauseof the stuff that's been left on
the table. So, it's just simplya few more questions, and then
(05:02):
they have a support team thatcan kind of come to come to the
table. So in that way, it's it'sbeen exciting for me to see that
even Promod has thrown at least,you know, probably a half dozen
opportunities in front of us,and we've been looking at them
together. You know, it'sexciting because one deal that
(05:23):
happens, these are not smalldeals.
These deals are like,government, state deals,
sometimes enterprise leveldeals. And they can be kind of
life changing as far as what itcan do to a smaller
organization, a smallerbusinesses within the IAMCP.
Because, you know, I don't knowthe number of employees, but I'm
(05:47):
guessing typical IAMCP partnersare going to be companies that
have anywhere from five to 100employees. And, you know, adding
revenue to the tune of 10 to20,000 on one nice deal per
month is life changing for thatcompany and for the people there
(06:08):
of building that stability.Anyway, it's, you know, I'm the
Pied Piper of Sandler Partners,kind of evangelizing. The
opportunities are there, andthat's what's super exciting.
Rudy Rodriguez (06:19):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Promod, what is your
criteria? And, you know, havingworked through the IAMCP, you
know, how has this opened upyour eyes and how how to partner
and to help you grow yourbusiness?
Promod Antony (06:30):
Yeah. Sure. So in our case, we are a small
business based in Oregon andWashington. So we don't have a
lot of budget to like marketingbudget to hire, like, a full
fledged marketing person orsalespeople, and we are limited
in that case. So whenever we goto IAMCP events we are seeing
(06:51):
all these partners coming in,looking for opportunities.
Maybe we are good at doing thedata side of the business and
there are other people who aredoing good at other areas. Mean
we don't do networking, we dosome infrastructure but we don't
do like a high endinfrastructure setup and
(07:13):
everything. So when I'mcompeting with a high end
company, there was a King Countyor like a multi million dollar
opportunity that came in when wewere competing with like high
end companies like who have likethousands of employees to work
for them. For us it's a smallbusiness When we had to compete
(07:37):
with a company like that, we aretrying to look for areas where
we can fill in. So I was able toget into like four or five other
IAMCP members and asked them canyou partner with me for this
project and they did even thoughwe didn't get that project we
(07:58):
became the final stages of theproject we were one of the three
companies who were shortlistedfor the final stage but it was a
good experience, partnering withthose other companies filling in
all those other, places likerecruiting.
There is a vendor who, I mean,there was a partner who was
(08:19):
doing Microsoft recruitingspecializing the Microsoft side.
There was Dynamics365 who wascertified in different areas. So
for me it was, to find thosepeople to make that connections.
I didn't thought I'm going to bepartnering with those I mean
those businesses but thatconversation the trust we built
(08:43):
by going to ease networking andeverything that actually helped
me and, again, Denny, findingDenny that's that was the first
one that was the that was alottery I would say the first
one that actually worked andthat gave me that confidence and
the trust to proceed with otherto meet other IAMCP members and
(09:07):
partners.
Rudy Rodriguez (09:08):
That's great. That's great. Well you did
mention one key thing in thecriteria that both of you
mentioned. It's building thetrust relationships between
partners. And that's reallyimportant.
Denny Ghim (09:21):
I want to add one thing that Promod's team did
that was like, I just loved it.Loved it. They showed Oregon
Food Bank how to use thenonprofit Microsoft licensing
platform. They actually kind ofheld their hand through that
process. That was instrumentaland hugely valuable.
And I think there's a lot moreopportunity to do those type of
(09:44):
things. But yeah, that's onething that Promod's company and
Logic Intelligence didfantastically well. And, you
know, that was just anotherlayer of confidence that I had
that, you know, oh, wow, youknow, they're doing this. And I
mean, you could see we were onthese type of Teams meetings
(10:05):
and, you know, the leadership,their eyes were bugging out. And
they're like, oh, you can dothat. And that's what you want,
you know? That's what you want.
Promod Antony (10:13):
To add one more thing to that, I just thought
about it. So going to this IAMCPmeeting is not just meeting with
the partners. And it's also fromthe Microsoft side, we are able
to meet those people. It's verydifficult to find these people
like fabric Microsoft. There wasa couple of people who came from
(10:36):
the fabric side from theMicrosoft who is actually
leading the fabric team itself.
