1.  Set objectives.   Clarify and communicate internally how the new partner will meet your needs.  Align the stakeholders expectation of what is expected from the new partner.   Fill the funnel with qualified partners.  Make them the right Partners – evaluate those partners against your ideal recruitment brief (what you think will make the ideal partner?).  Create and execute an on-boarding plan with each new partner.  Have this documented and make sure it’s socialized internally.  Do whatever is necessary ahead of time to get the partner ready to market, sell and support as close to day one as possible – tools, people, processes, etc.  Give your partner the resources they need to do the best job possible.  Have a support plan in place so that once they’re on-boarded, you’re ready to support as issues occur.

2.  Messaging.  The entire organization must be on the same page in terms of mission/purpose, vision, values/beliefs and messaging.  There should be one voice to the partner not multiple messages.

3.  Recruiting:  Document the elements of an ideal partner.  Figure out why you want to partner and make sure all stakeholders are on board?  What are the goals/objectives/outcomes of the partnership?  What is the whole product? What are the partner strength/skills/experience/weaknesses?  What’s their motivation to partner?  How will they fit within your partner community?  Think about these things ahead of time and make sure you’re recruiting the right partners based upon these questions.

4.  Recruiting Strategy.  How and where are you going to find these right partners?  What sites will help?  (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc?).  What blogs will you use to engage with prospective partners?  Do you have all of the collateral that you need in order to successfully recruit?  (Why Partner presentation, papers, product datasheets, compelling value proposition/messaging/whole product, etc).  If you don’t have compelling messaging, don’t continue to recruit.  Figure it out and make sure it works.  Then continue recruiting.

5.  Assets Checklist.  Do you have the tools necessary for your partners to be successful?  If not, get them developed.

6.  Checklist.  There are a set of tasks that should be done and an order to do them in.  Have you figured this out?  If not, get to it and figure it out.  If you do, it will become consistent and scalable.  If you don’t, you will not enable your partners effectively.

Comments?  Thoughts??  Ping me if you want the templates.

So you think you’re a leader?  Check out this3 minute video Oprah and Black Eyed Peas Flash Mob and read my post on what it means to be a leader.  Harnessing the power of 20,000 people.

Those of us managing channels struggle every day with how to really leverage the power of our channel partners in terms of referrals – the network effect.  We know that we get sales from our partners.   But I rarely see success in getting referrals.  I believe that channel managers aren’t focused  on getting partners to talk about their products with their friends, families, peers, bosses, etc.  They need to be.

Andy provides a checklist (page 63 – great chart) that gives us a roadmap and can help Marketing on the path to better word of mouth marketing with our partners.  He lists Five T’s that make up a plan.

1. Talkers.  Find partners  that will talk about you.  Go through your partners.  Find the fans (who is happy, who have you provided excellent service for).   Find the bloggers.  Find the influencers.  Put a plan in place to find them.
2. Topics.  Give your partners a reason to talk.  Make them a special offer.  Provide them great service.  Introduce a cool new product.  Do something fun with them.  Do a great ad.  These are all ways that will get your Partners talking.  Then ask them to talk.
3. Tools.  Give them the tools that help them spread the message faster and farther.  Use Tell-a-Friend forms, viral emails, blogs, handouts, free tests/trials, online discussions.  Make it easy for them.  Thank them for using the tools and for talking about you.
4. Taking Part.  Join the conversation.  Help your partners understand how important it is for them to be engaged in the social online world.  Tell them to reply to comments, post on blogs, join the discussions, etc.  Help them understand how to do this.  Provide them training.  Provide them examples of how this has helped your company.
5. Tracking.  Measure and understand what people are saying.  Search blogs, read message boards, listen to feedback, use tools to track and measure.  Then re-adjust based upon what you’re hearing.

Package all of this up in a program and train your partners on how to do it will.  If you leverage the power of your partner network, your success will be amplified many times over.

Thoughts?  Comments?

