I wrote in my Target article: “It will probably be upsetting to some in the org because they want to sell to Enterprise but so far the sales have been to small business. (Lots of reasons for that but that will be a different blog post.)” This is that post!
One thing that many people do not understand is that salespeople come in many varieties. That old saying that a good sales person could sell ice to Eskimos is garbage. Sales people are motivated by different things. That motivation plays into what and how they sell.
The channel was built on transactional sales — and still draws a lot of breath from replacement transactions for less money. With MPLS being replaced by SD-WAN, some providers are going to be hurting!
Anyway, if a sales person is transactional, it can mean that the quick sale, the act of getting ink frequently and without much friction is what keeps him going.
There are transactional; there are whale hunters; and there are folks in-between.
Boeing, Caterpillar and others hire whale hunters, someone who can spend two years on an account to close the big sale. For example, selling 777 airplanes to Delta probably only has a few windows of opportunity in ten years. A transactional guy won’t be good in this. He won’t enjoy the hunt. He won’t like following up. He won’t like not getting ink for 3 years. Meanwhile the Boeing sales rep could NOT go work at CDW or Verizon Wireless.
Selling to mid-market is different than small business – no matter how you define both sizes. Some salespeople are only comfortable selling to one size.
Now take a database of 2700 to 9000 partners** that have not been segmented out or anything. This includes partners who never sold anything; who sold one thing years ago; partners selling Long Distance; TEMs; etc. Now the vendor comes along, doesn’t know what a good partner looks like — because they don’t have a Partner Profile. They pitch their stuff to all of them. Some will never sell their stuff — or any services like that at all! Some already have a preferred vendor or two. Some have a boutique business. Some might already white-label services from another vendor that are being pitched. Do you see how much of the partner marketing is a waste of time?
No segmentation. No Partner Profile. No idea what you are looking for. Low batting average this way.
Now if the vendor has a target market, the vendor can quickly disqualify partners who do not service that target.
What if the service offering has a long sales cycle, but the partners usually sell cable? That’s not a good fit.
What if the service offering is great for hospitality or healthcare, but the partner pool doesn’t really touch that? Do you see how this would be what Richard “Dick” Marcinko (RIP) calls a goatf-ck?
Know what kind of partner you need: transactional, middle, whale or other. Know the Target. Know the sales cycle. That helps to narrow the search for partners.
Now if the vendor knows what is Adjacent to their service offering, that can narrow the field fast. Our Buyers typically buy THIS and our stuff. Who sells THIS? Boom!
Most Partner Programs don’t do this. They look at the large number of partners that master agencies throw around see Gold without realizing what that number actual represents. They think every Partner could possibly bring them a sale.
Right now I see this with Mitel partners. Everyone is pitching Mitel partners as if these partners didn’t have the opportunity to sell Avaya or anyone else before. Of course they did. And they chose their path. And that path just shrunk. Do you think they are just waiting for a Channel Vision email blast or a Google ad for a light bulb to go off in their head that they could be selling XYZ also? Much of the thinking is that these partners will change course now and sell something else.
Ideally, vendors want ALIGNED Partners. It only takes about 20 aligned partners to move the needle. An aligned partner is enrolled not recruited; is on-board; adds your offering to their portfolio; sells to your target market; gets certified and gets going! No program needs hundreds, they need 20 of these!
Most of this is in my book, Secrets of Channel Management available on Amazon. Also, my webinar series Secrets for Channel Managers covers this stuff too.