So we were able to make thoseconnections with Microsoft at
the same time like this grantprogram. I didn't know about the
grant program, but I think itwas one of those Microsoft
(10:56):
people who actually came to thisIAMCP meeting. That's how I knew
about the grant program. Sothat's how I was able to propose
that solution.
Rudy Rodriguez (11:07):
That's what I was going to ask you was, how
did you learn about the grantprogram? Because that's not an
easy thing to do. And it's aprocess that you you have to
specialize in. And that's one ofthe things about the value of
IAMCP is to learn additionalspecializations or processes of
working with and throughMicrosoft that do benefit that
(11:28):
benefits customers quite a bit.So thank you for sharing that.
That's a great value becausethat's one thing that a lot of
partners don't know about is isthat that program. Anthony, do
you have some more questions?
Anthony Carrano (11:41):
Yeah, absolutely. And this has been
fantastic. We appreciate youguys sharing a lot of really
valuable information. One thingthat I was kind of curious about
is how did you guys find eachother?
Promod Antony (11:52):
Denny, you want to start?
Denny Ghim (11:54):
It was a smoky room and I looked across
the way [laughter]
Anthony Carrano (11:59):
He wasn't one of the guys you were beating up,
you weren't beaten up on film.Right?
Denny Ghim (12:03):
No. No.
It was one of the IMCP meetingsthat Paul Solski is has led and
does a fantastic job.
Anthony Carrano: Was it the POG? The Partner (12:18):
undefined
Opportunity Group?
Denny Ghim (12:21):
No, not that particular group. It's just a
regular IAMCP meeting that wehave every third Thursday of the
month. And and our initialmeeting was, I think, virtual.
Yeah, it was virtual.
And so I saw promoted one ofthose meetings earlier on, and I
(12:42):
was wasn't able to kind of trackhim down. But the second time,
the following month, I actuallygot a hold of Promod and we were
put in the same breakout sessionwhere we make a fictitious
problem. And then we use thepeople in the room with their
introduction and what they do tosolve a problem. And we we make
it up as we go. But in thisparticular situation, I already
(13:06):
had a problem I wanted to solve.And so the people that were in
the room actually had theservices that I needed. So it
was like everything was meant tobe. And then I actually threw
out Oregon Food Bank. And thennot not too much after that, I
reached out to Promod, I said,Hey, you're local. Let's meet
(13:28):
up. Let's let's meet up andlet's talk about this deal. I
think a few days later, weactually did. We sat down and
kind of talking things throughand gave a strategy of so
typically in the solutions thatI have to provide, it's it's
usually giving them, you know,three solutions that are kind of
at the top of the food chain.
(13:50):
And so so they get a good lookat what what's the options. So
that's, you know, that's how Imet Promod, is through one of
those breakout sessions and thenturning what was make believe
into reality. And I think thatwas a way to do great practice.
I have to take my hat off toPaul Solski. He does a
phenomenal job in creating theseenvironments.
(14:14):
And then I tend to just kind ofjump before I look sometimes. I,
in this case, did, too. I gotkind of like, well, this is
great in practice, but, youknow, we're doing this for a
reason. Let's do it in reallife. So, you know, bringing a
deal to Promod, because it wasdifficult, I think, me,
culturally to break into theMicrosoft space and explain what
(14:35):
I do.
So I thought, well, what if Ibring a deal to a Microsoft
partner? And so that's what Idid. And now I'm seeing
reciprocal opportunities comingback. And so those are the
things that I think is helpful,and that's how we met. And so
I'm hoping to get to know morepeople with the IAMCP have those
opportunities, because everybodyhas a very unique solution, even
(14:58):
in our group up there.
Like, as Promod said, you know,we're partnering right now,
working on some projects thatwe're trying to accomplish. You
know, if they turn out well,they will turn out. And as they
turn out and then we startgetting some wins, hopefully
we'll be on this podcast againand talking about those.
Anthony Carrano (15:17):
Well, I'd like to kind of piggyback a little
bit because you said somethingthat I really intrigued where
you mentioned how he was alittle bit of a challenge and
how he, just to kinda presentSandler to the IAMCP community.
And so what you did was you didthat by bringing a deal, which I
find that really, unique. Right?
Because it seems like in a lotof times in these situations,
(15:38):
people are going into andseeing, well, here's kind of
what I can get. Right? And it'sme, me, me, me. But you're
talking about, no. Here'ssomething. Here's an
opportunity, right, that youwanna where, you know, several
people, you know, can eat. Youknow?