On-boarding = knowledge transfer.  Successfully doing the knowledge transfer to a new Partner is critical to their success.  I’ve seen many clients spend a ½ day with a partner doing training and then say *go* and that’s it.  Then they wonder why the Partner isn’t selling.  Then they blame the Partner.   This is a bad cycle.  What they miss is that it’s not the Partner that’s a failure – it’s the on-boarding gap in their program.

On-boarding should be whatever it takes to transfer the knowledge required to make the partner successful.  This is a big deal and it doesn’t happen in ½ day.  Many of my clients don’t understand that.  They expect it to happen immediately.  It requires a long term commitment, a defined and documented program that includes procedures and processes for sales, marketing and operational enablement.   And it should start at the point of Partner recruitment.

It often takes years for Partners to acquire the skills necessary to be successful.  Clients don’t like this and expect success much earlier, which often sets the relationship up for failure.  However, a good on-boarding program starts in the first 90 days after the partner is signed and can last years.  Channel Managers should be assigned to assist and support new Partners and the organization needs to provide those Channel Managers with the investment and support necessary to be successful.

Many clients mistakenly believe that recruitment = on-boarding.  Intellectually my clients tell me that they understand the difference between recruiting a Partner and on-boarding them, and then they schedule the ½ day training session and then they start measuring success.   This isn’t a roadmap for success.  A good on-boarding plan establishes a competitive advantage for the Partner and can make them a real advocate for you and your company, and in the long run drives more sales.  It provide a framework for the Channel Manager to build relationships across sales, marketing and operations at the Partner.  The details will be different in each organization, but the essential objective shouldn’t change.

I’ve seen many clients short-change on-boarding at the expense (unfortunately) of it’s long term success.

Thoughts, comments?

Without knowing the specifics of your individual Channel Program, I can state pretty positively that the core reasons your program isn’t working is one or several of the problems below:

1. You don’t really know how many partners you need and where you need them so you’re probably over-serving some markets and under-serving others.
2. You’ve chosen the wrong partners so your team is spending time enabling partners who don’t have the ideal target partner characteristics you desire.
3. You haven’t readied your partners to be successful.  This includes items like sales and marketing training, tools, templates, etc.  You are expecting your partners to do too much and you haven’t made it easy for them.
4. You’re managing the Partners ineffectively so your Partners don’t know what to expect from you, they don’t know how they’re being measured, there’s no consistency or scale in your program so therefore you don’t have aligned goals with them.  This typically means all your efforts are sub-optimized because you’re working towards objective A and they’re working towards objective B.  You’ve got to get agreement with them on what you (as a team) are trying to accomplish together.
5. Your program is missing core elements.  It could be the margins you offer are insufficient to gain partner share of mind.  It could be that you’re not investing in the channel marketing activities that have the highest ROI for you and your partners.
6. Your organization isn’t aligned or ready to support your Partners or the channel program.  Are you measuring the right things?  Do you have tools that help your partners sell?  Are they good tools?  Do your partners use them?  Are you investing in the right areas?  It could be that you have channel conflict that is causing your Partners to invest elsewhere.

I’m not suggesting that the solution to these problems is easy.  What I am suggesting is that if you focus on addressing these key issues you will see increased sales from your partners.  It’s that simple.  Stay focused on the above, figure out where your problem is within the above and then put an action plan in place to address the issues.

If you need help, reach out to me.  I’ve got tools and templates that I’m happy to share.

Regardless of the type of product you sell, there are some basic elements that should be core to any good cookbook.  By cookbook, I’m not suggesting a literal cookbook as most salespeople won’t read it or use it.  However I am suggesting that you must somehow do the knowledge transfer effectively to your Partners, either through the partner portal, through Social Media, with a Cookbook, in newsletters, etc.  There are many ways to effectively communicate the content and these methods should be thought through, but first step is generating the core content.  I suggest that the following be included:

