Archives for September 2016

5 Principles for a Channel-Committed Company (Living the Five)

father-and-son-fishing-at-sunset-aaron-bakerWhen I was a young boy my Dad taught my brothers and me that with the 5 “C’s” we could accomplish anything we set our minds to. These 5 “C’s” were courage, conviction, concentration, consistency, and moral conscious (but of course, when he saw a teaching moment he’d often work in other “C’s” from time to time too!)

The 5 C’s remind me of 5 principles that are key for manufacturers to accomplish what they’ve set their mind to.   Many sales organizations struggle with going “all in” with a Channel go-to-market strategy. Instead, they often like to keep their options open and see if the direct model is going to be this quarter’s big winner. Unfortunately, that approach can only last so long—it rarely ever succeeds as a long-term solution. The fact is, if you are ever hoping to expect more from your channel partners, then they need to know that their partner is going to be “all in” with them.

Now, I don’t claim to be my Dad, but I’d like to take a page out of his playbook and offer my own set of principles for channel partner success. So, if you can try and LIVE these 5 principles, you and your partner will both know that one another is “all in” when it comes to your partnership. These 5 principles came to me in church when I learned about the book “Living the Five” by Jim and Jennifer Cowart.

  1. You can’t reach your company’s full potential Alone
  2. Growing partners challenge and change your organization (for the better). How can we help our partner grow?
  3. Successful growing partners embrace sharing in a channel community (Create a healthy ecosystem)
  4. Winning manufacturers serve their partners first, then there is potential for win-win
  5. Being a Channel-Committed Company is more than just a business decision—it’s a lifestyle or company culture

As always, send me a note if you’d like to discuss or talk through some of these ideas together. And feel free to join in on this conversation at Move the Channel Group, your exclusive destination for Channel insights and innovation.

Move the Channel,

Travis

email me

profileAbout the AuthorTravis Smith is the CEO & Founder of Move the Channel, a worldwide network and community of channel marketing & sales Chiefs and channel thought leaders. He also is a leader at HMI Performance Incentives, a channel engagement and incentive company, focused on Technology Channel Incentive Strategies. Travis helps some of the most respected companies in the world design, implement, and manage their domestic and global channel incentive programs.

Should we Embrace what’s ‘Strange’ about our Best Channel Partners?

strange (adj)

1. unusual or surprising in a way that is unsettling or hard to understand.

·       Children have some strange ideas.

2. not previously visited, seen, or encountered; unfamiliar or alien.

When we hear or say something is “strange,” it usually comes with a negative connotation. After all, some of the synonyms for the word “strange” include “odd,” “peculiar,” “bizarre,” “unaccountable,” “weird,” and even “freakish.”

But didn’t our parents also tell us that what’s “strange” about us also happens to be what makes us great? Personally, I’m of the opinion that there’s a very fine line between what one might consider odd and what people might call a gift. The key, according to this school of thought, is to identify your uniqueness, embrace it—and leverage it. At this point of intersection, your flaw then becomes your inherent gift.

With that in mind, there are some other synonyms for the word “strange” that are more in line with this philosophy— words like “curious,” “uncanny,” “unexpected,” and “extraordinary.” I love Apple’s “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” 1997 marketing campaign and TV Ad.

Which group of words describes your organization? Very likely you have some “strange” people working for your company or within your channel. But isn’t it that strangeness that differentiates you from your competition? Steve Jobs of Apple always encouraged us to “Think Different.” In other words, embrace your organization’s strangeness and the people who make it unique. At the same time, don’t expect everyone outside of your organization to immediately recognize and understand this uniqueness as the gift that it is. These things take time.

And herein lies the opportunity to help your channel partners who might be considered “strange.” Like you and your organization, your channel partners most certainly possess some unique qualities and ideas. But you probably know better than most that their unique style and leadership aren’t necessarily negative things. Their “strangeness” is an essential part of who they are and probably one of the main reasons for their success. So, when behaviors among our partners that seem “strange,” we have two basic choices: we can try and help fix these behaviors (strangeness as a problem), OR we can celebrate it, embrace it, and help them leverage it (strangeness as a tool). If you show your channel partners that you truly appreciate what’s “strange” about them, you’ll gain a loyal partner for life—and a very productive one at that!

Do you embrace the strange in your channel partners?

As always, send me a note if you’d like to discuss or talk through some of these ideas together. And feel free to join in on this conversation at Move the Channel Group, your exclusive destination for Channel insights and innovation.

