Chanimal Presents…
Building a SaaS Channel:
A Step-by-Step Approach
Ted Finch
President, Chanimal Marketing
www.chanimal.com
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Overview - Contents
• Channel
– Defined (Level-Set Group)
• SaaS Differences, Concerns, Trends
• Phase One
– Defining (or Re-Defining) a Channel Program
• Phase Two
– Recruiting a Channel
• Phase Three
– Enablement
• Channel Management
– Ongoing Motivation
• Where to Learn More…
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Background – Chanimal
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Chanimal – The Ultimate Resource for Software Marketing at www.chanimal.com. Celebrating it’s 10th
year anniversary. 500+ pages of online content. Ranked #1 by Google (channel marketing & sales).
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Short for “Channel Animal,” Ted Finch – 23 Years of professional marketing
As co-founder and VP of Sales & Marketing, built world’s largest high-tech product launch service
company from 13 to over 4,000 people while executing the launch of over 400 products for over 150
companies (Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, HP, WordPerfect, Intel, Ashton Tate, Sony, Citrix, Autodesk, ATI,
Creative Labs, Disney, Canon, Corel, Aldus, Compaq, plus more)
Wrote marketing plan & published Netscape Navigator (#1 best-selling software in the world at the
time) & AOL. Helped inaugurate .dot com era.
Wrote marketing plan, helped finance ($27 million funding) & form Red Storm Entertainment with Tom
Clancy (Press release on USS Nuclear Sub Cheyenne, ABC, CBS, NBC)
Former VP Marketing at Goldmine (#1 Rated SFA), VP Marketing at $4 billion Harcourt (General
Cinemas, Sea World, HRW), Sr. VP Marketing at $33 billion Motorola (sat on Marketing board), VP at
$130 billion GE.
Achieved five successful acquisitions.
Speaker at dozens of conferences and events, quoted in over 100 trade publications & high-tech books,
produced, “How to Finance a High-Tech Start-Up” Video
Has executed reseller programs for over 270 companies
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Terminology
• Level set the group
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Channel. How a company sells their product
Direct. Company to End User
Indirect. Company to middle man to customer
Reseller. Anyone that resells product or service
Affiliate. Refers—does not sell (but still a channel)
Partner. Legal term – but means reseller
VAR. Value Added Reseller (ads value with installs, integration, training, etc.)
System Integrator. Development capabilities.
Distributor. Wholesale distributor
MDF. Market Development Funds
Co-op. Co-operated funds
Channel Conflict. Resellers and/or vendor compete for same sale
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Note
• My slides will have a lot of density
– Not because it makes for the best slide…
– But because it will be easier for you to remember what was
said when you want to transfer this information to team
members who couldn’t attend
• Prepare for a high speed delivery
– Take quick notes
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Three Phases
1. Definition Stage
– Determining the elements of your reseller partner program
2. Recruiting
– Finding enough of the right kind of resellers
3. Enablement
– Ensuring they have everything they need to sell & support
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Training (product, market, competition, resources, certification)
Sales tools (presentations, demo scripts, e-mail templates, etc.)
Systems (content/lead portal, forum, deal registration)
Leads, model calls, coaching calls
Motivation (contest, recognition, news)
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Two Things Resellers Look For
1. Is your product competitive?
2. Can I make any money working with you?
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Do you have competitive margins?
Is there a lot of competition in my area/region?
Will you train me and my team?
Do you have channel conflict (direct sales competes)
• Deal registration
– Well prepared sales tools (PowerPoint, market info, demo
scripts, sales dialogues, content portal, etc.)
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Determined by your partner program
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Structure
– Levels, margins, requirements
• Sales Tools
– Portal site (bucket of content)
• Market info, competitive analysis, spec sheets, e-mail templates, white
papers, videos, case studies, sales presentations, brand guidelines, reseller
forum
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Technical & Sales Support & Training
Lead Generation & Sales Help
Requirements
Reseller Experience
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Have a free comprehensive spreadsheet at Chanimal.com that
shows all partner features. It can be used to compare your
program to others or make sure you cover all the bases.
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Structure
– Levels
• Authorized. No quota, no commitment. Low margin.
• Gold. Quota, plus 1st level certification. Medium margin.
• Platinum. Higher quota, plus 2nd level certification. Highest
margin.
– Why?
