Jim Misuraca has won Adobe Partner of the Year twice. He has spent 20 years building partner programmes across Fortune 500 and 10-person startups, mostly in MarTech, data and ad tech. In this episode he sits down with Mike Tumalty to talk about what genuinely separates the partnerships organisations that generate revenue from the ones that produce activity reports.

This is a conversation about the structural reasons partnerships is still misunderstood inside most B2B technology businesses, why the friction between direct sales and indirect motions is healthy when it is managed properly, and what hiring for a partner role actually requires when the traditional eight-years-in-vertical screen produces the wrong outcome. Jim is candid about where partnerships sits on the org chart, why it depends entirely on the type of partner you are, and what AI is and is not changing for the function right now.
What is covered:

• Why winning Partner of the Year twice comes down to executive sponsorship, product commitment and vertical focus, not relationships alone
• The structural reason most companies underfund partnerships and treat it as a problem to fix rather than an operating motion
• Where partnerships should sit on the org chart and why the answer depends on whether you are SI, services or ISV
• The friction between direct sellers and partner motions, and why the best reps understand pie expansion versus margin erosion
• Hiring for partnerships: the figured-it-out gene, why traditional vertical-experience screens get it wrong
• How AI is changing partner work today (efficiency) and where it has not arrived yet (the core motion)
• The EMEA versus North America buyer dynamic: consensus building versus strong-voice decision making
• Crossbeam as the single most useful tool in a partner leader's stack
  
  

About the guest:
Jim Misuraca is a strategic partnerships and corporate development leader with two Adobe Partner of the Year awards to his name. He has operated across the MarTech, data and ad tech space for 20 years, working with companies from Fortune 500 down to 10-person startups. He is currently based in Phoenix, Arizona.

About the host:
Mike Tumalty is the founder of InsideNow, a GTM diagnostic and commercial due diligence consultancy. He has 25 years of B2B SaaS experience across ServiceNow, Lokalise, Decibel/Medallia, and Panaya.

Episode 2 is supported by Flourish, an early-career B2B sales recruitment and training business. If you are hiring sales talent, look at what they do: https://info.helloflourish.com/hire-a...

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. New episodes every Tuesday.
Connect with Jim Mirusaca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrmisuraca/
Connect with Mike Tumalty: linkedin.com/in/miketumalty
Follow The Outside Seat: linkedin.com/company/theoutsideseat

The Outside Seat is produced by InsideNow. Find more at insidenow.co.uk

In the first episode of The Outside Seat, James Barton, Chief Solutions Officer at Mentor Group and co-author of Infinite Selling, joins Mike Tumalty to unpack why most sales training fails within 90 days, what genuinely sustainable selling looks like, and where AI is changing GTM versus where it is being oversold.

James brings a rare perspective. He sits inside more revenue organisations than most CROs will see in a career, designing the systems that turn training into measurable commercial outcomes. This conversation goes deep on enablement architecture, the gap between what clients ask for and what they actually need, the buyer journey as map rather than process, and the BDR redundancy question that every revenue leader is going to have to answer in the next 18 months.

What you will hear:

Why most sales training evaporates within 90 days The systems thinker's view of GTM transformation Buyer journey as map, not process Where AI genuinely augments selling, and where it is being oversold Why the BDR function is the most at-risk role in B2B sales today The Rapid Fire round: tools, myths, metrics, hiring stories, and the most underrated people in James's network

About James Barton:

James is Chief Solutions Officer at Mentor Group, a global sales performance consultancy that helps revenue teams turn sales training into sustainable selling and predictable growth. He is the co-author of Infinite Selling and one of the most credible voices on the architecture of commercial transformation.

About The Outside Seat:

The Outside Seat is a B2B revenue leadership podcast hosted by Mike Tumalty, founder of InsideNow. Every episode features an unfiltered conversation with the people who run the commercial engine in B2B technology. No recycled frameworks. No sanitised answers. Practitioner conversations from people who have been in the room.

New episodes every Tuesday

Episode 1 is supported by Flourish, an early-career B2B sales recruitment and training business. If you are hiring sales talent, find out more at: https://info.helloflourish.com/hire-a-sales-exec/

Connect with James Barton on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jamesabarton
Connect with Mike Tumalty on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/miketumalty
Visit The Outside Seat: theoutsideseat.com
Visit InsideNow: insidenow.co.uk

The Outside Seat is produced by InsideNow.