How often do you review your partner types and approach?
Even if your software company has established sales channels with many partners, your success hinges on regular review and refinement of your approach.
Markets are always changing.Your end-customers’ needs are changing. Competitive forces are changing.Your partners are changing,and your company is changing. Consider a regular review of changes while also taking into account your organization’s learnings to inform and improve your channel effectiveness.
It is key to continually refine the optimum investment in your channels for greater results.
Consider the following objectives for your Sales Channel Review:
1) Capture your new learnings and market changes to revise your Target Partner Profiles and Partner Evaluation Structure
2) Review each partner against your revised Target Partner Profiles and assign each to one of the following categories:
a. Invest/Managed: Platinum, Gold or Silver
• Strong-fit partners who are committed and have demonstrated success
• Companies which with your full support and investment, will achieve greater results for your product
• The Platinum, Gold or Silver tiering indicates the level of your support based on the size of the overall opportunity with the partner for the coming year
b. Ad-hoc/Unmanaged
• Companies which are not a clear fit for your business, but bring in business.
• Companies which may be too small, or they may not be focused sufficiently in your field
• Companies which are worth working with, but maybe in a volume approach rather than one-to-one attention and investment
1) What do you want from a partner?
Has experience shown that you are expecting too much from partners?
Maybe you need to support them more in their sales process to improve their sales win ratios?
Maybe with new learnings, you can better determine the partners’ capabilities on whether they can be self-sufficient in the sales process or whether they need your support.
In reviewing your requirements across the marketing, sales and delivery process for your product, what responsibilities can your partners credibly take on, and what capabilities should they possess to do this?
2) What types of partners do you want?
Does it still match what you want from your partners?
How has your market changed with your customers or your competitors?
Do you want different things from different types of partners?
Based on the new capabilities you require from partners, have the company types changed?
Have new solution or service provider types entered the market?
How do you know you are considering all the relevant options, with no bias of what will or won’t work?
You need to recognize old or traditional thinking in what will or won’t work with partners and consider the options in a structured depersonalizing approach.
3) Is your partner proposition sufficiently compelling?
Customer Propositions constantly change with new customer needs, and with new alternatives or direct competitors. Similarly, your partners are being constantly approached by new opportunities that may enable them to meet their objectives.
With these market changes and a revised definition of your ideal target partner, how does your Partner Proposition change to continue to stay relevant with your partners?
4) How do you prioritize your partner focus?
Have any changes in your plans, new business learnings or market changes affected your priorities with partners?Will the same investment approach from last year yield similar or better results in the coming year?
Can you better determine where more investment will yield greater partner and customer engagement?
Are there new partner types emerging for you to consider and to start learning what will work with them?
5) How well have you detailed your partner selection criteria?
How are the changes affecting your target partner selection criteria?
Are they selling new solution types?
Are new capabilities available for you to consider?
If you have changed what you want, or expect, how has this changed your selection criteria?
Has this opened the door for you to reconsider other companies that you rejected in the past?
6) How do you evaluate a prospective partner’s capabilities?
From your team’s experience with each partner company, you may have strong views on their capabilities. Often you need to review your partners’ plans to determine their capabilities, commitment, track record and expectations for the coming year. Then,with your Partner Fit Evaluation you can determine which partners offer the greatest opportunities for investment to meet your objectives.
If any of the questions above have created an interest in alternative approaches to Channel Partnering, then learn from Tenego’s experience and the hard lessons we’ve endured over the past ten years working with many large, medium and small companies across the world in helping with their sales channel development