Gotta know yourself – Gotta know the players…

It’s a struggle not titling every article in this series with some markety hyperbole like “The Big Secret They Don’t Want You to Know”, “The Top 10 List of…” or “The 5 Most…”; partially, because I wouldn’t take space here to mention specific actions or course corrections if they weren’t critically important to your program’s future, but mostly because I don’t want to diminish the success delivering value of understanding a higher, and mostly ignored, influence in the prospecting and sales process.

Building your new partner program must take into account how …

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Critical First Steps…

When time and money are limited, and progress is the key metric for interim success; it’s critical, and sensible, that every action is a step towards the ultimate goal.

Combining economy of actions with a clear vision of the end point is the fastest and shortest route to the finish line.

Viability

Not every product or service sold in and through the IT marketplace is a Channel viable solution.  In short, you might waste a great deal of time and cash attempting to establish a reseller program when, for a number of quantifiable reasons, there’s a slim …

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Converting your Channel Concept to an Action Plan

Years of IT experience and a track record of success have brought you to this point.  You’re organized, smart and determined – you welcome new challenges, and this certainly qualifies.

The Executive Team, of which you’re probably a key member, recently met and decided that it’s now time to add an Indirect Channel Sales revenue stream to the corporate mix.  In the meeting it probably sounded more like – “So, we’re agreed – let’s get some VARs to sell our stuff.”.

You’re picked, the honor is all yours.  A smile flashes, barely …

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Channel basics that will save you baskets of cash, and maybe your job…

These days I can’t help but notice that most LinkedIn channel discussions are written for existing IT Partner Programs.  Meaning that, the target audience and those asking for advice are in the, “…we have a channel that’s not performing up to expectations, what do we do?” zone

Fortunately for this group, there’s no shortage of great advice from experienced channel managers, software sales folks with a helpful partner solution or other experts.

Unfortunately, there’s another large group of channel hopefuls who are having a more difficult time …

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Defer to the “Referrer” for faster SaaS Sales…

If we agree that the ultimate purpose of any partner program is to increase incremental revenue through broader distribution of your products and services; then, all that’s left – in a practical sense – is to define the optimum partner type and deliver the resources they require to be successful.

Of course, it’s not that simple but it’s a good starting point for this discussion.

Let’s begin with “partner type” and briefly explore what that means.

When we create a new reseller program we begin by defining the program benefits and expectations …

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