Sun Tzu style Partnership Execution - If-Then Lessons

for Maximizing Success

Steve Sulkowski610-585-1916

Steve.Sulkowski@yahoo.comhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/stevesulkowski

If-Then LESSONS from a former Effective Partner Sales Executive (Documentum and EMC Software)

From the Software and Systems Integrator Partnerships Perspective Only – lessons may not apply outside of this realm.

However, my experience has proven to me that they do apply well to various makers, co-dependent solution makers and implementers. Your results may be different.

The Art of Business Partnership that are Successful

The Art of Business Partnership that are Successful

• If the partner channel reports to sales, then it will succeed better than if it doesn’t. Do not work in a channel job that does not have the channel report to sales. Some companies place the channel to report to strategy or marketing. This is a waste of time, energy and effort and will fail and often be restructured.

• If the executives that run the partner channel are business friends that go back a long time, then the channel and sales will be most successful. If the relationship between the two executives is not built on comradeship, then it will fail. Working in a channel role in this situation is okay, but you will see job changing of the reps every 18 months or more.

• If the company describes the responsibilities of account mapping, then do not

work here unless you need a paycheck. Account mapping is a phrase that focuses on academic efforts only, but is measured, of course, by numbers, but it fails because the emphasis is not on the deal. Furthermore, it fails because the account owners have the option not to be involved.

The Art of Business Partnership that are Successful

• If the executives of the partner firm are emotional decision makers, then you can harness their company for your results and not attain theirs.

• If the executives of the partner firm organize in a hierarchy of command rather

than functional, then you will win big if you get the top executive to push down the demand to work together.

• If you paying increased compensation to both your company reps and the

partner’s reps, then this will maximize this and joint box out your competition. Use an executive signed term sheet to manage expectations and criteria that must be met to get the premiere compensation.

The Art of Business Partnership that are Successful

• If the company describes the responsibilities a ‘working the whitespace’ with the partners, then it will fail, because the company and their ‘partners’ do not have an overlapping agenda other than new account – which is significantly difficult to win business; let alone keep momentum of a partnership. The partnership will be opportunistic.

• If a company has channel sales pipeline calls without the designated sales reps

working deals on these calls, then it is a waste of time.

• If the partner reps make sales calls with the partner, then you will succeed. Communicate your offerings jointly with the partner on a solution bingo card. Use this solution bingo card in sales calls.

The Art of Business Partnership that are Successful

• If you segment your actions with partners into two categories: proactive and reactive, then you will succeed due to clarity of goal. Communicate this with each deal declaring which category this is for you and why. Segmentation this way is best by geography, by industry, by solution.

• If the company pays special incentive spiffs, then apply it to selling the partners solution. This is your testing viability strategy.

• If you hire introverted channel sales reps, then they will falter often and fail

themselves and you. Hire Extroverted Sensing Thinking Judgers (Myers Briggs). Avoid the feeler perceive combination.

• If you have a tiered partner program of distinction levels based on deal sold merit, then you will be much more effective / motivating than a single class partner approach.

The Art of Business Partnership that are Successful

• If you build a joint solution with a partner without having a paying client, then expect it to fail on a big and costly scale.

• If you proactively put your time, energy and effort courting the selling / client

facing lead partner of the system integrator, then you will succeed in making money. That’s the proactive effort. Do this by phone calls; communicate with them from their perspective more than yours. Industry expertise is best gleaned and show cased from the applier not the maker. Be very reactive to the horizontal line of service group of the systems integrator. They represent a black hole which is academic. If the ‘alliance’ is managed by the partner (systems integrator) out of the lines of services, think shared technical services; it will fail unless your company has the clout of an Oracle, EMC, Dell, of Microsoft.

The Art of Business Partnership that are Successful

• If your company organizes the channel rep to be both relationship and tactical and on boarding, then it will fail. The company must do the onboarding not the rep. Onboarding processes can signal future abandonment of the partner to the partner if they are too structured and not tailed to the geography, industry, and solution focus of this partner.

• If you give the partner free education, then you will succeed more rapidly. For example if there are open seats in the formal classes give then to the partners. If the training is online, then give it away to the partners. They must, however, certify by test that they understood how to apply the education to the real world needs.

• If you inspect to ensure your channel reps are telephoning to the client facing industry executives that own a Profit & Loss balance sheet, then your partner program will succeed. Most reps fail because they do not call the top level of the partner organization and instead they entrench much too deeply in the grass roots of the partners organization. Your reps must do both. Inspect on the executive calls.

Sun Tzu style Partnership Execution - If-Then Lessons

for Maximizing Success

Steve Sulkowski610-585-1916

Steve.Sulkowski@yahoo.comhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/stevesulkowski