The Vendor Channel Programs Report is complete!
Over the past few weeks we have conducted 20+ vendor interviews regarding channel programs.  Our findings were compiled into a Vendor Executive Summary Report and delivered last week at the HTG Summit in Dallas.
In the report, we didn’t call out names of vendors or their program attributes since it was distributed across competitors.  Vendors were grouped into 3 personality types that we seemed to encounter most often during the interview process.

1) The Sergeant: Persistent recruiting, profiling, analysis
PROS: Recruiting is essential (boot camp)
CONS: Partners jumping through hoops, getting value?

2) The Salesman: Revenue/ROI-oriented, channel is their “ATM”
PROS: They know what marketing/sales tactics work
CONS: They may not invest in longer-term programs like training/cert

3) The Loyalist: Focus on “circle of friends”, face-to-face approach
PROS: Satisfaction, great for stable market
CONS: May see trouble in a shifting market, difficulty reaching breadth

We have a full document that goes into more detail by sharing best practices, tips and how-tos that both vendors and channel partners can use when dealing with these personalities. If you'd like the full study emailed to you, contact lauren@emminc.com

-Kris

 

(Practice Makes Perfect)

Over on my sister channel, Channel Surfing, you recently read about how to make your collateral work better for your partners (and thereby working harder for you and your products), in the post called “Is your customer collateral inappropriate for your partners?”

Kris (the Channel Surfing author) makes some awesome points here that I have seen to be true, because I often provide the design work for partners’ co-funded collateral.  Pieces are most effective when they discuss what the all-encompassing solution will do for the business of the potential client.

But don’t just let the piece stop working for you there!  It can do one other vital piece of work for you – it can be a testimonial to entice other partners to utilize the same templated collateral pieces for their upcoming marketing campaign.  By asking partners for a copy of their finished collateral, some simple ROI stats (what’s coming down their pipeline now, versus before they used the templated pieces), and a quote from them, you can show other partners how effective your materials can really be.  You get better involvement in your partner community, and the partner doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel for every set of products and services they want to combine.  It’s a WW (win, win).

(What She Said)

Recently, you may have read a post from our Learning Channel author, Angie Robar, entitled

The 360⁰ Approach to Building a Great Channel.  This was the first of many insightful posts looking into the strategy of a successful, solid channel.

In this post, she touched on the idea of “weeding” through your enrolled partners once a year to ensure you’re maximizing your channel program(s).

As I was reading this, something small, yet huge, came to mind: TRACKING.

Weeding is needed to maintain a vibrant channel, but what good is it if you’re not keeping track of who, when, and why you’ve weeded out each year?  It doesn’t take but 5 minutes more to set up a spreadsheet that you can use each season as you weed.  Simply list the date, partner name, industry vertical (or other appropriate signifier), and details of why you’re removing them.

You might not need this information for a year, two years, or ever! But, what if you do? What if that partner decides to re-enroll on their own three years from now?  You don’t want to think “Gosh, their name sounds familiar, but I can’t place them…”  You want to be able to search your handy little spreadsheet, recall when you removed them, who the contact was, and why they were weeded out, right?

UTTC
(Until Then, Take Care)

(Cross your T’s and dot your I’s)

If you own or work in a small business, chances are you wear multiple hats.  And chances are you have too many items on your To Do List, and wish you could clone yourself in order to get them all done, while maintaining some much needed sanity.  Since that's never gonna happen, inevitably some things get pushed to the back burner. When you come back to them, it’s hard to remember where you left off, which can result in accidental misses and oversights.

Many times, we see that marketing pieces fall into this category.  I mean, hey, you’ve got paying clients to keep track of and potential ones to call back, right? Who has time to worry about that pesky new collateral piece?  It’s waited a month, what’s another week?

If you absolutely must put it off, don’t fret!  Use a handy dandy design/project checklist to keep track for you.  Spend 5 minutes on a Wednesday afternoon asking yourself “What needs to be checked, proofed, edited, and set up before this piece is final and ready for use?”  Turn your answers into a checklist, print off a stack of ‘em and set them on the corner of your desk. The next time you print something to proof, staple a checklist to the front.  You can date it, write in the name of the piece at the top, and check off the things you’ve already done.

Then, if you have to set it aside or pass it off to someone else for help, you both know what’s left to be done.  It’s not as good as cloning yourself, WWWC (We Wish We Could!), but it’s a darn good alternative!

HCW!
(Holy Cow!)

Sometimes projects can get out of hand, in a number of different ways.  In marketing, sometimes the hitch in the road is finalizing the content or the design of a piece.  We’ve found a way to cut down – if not eliminate – delays by breaking up these two elements into separate approvals.  First, get the content approved, text only.  This will ensure no one is distracted by a color scheme, layout or graphic choice.  Then, get approval on the layout using dummy text.  Finally, combine the two elements, and get one last approval.  Sure, there might be a few final tweaks, but you’re sure to save your client time, and yourself some sanity!  GF!   (Go Figure!)

Q:  Why do best performing channel programs continue to out-perform others?  

A:  They are predictable and programmatic.  They stay the course with a model for doing business with their channel.  
 
In my experience building and improving channel programs, the best performers always follow some form of a model. Build, Implement, Maintain.  Enroll, Activate, Renew. Design, Recruit, Engage, Activate, Retire, Renew (a bit long for my liking).
 
Models are great and IMHO (in my humble opinion), underappreciated. They help us keep on track and ensure balance in our programs. Breaking complex programs into models makes it much easier to set a good, comprehensive strategy and translate it into realistic, timely execution.
 