Denny Ghim (15:52):
Right. Yeah.
Anthony Carrano (15:53):
Yeah. That's really so, like, how is that,
you know, taking that approachreally helped you versus kinda,
you know, just standing up and,you know, giving your thirty
second pitch. Right? Which I'msure you probably did, but
actually bringing something, youknow, to the table as a way to
introduce yourself. I mean, howwas that have you found that
(16:15):
that has really helped you?
Denny Ghim (16:17):
So I think of it in terms of of this way is, you
know, a lot of times what we'redoing is we're going to dinner
at somebody's a new person'shouse. So I like to show up. My
Asian culture is, you know, youshow up with something. You
know, bottle of wine, acasserole, some sort of dish.
And, man, it is so much nicerwhen you show up with something.
(16:39):
And then that relationshipimmediately starts off with
trust. Because what I've done isI'm saying, hey, man. I trust
you. Here you go. Here's anopportunity.
And by the way, you know, if youwin, I'd love to win along with
you. We may not have anagreement. Let's make an
agreement, and then we moveforward. And I think that is
(17:00):
pretty understood within theIAMCP community. So I very
seldom seen a company give medeals, but boy when when I when
I get a deal from a company, Itell you what my I stand up and
take notice and I say, okay.
You know what? They're puttingtheir money where their mouth
is. They're, you know, throwingsome trust at me, and now I
gotta do a good job. I wish Ihad a hundred deals to give out
(17:23):
to all of my IAMCP partners.And, again, that's, you know,
ultimately my goal is, like,when I have an opportunity, I
wanna pull in the IAMCPcommunity. I wanna utilize and
leverage all of the skill setthere that are out there, but I
wanna encourage the IAMCP too tokinda look at and say
reciprocal, "Hey. Yeah. Youknow, I can bring you a deal,
(17:45):
Denny," but here's what I'mdoing a little bit different is
I'm expanding theiropportunities and going wide and
deep of of revenue. So, youknow, it's just priming the
pump.
That's kind of just my strategy.Sometimes I'm a little bit of a
cowboy and I'll just think ofan idea and do something that's
maybe not normal and just see ifit works.
Anthony Carrano (18:05):
Mhmm.
Denny Ghim (18:06):
It seems to be working.
Anthony Carrano (18:08):
Nice. Nice. And, Promod, how about you?
Like, you know, going back toabout with finding each other.
Is there anything, like, fromyour, you know, point of view
that, you'd like to add to that?
Promod Antony (18:20):
Yeah. I mean, Denny was, I mean, bringing that
opportunity, that was a bigthing for us. I mean, we don't
have a sales team. So we foundthat to be a very win-win
situation for both of us. SoDenny is filling in where we
don't have the expertise and forthe denny side we are filling
(18:42):
the gaps right so the same thingis actually working for other
projects like the King Countyproject I was mentioning here.
There was like six differentpartners for that going after a
big project and there areopportunities like that we
brought up. I mean there wasanother one I brought up to
(19:04):
dennie so this was a deal firstone was from dennie to me there
was another one we are trying toget into some government
contracts we are we hold astatewide contract with state of
washington for IT architectureand IT development, IT
application development. So partof that there is all these
(19:24):
different deals that comes upbut we may be pushing that off
because we may not have theexpertise, some of those so, I
can bring it up as a discussionitem and someone may say oh I
can help you in this part of theportion say I find that kind of
(19:45):
I feel that trust in that, inthose meetings, face to face
meetings and, and, virtualmeetings when we see people who
come often.
Anthony Carrano (19:56):
That's really good. Now there's been a lot of,
you know, just a lot of thediscussions been around there. I
mean, and obviously, you guyshave done a lot of positive
things. I mean, working, youknow, for a great cause with the
Oregon Food Bank, you know,really investing and following
through in areas of building alot of, you know, trust, you
know, relationship between thepartners. Obviously, you know,
being, you know, veryproficient, you know, at at what
(20:18):
you do. It's a lot of reallygreat positive things.
What about though and it's notnecessarily that it's as a
negative per se, but do you guysexperience any challenges during
the engagement? And if so, whatwere they and how did you work
together to overcome it?
Promod Antony (20:34):
So when we started, there is all these kind
of things when you are doing thepartnership. I haven't done this
before. I mean like going aftera business to get a business
like this. How do we go? Firstwe signed the NDA.
