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filled with lures that the partner can use to go fishing for
prospects. Many businesses have a contract for three years
for phone and Internet. Getting in the door with something
such as email or conferencing gives you a billing relation-
ship with that customer, and billing builds trust.
To be a true Telecom Solution Seller, the partner has
to want to be more than the pipe salesperson. He may
not be comfortable asking about any other services. He
may be transactional. Replacement services of like for like
(broadband or T1 for 10MB, SIP trunk for PRI) are easy to
sell transactionally. But most businesses are using hosted
email, conferencing, backup (hello, Dropbox!), especially to-
day with smartphones and their personal clouds with Apple,
Amazon and Google. It can still be a replacement sale.
It is about customer wallet share. Getting deeper into
the customer (for the partner) means that the churn goes
down, ARPU goes up and the commission checks get
bigger. Another factor: no other partner will come along
and replace your services with their own, cutting you out.
Network is the easy piece. Voice and cloud services
are usually a little complicated because there are mov-
ing parts (such as phone numbers, data to move, and
new processes to train employees on). Yet once you get
them on your service, they are sticky.
The key to sales is to be helpful. In what ways can
you enhance your relationship with your partners? One
way is to let them know who is buying what. When a sale
is made, let partners know. “This bank bought this and
that”. Now the partner has a concrete idea that banks
buy this and that. Service providers can do this by email,
but they can also utilize their LinkedIn group or Twitter
account. It doesn’t have to be email all the time.
The other big issue is: How do I get their attention?
Partners are drowning in email and webinar invites. May-
be email isn’t the best way to reach them. Have you asked
them what method of communications they would prefer?
If the partner is ignoring emails, there are other av-
enues. Social networks such as Google+, LinkedIn and
Twitter allow for a different way to reach out to a part-
ner. It doesn’t have to be a “Hey you!”
In my experience, congratulations are a great way
to touch a person. Whether it is a birthday, promotion,
anniversary – or, even better, their name mentioned in
the press – dropping a quick “Congrats!” on social net-
works is a way to get noticed while acknowledging the
moment for the partner.
“Being helpful” was Zig Ziglar’s definition of sales.
Jeffrey Gitomer used to say, “Always give value first.”
What most people care about is themselves. WIIFM is
the watch word of the day: What’s In It For Me.
Treat the partner to a marketing campaign to peak
his interest. Tweet about the new SPIFFs without de-
tails – have them reach out to you. Use it as a hook.
“One partner just got a check for $2,000. Contact me
to find out how you can get one.”
Send a Vine or a video email that is two minutes or
less but is personal. “Hey, your last quote request was for
a bank. Just sold a couple of bank deals. Think we can
leverage that for your deal? Call me.” It was quick, per-
sonal (or relevant), concrete, clear with a call to action.
Often I am added to email lists. This morning I re-
ceived a “newsletter” with the subject line about a disas-
ter area. The body was a mess of info about energy and
mesh and renewable. No idea who sent it or why I got
it. That is the case often. Don’t be that person.
The subject line needs to catch their attention. (So
does the sender name.) There needs to be a call to ac-
tion. An irresistible offer – SPIFF, promotions – also helps.
Through all this keep in mind: am I being helpful? Is this
valuable? Would I send it to a friend?
As far as being helpful, think about new partners.
How can you work with a new partner to get them a win
in their first 60 or 90 days?
One reason Freemium is a popular model today is that
the risk for a user is really low. Extrapolate that to our
business. Free-trial offers or no-risk guarantees are note-
worthy. If a partner is new, a smaller deal is less risky.
It isn’t always about the price, sometimes it is
about the risk (which is about trust). Build trust in
little ways like testimonials and reference accounts.
Written procedures for deployment and introductions
to the implementation team or project manager also
can help build trust with a partner.
Recruiting and on-boarding are just the beginning
in a partner relationship. Helping the new partner with
her first win is just as important.
It all starts with recruitment. Pick the wrong part-
ners and you will be wasting time. You can’t even as-
sume Pareto’s Rule of 80/20; it’s often 95/5. Only
about 5 percent of your partners will produce consis-
tent sales. And you want more like them, correct?
In each channel program, there is always the “quantity
versus quality” debate. More often than not, there is pres-
sure to add more partners. More is better. More means
more sales. That’s the thewory anyway.
“If the partner is selling our competitor, why couldn’t
he sell our stuff?” There actually could be a bunch of rea-
sons. Ask Cisco partners to sell Juniper or Xerox partners
Chapter 4:
Recruitment
10
THE CHANNEL MANAGER’S
PLAYBOOK