Successful channels

Successful Channels was founded because accelerating revenue growth in the channel is hard. We know how difficult it is to differentiate yourself from your competitors, build a competitive strategy, motivate your resellers & agents,and execute in the market. Successful Channels helps companies build a comprehensive program for driving accelerated revenue .

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The Reimagined 10 Minute Partner Quarterly Business Review (QBR)

Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) are one of the most important – and difficult and inefficient -processes used by your indirect channel team.   They are critical to building a strong and growing relationship between the vendor and the partner. But they are also anxiety-producing for the partner receiving the review and the Channel Account Manager (CAM) that has to prepare and deliver the review.

What it feels like for Channel Account Managers and Partners during a QBR

Smart channel organizations need to find ways to take the anxiety out of preparing and delivering QBRs and turn them into confidence-building processes for both the CAM and the partner executive.   QBRs should be streamlined so the CAM can focus more on strategies to build the partner’s growth plan and commitment to the brand, and less on data gathering and report generation.   Below is a summary of why QBRs are so critical to a healthy channel and why they are so difficult to pull together.

Why QBRs are so critical:  

Measuring stick: A well-defined performance-to-plan analysis provides a partner with a good understanding of where they are on their journey to greater profitability.  QBRs are critical to help partners confirm that they are achieving what is expected of them.

Scorecard: A scorecard is designed to track the full range of partner success dimensions including marketing capabilities, sales training, product support readiness, market coverage, and a number of other metrics.   A scorecard process helps keep the partner on track to build the required capabilities to succeed with your brand.

Partner commitment: Participation in a well-defined QBR process builds partner commitment  by highlighting successes-to-date and mapping improvements for achieving greater growth.

Partner engagement / activation: QBRs keep a vendor’s brand top-of-mind and serves to further engage and activate the partner’s selling and support efforts.

Relationship building: QBRs are a tangible expression that the vendor and the CAM care about the success of the partner and leads to a stronger and longer-term relationship.

Why QBR’s are so inefficient for most channel organizations:

Not predesigned for CAMs: A typical vendor’s partner QBR process is not prepared, packaged, and delivered in a ready-to-go format to CAMs.  As a result, the QBR process is left up to the CAM to design the report, research and consolidate all the required data, and pull it together on their own, yielding an inconsistent and very inefficient process across the channel organization.

Not designed for partner consultation process:   Because QBRs are typically created and delivered on an ad hoc basis that varies widely from CAM to CAM, they are not as effective as a consultative meeting with the partner to build confidence, commitment and investment in your brand.

Lack of available data: Unfortunately for most channel organizations, systems are not designed to make the required data easily available.  As a result, fewer partners receive QBRs less frequently than they should.

Lack of accurate data: Because of the imperfect systems available in the indirect channel, often the data that is available is either incomplete or inaccurate yielding an ineffective QBR.

Too labor intensive: The manual processes required for producing a typical QBR takes the CAM out of the field for long periods and reduces the overall productivity of the CAM organization.

What if we reimagined / reinvented the Channel Partner QBR so that all of the inefficiencies were designed out of the process? What if we created a QBR process that allowed a CAM to deliver a review that helped address all of the critical dimensions above for improving partner commitment levels and engaged many more partners in your organization’s channel network?   If we removed all barriers to achieving this goal, then this newly designed, streamlined and effective QBR process would look something like this:

  Imagine a CAM that is responsible for 40 individual partners / resellers has the ability to instantly create a summary quarterly report with all the above metrics prepared.  In addition to this, all the supporting reports (e.g., sales by month, by product, performance-to-plan, detailed scorecards and marketing ROI) can come from the same dashboard.  With the click of the mouse a partner can generate this unified report automatically pulling plan data, actual data, scorecard data, and marketing performance data into one summary template.

Imagine a Channel Account Manager Dashboard console giving them the ability to generate all elements of their QBR instantly for their partner organization. By simply clicking on the appropriate tab, they can pull pre-defined reports to support all of the following analyses:

Elements of a Well-Defined Channel Partner QBR:

Five Minute Performance-to-Plan Section: A partner-level reporting section combines planning data and compares it to actual sales data at all of the following levels:

By quarter

By units and dollars

By month

By partner

Roll up by CAM

Roll up by region (e.g., East, Central, West)

Roll up by super-region (e.g., Americas, APJ, etc.)

