Recently Avant announced:
“First Orion has announced its partnership with AVANT Communications to expand the distribution of its branded calling solutions, giving AVANT’s extensive network of Trusted Advisor partners deeper access to First Orion’s industry-leading technologies.”
Avant signed up a branded calling vendor; there are at least four of those chasing the TAM (total addressable market) of about 30,000 Enterprise customers. The only people that care about Branded calling are companies that spend millions on branding – and that’s about 30K enterprises.
Here’s the funny part. The buyer is the CMO for Branded Calling. (I know because I had a discussion about this service with the TransNexus CEO, who sells BC.) TA’s doesn’t usually have a relationship with the CMO, so how would they be helpful selling this.
In addition, there are probably less than 200 TA’s that sell to the Enterprise segment of the market.
I know that TSBs say TA’s sell to Enterprise, but the history of the channel – and actual data – showcase that the SMB market is where 90% of the channel partners play.
Now, vendors come to me all the time about getting in the channel. I am foolish in that I don’t just take their money and say let’s give it a try. I usually start asking hard questions that they do not have answers to like”
Who your customer is? Who is the Buyer is?
Without knowing those 2 answers, your channel strategy is called Hope.
The channel is clogged with vendors who can’t answer these questions. Who have no idea what the Target Customer is or Why they should Buy from YOU.
Usually when I ask “Who is Your Customer?”. the answer is: Everyone. In which case, I know that they have no idea – and the answer will actually be: No One.
Most products are NOT Hershey chocolate or potato chips or cereal. Meaning they are NOT mass market, built for EVERYONE. Thinking that is a waste of time and money.
Most products are like Bourbon. Not everyone drinks alcohol. Not everyone drinks whiskey. Not every whiskey drinker drinks Bourbon. Some bourbon drinkers drink expensive stuff; many drink the cheaper stuff. Not all bourbon drinkers want barrel proof. Some like small batches. Do you get the picture now?
If I sell no-name cheap bourbon, I have to understand who that buyer is and what store caters to it.
The biggest problem vendors have is they aren’t honest with themselves.
They think they sell the fountain of youth when in reality they sell something that maybe 20,000 businesses will benefit from and pay them for it. Cbeyond sold at 55K businesses. Most service providers have less than that many active accounts. (USLEC used to say 26K and zero churn right up till PAETEC bought them.)
Knowing these things should change your channel strategy.