1. Sales Process Checklist Template.  This should be aligned with a specific selling methodology so that your Partners can understand an optimized sales call, what the steps are, who does each step, what happens at each step and what tools are used at each step.  Include a flowchart of the sales process so that it’s a visual rather than a lot of words.
2. Tools template.  This includes a detailed sales process, the specific sales tools used and most importantly, where the salesperson can find them.  Marketing teams need to ensure that Partners understand this information and that the information is current so that a Channel partner salesperson can easily find sales tools.
3. Buyer Persona Templates.  What are the target markets?  Where (geo)?  General attitudes, perceptions and conditions.  Who is the key contact?  What is their need?  Key qualification questions.
4. 5 minute Call Preparation Sheet.  Every good salesperson knows that preparation is vital.  With it, the likelihood of being surprised is minimized.  Without it, effectiveness drops considerably.  So, teach your Partners how to best spend 5 minutes before every call to review; call objectives, key points to cover, research about prospect and company and review of specific proofpoints to emphasize based upon research, etc.
5. Social Media Profile.  Make sure that your Partners understand the ideal prospect.  Show them how to search for them on twitter to see what they’re tweeting about (promise you they are out there).  Show them how to find them on linkedin and review their profile, their contacts, etc.  If you’re lucky enough to have a Social CRM available for your partners, all the better, if not, show them why it’s important to take this time as it will help them to get to know the ideal target  prospect much better.
6. Needs Assessment.  The needs assessment is an essential tool for compressing the sales cycle.  It clarifies not only the challenges that exist, but the secondary burdens those challenges put on the prospects organization.  Those secondary issues usually far outweigh the obvious first-level issue in scope and cost, which provides sales a better opportunity to show the return on investment of your solution.  Needs assessment is most effective if it is a joint exploration not a deposition or punch list interview.
7. Benefits and Value Proposition Statements.  Channel Partners need to understand these.  Include elevator pitches.  Include sample email responses in template form.  Include sample voicemail responses that Partners can use.
8. Demo guide.  Essential if the sale of your product is complex.
9. Competitive differentiator statements.  Help your partners clearly understand how to position against the competitors.
10. Objection handling.  List the top objections and then the responses to them.
11. Effective Follow-up.  Tell the partners what the best practice are related to how to follow up.  Provide samples.
12. Referrals.  Teach your Partners how to effectively ask for a referral.  Give them sample email and voicemail templates.  Teach them how to ask for a referral.
13. Pricing.  Ensure they understand your pricing model and how to price an opportunity.
14. Marketing.  Create a marketing guide on how to generate leads, SEO, sample campaigns, etc

Comments?  Please ping me if you want sample templates.

It was difficult to pick what I thought was the most important tip and so I want to take the easy way out here and list more Channel Marketing hints and tips for the most effective marketing.

#1.  Know your Target Market.  Effective Channel Marketing starts with a clear understanding of who your target customers are.  Make sure that you are clear on who your targets are and make sure you have a specific marketing strategy for each segment.  Without that understanding and execution you’re shooting fish in a barrel and your efforts will be sub-optimized.

#2 .  Selling thru versus selling to. We all know that channels are different than direct sales yet I can’t tell you how many clients I have who take marketing material written for their direct sales teams and send it off to partners without thinking how to adapt it properly for the Channel to use.

#3.  Partner value proposition. Have you nailed the compelling reason to buy and the subsequent partner value proposition?  If not, get to work on that immediately and figure it out before you invest in partner campaigns.

#4.  Whole Product. The solution to the customer must be driven by a thoughtful whole product analysis.  You’ve got to clearly understand what it is that the partner brings to the table that drives a customer to buy the product.  And once you understand it, use marketing ideas to strengthen the whole product.

#5.  Effective Enablement. You clearly understand what it takes to sell your products.  You’ve got to transfer that sales and marketing knowledge to partners.  Create, publish and market a sales and marketing cookbook with step by step instructions on *how* to sell and market.  The emphasis is on how not what (more on this in a later post).

#6.  Marketing Readiness. If you have multiple products, make sure that your Partners are crystal clear on what they do for customers, how to position each of them and who to target for each of them.  Make sure that there’s a clear feature/function/benefits guide and make sure that you’re developing tools that help partners implement their understanding.  Don’t just drop a guide on them (or worse  – publish one to a partner portal) and expect that it will be utilized.  It won’t.  Force feed the content in small doses with real examples.  Create compelling content for Partners and they will re-use it.  Expect them to create the content and they won’t.