Five Minute Scorecard Performance-to-Plan Section: A partner-level scorecard section that is updated by the partner each quarter in 2-4 minutes.  A questionnaire format is provided to partners to update their performance on a range of scorecard dimensions (e.g., marketing readiness, cloud readiness, pre-sales readiness, sales readiness, support readiness, etc.):

By category (group of topics)

By topic

Each scored on a 1-100 basis

Comparison of partner with peers

Quarterly goal setting by topic

Performance-to-plan reporting

All by partner, by CAM, by region, & by super region

Marketing ROI Section: A partner-level marketing performance reporting system designed to report by quarter or by marketing program executed:

By partner

By quarter

Or by program

Leads vs. goal

Pipeline vs. goal

Revenue vs. goal

ROI vs. goal

This unifying “Channel Account Dashboard” is designed to put all the critical partner-level performance data at a CAM’s fingertips so they can focus on building relationships and growth strategies, instead of spending all their time building reports and researching data. This CAM dashboard system also provides Channel Chief-level reporting across all participating partners, CAMs and regions. What do these QBR reports look like?   These pre-packaged, partner-level reports can be accessed at a CAM Dashboard where plan data and actual data have been merged to illustrate performance to plan by partner at many levels.

Single Partner Quarterly Performance-to-Plan Report:

   This report highlights quarterly performance for of plan vs. actual performance.

Single Partner Scorecard Report:

  This report displays a partner’s latest scores for each scorecard metric along with goals and target dates that have been created by the partner.

A QBR process that standardizes and automates the development, delivery, and overall channel performance management processes will make your channel team happy and motivated to drive more business for your brand.   These kind of tools show your team that you are fighting for their success by providing resources to help them do their jobs more effectively.

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10 minute #planning and #profitability modelling tools to help build partner / #reseller commitment and investment in growing your brand.

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10 Minute Partner Quarterly Marketing Plan, Calendar, Budget, Lead Forecast & ROI - Part B

A channel marketer’s dream… a detailed quarterly partner marketing plan you can believe in, complete with goals and strategies, budget, lead and revenue forecast, and an ROI calculated in 10-20 minutes. With channel planning and modelling tools available today, this is not only possible but strongly recommended. In fact, if you are a channel marketer responsible for supporting, funding and approving marketing programs from your partner community, you should be using tools like this to review and approve partner marketing plans that are more likely to generate a strong return on your channel marketing investment.

How quarterly marketing planning and calculating tools can be deployed:

These 10-20 minute quarterly partner marketing planning tools can be deployed in two different methods

As part of a 10-20 minute annual / quarterly business planning process:This option allows a partner to create a comprehensive 36 month business plan including a revenue forecast (units and $), set business goals, strategies, and a full profitability forecast for their business.  This is followed by the option to create individual quarterly marketing plans, budgets and forecasts that support the achievement of the partner business plan.

As a separate quarterly marketing planning process only:

This option allows partners to easily create quarterly marketing plans as needed without having to create detailed business plans. They can go directly to the marketing planning process and select the fiscal quarter, define activities and tactic details, and model different marketing program options to yield a customized plan, budget, and forecast for the selected quarter.

Channel Marketing Dilemma – How to Allocate Limited Funds to the Partners Most Likely to Succeed:

Partners for most mid-sized to larger technology companies are eligible for some level of marketing and incentive co-funding through various programs (e.g., MDF, Coop, BDF, discretionary programs, incentive programs, etc.).  These programs generally take three different forms:

Accrual Based:Earned marketing monies on a straight percentage of license sales. Few vendors offer this type of program because it is not performance-based. 

Proposal-Based MDF:Monies allocated based on the merits of the partner proposal and their track record with generating growth.

Coop / proposal based MDF:Monies allocated on a joint (vendor / partner) funding model based on the partner proposal & track record.

The larger percentage of channel funds being allocated use methods 2 and 3, so channel executives must have a scalable, efficient and effective process to evaluate the merits of hundreds or thousands of partner funding requests.   These scalable partner marketing calculator tools allow partners to create strong and confident plans that accurately estimate the impact an investment in marketing will have in generating new sales opportunities and revenue for the brand.