The model our company consistently follows is the 360⁰ Channel Lifecycle™. This model applies to the larger, umbrella program, as well as each individual opportunity or campaign within the overall program.
 
In our experience, every good Channel Program should follow this cycle (or one similar):





  1. Recruit partners - Enroll them in your program
  2. Engage partners - Train them, Enable them,
      help them Execute
  3. Retain partners - solicit Feedback, build Loyalty,
      Reward performers
  4. Recruit partners - Renew them into your
      program


     And so on.
 



There is an unofficial offshoot from “Retain” that we keep in the back of our minds as we're evaluating and building programs: Weed. We're all for fostering low performing partners who show high potential, but we hate to see our client’s budget and resources drain on those low performers who don't even try.  So, with every evaluation, we promote Spring Weeding.
 
It just so happens to be spring…have you done your weeding?
 
More to come on this, but in the meantime, I'm always curious as to what others find useful so feel free  to share what works for your program (or for partners reading this - tell us what OR what's not working!)

We've had several inquiries about whether we'll be sharing our Vendor Report.  (To catch you up, EMM is interviewing 26 vendors about their MDF, Co-funding and Partner Programs). 

Answer:  Yes, some of it.

The full report was sanctioned by HTG, a peer-group association of solution partners.  The full report will be exclusively available to HTG members and will contain a list of all 26 vendors and their co-funding, promos and partner engagement style. 

An executive summary of this report will be publicly shared here and will include overall trends and findings.  We are currently blogging about some of the insights that we're gathering now (in a generic sense), so you can be assured that the topics of our recent blogs are unfolding from real discussions with vendors and partners. 

Stay tuned!

-Kris, Lori, Angie and Mike

Ask a partner what they want from their vendors and the first answer is:  MONEY.  

But don’t be offended --your partners don’t only love you for your money – but it is a big piece of your relationship.

Some of the really savvy partners have a special strategy in mind and know which vendors they can go to in order to make it happen.

They find two non-competing vendors and go to both of them with a proposal for customer outreach.  Then, they combine the funds from the two (or more) vendors and “double-dip”.   Some vendors have a problem with it, but the savvy vendors know that it’s a win-win-win.

Why it’s a good thing:

1. Vendor 1 and Vendor 2 get their message out (and you may even tap into each others partner channels)
2. The partner lowers their campaign cost.
3. The partner often gets a better response with the two brands because it shows: a) their objectivity [see last post] and b) if the client isn’t interested in one brand, they may be receptive to the other. The most important thing is that the partner gets in the door with that first customer conversation.

Double-dipping does require a vendor to let go of any ego associated with not being ‘center stage’ of the campaign and making an effort to see the bigger benefits of helping the PARTNER win the customer.

So, who are your best non-competing vendor partnerships?  Drop them an email or give them a call today and see what they think about a 3-way effort that enhances both of your business.  
If you don’t HAVE the contact information from your best vendors, consider the CRN Channel Champions List – these are all channel-friendly companies and the contact for the partner program channel leaders are listed.   I’m sure you can get their ear if you bring partner funding to the table.   

Call us if you need help.

Many vendors struggle with partner participation in co-marketing opportunities that vendors work so hard to prepare for their channels.  “We want to help them with their marketing but they just don’t have the resources” or “they only operate by word of mouth”.   

Not true.

The real reason that your partners don’t eagerly pick up your campaign offerings is that they are too product-centric.  Now understand, your partners like and depend on you so they don’t want to hurt your feelings because they know you love your products!    

Partners, by nature, are solution-centric so they blend together the right mix of products for a particular customer.  Their objectivity is king.  So, when they go to market with the ready to personalize postcard you gave for them for the Gadgetron 6000 they struggle with selling out their objectivity in front of their customer.

[Oftentimes, partners will take it if you’ve paid for the postcard so they can get their name out there].  

So, what can you do?

1. Let the partner message lead.  Remember that you are a LIKELY RECOMMENDATION that will be made from that partner but the partner is the foot in the door with the customer.  Trust that your partner will recommend what is right for your customer and  that the salient features of your product are clear enough to them.    Provide templates and high level messaging but leave most of the body copy to the partner.  You should reserve one sentence and 3 salient points about your product.
2. Remember to include a promotional offer with your materials.  It’s the easiest way for a partner to get in the door.  Whether you’re offering Free Financing or 20% rebates, that is the key information for the partner to convey to the customer.
3. Team up with another vendor to let your partners show the breadth of your product line [more on this in my next post].

Call us if you need help.

As you grow your channel, be sure to think about both breadth and managed partners.  Breadth partners are those who self-serve:  They may aspire to be managed someday but for now, they just need information and, ideally, a phone call from a dedicated telephone representative.  This rep should be someone who is informed about your company, partner incentives and has some discretionary pocket money to award high potential partners.  Think of them as a concierge to help breadth partners locate what they need and bubble up partners that show a lot of promise so they can be managed.

But ask yourself:  Are we in a channel echo chamber?   Do we keep talking to the same partners over and over, spending all of our funding only on these partners?  Can we move 20% of our resources into breadth and inject some fresh blood into our partner base?

Of course, the 80/20 rule applies and you cannot ignore your top-performing partners, but you also can’t afford to spend 100% of your resources on the top of the pyramid either.  A healthy blend of breadth and managed is necessary and we’ll be suggesting some ways that you can save money so that you CAN devote more attention to the middle of your channel pyramid.  

Managed
(MDF/Co-mktg)

Guided
(tele-managed, events, objectively apply if qualified for  co-funding or MDF )

Self-served
(web, webinar)



If you need any help, give us a call.