#7.  Marketing Plan. Develop one in concert with your Partner and get joint agreement to implement it.  Base it on the goals for the relationship and make it all about revenue.  It’s a critical step to staying on track with the larger objectives for the relationship (which are typically always around growing sales).  If you’re in Marketing, don’t lose sight of that.

#8.  Partner Portal. Make sure you have fresh content on your portal.  Portals are very difficult for Partners as each vendor has a different one and expect Partners to use theirs.  I am often shocked at how stale content is on these portals.  A portal can be a viable tool, but not if it’s got stale content on it.

#9.  Engage. Use social media tools to engage with your Partners on a regular basis – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are all viable tools.  Use them.  If you’re not where your partners are (and they’re using Social Media), then you are missing out on great opportunities to help influence sales.

What are your thoughts?  Please share them.  Your comments are appreciated.

Read a tweet today that caused me to research a letter written by Martin Conroy from the Wall Street

The Most Successful Letter
In the History of the World

By Denny Hatch

What follows is the fabled “Two Young Men…” letter written by freelancer Martin Conroy, first sent out in 1974 and mailed continuously for over 25 years. Late in 1991 I called Wall Street Journal circulation manager Paul Bell and ran some numbers by him.

HATCH: Would you say that the average mail order circulation of the Journal over the past 18 years was about one million?

BELL: [Pause.]Yes, that’s about right.

HATCH: Am I right in assuming that the average subscription rate of The Wall Street Journal over the past 18 years has been about $100 a year?

BELL: [Pause.]Yes, that’s about right.

HATCH: Is it safe to assume that 55 percent of all your mail order subscribers over the past eighteen years have come in as a result of Martin Conroy’s “Two Young Men…” letter?

BELL: We have a lot of other sources—telemarketing, subscriptions as a result of newsstand sales, supermarket take-ones, inserts. But, yes, I think 55 percent is a fair estimate.

HATCH: Paul, one million subscriber per year times $100 equals $100 million times 18 years is $1.8 billion times 55 percent equals $1 billion. If these numbers are correct, the Martin Conroy letter is directly responsible for bringing in $1 billion in revenues to The Wall Street Journal, and is, therefore THE MOST SUCCESSFUL SINGLE PIECE OF ADVERTISING IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!

BELL: [Long silence. Then in a small voice.]Uh, please don’t tell Marty Conroy. He’ll raise his prices.

The Prologue and Stage 1 of the event has already brought a lot of drama:  old doping accusations resurfacing, alleged motors embedded in cycle frames, bad weather, drop outs, dominance of key players, withdrawals due to alleged violations of internal policies, age vs. youth and Armstrong vs. Contador among others.

The drama reminds me of managing a channel and in my 15 years of channel consulting I can see many correlations.

The Prologue kicked off Saturday July 3^rd.  It was an individual time trial of 8.9km. It was raining at the start.  The world’s best time trialist, Fabian Cancellara was dominant in his win – not unexpected.   Stage 1 was 224 Km, starting in Rotterdam and ending in Brussels.  195 riders started the stage.

Why do I think it’s like channel management?

