Typically, most companies select partners opportunistically, signing
whoever will sign with them, picking off competitors' partners, or
otherwise assembling a ragtag band of partners that won't bring in a
sustained revenue stream.
This approach guarantees an ineffective channel program, with each
partner requiring unique support and not providing significant leverage.
No wonder most channel initiatives fail!
A few companies take a much more methodical approach, studying the
products and services necessary to complement the company's offering and
identifying the partners that bring this complement. These companies
will construct a profile of the "ideal" partner through interviews with
end customers and existing partners.
This effort is market research or market development rather than
sales and it is inappropriate to ask channel sales people to conduct
this work. Sales people are not researchers, and they are neither
motivated nor compensated to build this profile. This activity should be
conducted under the marketing umbrella.
Nor is the channel sales person motivated to conduct the sales mapping
necessary to really understand whether a particular partner represents a
good fit. Again, this is a marketing job - identify the suspects,
conduct a first pass at qualifying them, and then turn the
contact over to the sales organization.
With this handoff, the sales person can focus on what he or she does
best - conduct the tactical day-to-day activities that bring new
partners or accounts into the business without wasting time talking with
a lot of prospects that aren't a good fit.
Most companies don't think about building new channel partnerships as a
two step process, yet the same companies routinely use inside sales,
direct marketing, or other filtering techniques to identify direct end
user prospects before the (expensive) direct sales representative is
involved.
A systematic approach to identifying and qualifying prospective channel
partners will dramatically boost the overall productivity and
profitability of a channel program.