How Quarterly Partner Marketing Calculators Work to Streamline This Process:

If a channel organization has both the 10 minute business planning and marketing calculator deployed, they can enable all of the following steps efficiently and effectively across their entire channel network:

10 Minute Business Plan: Create a 36 month plan and start simulation of alternatives

10 Minute Marketing Plan: Create quarterly activities, tactics, budget, lead & revenue forecast and ROI and simulate alternatives

Submission to the MDF / BDF System: Streamlined quarterly plan submission process

Execute the Marketing Program: Support with executing the plan

Measure Program Performance: An integrated performance management process as programs are completed

Ten minute marketing calculators make it easy for partners to quickly create marketing plans like experts.   They guide a partner though a simple process of refining the list size, defining the type and quantity of tactics and automatically calculating a lead “waterfall” forecast.  The waterfall forecast starts with responders from the marketing activities that convert to leads, to sales accepted leads, to proposals, to closes sales and ROI. Partners can simulate many different combinations of plans instantly to create one that fits both their budget and their desired return on investment.

These calculators allow partners to develop realistic forecasts for what they can expect from different marketing plans. Ultimately,partners and vendors are looking to gain more confidence in their marketing investments by building more reliable and predictable forecasts. Vendors also have a much more objective and predictable process to evaluate and select which partner marketing investments to fund. Vendors can generate a much better return on investment and prioritize where to allocate their precious channel marketing dollars to generate the best outcomes.

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10 minute #planning and #profitability modelling tools to help build #partner / #reseller commitment and #investment in growing your brand.

[timemagazine]

Words of Wisdom from Maya Angelou

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Successful Channels helps Channel Managers do their job more effectively with 10 minute web tools for partner planning and profitability, partner marketing budgeting, and lead and revenue forecasting.  For more informationvisit:- www.successfulchannels.com

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Steve Jobs’ speech at Stanford University - June 2005

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Partner Marketing Planning, Budgeting, Forecasting, and ROI Calculator (Part A)

An efficient, scalable, easy-to-use, and effective partner marketing budgeting and forecasting tool has always seemed just out or reach for most channel executives.Every channel chief can share their favorite “dog eared” Excel planning workbooks, MS Word planning templates, and planning forms included in CRM and PRM systems but they never seem to fulfil the need for partner-friendly tools that provide the vendor with the measurable commitment forecasts they seek. The problem is that they are not built with an eye toward meeting the needs of the many users that will interact with individual partner plans. The best place to start designing your more effective partner marketing planning, budgeting and ROI calculating tool is with the vendor and partner users of these plans and their individual needs.

Most vendor-required partner marketing and MDF approval processes used in the indirect channel are very much weighted to the vendor needs and only secondarily to the partner needs. But it does not have to be like that. Vendors can get the unit and dollar commitment forecasts they are looking for in an auditable format while also providing tools to help partners simulate alternative plans and outcomes and help them come up with an optimal marketing mix that they can believe in. The most successful channel marketing planning and forecasting processes are those where all participants and users get what they need and motivate them to happily participate. Partners can create quick (3-5 minute) marketing plans, budgets and ROI forecasts and can then simulate different tactic options. Vendors get consistent, measurable and comparable plans and forecasts across all partners that they can easily evaluate for approval of MDF co-funding decisions. The first step in designing your partner marketing & MDF planning, budgeting, forecasting and approval process is to set expectations for goals and outcomes for these marketing investments. Realistically, partners can generate three different types of outcomes with their use of MDF / marketing funds. The vast majority of MDF programs operate on a co-funding basis where the vendor will cover a percentage of the cost if the partner provides the other percentage of the cost (e.g., 25:75, 50:50, 75:25). During the planning and funding request process, partners are required to establish goals for the use of these co-funded MDF dollars. Below is a typical breakdown of the three categories of goals for partner MDF programs.

