Finding your passion isn’t as easy as it would seem – sometimes, it takes the journey of experience to teach you to find the intersection of the critical elements that combine to satisfy your passions.  For me, the elements are the ability to help technology companies make a significant step change in their go-to market execution, working with smart, value-driven people, and working in a culture of collaboration and support.  After deciding to leave Microsoft, I took some time to look at the opportunities in the market and, more critically, to align my work to my passion in a more concrete and material way.

After taking some time to assess the market, I spoke with several firms and decided to join Touch Worldwide.  My reasons for joining Touch were several:

1. People – first and foremost, to align to my passion, it was important to me that I work with people of integrity, respect and talent and in looking at the marketplace, I found a lot of firms with good people.  Touch specifically had a depth of bench and structure to talent development that I resonated with, as well as a solid culture of mutual success and support.
2. Approach – Touch is a diverse firm, with capabilities to deliver on both the analytical and the creative in amazing ways.  I first met Touch through the work they did with Microsoft on the Worldwide Partner Conference and saw both sides of the firm come together to deliver both compelling partner opportunities in support of Microsoft and amazing visuals and creative delivery.  As I got to know them better, I saw a full-service firm with the ability to respond to client needs from initial market research through to in-market execution and events.
3. Passion for the future – After my initial discussions with the Touch team, I realized that we had the potential to deliver some new services and capabilities that would greatly accelerate the performance of our clients and deliver ongoing value.  In this area, we are developing and bringing to market over the next several quarters some significant new services and offerings for our clients to help accelerate the performance of their staff, increase their insights into their partner business, and to support their execution with experienced and talented on-site staff.

Aligning your work and life to your passions isn’t easy, but once you do, it’s magic.  I look forward to the opportunity to talk with you about how our passion and talent can drive results for you – don’t hesistate to get in touch.

• Articulate a compelling partner business proposition
• Develop a comprehensive channel readiness plan
• Build a robust partner launch communications plan

Here we will cover three more keys to a successful launch with partners:

4) Provide the right partner sales, marketing and support resources

Partner (and customer) experience and satisfaction with a launch can hinge upon whether the right partner resources are available. This includes sales assistance and tools, marketing materials, guidance vs. competitors’ offerings, technical assistance, and sales incentives, among other things. Ideally, resources should be available to support partners throughout the sales cycle, and guidance should be provided on when in the cycle to leverage each resource.

Simply having a variety of resources is not enough, however. You must ensure that the content behind these resources is robust. To guide content development, it is important to identify the key partner/customer scenarios that you need to support. This will help ensure content is designed for the likely situations a partner will encounter, and makes it easier to provide prescriptive guidance to partners.

Another consideration in developing resources is when and how to integrate information on other products. For example, if there are key opportunities to cross-sell or up-sell other products or solutions, this should be clearly and consistently communicated throughout the launch resources. Similarly, if an older version of a product is being retired in conjunction with a launch, the product end of life plans should inform launch resources, and there should be a clear transition path that partners can communicate and support for affected customers.

These are a few key examples of the considerations that should inform development of partner launch resources. The nature and scope of the launch will dictate the elements that should be incorporated into resource planning – and the same is also true for partner program planning.

5) Thoroughly assess and plan for programmatic integration needs

Product launches can affect numerous elements of a partner program, from program requirements to channel incentives. To successfully incorporate a new product into your partner program, it is important to conduct a thorough impact assessment, including identification of key risks and mitigation strategies.

Below are a few key things to think about as you conduct an impact assessment:

• Program requirements – Do requirements need to change? If so, for what program tiers? Will requirements attainment measures (e.g. exams) need to change?
• Program benefits – Will new benefits be provided? If so, what requirements must partners meet in order to get the benefits? Will the benefits differ by program tier? Are there system changes needed to support the new benefits? Will existing support offerings or processes need to change?
• Partner profitability and channel incentives – How will the new product affect partner revenue opportunities? Will it result in significant new costs? Are there partner behaviors related to the new product that should be incented? If so, which incentive programs should the new product be integrated into? Will there be special incentives for that product or related solutions?

The list above is a starting point to illustrate the kinds of things to consider in an impact assessment – it is not meant to be exhaustive. Ideally, every component of your partner program should be evaluated to reduce the likelihood of planning gaps. The outcome of this assessment will then be a solid foundation for building programmatic integration plans.