Said yeah what do we say we hadto keep it between us and we
(20:55):
don't want- to build that kindof trust and then we actually
have increments in place so thatwe are not fighting each other
we are trying to go along andwe're getting more projects so
everything was in place and thenwe know how are we going to get
paid and everything so we arereducing all those kind of
(21:17):
conflicts way ahead of the game.
Denny Ghim (21:20):
Yeah. Can you repeat the question?
Anthony Carrano (21:24):
Well, yeah, all good. It was just, more so just
want to understand, like,obviously it was a very, you
know, highly successfulengagement with, you know, very
good cause. I just want to knowfrom your point of view, what
challenges that you might havehad during the engagement. And
if so, what were they and howdid you work together to
(21:44):
overcome that? Because that'sobviously a part of I mean, the
question assumes that, look,when you got multiple parties
working together, you're gonnahave difficulty. You're gonna
have challenges, and you mighteven have conflict.
And it's not that, you know,having conflict and challenges
is bad per se, but it'sunderstanding, you know, good
partnerships, goodrelationships, know how to work
through that stuff. So I justlike to hear some of that story
(22:06):
in perspective.
Denny Ghim (22:08):
Well, I can speak from the standpoint of my
interaction with the Oregon FoodBank. So my interactions were
with the primary with theproject manager and kind of the
lead person with the project.And they were able to be super
candid with me of, gosh, Denny,this is this, you know, if it's
(22:29):
working well or not workingwell. And so I was able to kind
of hear a very candidconversation. So sometimes
during this process, the peoplethat are leading this would go
on vacation or would have toleave or so forth.
And then Promod's team wouldhave to adjust to that schedule.
And so that was done fairlywell. There were a few times
(22:53):
where in any kind of project,some communication can be lost.
So, you know, they wereexpecting things to happen at a
certain time that weren'tnecessarily happening. So that's
where kind of my piece comes in,where I'm the liaison, right?
I'm the one that can take thetough calls and somebody's
kicking in the side of my head.I'm like, woah, woah, okay, I
(23:15):
got it. Let's let's get on it.I'll take care of it. Let me
relay that information. I givethem a breakdown of, hey, we
need to just reach out and do X,Y and Z. And what's really
wonderful about these kind ofrelationships is you really see
how your partner will respond.And if they respond in a way
that's like, absolutely, I seewhat the problem is. I'm gonna
(23:38):
get on it. Or if they aredeflecting me and say, it's not
really my problem, then you knowyou're really in trouble.
Because then you're like, oh,man, I just put my self out
there and, you know, it's notgood. But I never experienced
that. So that was where part ofthe process of building that
(23:59):
trust and relationship came intoplay is when we kind of went
through those challenges. Andeven during that time, Promod, I
had some, I think, staffchanges. You had some staff
changes, if I remember.
And I recognize that to anorganization, sometimes that can
be a little alarming. You knowhow it is. Like, that you get
(24:19):
used to your person and thosepeople move around and you're
like, oh, now what? And they'rereally worried about it, but
they handled it well. You know,it was just, hey, we're still
doing the work.
We're kinda moving some peoplearound. The key is really good
communication, you know, to havethe very, candid, frank
conversations of, you know, hey,we're moving this person here.
(24:40):
This is how we're handling it.And then, for some of those key
people to be able to continue toreach out to me and say, hey.
Things are going good now. Youknow? Everything's good. Or,
hey. I'm a little bit worried,concerned. Can you make some
suggestions?
So, you know, it's it was areally good team, I think, as we
(25:00):
worked it out. It's like, Ithink that's we kinda need to
have a little bit of good cop,bad cop going on. And so, you
know, I as the consultantsalesperson, I guess that's my
job is to make sure that thatthings move smoothly, that we
have good communication, thatthe candid conversations can
(25:21):
happen instead of just being inthe heat of the moment and and
saying things that, you know,may not be productive. They're
able to have some separation.And so that really helped us, I
think, a ton. And so duringthose things and if there ever
was a perfect type of process,this couldn't have been more
(25:44):
perfect, I think, because therewere very little issues and
there was very little concern orissues that I really
encountered. So then, you know,again, that's important, right?
