Welcome back to The Hot Seat Podcast, the no-nonsense show for Microsoft Partners.
In this episode, I sat down with Rob Triggs, CEO & Revenue Engine Builder for Microsoft Partners at RTR, to talk about something every partner leader is wrestling with right now: where the real gaps are in a Microsoft practice, and how to close them before you try to scale, grow, or exit.
Rob has done it all in this ecosystem - he's helped grow a Microsoft practice, sell it to a larger partner, and then led sales and marketing at that bigger organization. Now he's out on his own with a diagnostic tool that shows partners exactly which levers to pull to grow. With 16-plus years in the channel, his perspective cuts straight through the noise.
The Core Building Blocks Haven't Changed
There's a lot of fear and angst in the ecosystem right now, and most of it traces back to two letters: AI. Partners are asking what they should be doing, whether their current efforts are working, and what the ROI is on all the time and money they're pouring in.
But Rob's message is grounding: the fundamentals of a strong company haven't moved.
"The core building blocks of any strong company have not changed. They are the same."
Every partner in the Microsoft ecosystem has the same raw ingredients—clients, industries served, their own IP, their own spin on similar solutions. The problem isn't a shortage of ingredients. It's the recipe.
As Rob puts it, a cupboard full of ingredients without a proper recipe just makes "a pretty crappy cake." Growth comes from knowing how the pieces fit together, not from adding more of them.
Diagnose Before You Build
Rob describes himself as a builder—someone who'd rather build a company and pass the baton than run it long-term. And a builder's first move isn't execution. It's diagnosis.
Most sales leaders are one or the other: an executor who runs an engine that already exists, or a builder who creates the foundation first. Rob's diagnostic is built for the second problem—identifying the building blocks of a strong partner foundation before the revenue engine takes off.
The analogy he uses is building a house. You don't start hammering; you hire an architect to design a structure that won't cave in. The diagnostic is that architectural step for your practice.
The Audiences You Can't Ignore
One of the biggest shifts partners miss is that they're not marketing to a single audience. Rob makes the case for two:
- Your customers and prospects: understanding the solutions they need and can deliver on the Microsoft platform
- Microsoft itself: raising your profile inside a sales organization that has been streamlined and is increasingly AI-driven
As I told Rob, if you think a Microsoft seller isn't already using AI to figure out the best partner to bring into a deal in a specific sector, you're going to lose out. That's why I'd argue there's a third audience too: the machine—Google, AI, and the search systems that decide whether you get found at all.
This is where "smarketing"—sales and marketing operating as one—matters. Rob's long-standing advice: build two marketing plans, one for the external customer and one for Microsoft. They're similar, but fundamentally different. And no, a listing on the Microsoft Marketplace does not make leads rain down on its own.
Why Vibe In and Why Peer-to-Peer
Rob and I are bringing all of this together in a hands-on, 90-minute workshop at Vibe In, September 21–23 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
This won't be two people standing on stage with a slide deck telling you how smart we are. We'll set the tone, then roll up our sleeves and dig into what's really going on in the partner community—helping partners focus their time and dollars on the things that matter most. Attendees will leave with something tangible they can implement the moment they get back to work.
What makes Vibe In different is the format: an intimate, peer-to-peer setting rather than thousands of people milling through a convention center. It's built for open, confidential conversations between colleagues about what's actually working. And it's hosted by two women with over 20 years each in the channel.
Whether you're a founder, CRO, CEO, head of sales, marketing, or even customer service—if your revenue has plateaued, you're planning your path to becoming a frontier partner, or you're thinking about an eventual exit, this session will help you put the building blocks in place.
👉 Curious about the peer-to-peer experience Rob and I rave about? Learn more about the upcoming Vibe In workshop: https://vibein.com
About The Hot Seat Podcast
The Hot Seat is the no-nonsense podcast for Microsoft Partners who want to cut through the noise and talk about what's really going on in the channel. Hosted by Marie Wiese, each episode features unfiltered conversations with the leaders, builders, and change-makers shaping the future of the Microsoft ecosystem.