Your programmatic integration plans will need to be regularly re-visited throughout the launch cycle. Product launch timing, messaging, tactics and other elements are subject to change, so it’s important that the partner program plans remain aligned to the launch plans.

It is also important to consider when and how to communicate programmatic changes to partners. If there are significant changes, partner should be provided with ample advance notice so they can properly prepare. Read on for more about launch communications timing.

6) Evaluate partner behavior and needs when scheduling launch communications

Partners play a pivotal role in helping customers understand their options and make decisions. So to effectively support customers and drive desired customer behavior, partners must be equipped with the right information about new products, at the right time. Partners also need to be able to plan ahead for product and program changes so they can appropriately adjust business practices and investments. This means partners’ needs and behaviors should inform not only the content of your communications, but also the timing.

While many factors influence launch communications timing, below are a few important things to consider from a partner perspective:

• Magnitude of the launch-related changes – Does the launch involve significant technical changes to a product? Major licensing or pricing changes? It’s imperative to evaluate the scope and complexity of the changes, as that will help you decide what information partners need by when. With a complex launch, partners should receive more advance notice; with a simpler launch, less notice is needed.
• Lag time between product announcements and product availability – New product and launch timing information will affect partners’ guidance to customers, which could result in delayed or accelerated purchase decisions. The more lag time there is between product announcements and availability, the greater the risk of changes in partner and customer behavior. While a shorter lag time will reduce these impacts, it is important to balance this against the need to provide sufficient notice of changes.
• Industry and competitor events – In planning communications, it is important to be aware of key industry and competitor event schedules and likely announcements. Partners have limited mindshare, so you should understand what else will be competing for their attention at a given time. In some cases it may be appropriate to align communications with existing events, but this should be carefully planned.

Are there other best practices you’ve discovered that help drive successful launches via the channel? We’d love to hear about them!

Partner engagement, preparedness, and adoption are key drivers of whether a new product gets traction quickly – and ultimately whether you achieve your business objectives for the product.

For the channel to embrace a new product, you have to lay the right groundwork. Below are some critical parts of partner launch efforts:

1. Articulate a compelling partner business proposition

A new product is inherently disruptive to partners. It’s easier and cheaper for partners to continue selling existing products – their businesses are already built around them.

As a result, you need to provide the channel with a clear, compelling business proposition – one that makes it worthwhile for partners to invest their money, commit their time, and shift their focus. Without a strong partner business prop, partners won’t adopt the new product, and your launch will likely fall short of objectives.

The business proposition should demonstrate tangible benefits partners will see with the new product, such as richer incentives, new market opportunities, lower costs, sales assistance, greater customer demand, and opportunities to build stronger customer relationships.

Another element of the business proposition should be the customer value proposition. Channel partners must be able to persuade customers that the new product is worth moving to. This requires that partners have a strong understanding of the new product’s benefits, the right technical capabilities to sell it, and the business structures to support it. That’s why you need to ensure the channel is effectively prepared for the launch –see the next section for more about channel readiness.

2. Develop a comprehensive channel readiness plan

For the new product to gain traction and momentum, the channel must be prepared to sell, deploy, manage, support and build on it. Consequently, an effective channel readiness plan – plus successful execution on that plan – is a critical component of a successful launch.

While your company likely has multiple teams dedicated to a product launch, your partners don’t. As a result, you need to make it as easy and painless as possible to help their people get up to speed on the new product. That means:

• Training the right individuals at partner organizations
• With the right information
• At the right time
• In an effective format (that’s also cost-effective)

In developing partner readiness plans, it’s imperative to keep the partner’s perspective in mind. For instance, you might have the funding and resources to deliver three-day in person training sessions, but your partners may not be willing to commit their own resources for that amount of time.

And regardless of the format, timing, or type of training, you must ensure that partners gain a strong understanding of how the new product differs from other products (both from the old version, if there is one, and from competitors’ products). Without this understanding, partners will likely be reluctant to sell the new product.

3. Build a robust partner launch communications plan

It’s imperative to have a compelling partner business proposition, and a clear roadmap for partners to learn about the new product and on-board it into their portfolios. While these elements are necessary for a successful launch, they are of little value if this information doesn’t get to partners (or doesn’t get there at the right time).

This means you need a strong communications plan that ensures the right partners are touched with the right content at the right time. A strong communications plan should include:

• A profile of the partner audiences you need to reach, and the messages they need to hear
• An inventory of the communications vehicles you will use, and the timing of those communications
• A timeline aligned across all aspects of the launch (including product release milestones)

Partner-facing members of the field typically play a key role in executing on partner communications plans. As part of the communications effort, you should ensure that the right members of your field are trained on the new product, and on their partner communication responsibilities related to the launch.