Business development is the most measurable MDF investment based on new revenue generated and ROI per dollar spent. The objective of business development-focused MDF is to generate responders, leads, qualified opportunities, proposals and closed deals. Business development MDF is the easiest to justify if the appropriate performance measurement processes are in place. Market awareness is a very important part of the marketing mix to help partners establish their market reputation as a thought leader / recognized vendor in their local market. The direct measures of views, impressions, likes, etc. are the best indication of return on investment. MDF-influenced revenue is much more difficult to prove unless you can associate recent buyers with exposure to these awareness tactics. Finally, capability MDF expenditures are typically viewed as investments for the future. Equipping your partners with training, demo units staff and other enablement tools provides them with the ability to generate and deliver more revenue for your business. Setting up a process for managing partner planning, budgeting, MDF request & approval, and performance measurement includes five key steps.

Five Key Steps for a Unified Marketing Calculator and MDF Administration Process:

1)12-36 month partner business plans 2)Q1 – Q4 partner marketing plans 3)Marketing assessment & approval 4)Marketing plan execution 5)Performance to plan analysis These five steps all fit together in the following business workflow.

The marketing calculator is part of an integrated workflow for partner business planning, partner marketing planning, MDF submission, review approval and disbursement process, and partner performance. The first step for a partner and the assigned Channel Account Manager (CAM) is to create a business growth and profitability plan. The partner business planning process is designed to help a partner create a 3 year monthly growth and profitability forecast in as little as 10 minutes. The purpose of this first step is to gain confidence and commitment from partners to invest in growing the vendor’s brand. This will set the partner’s path for achieving accelerated growth and define the staffing and expense investments for supporting this plan.

Within this partner planning and P&L building process, there is a step to select marketing tactics, define the options, and calculate the budget, forecast, and ROI for each scenario that is created. This marketing calculator helps a partner to define their goals and recommend the appropriate tactics that match these goals. It then allows a partner to select the quantity and the specific tactic type and will automatically generate a recommended budget, lead, and revenue forecast and ROI for this marketing plan. Plus, it allows a partner to change virtually any variable in the plan and recalculate the budget, lead forecast, revenue and ROI instantly.

These tools allow all parties to get what they are looking for.

Partners:

They get a tool to guide them with the selection of tactics that align with their goals and will create sales leads, a revenue forecast, budget, and ROI that they can believe in.

Vendors:

Vendors can guide their partners toward tactics that are known to generate higher revenue and ROI. Each partner that completes this marketing plan and forecast can use it as a business case / ROI for an MDF co-funding request from the vendor. The vendor is then provided with a stronger ROI case to co-invest in the partner’s marketing plan. Marketing budget, forecast and ROI calculators can play a vital role in encouraging partners to increase their investment in marketing and related enablement activities. It also provides vendors a stronger justification for co-investing in these partners demand generation programs. Ultimately it will build confidence from both parties and improve the likelihood of generating incremental revenue growth for all at a strong ROI. Look forward to the second installment of this article (Part B: A Turn-Key MDF Planning, Forecasting, Approval, Validation and Performance Management System for Channel Marketing). Coming Soon…

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The New Model for Partner Business Growth Planning and Commitment Development

Forecasting sales and managing performance are some of a resellers least favorite activities. They are time-consuming, difficult to estimate, and almost always wrong. But there is a way to convert these difficult tasks into an easy-to-manage process where resellers and channel account managers (CAMs) collaboratively build a forecast, P&L, and ROI for their organization in 10-20 minutes. The new model is based on channel best practices for implementing a comprehensive channel performance management process for your organization.

The best use of your AM’s time is to deliver advice and consult with their resellers about growth planning. They should not be spending their time using poorly designed Excel spreadsheets filled with missing or inaccurate data and broken formulas. Web applications can facilitate a highly productive planning and commitment development process for your resellers and turn this historically frustrating activity into a very satisfactory experience. Providing your channel account managers with a web-based tool to help their resellers build a 1-3 year customized growth plan will build the confidence and competence of your CAM team.

A Ten Step Process for Channel Account Managers to help build a Customized Reseller Business Plan: 

A channel account manager who sits down with a reseller executive to plan the following year’s growth strategy and forecast should be able to help the partner figure out how much money they can make by selling their brand. These ten steps serve as a guided business growth consulting process between the CAM and the reseller executive. The CAM and the partner can make all the required business decisions for product focus, goals, strategies, pricing and deal size, along with labor and marketing expenses.

