Kristen Babjack: From Integration to Impact: Building Partnerships at Ansira

Chip Rodgers  0:00  
Hey everyone, Chip Rodgers, we are back in Seattle, and I am so excited because it's catalyst week and we're here. It's sort of the calm before the storm on Monday. Yes, yes, definitely. It's it's coming together. Starts tomorrow morning, officially, but everything's getting set up behind us and and I'm just so excited to be joined by Kristen, Bab jack, and Kristen is VP of partnerships at ancira. And welcome. Thank you. Very excited

Unknown Speaker  0:33  
to be here. Yeah, so

Chip Rodgers  0:37  
Kristen has been you've been with ancira now for about a year, and Sarah acquired brand muscle, and sprout loud and and so you were many years with with brand muscle. Previous teen actually can't believe it, but yeah, that's amazing. And what a great run. And now heading partnerships for the larger organization, ancira. So let's start there. Kristen, tell us a little bit about what your role is and what you and your team are up to these days. Yeah,

Kristen Babjack  1:10  
absolutely. So I head up all partnerships within ancira. So ancira is a technology company that's focused on orchestrating the entire ecosystem for brands that sell through a distributed network of dealers, agents, franchisees, and we do that through a mix of software and services, mostly focused around fund and or brand and fund management and hyper local execution. And so yeah, it's it's been exciting. It's only been about a year since the acquisition in July of 24 and Sierra acquired brand muscle and sprout loud. Prior to that, I was with brand muscle, and each company didn't really have a centralized partnership function. There were partnerships, but they were managed in different ways, depending on where that partnership lived and what type of partnership it was. And so coming out of the acquisition, our leadership team felt that partnerships really was, should be a foundational value pillar within the organization, so they created the team, and I was just starting to dive into partnerships, so I was tapped to kind of lead the team, and have been very it's been very exciting ever since.

Chip Rodgers  2:16  
Well, that's exciting. It's what a great, really interesting, role for the for the company, and you couldn't be in a better place than the catalyst.

Kristen Babjack  2:26  
Yeah, actually, several of our partners that I've been talking to, they're like, you have to go to catalyst. You have to be at catalyst. So I was definitely planning for months to come here, and I'm very excited. This is my first time here. So excited to see how everything works, see some of the speakers, and really focus on networking. So

Chip Rodgers  2:45  
brand muscle, I think you know, your role with brand muscle was, you were, you know, I mean, brand muscle does a lot of services and through partner marketing technology, tell us a little bit about about that and about how that compliments and how that works. You know how you're all pulling out that all together? Yeah.

Kristen Babjack  3:07  
So actually, all three organizations, brand muscle sprout, loud and insert, lived in the tcma space. So we all have had platform solutions. So that is a big area of partnerships for us, looking for partners that are going to co sell with us, or help to deliver our platform, or ones that are embedded directly into our solution to help us deliver an offering that we're not building out of the box. So that's a huge focus. We really focus on what is going to complement our offering, what are our clients asking about that we're not building in house where it makes sense to partner, because ultimately, we just want to drive more value for those clients.

Chip Rodgers  3:45  
So the kinds of partners that you're you're you and your team are managing our technology partners, as well as services partners, agency like tell us. So it

Kristen Babjack  3:57  
runs the gamut. We work with quite a mix of different partner types, so from technology partners to agencies, systems integrator partners and embedded solutions. We some of them help us, like I mentioned, co sell or have a referral arrangement. Others, we're actually acting as a systems integrator and implementing other and consulting on other martech solutions. So it really ranges, and that's why we've taken a lot of time to take a step back and categorize the type of partnerships and where we want to focus and make sure that we're giving them the attention that they need and approaching it in the right way, versus a one size fits all kind of approach. So

Chip Rodgers  4:35  
that's a lot. You have a lot, a lot on your plate? Yes,

Kristen Babjack  4:41  
yeah, it's, it's been fun. It's, we're a small, I say small but mighty team, but we couldn't do it without, you know, tapping into our internal teams. We work a lot with our account teams, the sales team, and our internal, you know, marketing and sales teams as well. How

Chip Rodgers  4:57  
is that part going? Hour, because it is so important, I think, as a, you know, as a partner organization, to really help enable the sales team, so that they're they know how to leverage partners, when to bring partners in, and so, because you can't be everywhere, right? You So, how is that process going? Yeah, it's

Kristen Babjack  5:19  
funny when one of the things advice I had read about when I was starting to get into partnerships is treat your internal account and sales teams like their clients as well, because they are the ones that are going to be communicating about your partnership or hearing a pain point and bringing it up. So we did take a step back towards the end of last year to really like put the foundational elements of our partnership team together define our mission, define what types of partners, as well as what is our ideal customer profile, based on customer analysis as well as product alignment, took that step back and then really established the partner program within ncira, and then focused on onboarding Key new partners as well as new growth strategies with existing and a big part of that is relooking at how we're training, enabling those teams finding lots of ways to communicate about our partnerships, making it super easy for them to understand when they can bring a partner in, and letting us do some of that heavy lifting. So it's been it's been fun, but it definitely is something that you have to think about right out of the gate

Chip Rodgers  6:21  
well. So for someone who's relatively new to partnerships, you sound like a pro already.

Kristen Babjack  6:27  
Thank you. I, you know, I've done I am excited to be here because I think I'm just going to continue to learn more. I've used a lot of different resources on LinkedIn and, you know, using chat, GBT and things like that, to really just make sure I fully understand how to approach it and that we've got the best strategy, and I couldn't do it without the team. I've got Adam London, who's here with me as well, and we also have an entire team here doing demos of our platform solution during the whole conference. So

Chip Rodgers  6:53  
that's great. Yeah. So what are you hoping to get from catalyst this week?

Kristen Babjack  7:01  
Yeah, I'm mostly excited since it's my first time and I'm fairly new to partnerships, to just learn from some of the best in the business, the networking opportunities I'm very excited about, and then also to talk about what ancera does, and to be able to be here in the main area and showcase our platform to everyone.

Chip Rodgers  7:18  
Are you looking for new partners. Yes, always, yes.

Kristen Babjack  7:22  
Yeah. We when we look for partners, we want to make sure that they align with, you know, what they complement our solution and what our clients are looking for, but we're always open to exploring new partnerships.

Chip Rodgers  7:33  
Well, Kristen, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate you taking a few minutes to you know, to chat about and Sarah and your role and partnerships, and hope you have a great week and make a lot of connections and bring in new partners, and thanks for taking the time. Yeah, thank

Kristen Babjack  7:52  
you so much. Very happy to be here. Well, thank you all

Chip Rodgers  7:56  
for joining as well. And you know, we're just starting off. We've got a busy week this week, so we'll see you. See you tomorrow. Thanks everybody. Thanks. Bye.

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