Sell through Partners, not to them

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It is a constant source of surprise to me how often Channel Managers (and I’m talking about intelligent, professional, and experienced individuals) inflict product presentations on their partners that they would never want to sit through themselves. Ask someone what they hate about PowerPoint, and you nearly always get the same answers (too many slides, … Continued

Carbon Tax, Customers and the Channel

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As the saying goes, two things are certain in life, death and taxes. That maybe correct but I think a more relevant quote given the current headlines might be: “Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts” – Arnold Bennett Whether or not the Carbon Tax legislation gets … Continued

Channel Management – A New Era

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What a difference a year makes! As channel consultants, we get a feel for the health of the industry by the type of projects we are asked to work on. And over the last twelve months we’ve seen a real shift from tactical, short-term return projects, to strategic, longer-term projects designed around building strong sustainable … Continued

Security Starts With People And Behaviour

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I recently attended the RSA security conference in London. Being part of the IT industry we always assume there is a technology fix for technology related problems such as a security breach of a network, server or system. As technologists we might look at patching, layering or even upgrading the hardware or software as a … Continued

Channel Reward Systems – You Get What You Reward

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We often get asked to audit channel programs and incentives, in order to diagnose why channel facing staff or partners are behaving in a certain manner. In many cases, the answer comes down to the way the reward system has been structured. Partners (like staff) will always look for the easiest way to achieve target, … Continued

Choosing The Right Distributor (if you’re a Vendor)

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Vendors often measure, profile and segment their partners and distributors based on revenue performance, but rarely do they dig deeper to look beyond the numbers to the driving forces behind the strategy. This article looks at tips to ensure your business is aligned to the right match of distribution partners, and therefore the right reseller … Continued

The Cost of Not Asking the Right Questions

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Here is my own real example of not asking the right customer questions, or worse, thinking I had asked the right questions, but still ending up with a project situation that took longer and cost more than anticipated. This is a reminder that if we want to be profitable and have great customer satisfaction, projects … Continued

What Else Is On The Menu

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You probably never thought that eating a salad could help you grow your business! In this article that appeared in CRN, Moheb Moses talks about the dangers of assuming how much your customers actually know about your business, and gives some valuable advice on how you can build stronger relationships with customers. http://www.crn.com.au/News/168877,opinion-what-else-is-on-the-menu.aspx

Measuring Channel Performance

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As channel consultants we are often asked to research and review the performance of a channel program, or group of partners, to help a vendor get greater insight into what is happening. What we often find is that the vendor’s perception of what is going on in the channel (versus the partner’s perception) are poles … Continued

Play To Your Strength

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I know it sounds absurd in today’s environment, but I used to work for a distributor selling a word processor, and we used to make 30% margin (before you start thinking I was being greedy, I’ll say that our resellers also made that kind of margin). The year was 1988 and the product was WordPerfect. … Continued