Is Your Channel Program Up to Standards?

You have a channel program but it isn’t going well. There might be solid reasons for this.

You might be too hard to do business with. Too much friction and I will sell the other guy.

Right now, you might not be paying enough, especially in relation to your product value or ease of doing business with you.

Your partners may not want to sell what you want them to sell. And you can’t make them.

Your support of partners isn’t what it could be. That could be that quotes take too long; that there isn’t enough self-serve; that the channel people don’t know enough or unhelpful or just clueless.

Just a bit too much channel conflict. Right now, a partner I know is getting rooked out of a lot of commission on a Big Logo that they delivered to the vendor. The vendor took over the account. These are reasons that we stay away from vendors. We don’t want to get screwed over on commissions!!!!

In the case of at least 3 vendors I can think of, word on the street is that you aren’t really channel friendly. You are in when it suits you; and out when it doesn’t. So partners don’t like risk like that.

Tough to get honest feedback but you should ask — if you really want to hear it – and say that you CAN take it. Then just accept it.

Tags: channel managers, channel partners, commissions
Related tags: channel program, channel, partners, might, enough