• “Shared” sales force. You want them to prefer to sell your product
• Help create dealer loyalty. To maintain their level, must meet
quota. If sell competitor—risk missing quota = increase loyalty
• Help you decide who gets any leads (highest level gets most leads)
– Concerns…
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Structure
– Concerns with levels
• Partners fear can’t compete if they have to come in at the lowest
level
• So, grandfather all new partners into the middle Gold level for the
first 90 days. Longer for a new program.
– Require they meet minimum training goals, some minimum revenue
• For a new channel program
– Usually takes about 6 months (depending on sales cycle) to determine
what the typical revenues for your best partners is—before you can
setup a quota range (or it is not fair)
• After you set the level requirements—then give 3 months to
transition before moving down, staying or moving up
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Portal site (bucket of content)
– Generic to start with, later it is personalized (unique content per
partner with their leads, their plan of action, their deals, etc.).
PRM application.
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Sample portal
– chanimal.com/vars/portal
– 43 page sample partner
portal with examples for all
of the content
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Defining Your Partner Program
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• Sales & Marketing Tools
– (Within Online Portal)
– Market information
• Which market segment uses your
product
Sales Presentations (PowerPoint)
Brand and Logo Guidelines
Graphics Library
Reseller Forum
• Helps resellers collaborate on deals
• Also see “Saga Consulting”
– Competitive Analysis
• Why should someone buy YOUR
application
– Product Spec Sheets
– Ad Templates (if you have any)
– E-mail Templates
• Proven e-mail samples to help them
promote your product
– White Papers
– Case Studies and/or Testimonials
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• These are most of the
“deliverables” to put together
Defining Your Partner Program
• Program Decisions & Policies
– Product Training
• New programs have low barrier to entry—free training
• Mature programs have barriers—paid training & pricey
certification (i.e., Microsoft, Salesforce)
• Typically free video training (Camtasia)
– See www.interspire.com (comprehensive)
– See www.planswift.com (over 80 free videos by topic)
– Dedicated Sales Rep
• Small companies – a given (only 1 – 2)
• Large companies—a perk to have a dedicated person to help you
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Program Decisions & Policies
– Reseller Tech Support
• Small company – not a big deal (not a lot of support needs)
• Large company – resellers need a hotline where they don’t have
to wait in que (especially if they are on site)
– Pre-Sales Support
– Online RMA (Hardware, n/a with SaaS)
– System Configurator
• Needed when an application is complex and only supports select
hardware (i.e., GE Security)
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Program Decisions & Policies
– Annual Partner Meeting
• Start with a Webinar. 2-4 hours. This will work for starters.
• Can grow to a multi-million annual event within a large
company
• The equivalent of an on-site national sales meeting
– New product introduction
– New policies, pricing, competition, alliance add-on products, etc.
– FAE Support (not typically needed for SaaS)
– Pre/Post Sale Engineer (not typical)
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Certification Program
– Designed to help partners
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Get up to speed on the product
Helps them make money from pro services
Provide better 1st and 2nd line of support
Better integrate with the application
Can be less rigorous with SaaS since the network is preconfigured. Still some major integration, import, setup, etc.
• Creates dealer loyalty (more invested)
– Tied to the reseller levels (Gold, Platinum)
– Program material decided after 1st 3-6 months
• Find areas of greatest partner questions, build it in
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Pre-Qualified Leads
– Always include it in your program (one of top things
they are looking for). Even if you only send 1 lead/yr!
– If you don’t have leads—then fix it (promotions,
website, referral process). Plus—SaaS sells a lot direct
– Internal sales doesn’t call out of a phone book, why
should external 100% commissioned sales people (paid
for by someone else) use one?
– Need a lead policy
• Ensure leads are followed-up on in a timely manner
• See www.chanimal.com/vars/portal for sample lead policy
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Deal Registration
– A reseller registers their deals with you (company,
contact, deal size, etc.)