1)Register:(Register and match with partner account in SFDC) Individual partner contacts register and select the partner organization from Salesforce

2) Choose Products: (Partner selects the products within your portfolio they wish to sell) Partners can select different combinations of your brand product lines to sell to help them model their growth and profitability

3)Choose Growth Plan: (Partner selects from predefined growth plans or creates a custom plan) Partners can select from one of three growth options – modest / average / aggressive, or can create their own custom 3 year monthly unit forecast for P&L modelling purposes

4) Set Goals: (Partners can select business goals from a set of predefined options or create their own) This allows for efficient and more effective goal definition complete with metrics and timing to create a set of hard-working goals in minutes

5)Set Strategies: (Partners can select from recommended strategies or create their own) This allows for an efficient and more effective strategy definition process with marketing programs that are known to drive more revenue

6)Review Pricing and Margin:(Partners view pricing for license, services and maintenance, along with margin percentages they can earn at different revenue levels) Partners do not set margins but are able to see how the solutions are priced and how they can improve their margin by increasing sales levels

7) Confirm Labor Costs and Hours Assumptions:(Partner reviews average labor and hours and can modify to match their local conditions) Partners can utilize average labor costs and hours assumptions or they can create their own customized assumptions to input into the P&L

8)Select Other Expenses:(Partner can review and modify marketing and other expenses) Partners are presented three options for marketing spending – modest / average / aggressive or they can create their own model

9)Review P&L and Refine:(Partners view a custom P&L by product, month and year, and can instantly make modelling modifications) This P&L and planning tool provides a wide range of options for modelling in seconds

a. Full year P&L by product b. 12 month / month-by-month P&L by product and by year c. Three year P&L d. Detailed plan performance summary tables e. Detailed goals and strategies summaries f. Ability with one-click to add and remove products to P&L and sales plan g. Ability to make modifications to virtually any assumption within 2-3 clicks

The output of this step-by-step business planning and growth simulation process is a detailed profit and loss (P&L) statement and business planning summary. It includes gross and net profitability by product, month, and year. It also includes summaries for overall business performance, key performance statistics, a detailed staffing plan, and goals and strategies. The best part is that this detailed plan can be created in as little as 15-30 minutes.

Summary P&L by Product: These 9 steps are usually completed in 10-20 minutes by the reseller executive. The application immediately generates a detailed business plan by product, month, and year. The summary below allows resellers to review all their assumptions for gross revenues, staffing levels and other direct expenses, and calculate a gross margin for this forecast. This P&L automatically calculates a net profit forecast based on the planned marketing and other expenses.

Month-by-Month P&L and Forecast:This same consolidated forecast is available in great detail in a monthly forecast by-product. This screenshot below is a small portion of the detailed financial budget that is automatically generated following the 10-20 minute questionnaire completed by the reseller.

In addition to a detailed monthly P&L, the application also provides resellers with summary tables to help them view the key performance statistics.

Summary Performance Tables:These summary tables are refreshed with the latest business performance statistics each time resellers update their forecast. These include total units forecasted, average deal size, total revenues, program performance levels achieved, and software margins. ROI data is calculated at both gross and net levels.

In addition to estimating a specific revenue and unit forecast, this system helps resellers select, quantify and customize a set of goals and strategies that support achieving these numbers.

Hardworking Goals for Partners:Partners don’t always know what the best goals for their business should be or how to measure success. This feature provides the opportunity for them to pick and choose from a range of best practice goals and select the quantity and achievement date. They can also create customized goals. The key point is that it can be done quickly and effectively.

Proven Successful Strategies for Driving Revenue: Most partners will admit that they are far from being sophisticated marketing experts. They are looking for specific recommendations of approved marketing programs that are known to generate leads and new sales opportunities. This feature allows partners to pick and choose from a range of proven marketing tactics in minutes.

This 15-30 minute planning, forecasting and profitability analysis is just the first step in a streamlined ongoing partner performance management process. Once the plan is finalized, the forecast is immediately transmitted to Salesforce.com where the data is also tracked and reported. When actual sales are recorded in Salesforce.com, the data is automatically brought back into this application to show performance-to-plan results. This allows channel account managers to conduct QBR’s (Quarterly Business Reviews) with their partners almost instantly, and focus their time on performance-to-plan discussions and revisions to the forecast.