• Withdrawals. Individuals left the race for various reasons – injury and violations of policy.  At the Tour, two individuals dropped out due to injuries from crashes and one didn’t start the race as his team withdrew him due to a *violation of internal policies*, codename – doping.   The same thing happens when you manage a channel.  You sign up partners, you train them as best you can, and then they drop out before they’ve done anything.   You also have partners who violate the policies – intentionally and unintentionally, and you have to deal with them – either discipline them, eliminate them or  transition them.
• Dominance. The Prologue was dominated by Fabian Cancellara.  In channel management, you have partners who dominate your sales.  A small number of partners do the bulk of the sales.
• Training. This is a race that can’t be won without a strong training commitment.  It’s the penultimate race of the year and riders are at their best.  Channel management requires a great training program and then driving your Partners to that training.  Those that take your training usually show up and perform.  Those that don’t, drop out.
• Credibility. Old doping allegations surfaced again in the Wall Street Journal.  The claims came from Floyd Landis and were aimed at Lance Armstrong.  Lances comments *Landis’ credibility is like a carton of sour milk; once you take the first sip, you don’t have to drink the rest to know it has all gone bad.* Ouch.  Don’t let your Channel Program become un-credible.  Address channel conflict issues that arise quickly.  Work very hard to support your partners and minimize the credibility gap that will arise when partners get disgruntled.
• The Win. Every stage of the Tour can define a career for an individual rider and their team.  That’s your goal as a channel manager – to get your partners to view their relationship with you as a contest that must be won at all cost.  If you can create that magic, you will have a healthy channel.
• Crashes. Everyone wanted to be number 1 in the first stage.  This caused mayhem and multiple crashes.  There were small roads to navigate and riders were scared due to the size of the crowds and the narrow roads.  There was even a dog that caused a crash when he entered the path in front of the riders.  Everyone was going really fast and nobody wanted to break.  When you launch a channel, you need to create rules of engagement so that you minimize the risk to all players.  Define the rules and publish them.  Plan the program so that you give partners the tools they need to be successful (eg: wide roads, no obstacles (dogs)).
• Lead Reshuffling. In stage 1 the lead reshuffled with 30 Km to go.  This is very typical in a race of this length.  Just like Channel Programs.  You will have partners who are #1 in sale one year and then fall to a lower position in other years.  Use this as motivation.  Keep their eyes on the prize.
• Teamwork. Mark Cavendish, who is one of the best sprinters in the field, say his chances at winning take a big hit with the loss of a teammate, Australian Adam Hansen.  Cycling is a team sport and no matter what the individual effort, without strong teammates to help, no rider can be successful.  Same with a channel.  It takes a great team to have a strong channel – the vendor needs resources as does the partner.
• Loyalty and Leadership. We saw a great example of loyalty in Stage 1 when an individual actually finished the race with a broken collarbone.  If you know anything about cycling, you know the pressure on the collarbone.  So to ride 244 Km with a broken collar bone is a great feat.  This individual did it to work hard for his leader.  What great sales organization do you know that doesn’t have leadership and loyalty among the team?  I don’t know of many. Treat your best Channel Partners like royalty.
• The Long View. The Tour is 20 stages and 22 days.   It is a long race.  The view for channels should be a long view.  Individual deals are good, but the big win for vendors is sustained growth over a long period of time.  Keep your eye on the big prize, not the short term wins.

Am i right?  What do you think?

What made it amazing was the great content – which I expected (Kudos to the Focus Team) but what struck me was the tool they used – On24. I think of it as a virtual trade show with all of the typical trade show benefits (keynotes, exhibit hall, ability to network (chat – public/private, share profile information, interactivity)) with none of the typical trade show challenges (travel, hotel, bad food).

It is super easy to use and it provides me with an organized place to access all the great content I heard.   Here’s how I use it and hopefully if you’re a vendor or a value added reseller you can come up with some ideas on how it would work best for you.

Please note that I have no affiliation with On24 – I just love it and believe in its power, so I wanted to share that with you.

The Advantages

There are two major things that make On24 so cool – its collaboration tools and its ease of use.

It’s so easy for vendors to set up an Exhibit Hall that mirrors a real time experience – it provides a virtual booth that offers access to content in many ways so I can pick how I want to access is and it’s available for me – collateral, connection, on-demand presentations, links to blogs, etc.  And, it’s all in one place for all vendors.  And it’s virtual, so I’m not restricted to a set of hours where I can access the content.

So, from my couch, I get comprehensive information from sponsors of the show – subject matter experts.  It saves me time, it offers rich functionality and it’s really easy to use.  For me, this experience was actually better than an in-person show, where sales reps can tend to be annoying and I have to expend a lot more energy to get the content I want.

It’s so easy to use.  You don’t have to be technically literate to use it.  They did a great job on the User Interface.  It’s totally intuitive.

How About You?

I know there are more of you out there using On24. Share your tips and ideas for making the most of On24.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you. Was this helpful at all? Did it give you an idea or two? Let me know in the comments.