– Their concerns (you will steal the deal)
– Their benefits
• Get exclusive pricing (better margin) advantage over
competitors
• Assistance from your sales to help close the deal
• Preferred pre-sales support to help win the business
• Promise that you will not call on the registered opportunities
direct, and will credit them if their accounts order direct
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Deal Registration
– Your Benefits
• You will know what is coming down the pipeline for sales
forecasting
• You can elect to work with them to win the largest bids
• You don’t have as much channel conflict (when two sales
people (resellers or vendor) compete for same business)
• Increases margins for all – since you “selectively” reduce the
chance of competition from your own partners
– Policy details
• See chanimal.com/vars/portal for sample
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Front end discounts
– Often part of deal registration
• Back end discounts
– Rebates, promotions
• Bid desk
– Important if you have enterprise applications that
integrate with other systems
– The bids may get too complex for dealers initially, but
they will learn
– Not important for non-complex applications
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Reseller Locator
– Some contacts want to ensure local support and will look
for local resellers to order from
– Having them e-mail or call eliminates benefit of 24/7
self-serve
– Start with a graphical map of partners
– Move toward a zip-code look up as you get more
partners
– Partners like to see their name on your website
– Guard with a “re-direct” script if worried about
competitor’s recruiting your partners (I would)
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Defining Your Partner Program
• NFR (Evals n/a – applies to hardware)
– Discounted “Not for Resale” copies--”access with SaaS”
– Resellers are NOT your end users
– Know what they use, sell what they know, so get them to use your
software
– Should be treated just like your existing sales people
• Do you charge your existing sales people to use and get to know your
software?
– Can be free and used as BAIT to recruit resellers—especially if they
can benefit from your software
– Always have a value attached (then promote FREE for recruiting)
• What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly
– Additional copies/access often discounted (COG)
• $5 - $10. 70% of resellers used. $31% used.
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Joint Reseller Promotions
– MDF (Market Development Funds)
• Must have a policy (see chanimal.com/vars/portal)
• Used for regional promotions usually proposed by partners
– Trade show in their region
– Joint mailing
– Other items they may propose
• You can pick and choose which you will participate in
– Co-Op (co-operative funds)
• Usually accrued as a percentage of sales
• Not preferred, since often have less control of usage
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Requirements
– Register
• Ensure you get enough information to “profile” them later
• Size, vertical markets, # sales people, certifications, etc.
• One of my companies is paying over $38k just to “re-profile” all
their partners since they captured little on the application
– Will use this information to map the characteristics of the most
successful to recruit more just like them
– Helps to know their vertical coverage
– Qualify as a VAR (only if want a barrier)
– Purchase from an authorized Distributor
• Trick question. Designed to stop end-users and competitors from
trying to find out more. Has phone # to bypass
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Requirements
– Required Business Plan
• Actually, it is a plan of action. One promotion per month for 1st
3 months to ensure proactive activity
– Reseller Agreement
• Chanimal.com has a lot of samples
• Covers independent status, right to use logo, termination clause
– Sales Quotas
• For gold or platinum levels
• Determine within 3-6 months
• Need to first know what is “possible” for resellers or may set it
too low or too high
• Setup a ramp up period to achieve
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Reseller Experience
– How easy are you to do
business with?
– Pre-Sign up phone number
• Salesforce.com – a PAIN
• Linksys – record 7 calls
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Grid of program details
Ease of registration
Timely response for approval
Automated e-mail response
Perceived lead-gen capability
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Defining Your Partner Program
• Reseller Sign-Up Page
– “Basic” hello (won’t read)
– Program feature bullets
– NO product hype—already
convinced if they got here
– Link to grid of program
– Link to application
– Channel Mgr contact info
– Provide the information that
they need to make a decision
• Confused = No sign up
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Defining Your Partner Program
• SaaS Specific Issues
– Channel used
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Recommender program (45.4%)
Affiliate program (similar - terminology) (29.8%)
Aggregator (similar to a distributor) – combines SaaS apps (34%)
OEM – may or may not be private labeled (29%)
Uses a wholesale distributor (Ingram, Tech Data, etc.) (9.7%)
Have resellers (41% have, 11.4% expect to – 52% )
• 48% of SaaS surveyed got 20+ % revenues via channel
• 80+ % of revenue via channel from many non-SaaS
– Why?
* Percentages are from SoftLetter Report
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Defining Your Partner Program
• SaaS Specific Issues
– Reseller margins (% paid)
• 60% pay 1-15% margin
• 19% pay 16-30% margin
• 21% pay more than 40% margin
• The margin for desktop/enterprise is typically 20-50%
– Note: Even though they get a higher % discount off MSRP, they
often discount their bids
– “Street price” is discounted—at their expense, not the vendors, so
the margin they get is actually less (depending on how aggressive
they bid)… helps you to “sell” a lower margin
* Percentages are from SoftLetter Report
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Defining Your Partner Program
• SaaS Specific Issues
– Even with lower “guaranteed” margins…
• VAR, Integrators and Consultants still expect to make a majority of
their revenues via professional services (better be some)
– Training, configuration, integration with backend systems
• Don’t assume they aren’t as technical as your team (mistake)
– Often MUCH more technical and can integrate better & on-site
– Concerns of resellers with SaaS
• Who “owns” the account?
