When I took over my first channel management position, we developed a list of the important questions we couldn’t answer based on the limited data available to us … this became our “reality” list…our focus for operational improvement.
Over the past few year’s I’ve interviewed dozens of channel managers regarding the top issues that they face and I’ve compiled these responses into the following “seven realities” of channel management:
- We don’t know who’s selling our product.
- We don’t really know who’s buying it.
- We can’t measure channel performance in time to do anything about it.
- We can’t effectively cover the other 80% of channel partners.
- Our direct sales reps don’t trust the channel.
- Our channel wants more actionable leads and less program administration.
- We can’t determine the ROI for our incentive/marketing programs.
Maybe all seven aren’t true for your business … but a number of them are. Running a channel is a difficult job, and it’s that much more difficult if you don’t have the information that you need to run it.
Have you stepped back lately from the day-to-day challenges to compile your own “reality” list identifying the constraints that you and you’re organization are living under? It starts with identifying the questions you need answers to … the ones that you can’t get accurate and/or timely answers to. It starts by naming the information constraints that inhibit your team from achieving the results you’re chartered to accomplish.
