I run into this too often. Sell My Stuff!
You want partners to sell your stuff – and you can’t understand why they don’t – and you kind of think they should or they are missing out. And you are angry at the Channel.
Here’s why this may not be working out.
- Do you have a clearly stated Value Proposition?
- Do you know who your Target Customer is?
- Do you have a Partner Profile?
Without those 3 things, your program will struggle.
If you can’t explain Why You and not the myriad of others, then you offer a commodity and it better be at a low price and decent commission.
If you don’t know who your best Customer is – or worse, you think it is Everybody – you have a problem.
- 98% of US businesses have fewer than 100 employees.
- 89% have fewer than 20!
- 72.5% of C Corps in US had fewer than 10 employees!
- 7.5M businesses account for 61.5M employees – (8)
- US businesses average 12 employees.
- There are only 60,000 orgs with more than 500 employees.
The target is Small Business. Which size? 20 employees? 99+? 150? It is NOT 1-1000. It just isn’t. The average is 12 employees.
You want to win? Figure out how to streamline sales and service to very small business. That is a majority of the market.
You don’t have a Partner Profile, so you don’t know who to recruit. So you spend time and money recruiting anyone and then sales are slim.
You need to know your target customer in order to identify partners who also sell to that customer!
What business model works best for your service offerings and compensation? MSP, VAR, Agent? If you don’t know, that’s trouble.
Who is the Buyer? Most partners sell to the IT Admin or the CIO/CTO. If your Buyer is the CMO or the CFO or HR, well, most Channel partners will not reach that Buyer.
If your buyer is the CISO, find a partner business with a CISO!
Selling your stuff is hard. Are you easy to do business with? You think so, but are you?
Do you know why Customers buy from You? If not, get on the phone and find out.
Everyone thinks that anyone can sell their stuff to anyone. It doesn’t work that way. You aren’t selling bottled water or potato chips. Sure, the market looks like the supermarket aisle of potato chips or bottled beverages, but you have to figure out why the customer picked you from the aisle.
Funny thing, execs are angry at TSBs and Partners because they are shelling out dollars but not getting enough sales. They don’t like paying out SPIFFs and commissions. Have you examined what selling direct looks like in terms of costs and results?
60% of salespeople do not hit quota! You have to pay salary and benefits. Do you know what the cost of customer acquisition is?
Just some things to think about what you ask a Partner Why are You Not Selling my Stuff?