Channel Management Blog

Our blog features channel management tips, best practices and expert insights to help you get the most out of your PRM and create a successful partner program.

Aug 15, 2012
Canaries in the Coal Mine

Canaries in the Coal Mine – Apparently Minor Issues That Quickly Become Revenue and Market Share Problems Keep an eye on these dead canaries to detect problems before they start killing sales. 1. Small Declines in Customer Satisfaction These could be due to issues on the vendor’s or the partner’s side. Dissatisfaction could be with […]

Channel Management, Deal Registration
Aug 9, 2012
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

How to Identify Partners Who Are Reaching the End of Their Lifecycle It can be hard to say good-bye, but in the same way products have a lifecycle, partner-vendor relationships do, too. Ending the relationship gracefully—without burning bridges or losing customers—can be a challenge. In some cases, even knowing whether or not to break up […]

Channel Management, PRM (Partner Relationship Management)
Aug 2, 2012
Risks of the Recurring Revenue Model in the Channel Partner Relationship

The old transactional model of selling a solution, closing the deal and moving on to the next customer is evolving. The recurring revenue model relies on ongoing relationships with customers that your partners need to be ready to service—and that you need to be able to track how well they’re servicing. The ability to transition […]

Channel Management, PRM (Partner Relationship Management)
Jul 24, 2012
To Build or To Buy a Partner Relationship Management System

With the state of the economy, people are tending to be more conservative with their expenditures (as they should be) and this may mean tackling more projects yourself and becoming a real DIY’er.  Your Partner Relationship Management System is an excellent example. When it comes to updating your home, doing it yourself can easily be the […]

PRM (Partner Relationship Management)
Jul 18, 2012
Determining the ROI of Your Channel

Everyone is looking to get an ROI read on their indirect sales channel, especially those organizations that are just starting out with a partner program. If you’ve been tasked with managing this initiative, odds are your CEO is regularly asking, “what are we getting out of the channel?” This is true especially for CEOs who […]

Channel Management, Channel Marketing
Jul 9, 2012
What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You

Lack of visibility into the channel is one of the most common contributors to a failed indirect sales initiative. There’s no way around it: you can’t manage in the dark, and you can’t build effective strategy on guesswork. When management lacks easy access to channel data—visibility into partners’ profiles, recruitment pipeline and partner performance, geographic […]

Channel Management, Deal Registration, PRM (Partner Relationship Management)
Jun 20, 2012
Smash those Silos from Your Indirect Sales Channel

Silos have their use – if you’re a farmer – but you don’t want them in your channel. The more obstacles between vendors, partners and their marketing teams, the less productive the channel. Anything that prevents information flow between these three parties is essentially blocking revenue. Creating an Information Hub When you have one place […]

Channel Management, Channel Marketing, Deal Registration, Partner Portal Management
Jun 13, 2012
Part 2 of Structuring a Partner Program

  A poorly designed incentive program can create some pretty counterproductive behaviors in your channel partners. See last week’s blog post for some of those pitfalls, and below are some ideas for preventing them.   1. First, make sure your incentive programs are strategically planned and integrated to support customer needs, vendor goals and partner […]

Channel Management, Channel Marketing
Jun 6, 2012
Structuring a Partner Program to Get the Partner Behaviors You Want Part 1

If you’ve ever had a spiff program not work the way you’d hoped, you already know that partners can behave in completely unexpected ways… Or are they really that unexpected? With a little forethought, if you consider what an incentive program is actually enticing, you will see pretty quickly that the partners’ behavior is completely […]

Channel Management, Partner Engagement, PRM (Partner Relationship Management)
May 30, 2012
Channel Sales Visibility Helps You Beat the Competition

The law of the jungle is survival of the fittest, and few jungles are as competitive as indirect channel sales.  Someone else will eat your lunch if you’re not operating at peak performance.  To ensure you are optimizing your channel, it’s important to get full visibility into your channel performance. On top of losing deals […]

Channel Management, Channel Marketing