One of the most precious resources in your organization is your channel account management team. There are simply not enough of them to go around to effectively support all of your resellers. This  growth simulation tool dramatically reduces the time and effort needed to manage reseller planning, forecasting, commitment development and performance management. This allows your CAM’s to more effectively manage their existing partners and dramatically expand their coverage model to get more revenue growth commitments from your broader channel network.

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IT executives want to get out of the business of managing their IT infrastructure. At the same time the IT market is rapidly moving away from premise technology to cloud service delivery. So why is it...

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7 Business Modelling Techniques for Partner Transition to a Hybrid Cloud Business

IT executives want to get out of the business of managing their IT infrastructure.   At the same time the IT market is rapidly moving away from premise technology to cloud service delivery.  So why is it so difficult for tech resellers (partners) to make the math work for building a profitable business selling both premise and cloud-based solutions?   It seems so simple; end customers want it, and the market is rapidly moving in this direction.   But tech resellers have been left struggling with staffing models, service delivery models and costs that don’t align with the new reality of servicing IT customers with cloud services.  It is difficult for tech resellers to find the right mix of staff, expenses, and capital budgets to operate at a healthy profit margin in this rapidly evolving market.

Overall Message:  “Don’t Guess – Model Your Business Growth First to define your Partner’s Path to Profitability”

It is too easy for resellers to get it wrong. This costs them time, capital and valuable staff while they are trying to figure it out.  There are too many examples of failed reseller businesses that have attempted to “repair the airplane’s engine while they are still flying.”  Your resellers need help to model all aspects of their revenues, staffing, expenses and other investments before determining the optimal profitability model for their business.

Seven Key Business Modelling Factors for Successful Reseller Hybrid Business Transition:

1)      Product mix

2)      Growth plans

3)      Marketing investment levels

4)      Staffing expenses

5)      Pricing and margin assumptions

6)      Analyze each alternative with a full profit and loss (P&L)

7)      Model alternative scenarios to optimize business performance

These factors should be simulated individually and collectively as a part of overall business model to help resellers (partners) select the best mix for profitable growth.  An efficient tool for supporting this hybrid cloud business modelling process should allow a reseller to simulate all of these impacts in as little as 10 minutes.

1)Model Hybrid Reseller’s Product Mix:   Most re-sellers you are working with have ongoing businesses with a mix of existing license, implementation services, maintenance services, and recurring (cloud-delivered) product and service offerings.  Each of these lines of business have different costs, different staff and service requirements, different sales requirements and different profitability levels.  A reseller needs to look at them individually and collectively to get a good view of the staffing, expenses and other requirements to earn a healthy profit.   The examples below are just a few of thousands of possibilities for every partner to model the optimal mix for their business.  Your resellers need the ability to simulate these product mix alternatives instantly to review and select the best revenue and profit outcome for their business.

2)Model Hybrid Reseller’s Growth Plans:   If you were to ask some of your resellers how much they think they can sell this year, next year, and the year after, they will probably say “I am not sure, how much do other resellers like us sell?”   They appreciate access to preloaded forecasts based on the experience of other reseller experiences.   Here are some examples of potential forecast options that your partners may review to help select their custom forecast.

A partner should be able to select from a modest, average, accelerated forecast or create-your-own custom forecast.

In addition to all the product mix options, there are thousands of other possibilities to model to help build a custom business plan.  Resellers appreciate the opportunity to choose from a set of prepackaged forecasts like the one above to input into their own custom forecast.

3)Model Hybrid Reseller’s Marketing Investment Levels:  Your partners also need help to build marketing plans to achieve their growth goals.   They appreciate marketing investment options to pick from or to create their own custom marketing investment plan.  Partners what to build an ROI-focused marketing investment plan that will support the achievement of their growth forecast.

4)Model Hybrid Reseller’s Staffing Expenses:   Partners / resellers are services business and need to be able to model different staffing investment levels and hours-per-deal assumptions.  The reseller’s transition to a hybrid services model is particularly challenging because they each require different types of staff, with different skills and different compensation levels.  This analysis step allows partners the flexibility to plan staffing levels and modify their assumptions for the time required to support one sale.