So then, again, adding to theconfidence going forward. So my
whole goal was like, okay,Promod, I really need to
(26:05):
understand your business a lotmore so that I can identify more
of these opportunities. As myagents are out there talking, I
can talk to them about what whatPromod does and promote what he
does and say, If you find anopportunity, let me know, and
then we could bring them bringthem in. And vice versa, as I'm
just generally havingconversations, I'll know and
(26:27):
recognize those opportunities.
Rudy Rodriguez (26:29):
You guys brought a bring a lot of experience, and
I'm glad you guys had a goodpartnering experience. Let's
talk a little bit about on thecustomer side, you know, putting
together this deal together. Howdid this help the the food bank
in, you know, in improving thework that they do? You know, how
satisfied were they? I'm notgonna concentrate on too much
(26:51):
revenue because it is anonprofit, although they do they
do need to raise funds.
Right? They do need to raisefunds to make their business
more successful. But how didthis partnering experience help
in this engagement and help themimprove their business processes
that makes them a much moresuccessful organization? Promod?
Promod Antony (27:12):
Yeah, sure. So the main thing is they were
coming from an on-premenvironment to a cloud
environment so that itself isactually big win for them and
they were able to reduce thetime on the network engineers so
they don't know it's a virtualserver It's a it's not an on
(27:33):
prem server. It's a high in thecloud virtual server. So they
were able to reduce the cost alot in the spend on the IT
infrastructure. Someone theydon't need to have someone
monitor all these kind ofnetworks and and all this
everything is hunky dory.
(27:53):
I mean and then regarding thedata, I mean instead of having
everything run on a quarterlybasis they were able to get all
the data from all thesedifferent affiliates into one
place in a single place andbuild that unified data platform
(28:14):
to bring more insights so theyhave on demand reports, built on
top of Power BI and, it's thesame pool of reports. There were
all these silos means if someonehas to run a report they may be
running a silo a load of thedata and the next person may be
(28:37):
doing another silo so it'sdistributor but we were able to
bring everything together sothey have better decision and a
firm decision to make.
Rudy Rodriguez (28:48):
Denny, do you have some input on that? This is
something that you've talkedabout, you know, bringing
bringing Promod's team into intothe engagement. How did you keep
up with, you know, how satisfiedthe customer was and how did it
help improve their businessprocesses to help them go
forward to become a much moreefficient and successful, you
know, business operation?
Denny Ghim (29:09):
Well, I think, what Promod's team did in helping
them create that repository is ablueprint for all the other
organizations. So it's workingwell to the point where I think
it brings them confidence andthey're happy with the end
result. So I think it's helpingthem meet their also guideline
(29:32):
requirements from a much larger,I think, Feed America or some of
their larger organization feedsinto them and they're seeing
what what they've accomplished.So I think that number one, it
kind of shows, hey, you know, wejust did something that others
can follow. And that's that'swhat I'm kind of excited about
(29:53):
is like helping the Oregon FoodBank continue to build the
reputation within that ecosystemthat they live in.
And then also helping them justas organizationally flow more
better. Right? So they're a lotmore efficient with how they're
distributing their food, wheretheir food comes from, managing
their donor list. All of thosethings are super important. And
(30:17):
now they have the tools to dothat.
And, you know, the changemanagement, all of that stuff is
happening from Promod's team.Just fantastic. You know, it
really is. And other than givingPromod a big hug, I don't know
what else to say. It's like hereally knocked it out of the
park and he made me look goodwith that organization.
(30:40):
That's really important. Andbecause that particular
organization is so important tome. So, you know, I'm happy to
try to find more nonprofits as Ihave, you know, lots to go knock
on doors and and our currentclients and seeing how how we
can implement. And we'reactually in the process of doing
that now.
Anthony Carrano (30:58):
Well, that's what I was gonna ask you. So
what's next?
Denny Ghim (31:02):
Well, I had a number of clients that I've talked to
that have different needs andunderstanding more about
Promod's business with regardingdata analytics, ERP development,
and so forth has kind of helpedme understand, okay, now I have
clients that are going throughthese digital transformations
(31:23):
that have specific needs. I cango into the Sandler portfolio
and I can pull half a dozenproviders, but I also can bring
Promod along? And ultimately, mygoal, hope would be is I make
Promod's company big enough sothat he can be a provider in the
Sandler portfolio, by the way,has 10,000 agents across the
(31:44):
nation. And if we can blow upPromod's company to that point,
I think that's a greatest rewardI can have is to see that
success with one of my partners.And, you know, I don't know how
many I can pull in therebecause, you can imagine, if you
have the eyes of 10,000 agents,there's a lot of people knocking
at your door?
