How the West Was Won: A Look at Improving Channel Performance from the Vendor's Perspective
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As Americans pushed westward toward California
in the 1870s, the product channels to support that expansion were rather
chaotic and tenuous. Back then, channel partners were as likely to be operating
out of a tent or wagon as they were a store or office. Good channel
communication was a telegraph from your partner that you shouldn’t send the
train shipment through Council Bluffs, Iowa,
because Jessie James was liable to blow it up.
Today’s high-tech vendors have it much easier, with superbly efficient channel
partners selling their wares. But channel feedback affects a vendor’s business
just as dramatically as it did in the Old West.
The key is asking the right questions, listening to the answers and making
adjustments. Unfortunately, over half of all high-tech vendors report they are
concerned over lack of alignment with channel partners, according to the Sales
Executive Council’s 2005 study.
While today’s vendors may be faring better than the telegraph, there is a lack
of communication across the channel, as well as a failure to collect and
analyze the right data, a lack of business alignment, and a tendency for vendors
to focus on just the top-performing partners. And let’s not forget that a lot
of vendor attempts at incentives just don’t seem like a pan of gold nuggets to
the channel partner sales reps.
We can fix these common missteps and create a shared destiny with partners
by better engaging and aligning them around common business goals. We can sell
enough lumber in Dodge City to
reach the goals we—as well as our channel partners—set.
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