Enabling your partner to instantly model their staffing and service hours by product can help them understand how to staff and how to make a hybrid model profitable for their business.

5)Model Hybrid Reseller’s Pricing and Margin Assumptions:  The pricing and margin levels by product line can vary widely by service type.  Resellers need to be able to do sensitivity analyses on the impact of different weights of services.  This helps partners model the optimal mix of product and services sales to generate profitable growth.

Enabling your partner to instantly model their staffing and service hours by product can help them understand how to staff and how to make a hybrid model profitable for their business.

6)Analyze each alternative with a Full Profit and Loss (P&L): This is where the rubber meets the road for partners that straddle multiple business models. Resellers need to look at each line of business individually and all lines of business collectively to determine the best mix of premise, cloud, and services to operate an efficient and profitable growth business. The strength of this analysis is the ability to model different assumptions to determine the optimal mix for a particular partner.

Each change in every variable will alter the partner’s business performance either positively or negatively. Services are the most attractive line of business in the above example but these services are only realized with the sale of the other premise or cloud solutions.

7) Model Alternative Scenarios to Optimize Business Performance: This is where the fun begins. Now that you have all of these values loaded into your model, you can start to play with different levers to determine the best mix for your business. A model like this allows a partner to select different revenue, investment, expense, and margin levels to determine the optimal strategy for profitable growth. All of the following levers can be modified to determine the optimal strategy for a reseller organization.

Resellers are doing their best to adapt to the new realities of the IT market, but are struggling with how to organize the right staff and expense investment levels, define realistic sales forecasts, and define mix strategies to build a profitable business. Tools to help them model their business and conduct scenario analyses before they make the investments is invaluable to their stability and profitable growth. Streamlining this process with an efficient modelling tool to manage this transition is essential to achieving long term reseller financial health.

For more information on applications designed to help partners (resellers) model their move to hybrid business mixes, check out Successful Channel’s Simulation tool suite for enabling accelerated reseller business growth.

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Expect your Resellers to Understand what is Expected of Them

With the rate of personnel turnover in the channel corporate ranks, your long-term resellers know more about certain aspects of their supplier’s business than the executives themselves. They also have very (very) long memories of what our organization may have done right or wrong. “I can remember 15 years ago when your company took leads away from us and gave them to the company sales team” or “I’ll never forget when they changed our comp plan and reduced renewal commissions in 2002.” Your policies and behaviors are very important to your resellers and they almost never forget your failings and your successes. They also understand the pressure that channel executives are under to demonstrate accelerated revenue growth and return on investment. Don’t expect them to be surprised by your need to report pipeline and closed revenue based on investments you are making to support their success. They know you both have to demonstrate a good return on your investment if they are to get any additional support funding.

Share your own goals and your internal funding performance requirements in an open and collaborative fashion to build trust and a mutual commitment to success. Your channel resellers certainly have good insights into how they can help you achieve these goals and are very willing to share. Collaboratively built plans that will invest in your resellers and generate a return are the most likely to succeed because all parties have a stake in the process.

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Help your Resellers with the Last Mile of the Sale

The “last mile of the sale” is defined as helping move interested prospects from modestly or actively interested to a signed PO and closed deal. This is the toughest and most sensitive phase of any sales process. Buyers need rational and emotional assurances that purchasing now is the right decision. On the rational front, your resellers need resources to get these interested buyers to commit to a purchase. They are looking for tools like a TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) calculator to estimate the product, service, energy, and support costs of your solution versus their current or competitive solutions. This can provide the financial rationale for investing either capital or expense budgets on your solution. They are also looking for market statistics that support investing in your solution, handling objections tools to overcome purchase barriers, and competitive assessments to compare your solution at a feature level to alternatives.

Your resellers are looking for exhibits and tools to highlight your brand’s equity strengths of trust, market leadership, quality and value. These intrinsic values help overcome certain buyer uncertainties about feature and functionality differences. Branding assurance tools can take the form of brand comparisons, market reputation statistics, customer satisfaction summaries, and brand or company ratings from analysts or other third parties.

Your resellers need your help to get their prospects “over the hump” from interested to committed-to-buy. A few thoughtful tools, statistics, calculators, and insights can make all the difference in closing more deals.