Many years ago, with Tenego’s very first channel development services client, the client had the opportunity to present at a new partner’s global sales kick-off. It was a major success to secure this global company as a partner and now the client had the chance to present their solution to 1,500 salespeople. An amazing and frightening opportunity.
One of the great challenges for a vendor reselling their product through a large sales team is not being able to directly contact, support or influence the salespeople. Getting featured in a global sales kick-off is a great opportunity to position your product within the sales teams’ minds against their other priorities to deliver sales for your product.
Many companies start their financial year with a global sales kick-off, reviewing the previous year’s performance and lessons learned and setting out the plans for the coming year. For many large companies, global sales kick-off events were typically the only times that their marketing, sales, and product teams physically met each other. With travel and meeting restrictions global sales kick-offs have gone virtual.
Partners are also featured in global sales kick-offs as part of their plans.
As a vendor, how do you get the opportunity to meet and present to your partners’ sales teams?
How do you feature in your partners’ sales kick-offs or sales teams’ gatherings?
1) When are the possible opportunities to present?
• Learn how regularly your partners’ sales teams meet for information updates of new products, training, strategizing, etc.
• Maybe each regional team hold its own gatherings, monthly or quarterly
• Maybe each different groups gather differently – by customer focus, by applications, etc
Which group is most relevant is your product most relevant for?
2) Learn where your product fits on your partners’ plans
The more relevant you are in your partner’s plans the more likely you will be invited or accepted.
• Learn about how your partners’ sales teams are organised by region, customer, application type, etc
• Where is your product most relevant? What groups are most interested?
• What group can you offer the greatest opportunity for them?
• In what region is your product best known maybe with your best customer references or easiest to sell for various reasons?
• What region can you best support your partners in marketing and selling your product? With support, where can you make it easiest for the partner’s salespeople?
3) Ask for the opportunity
In understanding where you fit, ask for the opportunity. You may have to start small and build.
• Ask to present to all the salespeople at the global sales kick-off, demonstrating where you are relevant
• If rejected, down-sell to a quarterly event
• If rejected, ask for regional, customer, or application group sales teams events
• Continue to learn where you can fit, and continue to seek the relevant opportunity
One good session leads to another. Take your opportunities to present, deliver well for them, and seek other opportunities with other groups, other regions and more salespeople evangelised into selling your product.
For our client, in getting the opportunity to present at their giant company partners’ global sales kick-off of 1,500 salespeople, we had to seriously think about how to make the best of the opportunity. Read what we did next and how it worked out in part 2 of Partners’ Global Sales kick-offs.
In part 2 we discuss what you need to do to make the best of your opportunity in presenting to your partners’ sales teams. You want to start and build great relationships with the people who are in front of your target customers.
See part 2 here; ‘Make an impact at Your Partners’ Global Sales Kick-off (part 2/2)