Close Your Gaps in Market Coverage - The Right Mix of Direct & Indirect Sales Channels

Today’s show is a demonstration on how to cover the market completely with both direct and indirect sales channels. As a guide, download our 10th annual workbook, How to Make Your Number in 2017. Flip to the sales strategy section of the PDF and review the Channel Optimization phase on pages 290 – 298. [p]

Joining us today is Rodney Foreman, Senior Vice President of Informatica‘s partner ecosystem. Informatica is the world’s number one provider of data management solutions, in the cloud, on-premise or in a hybrid environment. More than 7,000 companies turn to Informatica for data solutions that power their businesses. Rodney is uniquely qualified to speak on this topic having run multi-billion-dollar channel businesses with thousands of partners at IBM the past ten years, and now Informatica. Listen as Rodney demonstrates how to cover the market completely with both direct and indirect sales channels.

How do you select, recruit, and on-board the right channel partners? Rodney describes the process that works. How do you attract the best partners who your competitors want as well, that have a customer base they have already been selling into? Once channel partners are selected, listen as Rodney describes on-boarding and activation to drive value and results from resellers.

Why is sales channel optimization important? Selling to customers directly when they want to buy from partners is a surefire way to miss the revenue goal. Selling to customers through partners when they want a direct relationship with your company is equally devastating. And within the direct and indirect channel model, there are multiple sub models to consider. Coverage model decisions have never been this complicated for we live in the omni channel era.

We also discuss how to identify partners that may not sell your product set or technology today, but they have an adjacent product. In this case, they’re selling where your product fits well with what they’re already selling. It’s an opportunity for you and the partner.

The show is summarized with Rodney sharing the three things you want from a vendor. Rodney details those three things that should be incorporated into your checklist questions to be successful in the channel.