Partner Recruitment – “Selection” not “Collection”

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The success of any business is largely dependent on the quality of people it recruits. Similarly for vendors, the success of a channel program is largely dependent on the quality of partner it recruits. However, few vendors really devote as much time to their partner recruitment strategy as they do to their staff recruitment. In … Continued

What’s Your Value Proposition

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It is amazing to me that so few resellers can articulate their value proposition succinctly. I know they have one. They wouldn’t be in business if their customers didn’t see value in them. But it seems to me that only a very small minority has ever spent the time to sit down and clarify what … Continued

Selling to SMB – it’s not about the product

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Author: Sean Murphy As more and more vendors look for ways to reach the SMB market, our business – a small/medium VAR in the IT industry – has gone from relative obscurity to being one of the key “go-to-market” strategic partners for many of our suppliers. And while some of our vendors have worked out … Continued

Balancing Work and Life in Times Of Growth

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Author: David Blackman Today’s work environment is one where customers, partners, peers and staff expect instant gratification. Perception is reality and if you can’t respond in a timely fashion, or your organisation provides less that expected levels of customer service, there is always a competitor standing by to eat your lunch. I’ve always pitched work-life … Continued

Be A Consultant To Your Channel

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In our last newsletter, we discussed the difference between Features, Benefits and Advantages, and the importance of being able to genuinely identify the needs of your partners (or end-users, if you happen to be a reseller account manager). In this article, we will delve deeper into this topic of identifying needs, and show you an … Continued

A New Look At SWOT Analysis

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SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is a simple, proven and well used method of assessing a business, its resources, and its environment. However, most partner account managers would not think of using it as the starting point in a partner or distributor review, nor in the account development process. This paper takes a … Continued

Partner Profitability

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ARN brought together six vendors and six channel partners for a discussion on profitability. Moheb Moses was invited as a 3rd party industry expert to provide his observations and feedback. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation with a number of breakouts focusing on major discussion points of the day. They include lead generation, … Continued

Why Do You Have A Channel?

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If you are a vendor, you probably already use a channel to go to market. But have you ever stopped to ask “why?” For most companies, the channel has been in place for so long, it’s just part of the furniture. However, an unclear vision of the role of the channel (and inconsistency within your … Continued

Action Planning Guide

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The ICT world is constantly awash with brilliant ideas, plans and initiatives but more often than not only a small portion of them get implemented on time, to their original intent or extent, if at all. This paper looks some ideas for implementation or making it happen. The Plan A well structured action plan is … Continued

Building Channel Trust

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Vendors often measure, profile and segment their partners based on sales performance. But rarely do they dig deeper to look beyond the numbers to what is driving the business. This paper looks at the concept of measuring channel trust and how it impacts on a partner’s performance and attitudes to the vendor. The research for … Continued