Sales Laundry

As an executive responsible for sales, it is a much easier to manage a sales organization that consists of employees you compensate directly than a diverse channel organization out of your chain of command, but for all of its challenges, a good channel organization can improve sales volumes by an order of magnitude when it is built it right.

Here are some tips and suggestions to help you get it right.

1. Plan it.  Plan out potential geographies, what an ideal partner looks like, revenue targets, supporting resources you can commit, what the incentive/interaction with your internal sales team will look like, partner training requirements, etc.  You are setting up a whole new sales organization; give it the same care and planning you would give any other new business unit.
2. Meet with all tiers of the sales team.  When you visit with channel partners or channel partner prospects, meet with the executives and JUST AS IMPORTANT; meet with the sales managers and the top 20% of their sales reps.  It is one thing for a partner exec to say they are going to sell your product, it is quite another for the guy doing the selling to make that commitment.
3. The 80/20 rule is in full effect.  80% of your business will be done by 20% of your partners and 20% of the reps at your best partners will drive 80% of your revenues.  For the most immediate impact focus your training and resources on this Top 20 of 20 group.
4. Bandwidth.  Make sure your partner reps have enough mental bandwidth to add your products.  The sales reps that are going to be driving your revenue numbers can only sell a certain number of different offerings before products begin to get lost in the noise.  Talk to the sales managers to understand the partner’s offerings list and get a commitment from him to help drive your product.  In many instances, to truly get behind your product he is going to have to down play others.
5. Identify key personnel.  Understand who the key reps are for your channel partner, by the individual office if you can, and focus your efforts on winning over that group of people.  If the top/most influential rep is not buying into your program, work on winning over the guy who always comes in second each month.  He will typically be hungry and open to new ideas to help him beat his chief rival.
6. Show them the money.  Show them how to make money selling your product with real supported case studies or testimonials.  Video testimonials from reps that have been successful selling your product are the best pitchmen.
7. Close their leads on your dime.  Have them gather their best leads and send a sales professional with your channel reps to support them as they come up to speed.  If your rep wins a deal on one of these calls, give it to your channel partner to prime the pump, but don’t let this become a habit.  Stay with them until they can sell without you.
8. Line up sufficient resources.  Make sure you can dedicate HEAVY resources to support a new channel partner on their initial ramp up until they can fly on their own.
9. Manage the technical transition.  Make sure technical resources are available until their internal resources come up to speed. (This will likely happen when real revenues start to roll in because no one wants to commit to technical training until they are sure the product will be a permanent part of the lineup.)
10. Be honest.  Give realistic first year sales numbers; be honest about what kind of effort it will take.  Anything less than honesty can destroy your partnership.
11. Protect partner revenues.  In your zeal to dot the country side with solid channel partners, do not bring new partners on board in territories with established partners and expect them to compete for the same target base.  There is an exception to every rule, but think twice before you stomp all over this one.
12. Take interest in your partners business.  Your channel partner should be bringing their own “value add” and sales infrastructure to the table for their part of the partnership, show them how to increase their value add with your offerings and do your best to help your channel partners business be successful.
13. Define clear rules of engagement.  Don’t let your internal sales team feed off of leads and prospects uncovered by your channel partner, protect them and their margins.  Develop clear rules of engagement because it will come up at some point.