– SaaS vendor owns account activity (need to make it transparent to partner)
– VAR should still make revenue off training, integration, support
– Need to have some feeling of ownership, or won’t support their sale
• How do they get paid?
* Percentages are from SoftLetter Report
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Defining Your Partner Program
• SaaS Specific Issues
– How are resellers paid?
• Issue – same internal and external (should be alignment)
• Question:
– If a sales person needs an extra $1,000 to make a house payment
and he has the option to sell a $10,000 desktop application ($1,000
commission) versus a $12,000 SaaS application ($100 per month)
– Which is he going to push?
* Percentages are from SoftLetter Report
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Defining Your Partner Program
• SaaS Specific Issues
– How are resellers paid?
• That’s a fundamental problem with selling SaaS—it is like the car
insurance industry and takes awhile to build residual income
• So… the transition to adding SaaS products to the resellers line card
usually occurs alongside traditional sales (or sales “may” starve)
• The sales person (where the rubber meets…) can’t cash flow the
company – via the SaaS product
• So… the SaaS product often get’s undersold
• However, an advantage of SaaS is that the sales and implementation
cycle (with associated pro services) should be shorter (because of the
lower initial payment), so it is a HEDGE product and brings in quicker
and more stable income—so it should be part of their mix
(period—makes good business sense)
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Defining Your Partner Program
• SaaS Specific Issues
– How are resellers paid?
• An advantage of SaaS
– The sales and implementation cycle (with associated pro services)
should be shorter (because of the lower initial payment price, plus
much of it is pre-configured remotely)
• Reseller’s may not know the advantages– it has not been their
model
• Part of your challenge and messaging is to educate them
• Most of my SaaS companies contribute to the overall SaaS
market development – have presentation slides that show the
advantage of SaaS along with product specific slides
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Defining Your Partner Program
• SaaS Specific Issues
– How are resellers paid?
• Since selling SaaS via the channel is a similar problem to selling
SaaS internally, let’s look at the approaches
• Rule: Align your commission with your sales objectives
• Current “inside sales” practices (SoftLetter SaaS report):
Payout Schedule
1-5 Million
5-10 million
10-100 million
100% Up Front
28%
36%
50%
Pro-rated over Life
21%
27%
11%
Part Up Front, Rest Pro-Rated
28%
18%
17%
* Won’t equal 100% (balance is a combination)
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Defining Your Partner Program
• SaaS Specific Issues
Payout Schedule
1-5 Million
5-10 million
10-100 million
100% Up Front
28%
36%
50%
Pro-rated over Life
21%
27%
11%
Part Up Front, Rest Pro-Rated
28%
18%
17%
– Appears the more revenue, the quicker the sales people get paid (cash flow?)
(Salesforce is an exception—but we can’t always follow them (unless we create
similar brand preference))
– We want sales people to sell it – so we have to compete with desktop (align
commission with desired behavior)
– Also want them to have advantages of residual, and service the accounts residually
(more integration, keep accounts satisfied, sign up more users) – or they won’t want
to talk to or help manage the accounts (like a car insurance agent)
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Defining Your Partner Program
• SaaS Specific Issues
– Creative options? Recommendations?
• Dependant on YOUR financing and cash flow
• Dependant on your residual cancelation rate
• Depends on how long existing resellers have been selling SaaS products (can
they cash flow the delayed pay)
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SalesForce.com
• Largest SaaS company (over $1 billion). Interviewed
Steve Lucas, SVP of Force.com & Alliances
• Two programs
– Referral
– Consultant
• How many?
– 6,200 global (3,500 US) referral partner companies
– 550 consulting partner companies (these are typically
VARs and System Integrators). Do integration services
and training
– Thousands of independent consultants
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SalesForce.com
• Comparisons
– Salesforce.com has 6,200 referral, 550 VARs/SI’s (1
billion company)
– Intuit has 36,000 referral partners ($100 million revenue
(out of $1 billion company)
– Microsoft claims over 20,000 resellers
• Referral is their Affiliate program (tried to
differentiate—not much difference)
• How much do they pay?
– Consultants – most are also referrers
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SalesForce.com
• How much do they pay?
– Pay referrals 10%
– Justified it as, “Guaranteed” margin. Any discounting
would come from the company’s portion (but would only
make 10% of sales price)
• How do they pay?
– Based on whatever revenue comes in over the FIRST year
only. Said they were always looking to change that.
• Complex: Month to month, year to year, multiple year (challenge)
– Didn’t ask payment method (check, direct deposit, PayPal,
etc.)
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SalesForce.com
• How do they pay? (cont…)
– Didn’t ask about who closes for second year
– Referrers have to REGISTER a referred deal within their
partner portal to get credit
– Didn’t ask if they also track links via cookies, etc.
• When do they pay?
– 45 days after the end of the QUARTER
• Could be as long as 4 ½ months later for deals referred at the
beginning of a quarter
– Pay on whatever is paid to them within that time frame
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SalesForce.com
• How much do they pay inside sales?
– Wouldn’t say 
• How often do they pay inside sales?
– Wouldn’t say exactly, but said that it is aligned very closely
to how, when and over the same time frame as the channel
• They “double pay” (but don’t consider the lead sold)
– Pay the affiliate (referrer) for the LEAD. Some come hot,
some come colder—only pay for closed deals. Dependant
on Salesforce to close (even if you could do a better job)
– Pay inside sales per SALE (closing the lead)
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Assessment
• I see a LOT of mistakes
– Larger companies can make these mistakes (i.e., Microsoft packaging,
ads, etc.)—but you can’t afford to
– They already have momentum and brand preference—you may not
– Leaving themselves open to a more competitive partner program
• I have taken down similar players that had better products, by recruiting away their
resellers with a better program (make more money—go figure!)
– Standard “affiliate” fee is 10-15% so that is not too far off (for an
affiliate)
– Don’t reward partners that could close the deal themselves (and make
the inside sales commission—wouldn’t cost them more). Paying for
just a referral—neglecting some good closers (some that have great
existing relationships in corporate accounts)
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Assessment
• I see a LOT of mistakes
– Paying up to 4 ½ months later—that is SIMPLE, but it is also not the
way to motivate the channel (sales)
• Doggy does trick, doggy gets bone (4 ½ months later?). You’re kidding!!
– Most affiliate programs pay every 30 days on whatever has
come through by that time
– The closer the pay is to the results—the more motivated the
sales rep is to produce more sales
• One of my companies said, “My sales reps are not motivated by the
commission.” They paid almost exactly the same way (4 weeks
after the quarter (not 6). We switched it to payment 2 weeks after
the check arrived—and they were HIGHLY motivated!!
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Assessment
• I see a LOT of mistakes
– They only pay over the FIRST year
• Simple, easy to understand, but…
• Does not encourage ANY localized “service” the first year (i.e.,
don’t call me with how slow your system is—call them (I don’t get
paid for anything past the first year so I can’t support you)
• Does not encourage mult-year deals (pay for behavior)
• Does not follow the insurance industry residual sale model to
encourage partners to stay with you for years (so they don’t loose
future revenues)
• Unless more is paid up front (not in their model), then partners
have deferred pay by “selling” SaaS—with the hopes of making
more over the long haul. Partners are not aligned with the
companies model—interesting to see the results
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Assessment
• Overall
– Said they looked at a lot of other partner programs but
wanted to be innovative and simple
– Innovation for its own sake is not always the best model
– I’ve seen “simple” sales comp plans, and the sales team
(channel) has to understand it—but some simple options
can make it MUCH, MUCH more motivating--which
equals more sales
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Update
• New VAR Program – Very basic, needs refinement
• Pros
– Residual revenues on new accounts, plus existing “if” they setup new
accounts
– Residual for ongoing renewals
– Reseller portal (sales and marketing tools)
• Cons
– Auto approval – competitor’s can step right in, need to qualify
– No levels (no minimums) – no loyalty, no segmentation (who do you
give leads to)
– Not capturing enough profile info during registration
– Requires certification ($5k barrier to entry)
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Phase Two: Recruiting
• Process
– Profile reseller type
• By vertical market, geographical region (US and International), by
technical capability, plus more (takes about15 to compile)
– Obtain list (strategy)
• Competition is my 1st Source – Competitive counterstrike. Pulled
over 800 off one competitor’s website (recruited over 150 of them
in 6 weeks)
• Alliances. Similar customers, non-competing vendor. Know
exactly which of there are best and can help you recruit them.
Formal alliance will give you list—otherwise hit their website
• Specialized list. CMP, SoftDatabase, The VAR City.
