As we meet with potential clients to discuss their businesses, we frequently hear one or another variation of the following lament: "we've signed up a bunch of channel partners but they haven't sold a damn thing!" Unfortunately, this "sign them up and they will sell" mindset is the channel sales equivalent to the "build it and they will come" brand of wishful thinking. Typically it is easy to zero-in on the root cause: absence of "mindshare." Put differently, these "partners" may carry their products but rarely think of those products, if at all, when speaking with customers.
Many companies are extremely sophisticated in their understanding of end users yet remain uninformed about how their partners — who actually interact with these end users — run their businesses. In some circumstances this lack of understanding leads to channel programs that are ineffectual and fail to excite partners. In other circumstances, the lack of understanding results in partnerships with companies that don't even serve the correct markets and target the right customers!
People often assume that pricing and discount structures are all that matters. However, surveys of VARs, resellers, distributors, agents and reps working across a variety of industries consistently evidence that channel programs and channel support rank above pricing considerations when deciding which products to emphasize. Whenever we interview channel participants about why they prefer one product over the other, the answer is invariably that the company is "easy to do business with."
Finally, having the right mindset is essential to success. When working with clients it is often apparent that the company views their channels as essential business partners and wishes to closely collaborate with them. Sometimes, however, we encounter companies that voice extremely negative and cynical opinions, viewing the channel as a necessary evil or an adversary that gets in the way of the money. As you can imagine, it is very difficult to help build a successful indirect sales engine with companies that embrace the latter, parochial mindset.
