Channel Tips

Channel Priorities for the Next 60 Days
 

By Greg Nutter

At the beginning of the year we talked about how successful channel management activities follow an annual cycle: there’s a time to recruit, a time to launch and train, and a time to focus primarily on closing deals. However, while July and August are less than ideal to do many of these things, there are important activities you must do if you want to make your year-end numbers.

A Time for Analysis

Summer is the hardest time to get sales rep or customer attention so it’s typically not the best time to launch new products, conduct training, or run marketing events. However, it’s the perfect time to analyze the past six months to understand what elements of your program have been working and which require change. If you set goals at the beginning of the year, in terms of the number of new resellers you were looking to sign or the amount of revenue per reseller you were hoping to achieve, now’s the time to compare actuals versus goals to see if you’re on track. Other great metrics to analyze include participation (are all resellers selling equally or are some doing much better than others), success with new products, or acceptance of new marketing programs or tools. Once you have some numbers you will want to schedule and conduct mid-year reviews with each of your channel partners to share your analysis, gather their perspectives, and put together joint action plans for the balance of the year.

A Time for Planning

Another activity that is critical at mid-year is to develop operational plans to drive your balance of year business. Most technology companies recognize as much as half or more of their full year’s revenues in the last quarter of the year which means you want to make sure everything is firing on all cylinders come September.

Depending on the length of your sales cycle or other priorities there are three key things you can be planning for:

First, if you have less than a 4 month sales cycle then there’s still time to add new prospects to the funnel in time for a December close. So come September, you want to be ready with marketing events, customer engagement programs, and sales tools to help the field find and get in front of prospective customers.

If your sales cycles are typically longer than 4 months, September is too late to start adding new prospects. Instead of prospecting, the marketing programs you want to have ready are ones that help the field advance deals. Executive engagement, solution validation, and customer incentive programs are ideal ways to engage customer resources towards advancing the sale. Another attention getting technique is to begin making announcements regarding 2008 price changes. Many companies do this too late in the year when it’s difficult or impossible for a customer to accelerate the decision process, which frustrates both customer and sales force alike.

Finally, for companies looking to launch a major new product or marketing initiative in 2008, now is the time to begin planning and building the framework. One client of mine is starting the planning process to launch a new reseller channel in January. Building a program like this from the ground up takes time so it’s best to plan in Q3 and build in Q4 if you want a successful start to the year.

John Perton from Boston College once said "The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, and is not preceded by a period of worry and depression". While this approach is certainly a common one, we recommend mid-year analysis and planning as a sure way to reduce your worry and depression come December.

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Greg Nutter is a Principal with Soloquent Inc. (www.soloquent.com) where he helps technology companies develop go-to-market strategies, programs, and tools that increase indirect and direct selling performance. He has over 20 years experience in sales, sales management, and channel development in the HVTO industry.

Got a comment, got a question, got a problem? Send Greg a note at greg@soloquent.com

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