Selling Via Partners

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A committed and well educated channel partner is one of the most valuable allies a vendor can have when selling its products and solutions successfully.

However finding, signing, committing and managing such a partner comes with its own challenges.

At times you are not sure if you can trust your partner. The biggest concern of most vendors is that you will provide a partner with hard earned sales leads or opportunities as well as marketing resources and you are not 100% certain if your partner will not simply try and sell a competitor or any other solution into this account that may offer more benefits or better margins than yours – or that just has a bigger brand and therefore is easier to sell.

As a vendor you are wondering if your partner is focused on selling your products, is committed to pro actively promote your solution and to make the most out of the opportunities you are offering the channel.

In the past some of that commitment was secured when the vendor asked the partner to invest up front. To pay for training, buy stock and use the products in house. As you know these times are over. Even the strongest branded vendors are happy with new partner sign ups and ask for no or very little upfront commitment.

This is due to the fact that in some geographical markets up to 75% of business deals are still won trough the channel and that vendors would like to make it as easy as possibly for a new partner to sign up in the current competitive environment.

On the other hand you need to understand the channel partner. Your partner will take a risk committing to you as a vendor – especially if your brand is not the strongest. The channel will invest resources such as technical, sales and marketing but what makes every partner most nervous is that they will expose themselves by introducing a new (and for them unproven) solution to their existing clients. They might have nourished a client over many years – and despite all your confidence in your own solution your partner will remain nervous until the end user client will provide the partner with positive feedback.

Like in real life a partnership is a “give” and a “take”. It is based on trust and being trusted, on honesty and transparency but also on common goals, fun and success.

As you want the channel to sell your solutions and products you must make the first approach – take the first steps.

The Indirect team of MultiChannel Technologies not only has a large Network of resellers, integrators and Distributors we can introduce to you but also extensive knowledge and experience on how you can create a new successful channel or manage and infuse life into an existing channel.

Please feel free to gain some more information on our Channel page or contact us at your convenience.