But to me, that's kind of thethought process in my head, is
(32:07):
like, I can bring him along, winmore deals together, kind of
build that revenue for Promod,help him get to the stage where,
you know, in the case withSandler, to be in the provider
portfolio, it's kind of pay toplay. You have to have a little
bit of revenue upfront, a littlemonth of recurring, have a
commissioning platform. There'sall of these little things. But
(32:30):
I feel like we can get there,you know, and I don't know how
many more I can bring along. Butthe more I do, I think the more
we can all win together.
Rudy Rodriguez (32:37):
This has been a really excellent story,
gentlemen. Really excellentstory. There's great information
here for the IAMCP membersacross the world. In closing,
what advice you know, would yougive companies like yours
regarding partnering? Becauseyou've mentioned a lot of good
things.
So what advice would you givepeople? And by the way, I know,
(32:58):
Promod, 10,000 new deals wouldbe wonderful, right? Besides
that advice, what advice wouldyou give partners?
Promod Antony (33:10):
Yeah. For me, thought this networking, we came
out of the pandemic and that'swhen we joined IAMCP. We thought
going to Seattle, I mean we goto Seattle IAMCP events, is
virtual, we could attend thevirtual one but then I like to
see people face to face. We'vebeen working from home for a
(33:30):
couple of decades now. We'vebeen successfully doing all
these different projects but Ilove the chance to do networking
face to face, meet people andthat actually helped. We didn't
know that's actually workinguntil we actually met Denny in
like a year later maybe like sixmonths or something later we
(33:51):
actually met Denny and then weare into the project and then we
slowly start to see there areother people who are we are
partnering with and it's becausewe do that we spend that time
going to the event andnetworking with face to face
with people and making thatconnection.
I would suggest that's the Iwon't say it's an adverse, but
(34:15):
that's my experience here Iwould say.
Denny Ghim (34:18):
I'd add on to what Promod says so you know I think
in this world of metrics andautomation and so forth, the
more opportunity we have to seepeople in person to take
advantage of it, because howelse are you gonna stand out
amongst the the the sea of Teamsand Zoom calls in this world? So
(34:41):
if you have an opportunity tobuild a partner where you can
see them in person, shake theirhand, have those few
conversations, And then the nextstage, you know, do the teams.
But that's, you know, later. Butif you can actually shake the
hand, talk and and have thoseconversations where it's really
difficult to have. Aconversation sometimes when
(35:03):
somebody is super busy, right?
And so, like, I'm guilty of it.Like, as we're having this
conversation, I probably gotseven emails that that popped in
that I just quickly respondedto. But the fact that if we're
in person, you have my fullattention. So to speak to
Promod's point, you know, whenyou meet in person, that's
(35:24):
what's so important about thisIAMCP meetings is I know we're
all busy, but let's all take amoment and get to build these
relationships because, you know,I consider Promod a friend now.
Like, you know, I call up Promodand say, "Hey. Hey, bud. Let's
go. Let's go grab some lunch."And we can do that. So that's
because we built thatrelationship.
(35:46):
So I would say that get to theIAMCP meetings, build those
networks. Don't be afraid toshow up with a deal and and say,
hey, we work this with me andyou'll see what happens after
that. Because I think literally,if we can build this IAMCP
community stronger, I mean,we're you know, this is pretty
(36:07):
much everybody says this. We'rebetter together. And I mean,
that's so true.
We are better together. Becauseas we bring our talents to the
table from all standpoints andwe can, coordinate those
efforts, There's so much powerwithin the network with the
IAMCP. So let's do that. Thatwould be my message.
Rudy Rodriguez (36:28):
Okay. I wanna thank you for that message
because I'm one of the foundersof the original IAMCP. I've been
around since 1995 when IAMCP Sothis is a message I wanna, I'm
gonna take this recording, andwe're gonna share this across
the country. So thank you verymuch for that.
Denny Ghim (36:46):
Yeah. Absolutely. Rudy, Anthony, you guys are
awesome. I appreciate you guysdoing this.
Anthony Carrano (36:50):
Yeah. Well, this this has been fantastic.