In Part 2, we’ll cover three more partner-related launch elements:

• 4) Launch communications timing
• 5) Partner sales, marketing and support resources
• 6) Programmatic integration of the new product

It is too easy to forget that channel management is really all about economics. And that means it’s really all about building and managing an investment model.  Make sure you can answer three critical questions.

Why should I invest here instead of there?

Weigh your opportunities as part of a portfolio of investments rather than just as an isolated investment.  You can build a great business case for why you need more partner training.  You can probably even demonstrate how the extra investment will be returned with increased sales.  But that isn’t the central question.

Are the dollars you are spending here going to yield a better return than dollars spent over there?  When you have the dollars to invest, it is about opportunity costs.

Make sure you have a strongly capable model for running pilots, isolating investment variables and measuring success.  Run every major investment through this model.  Not just to get the kinks out of the operational requirements, but to quantify the return on investment and benchmark success verses other investments.

How does my investment change my costs-to-serve?

Ability to scale is the speed governor for channel programs.  Almost every partner performs better with an account manager but you simply can’t afford to give one to every partner.

Model your cost to serve as part of every investment decision.  Does the suggested investment reshape you tiering structure? Are you maintaining or exceeding your general ROI level guidelines?  Do you need to disinvest from another area to keep your costs to serve balanced as you ramp up the new investment?  All of these questions are easily addressed with the right cost-to-serve model and should inform your investment decisions.

Will my investment drive partners behavior?

On paper, the investment idea may look sound. You won’t change partner behavior if partners are not using, or see little value in, the investment area.

Categorizing your investment impacts in terms of partner usage (or awareness) and perceived value lets you build an investment value model. Plagiarizing the famous BCG four-quadrant model:

• Cash Cows are benefits partners use and attribute value to
• Rising Stars have high perceived value but low awareness or usage
• Dogs have low usage and low perceived value.
• Question Marks have high usage but low perceived value.  (The question – why do people use it if the value is low?)

Fuel investment in rising stars and cash cows by killing dogs and most question marks.

The key– build an investment model

George Box wrote that “essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful” in his groundbreaking book on predictive statistics.  Build an investment model that lets you weigh one investment area verses another, maintain the right cost-to-serve balance and measure investment impact.

Only then can your investment decisions be data driven.  And when your decisions are data driven, getting senior executives to understand your funding requests relies less on persuasion and more on common sense.

This holds true whether the channel incentives are MDF, solutions investment funds or some other form of business development assistance.

The purpose of an incentive is to change behavior

Don’t start with your sales goals.  Having X% revenue growth is the governor on your investment, it is not the business outcome you base your decision on.  The real key is understanding what behavior do you need to drive.  It is a question of cause and effect.  Of course the goal is to increase revenues, but what is the problem you are hoping the money will remove that enables the increase in sales.

Effective channel investment programs are ALWAYS built around this tenet.  They understand their real purpose is to get the partner to train their staff, conduct specific demand generation activities, implement specific proofs of concept with clients, etc.

Your operational support needs to focus on this behavior

There are many vendors that can manage payments and validate activity with very good or better customer service.  This is table-stakes and should not be your sole criteria for picking the vendor that will manage your program.

Also focus on a vendor’s ability to understand the behaviors you really want to drive.  Reporting, decision making criteria, success metrics should all focus on these behaviors.  The value add you should seek from vendors is insight as to how the incentive program is driving these behaviors and whether the performance measures you are basing payment on adequately reward the effort reflected.

This will dramatically improve your return

Most incentive programs only pay on performance.  Ironically, this means they only pay when business results meet revenue or profit goals.  The trap is whether the program drove the performance or just paid for results that would otherwise have already happened.

The answer is to focus on the behaviors you want to drive.  Then you can correlate whether changing the behavior results in the performance rewarded or if there is a different unrewarded cause.

“Knowledge management will never work until corporations realize it’s not about how you capture knowledge but how you create and leverage it.”
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Etienne captures a core issue facing large companies today.

With margins crushed, fewer resources, and greater competition, organizations must figure out how to operate more efficiently. One strategy to increase efficiency across your channel team is to bridge the knowledge gap.

To better understand this, let’s look at the four stages of execution excellence.

1. Ad Hoc Processes – No knowledge management system
2. We have processes, but limited adoption – We have a system, but few use it
3. Processes are being followed – We have a system and it is used consistently
4. Processes being innovated – Robust system in place and improving

Think about the inefficiencies of everyone following a different process and the implication that has on quality across a team. In contrast, consider the benefit of everyone following the same process and executing consistently day in and day out.

A good example is the model that McDonalds developed years ago. The process of delivering food to people fast is so automated and documented that anybody can execute no matter if they are in Topeka or Tokyo.

While we like to think we are producing more than hamburgers, this model is a good illustration of how documented process can lead to better efficiency and consistent quality across your channel team.

You need to adopt the Write Once Read Many strategy. Creating knowledge that is valuable to many will move you closer to a true knowledge management system.

Seems simple, right? The truth is it is hard to do. Here are some basic guidelines to developing a knowledge management system to better manage your channel team.

1. Use the right tool – Use a tool like SharePoint that is easy to use and organize content
2. Create logical structure – Organize content intuitively so people can find things fast
3. Assign content owners – Make people accountable for content
4. Be disciplined – Drive adoption and usage by all team members
5. Follow the process or fix the process – Audit content regularly to ensure it is accurate and complete.

We’ve worked with many vendors on their channel management efforts and see they spend to much time focusing on strategy.  We also often see knowledge and success is siloed in key account reps or channel managers much to the detriment of the whole organization.

Are you supporting your channel management effort with a world class knowledge management system that helps inform your staff and innovate your thinking?

If not, you are risking your best thinking with unsustainable execution.

Right?

Bigger doesn’t always equal better

Well, not necessarily. When it comes to partner channel strategy, bigger isn’t necessarily better. At a certain point, the right kind of partner becomes more important to the success of your channel than the quantity. This blog post will focus on the fallacy that bigger is better, and a follow-up blog (coming soon) will focus on the importance of investing in the right kind of partner.

I recently worked on a project at a large software ISV developing ERP and CRM solutions because they wanted to adjust and refine their channel. Their partner channel was, and still is, large, and by looking at data and modeling it was clear that some trimming was necessary for two reasons.

Too many partners cannibalize each other

Having a good mix of large and small partners is an important component of your channel, and both have an important role in the market. However, this large software ISV found that too often small partners would cannibalize deals that would have been better going to a different partner (perhaps larger, perhaps more specialized). This happens for many reasons, including smaller partners having the luxury of being able to discount to a greater degree than others. These partners, however, may not have the best level of implementation or services required to a meet a customer’s needs. Too many times a customer would be best served by the right partner, but with a channel that is oversaturated with partners the perfect match cannot be made.

Supporting a large channel requires a large bankroll

Every partner, regardless of size, quality or drive, has to be supported. Whether it’s incident response, training or marketing, partners cost money. Marketing, training and implementations require support, and partners who are not driving revenue and adding customers eat up more than their fair share of your support expenditures. With an overly saturated channel, you end up in a situation where there are too many partners requiring support, all of whom are chasing a limited number of customers.

A successful partner channel is a difficult thing to get right. And while you want as many partners as possible to act as re-sellers, it’s important to remember that there becomes a critical mass where too many partners lowers your return.

It is really is about the right number of partners

Capacity planning and economic modeling is key.  Too many partners cripples your economics.  Too few and you limit revenue.

Don’t just chase a number.  Sometimes you have to prune a tree to keep it healthy.

One effective way to frame your thinking is through a “Know-Feel-Do” matrix. This lets you outline the relevant audiences, as well as the takeaways you want them to leave with. Using this framework as a base, you can also test your messaging across presenters and presentations to make sure that it aligns to your larger goals for the event.

Breaking it down, there are 3 messaging goals to identify:

Know

Like Joe Friday said, “Just the facts ma’am.” This is the academic “what” with which you want your audience to leave.

The Know section can range from an execution plan, to the details of a new incentive program, to the broader strategic direction to which you are moving. The key here is that you lay out the main information points with which people should take away.

Feel

Lay out the emotional response you would like to elicit from your audience. For example, do you want them to be scared of the status quo, excited about your new approach or confident in your direction and leadership team?

Knowing how you want them to feel will help you test word choice as you put together your messaging later on.

Do

So now that you have their rapt attention and interest, so what? The Do section is critical since it turns interest into action. When putting this section together you need to consider 2 things:

1. Limit yourself to 3-5 key actions per audience. If you tell a person that they can succeed after 17 easy steps, the odds of them doing any of them go down.
2. Be specific. Whether you want them to reach out to an account manager or review the revenue opportunity of selling your latest offering, this is no time to hide the ball.

Clearly knowing your audience will help you build a better relationship, which in turn can help change a point in time event into something far more enduring.  Coolio said it best, “They say I got ta learn, but nobody’s here to teach me.  If they can’t understand it, how can they reach me?”

What do you think? What has worked for you? What didn’t?

Strategy defines the right things to do. Doing things well – execution – is what sets companies apart.

Most senior managers have an intuitive sense of how effective is their execution.

What is often missing is an objective scale against which to reference that intuition. There are four distinct levels of execution excellence:

• Unstructured. There may be some successes and some losses. The approach is relatively haphazard and often dependent on the strengths of individuals. There are few, if any, standard processes. Organizational intelligence is poorly documented and erodes as individuals leave.
• Basic. There is a basic operational structure in place. Regular meetings and communications occur but are not always effective. Staff generally follows defined process, but not always. Knowledge is compartmentalized within teams.
• Functional. Standard processes are identified and followed. There is a regular rhythm of the business. Structured corporate planning exists but is often disconnected from individual or team commitment setting.
• Robust. Processes are followed and documented. A culture of learning is pervasive with deep feedback collected along essential processes. The focus of execution excellence has shifted from “are we able to execute” to one of continuous improvement. Strong alignment exists between goals, investments and commitments.

Channel management execution excellence is easily benchmarked and should be measured and managed in seven areas:

• Governance and organizational design. Where are decisions made and how do you get them to stick? Do you have alignment with all stakeholders? Do you operate as a cross-functional group or in silos?
• Metrics and scorecard. Is a single set of measures used throughout the channel management process? Is business intelligence and data-driven modeling the basis for decision-making? Are revenue and cost projections
• Compensation and incentives. Is field compensation linked to partner performance and requirements? Are the critical activities required to meet corporate objectives rewarded? Are compensation and incentives structured to give line-of-sight to causes and effects?  Is deal registration for partners required?
• Systems, processes and tools. Are systems, process and tools aligned to company strategies and objectives? Is there adequate change management during times of large transition? Have agility and flexibility been built in? Is data quality sufficient to drive insight?
• Communication and feedback. Are best practices identified and shared? Is execution feedback collected and acted upon? Is information communicated and understood effectively?
• Territory design and account management. Are rules of engagement between direct sales, partners and cross-channel clearly defined and enforced consistently? Does account management map to the guidelines of the partner program? Are responsibilities between customer and partner reps well understood?
• Project prioritization and implementation. Is there a process for prioritizing and sun-setting projects? Do projects maintain momentum or stall? Is accountability for success shared and understood?

Ultimately, channel management execution excellence becomes a keystone in the company’s sales operations model. The sales operations model must define the company’s management system and set the rigor required for execution excellence.

Manage your channel management investments to drive specific behaviors.

Every channel management investment you make should be for the explicit purpose of driving partner behavior.

You should measure the success of each investment based on its ability to drive desired behavior in an economical manner.

Relevant behavior can be categorized into four buckets:

• Focus. Are partners concentrating on the customers and solutions you want?
• Performance. Are partners driving the business results you require?
• Activity. Are partners meeting your requirements and receiving sufficient rewards to stay satisfied?
• Retention. Are you securing your best partners with benefits that keep them, and their customers, loyal?

The architectural and operating elements of a channel management program, such as incentive structures and partner performance measures, should compel desired behaviors.

A company needs to engineer its partner programs to drive these behaviors in a consistent, predictable and measurable fashion. The program must also be flexible and responsive to changing market conditions.

This is often a significant challenge as partners want a program that is stable and constant, and companies require significant time and effort to change underlying systems and processes.

The key is to architect a set of “levers” into your partner program:

• Segment. Allows clear identification and outreach for specific partner types. Optimizes all channel communications and engagement.
• Expertise. Documents and tracks partner enablement activities. Allows for tight alignment of company sales resources with competent and capable partners.
• Requirements. Provides partner performance measurement against specific goals. Creates and maintains essential executive alignment around channel objectives.
• Rewards. Establishes and delivers against partner expectations of the relationship. Provides an ROI framework for driving retention activities.

Well engineered partner programs provide a stable and predictable operational framework for channel management activities, while allowing agility and responsiveness to changing market conditions.