Move the Channel,

Travis

email me

About the AuthorTravis Smith is the CEO & Founder of Move the Channel, a worldwide network and community of channel marketing & sales Chiefs and channel thought leaders. He also is a leader at HMI Performance Incentives, a business improvement company focused on Technology Channel Incentive Strategies. Travis helps some of the most respected companies in the world design, implement, and manage their domestic and global channel incentive programs.

Channel Enablement & Incentives:  A Glimpse 5 Years into the Future

Future of Channel EnablementI want to show you the future of Channel Enablement and Incentives, but before I do, let’s take a look at its history and evolution with an example. In the early 2000s, when I was working for Hyland Software, we hosted quarterly Partner Sales Trainings that entailed two and a half days of classes and learning. VARs would come in from all over the country to attend these training sessions, to learn about Enterprise Content Management solutions and how to position them with their customers. At these events, they learned about the 32 different modules and the end-user outcomes of each feature. They even learned to configure a simple workflow process (which was a session I was proud to have taught!)

Obviously, all of this knowledge in itself had value; but perhaps even more important for attendees was the fact that the event provided them with the opportunity to experience our very unique “Hylander” culture which was a very disruptive outlook on the industry. After all, this was what attracted VARs to Hyland in the first place, and why they chose Hyland to be their core vendor to build their solutions around.

Throughout these sessions the VARs got to meet Hyland’s executive leadership, including AJ Hyland (legendary CEO), Bill Priemer (then VP Sales & Marketing, now CEO), Chris Hyland (CFO), Mark Davis (the closer), and, if you were lucky, at some point Miquel Zubizarreta (CTO & Co-Founder) would come walking in in all of his sweatpants glory. Finally, if the Founder Packy Hyland Jr. was off traveling the world at that time, not to worry—you’d most certainly meet his Dad, Packy Sr. What an awesome man and one who did a lot for me and my family. These leaders were Hyland Software, and the trainees who attended the events were able to learn from them in the classroom and then break bread with them in the evening. One of the nights during the event Packy Jr. would have the entire class and the rest of the Hyland company over to his house for a big backyard cookout. The trainees got to know not just the visionaries and sales and marketing teams but also got to become familiar with the people in development and the customer support team.  Make no mistake about it, these backyard cookouts were a celebration party!

Now, think about how “Enabled” those VAR sales people must have felt when they left Cleveland, Ohio after that week. They weren’t just trained to sell and be competent about particular solutions, they were also exposed to an exciting company environment and inspired and motivated to be a part of an industry Hyland movement. In fact, people were so excited about becoming part of Hyland Software’s channel partner program that they’d pay (unheard of today) for their team to travel to Cleveland to participate in the event. Talk about creating buzz and generating loyalty!

The point is that Hyland Software didn’t take the shortcut to channel enablement; these quarterly events were proof-positive of their long-term outlook, demonstrating their desire and confidence in slowly bringing people into the Hyland fold. Of course, the rest is history: OnBase (Hyland’s flagship product) has become the biggest independent ECM solution in the world, and I would say this is due in no small part to their very successful channel enablement approach.

So, if the long-term approach has proven to be so successful, why would anyone want to take the shortcut? Well, for one thing, times have changed: in a society that often seeks instant gratification, companies have become less patient and VAR principals and salespeople have a hard time seeing value in spending 3 days out of the office (much less paying for it). The assumption is that training and enablement should be free and simply part of the partner program. To compound matters, vendors then look at this lack of commitment and become unwilling to invest in these types of onsite events.

Enter Learning Management Systems (LMS), where vendors can design, deploy, and measure product sales training and technical training modules. In other words, enablement has become nothing more than a box that needs to be checked. The crazy thing is that vendors are often spending more time and money coordinating their LMS system than it would cost them to organize an in-person training session (and, of course, a backyard party).

But the good news is, as a result of this current channel enablement environment, we are starting to see some cool innovative approaches and a moving away from the traditional LMS structure. In fact, while I was recently chatting with a client and friend of mine, Todd—who happens to be a leading innovator in how to reach and engage partners’ salespeople and sales engineers in the tech channel.  LMS certifications and accreditations are still part of his channel training initiative, but where he sees the most results when he deploys a series of concise, multimodal elements that includes videos, quizzes, and other easy-to-digest content for a fraction of the cost.  In the end, most of Todd’s incentive budget is directed towards producing enablement behaviors, user-friendly steps to the sale that are designed specifically to familiarize salespeople and sales engineers with the products their selling—Todd’s products.

The other great thing about this approach is it is absolutely a strategy for ongoing training and enablement.  Not even the old Hyland on-premise training accounted for the ongoing education that is so crucial in the fast-moving high-tech space.   The ease of deployment makes it easy to educate on new features or product launches.

And lastly, what about the engagement?