This, a lot of fun as there'sbeen a lot of great lines there
as I'm kinda playing around withtitles and whatnot. But, really
looking forward to getting thisout to the community. But before
we wrap up, where, can peoplego? What are the best ways to
find out more, you know, aboutyou and, how to connect?
Denny Ghim (37:11):
You could reach out to me directly, via email at
dghim@sandlerpartners.com, whichis my email. And then, you know,
I still talk on the phone a lot.So, like, you can call me on my
cell phone and that that'ssomething crazy new, right? But
(37:33):
my cell, (503) 957-1143. So, youknow, if you're old fashioned
like me, Promod probably knowsit. He knows this. I just call
him. I go, hey, what are youdoing? He goes, Oh, I'm busy.
I'm like, Okay, well, where canyou talk?
So I can take calls. I can doemails. That's how you reach out
(37:57):
to me. And then we can have aconversation. That's yeah.
That's for me.
Anthony Carrano (38:02):
Nice.
Promod Antony (38:03):
For me, through LinkedIn. LinkedIn is another
best way and our website iswww.logicintelligence.com. And
email is okay, but then theremay be a lot of people emailing.
Anthony Carrano (38:20):
What we'll do is we'll put the email, we'll
put all this information in theshow notes below for those that
are listening so they can have,you know, that, you know, direct
access and, Promod, let's notalso, let's not forget about
Curry.TV.
Promod Antony (38:36):
Yes, sir.
Anthony Carrano (38:36):
I did kinda check it out here while
we've been talking. It's a nicelittle website. So let's get a
nice plug in for that if youwant good, you know, healthy
food.
Promod Antony (38:46):
Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
Anthony Carrano (38:50):
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. Really
appreciate you and enjoy therest of your day.
Denny Ghim (38:55):
Alright. You too.
Promod Antony (38:56):
I appreciate it.
Rudy Rodriguez (38:56):
Thank you. Nice meeting you both. Thank you.
Promod Antony (38:58):
Nice meeting you too. Bye. Thank you.
Anthony Carrano (39:02):
Well, that was a fantastic episode. I really
appreciate both Promod andDenny's willingness just to
share, be very candid, and itwas just it was just refreshing,
just their overall approach.
Rudy Rodriguez (39:14):
Absolutely. And, you know, it was a great
learning experience because itit reminded me of previous
experiences through the IAMCP.And both Promod and Denny used
the IAMCP to learn about eachother's businesses and about
programs that Microsoft offersthat brought them together on on
(39:35):
an opportunity and to work on anopportunity right away. And
that's just a great learningexperience about being a member
of the IAMCP and how to build abusiness relationship, you know,
from learning about thedifferent programs that exist
for the benefit of partners, andthen how to leverage those and
(39:58):
to turn that into an ongoingbusiness opportunity for both
companies. That was really greatlearning.
Anthony Carrano (40:04):
Yeah. And I really appreciate the fact that,
you know, especially in today's,you know, digital age of, you
know, things full of virtualmeetings one after the other
that they just really emphasizethe importance, you know,
building your network andbuilding relationships by
meeting people in person reallyto establish, you know, that
especially in establishing atleast that initial connection
(40:26):
and just how they, you know,repeatedly kinda touched on that
and talking about just even,like, the business impact and
value, you know, of doing that.It also kinda then as a, you
know, as a segue just even justin how to engage, you know, in
IMCP the right way and how itjust basically just open up
their eyes to the universe ofwhat's available, you know, what
(40:49):
type you know, just of theMicrosoft partners, but also
just the sea of opportunitiesthat exist within the Microsoft
community when you do it theright way. And I just thought
that was just a great point ofemphasis there.
Rudy Rodriguez (41:01):
No. It was great to to hear from both both
gentlemen. It was a greatpartnership story. So in
closing, I wanna thank all ofyou for joining us on this
episode of IAMCP Profiles inPartnership powered by Dunamis
Marketing. We hope you enjoyedthis podcast and find it useful
and inspiring.
If you did, please subscribe,rate, and review us on your
(41:21):
favorite podcast platform. Oneof the best ways to partner for
success is to join IAMCP, acommunity of Microsoft partners
who help each other grow andthrive. IAMCP members can find
and connect with other partnerslocally and globally and access
exclusive resources andopportunities. Whether you're
looking for new customers, newmarkets, or new solutions, IAMCP
(41:46):
can help you achieve your goals.To learn more, visit the website
at www.iamcp.org.
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