5 Steps for Negotiating a Better Margin

It doesn’t matter what our role is within the channel, we are constantly in situations where we have to negotiate… whether it’s with partners, customers, suppliers, staff, management, or colleagues. While we might often strive for a Win/Win outcome, our tendency is to slip into old habits and immediately look for ways to haggle or … Continued

5G Is Nearly Here, Now What?

The fifth generation of wireless technology promises lightning-fast speed, incredibly low latency, and the capacity to carry massive numbers of connections simultaneously. Carriers around the world are now trialling 5G wireless communications with the networks and technology going live during 2019. There have been numerous terms to describe the potential impact 5G will have on … Continued

Achieving Win/Win Outcomes With Partners

How often do you hear channel account managers or sales reps talking about wanting a Win/Win outcome with partners? But have you ever stopped to think what that actually means? A Win/Win means that the rep wins (ie. gets what they wanted) but also the partner gets what they wanted. The problem is that, not … Continued

Are You Selling Benefits or Advantages

Whether you are a partner (ie. VAR, MSP, SI, etc) selling to end-users, or a vendor promoting your technology to the channel, are you selling genuine benefits or simply selling advantages? More importantly, do you know the difference, and the enormous impact this has in helping you close business? In this article, we look at … Continued

Not Being a Trusted Advisor Can Be an Advantage

This month I am continuing on from Moheb’s feature article in our August newsletter, that explained the four traits of being a trusted advisor. I am going to start by making a controversial comment and suggest that being a trusted advisor should NOT necessarily be the primary goal for every Channel Account Manager (CAM), and certainly … Continued

The Four Traits of a Trusted Advisor

If I had to pick my most annoying phrase right now, it would be “Trusted Advisor”. Greatly overused, often misrepresented, and largely misunderstood, those two words are now well and truly entrenched in the “Meeting Bingo” category – they seem to get bandied about without any particular definition or consideration. But while I may hate … Continued

You Get What You Reward So Be Careful

At present there is a lot in the news about reward and compensation systems driving the wrong behaviour at banks and financial institutions. Luckily the ICT industry is not facing a Royal Commission, but there are certainly some badly designed incentives and discount structures delivering predictably poor outcomes, which we will explore in this month’s … Continued

Improve Profit Through Operational Efficiency

Most channel firms today acknowledge that transforming their business from hardware-centric reselling to a business model that embraces services and recurring revenue is not only the future, but should at this point be the present. There are however, many moving parts involved in the transformation process, notably anything to do with business operations and process … Continued

Distribution and Channel Alignment

Author: Cam Wayland Vendors often measure, profile and segment their partners and their distributors based on revenue performance. Rarely do they dig deeper to look beyond the numbers to what is actually driving the revenue via distribution.   When it is working well you will usually find there is “alignment” between the capabilities, resources, and vendor … Continued

Getting Your Vendor’s Attention

Author: Tamara Hodkinson The 80/20 rule is a reality that all vendors deal with when it comes to their channel revenue. By this I mean that 20% of a vendor’s channel partners will deliver 80% of their channel revenue. This is nothing new. It does however tend to mean that those larger partners (the 20%) … Continued