Brian Giese's Blog

The Top 7 Partner Lies

I'm not sure I can count the number of partner programs that I've seen fail. Usually it's the manufacturer's fault because of someones grandiose expectations of leverage from a channel that never existed. No doubt the manufacturers job is to build great products and create demand for them. And the channels job is to fulfill the demand.

Here are some of the misconceptions (lies) of partner programs.

1. The other company has APIs so that integrating will be easy. Integration is always hard. Take whatever your first estimate is and double it to be safe.
2. Not only is integrating easy, co-marketing will be too. Take whatever your doubled estimated time to integrate and double that to get the co-marketing launched.
3. Your challenge will be scaling up fast enough. I’ve never seen scaling up be the gating item on a distribution deal.
4. Your partner’s challenge will be scaling up fast enough too. I’ve never seen this be the gating item either.
5. You understand what your partner wants. If it’s anything besides “additional revenue,” you’re missing the boat.
6. “We’re forming a cross-functional team to ensure the success of this project.” This ensures that no one is responsible for the success of the partnership, nor is there anyone who’s going to take the blame. Instead, you want the large company to identify one “champion” for the partnership. One champion is always better than one cross-functional team.
7. You can cut a deal with a Fortune 1000 company because a board member knows someone there.This is possible. It just won’t happen before you’re fired for missing your sales projections.

Salesforce.com announces Partnerforce

Just read this announcement on Yahoo News...  It seems that Salesforce.com unveiled Partnerforce saying it is its  new on-demand product that connects enterprises, channels and partners. Available in July, this enables a company to deliver salesforce.com’s CRM and marketing services to any of its sales and marketing partners, such as distributors and VAR's. This will give a consolidated view of the sales pipeline across direct and indirect channels. Looks promising.

Lead Generation for Partners

Understanding your partners and generating qualified opportunities is really tough. Channel partners always request support from manufacturers to provide them with more leads. From lead generation to assisted selling, and anywhere in between, they expect you to help them create, distribute, and manage sales opportunities for them. Not an easy set of tasks. One answer is leveraging available Marketing Development Funds and developing closed-loop lead generation programs to provide your channel partners with increased opportunities to sell your solutions - a 'win—win' situation for both parties.Because lead management is critical in the sales cycle but challenging to execute with precision, look to create a closed-loop program. These programs can effectively process and track leads from the beginning to the end of the sales process and it can make the difference between winning the sale and losing opportunities.

Partner Development

	Do you understand your partners and pinpoint opportunities? How do you most effectively develop and implement programs that will drive sales through your channel?
	Try profiling and creating tiers for your current channel base to focus on highest value targets. This leverages your proprietary channel resources to identify opportunities to recruit and engage additional partners.
	Knowing who your channel partner targets are is only half the battle. You'll need to develop highly customized programs, value propositions and messaging, to drive sales of your products and services through these channel partners.