Now I know what you’re thinking—OK Travis, sure this is a step in the right direction. But we’re still long ways off from the good ole days of Packy Hyland Jr.’s backyard cookouts.  True, but we are making progress there too.  Can we ever simulate the backyard rapport?  Not quite, but Todd is also incentivizing and providing a vehicle for channel salespeople and engineers to reach out and talk to key thought leaders in his company and industry.  Yes, talk!   Like over the phone or over a cup a coffee.  These are people that can influence and better enable our partner’s salespeople if they got exposure to them.  So in the reward platform, you can earn points for simply reaching out and “tap” or “set an appointment with “Jill.” Jill is your region’s business development manager for the Healthcare vertical you serve in. And Jill is armed with points that she’ll pay out just for being engaged. You’re meeting more of our people, and you are learning more about our solution but more importantly our culture. That’s money well invested in our book.

A mobile platform enables Partner’s salespeople to listen to a pre-sales podcast on the way to a prospect sales meeting or watch a short video in the parking lot or on the train prior to the meeting. The great thing is that the vendor can be alerted to when these pre-sales preparation sessions are taking place and follow up to see how to help. bbq_party

But Travis these sound like things you are doing today or currently implementing—what does Enablement & Incentives look like in 5 years? It looks exactly like it did in the early 2000s! Except we don’t invite just anyone who will pay for enablement. We’ll only invite those that have earned enough “engagement credit” through our quick quizzes, watching our product launch videos, engaging with and meeting our people virtually, etc. What’s more it most likely won’t take place in Cleveland in the Founder’s backyard, but on a beach at a resort in the Caribbean (after all, they will have earned it!) Yes, in time people will finally come back around to how powerful a group destination setting can be, not just to learn about a product and how to sell it, but also to understand the culture and passion that is continually moving the industry. Welcome to the future of enablement.

As always, send me a note if you’d like to discuss or talk through some of these ideas together. And feel free to join in on this conversation at Move the Channel Group, your exclusive destination for Channel insights and innovation.

Move the Channel,

Travis

email me

Move the Channel: #1 Driver of Customer Loyalty is the . . . Buying Experience throughout the Sale

Loyal CustomerIt has long been understood that if you’re going to increase customer loyalty among your end-users, then your organizations should be building their customer loyalty strategies around three basic drivers:

  • Product and service differential
  • Improving brand impact
  • Improving perceived product value

But this doesn’t tell the whole story. Conversely, a study by our friends over at CEB has found that end-user loyalty is not being impacted primarily by these traditional drivers, but rather by one important element: the end-user’s buying experience or what they experience throughout the sale. When we talk about sales experience, it’s more than just delivering on your product and/or company promises; additionally, it includes providing insights and added value to the customer. In other words, a salesperson should be capable of doubling as a trusted advisor—certainly no easy task.
How do these findings impact channel organizations? Well, to be frank, this discovery makes many of us VERY uncomfortable. For the most part we are in full control of executing our strategy when it’s based around the traditional pillars of product and service differential, improving our brand impact and improving our perceived product value. In fact, we have very talented people in our marketing teams working on these areas every single day.

But when it comes to controlling our channel partners’ salespeople and sales engineers, to ensuring they are providing a good end-user buying experience for our product, our confidence is a lot less assured. Without having our hands physically in the mix, it can be hard for us to trust that due diligence is being exercised. So I can totally understand why this is prospect might be, shall we say, scary to certain Channel organizations. But I’m here to reassure you that the end-user’ buying experience is actually not out of our hands; in fact, we can exert some measure of control.

For starters, there’s been significant innovation in the area of how to better influence and train our channel partners’ sales people. Arming them with the right content at the right time is one area where we’ve seen a big impact, with companies like SproutLoud and Allbound leading the way. But perhaps the best levers to pull when it comes to this challenge may also be the most obvious: incentivizing them to do the things that make them stronger, more trusted advisors to your end-customer.quize

For example, HMI Performance Incentives helps companies reward these important influencers for 1.)  Completing training quizzes so that they become more informed, more confident and comfortable, and ultimately more influential during the sales experience. Other methods include rewarding your partners’ salespeople for 2.)  Getting your team involved in the sale early on, 3.)  Rewarding for new account introductions, 4.)  Early deal registration, or 5.)  Setting up professional Demo or placing POC (Proof of Concept).

So, just because the territory is unfamiliar doesn’t mean it’s impossible to navigate. Don’t you feel better now? I sure do.

As always, send me a note if you’d like to discuss or talk through some of these ideas together. And feel free to join in on this conversation at Move the Channel Group, your exclusive destination for Channel insights and innovation.

Move the Channel,

Travis

email me

%d bloggers like this: