What’s more important to resellers than leads?

Last month, I attended CRN roundtable (see page 34). My hope was to emphasise how vendor investment in the channel is key to the channel’s growth, specifically through supporting resellers in active, real ways. But the discussion soon turned into a loop about what wasn’t working. Reseller after reseller spoke as if this kind of vendor support was a far-fetched fantasy, not a reality.

I realised that before we have the discussion about making the channel a better, more prosperous place for all, we need to acknowledge what today’s sensitivities look like, why they exist and how we can tackle them.

Let’s start with the lifeblood of selling: leads. Without a lead, nothing happens. “I’ve never, ever been given a lead,” said one reseller at the event. 

How could this happen? It can happen when the reseller feels the vendor is not doing enough to drive demand, to build their brand and to reach out to key influencers and foster positive word-of-mouth or advocacy.

Vendors have a very good reason to expect resellers to make those critical connections that close deals. The landscape has changed. Many vendors see resellers as much more than a sales arm. Resellers have had to become educators, key influencers, experts in customer service and marketing. 

Too often, resellers feel that they are inadequately supported. This is a lot more than leads, but luckily it is something that we as vendors can actively and effectively address. Here are a few ways:

Support 

We can support our resellers by giving their staff the kind of general sales training they can’t provide themselves. We, Avaya, run boot camps to teach new sales methodologies. We have become big proponents of whiteboard selling because it’s powerful and leads the contagious spread of good ideas.

Understand

Resellers tend to be self-made, dynamic people. The last thing we should do as a vendor is try to tell them how to run their business. They don’t want to hear it. More important, they don’t need to hear it. So the education needs to be specific and value additive. Ask yourself what you can equip your reseller with to give them an advantage.

Recognise

Ask what resellers need to thrive. If they thrive, we thrive. These things include equipping them with specific expertise and then recognising and rewarding that expertise. After all, if they really understand our difference as a vendor, then they can sell that difference like no one else can.

Here’s a recent example. One of our leading products, Radvision, is a powerful, amazingly mobile video conferencing solution, and part of a unified communications framework. We take pains to educate our resellers not only about its specifics but about the video conferencing market so that they can understand that Radvision is never just video in isolation. It is part of a larger communications picture. If a reseller really understands that, then they can help their customers understand the benefits. That is critical.

We have found genuine benefit in tying reseller rewards to the kind of solid education that will enable our resellers to brand themselves. In our case, we have done this by helping our partners brand themselves as experts through a program that allows them to grow through specific technology education and our own assessments of their service. 

As vendor, we must really give thought as to where resellers are today and listen to where they want to grow. Then we can help them realise their ambitions. We are seeing that by allowing our resellers to start small, we can help them scale up their own businesses as we support them in larger and larger implementations.

In the end, vendors want our resellers to practice consultative selling and we want to help them get there. One piece of advice is to interview them. Learn how they make money. Learn what your resellers would do if they had your job. Get those details because those details will make it easier for them to do business with you.

I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to grade each other. You’ll be surprised at how this will be embraced. Even if there is some resistance at first, inevitably partners see value in it, because there’s accountability and things get done.

Ultimately, it will be a combination of regular quality engagement and interaction that will make the channel thrive.

Tim Gentry relocated to Sydney to serve as managing director Australia and New Zealand of Avaya in 2012