“Collaboration is the number-one trait CEOs are seeking in their employees, with 75 percent of CEOs calling it critical” in IBM’s most recent 2012 study surveying 1700 CEO’s. But this skill is in short supply. Collaboration has fallen into the skills gap. It should be a time ripe for opportunity for partner managers as experienced collaboration managers. [...]
General Colin Powel was quoted “no plan survives contact with the enemy”. Well, in our experience no plan survives contact with the partner either, nor should it! We’ve conducted and attended many partner planning exercises that did not include the partner. Not surprisingly when our Magnum Opus was presented to the partner, it didn’t resonate or at [...]
Do you use Team Charters to kick off your alliance or new alliance initiative? What is a team charter? It is the Cliff notes of what is important for your alliance. It summarizes the vision, key objectives, and value proposition(s). A charter defines and documents the measures by which you judge success. It establishes the [...]
Providing training to your partners is a major component of partner enablement. However one size does not fit all. Training must be relevant to your partners’ needs, delivered when they need it and in a format they find consumable. The challenge becomes exponential when you consider the number of engagement models, multiple products or services, [...]
Training, Certification and Specialization How do these investments pay-off? Is volume or value more important in developing your partner strategy? Do you reward and recommend partners based on the volume of goods and services they sell? Or do you recognize those that provide the most value to your customers? Is having more partners extending your [...]
Most channel programs see the 80/20 rule in effect around partner engagement. Meaning, only 20% of your partners are actively selling and promoting your products and services. So how do you increase active selling? Recruit more partners? Or find a way to capture more interest with the partners you already have? Capturing interest and motivating partners [...]
We recently led an alliance team through an alliance business planning session. Through that process we captured a number of best practices that lead to better business planning and ultimately better performing alliances. Here is what we learned: Develop the business plan with your partner. Successful alliances are win/win/win . Your partners’ strategic objectives, resources, [...]
CRN recently released their annual partner program review which grades partner programs based upon a number of criteria including vendor investments in program offerings, partner profitability, partner training, education and support, marketing programs and resources, sales support and communication. We would like to extend our congratulations to all those vendors who achieved the acclaimed 5-star rating! [...]
We often focus on how to measure the performance of individual partners, but it is equally important to understand how your partner community is performing. Insight into what drives performance across your community informs you on how to better manage your partner program to enable more success. There are a number of ways to look [...]
Following our last Deal Registration blog post, many readers have been wanting to know more about how to incent partners to register a deal and examples of how "best in class" incentive programs work. Simply put, the purpose of incentives is to influence the behavior you want from your partners through rewards. The issue lies [...]