Channel 101

Every qualified partner has salespeople with access to existing accounts. Partners can provide immediate access to these accounts.

Your channel partner program provides certainty that partners know what they can expect from you.

The most important KPIs exist along your sales process. How many leads has demand generation produced?

Channel sales are referred to as "indirect" because the people doing the selling aren't employed by the company that makes the products.

Channel executives are measured on the sales volume produced by all their partners.

Channel sales managers supervise the activities of channel sales representatives, which can include assigning them to specific accounts.

Think of revenue as a pie. One big slice is the manufacturer's fully-burdened cost of manufacturing.

Channel partners vary in market segmentation by size, by vertical industry, by geography, by private, government, and more.

Build a compelling business case for prospective partners showing how much additional revenue they can drive through your product.

As one team. Properly managed, partners become an extension of your sales engine and should consider and conduct themselves as such.

Heavily! You'd be wise to leverage the customer contact your best partners enjoy to inform everything you do: New product features.

What will executives invest in? Things that produce a good return. You need to be able to demonstrate that to executives.

If partners can produce a reasonable profit directly from sales of your offerings, that partnership is viable.