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Phase Two: Recruiting
• Process
– Obtain list (cont…)
• List brokers by SIC code (but want e-mails to start)
– Create prospecting and management database
• Salesforce.com (seem to have mixed reviews), Goldmine, Act!, Interspire
– Start contacting to recruit
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3 part initial e-mail campaign (I have samples at Chanimal.com)
Incentive is often an NFR copy/access (if your software can help them)
Phone calls
National road shows (with alliances (recruited 800 in 6 weeks)
CRN reviews, Ads, direct postcards, etc.
Hire rep firms
– Last campaign – recruited 792 resellers in 8 weeks
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Phase 3 - Enablement
• On-boarding
• Training
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Materials (sales scripts, presentations, templates)
Product
Support
Sales
Marketing – promotions
• Systems
– Need leads, approaches, prospecting tools
• Motivating
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Reseller Channel
• A 100% commission, indirect sales force
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They take all the risk
They cover their own expenses
Often provide their own leads
Can sell multiple competitor’s products
Must build loyalty to increase “reseller recommendation”
• So… should you treat them worse or better than an
inside sales employee?
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Reseller Channel
• Don’t complicate it – channel management “is” sales management
• The same rules apply for managing a channel as for managing a sales force.
For example:
– Would you hire a new sales person and then…
• Not train them on your product
• Not provide any presentation material, sales scripts, demo script, phone
dialogs, or have no model calls, no coaching calls
• Not provide leads, no systems
• Have no contest, provide no motivation
• Have no contact (for weeks/months at a time)
– No. So how come you treat your “outside” sales force with so much
neglect?
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How Come?
• I hear it time and time again, a vendor signs up hundreds of
resellers and then says, “My channel isn’t selling anything.”
• Yet your internal sales team is selling. Why?
• You are not doing anything with your outside channel sales
team. They are 100% commission and take all the risk, so you
neglect them.
• If you paid them all salary and commission—you would not
neglect them at all.
• Do the same thing as you do with your internal sales team,
and you will get similar success. Sounds obvious, but…
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Phase 3 - Enablement
• On-boarding
(Sample Chanimal On-boarding Checklist)
1. Approval e-mail (then CALL quickly – would you e-mail a new sales rep, or talk to
them?)
2. Portal Orientation
3. Product Overview (sales presentation (model call), not product training)
4. Explain 90 day promotions (tied to Plan of Action)
5. Follow-up
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Phase 3 - Enablement
• Training
– Same as you would do with inside sales and inside support
– Product. Detailed product training (videos, internet,
webinar). Start of certification.
– Support. Known problems and issues and resolution. Part
of certification.
– Sales. Sales scripts, sample presentations, public webinars,
sales training (prospecting, presentation skills, overcoming
objections, closing)
– Marketing. Regional promotions that work, SEO with your
product, joint promotions.
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Phase 3 - Enablement
• Motivating
– Contest (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual)
– Recognition (monthly newsletter)
• Do ALL the same things with your channel as you do with
your own sales team—and you get similar results. Seems
obvious—but companies get lazy, don’t assign resources, and
are negligent… yet somehow think it is fine to just hang them
out to dry once they bring them on board.
• Then they tell me that the channel doesn’t work for them—
when they don’t work to help their channel.
• “This” is Channel Management – not channel neglect.
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Channel Management
• Do ALL the same things with your channel as you do with your own sales
team—and you get similar results. Seems obvious—but companies get
lazy, don’t assign resources, and are negligent… yet somehow think it is
fine to just hang them out to dry once they bring them on board.
• Then they tell me that the channel doesn’t work for them—when it is the
opposite--they don’t work to help their channel.
• “This” is Channel Management – not channel neglect.
• It is the same thing as “good” sales management (which is NOT passive)—
just with an external 100% commission sales force.
• I ran a 350 person 100% commission sales force. Many were my friends. I
didn’t dare let them fail—they were taking a risk and trusting me—not to
let them fail.
• We need to do likewise with reseller partners that trust us, to help them
succeed.
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Summary: Three Phases
1. Definition Stage
– Determining the elements of your reseller partner program
2. Recruiting
– Finding enough of the right kind of resellers
3. Enablement
– Ensuring they have everything they need to sell & support
•
•
•
•
•
Training (product, market, competition, resources, certification)
Sales tools (presentations, demo scripts, e-mail templates, etc.)
Systems (content/lead portal, forum, deal registration)
Leads, model calls, coaching calls
Motivation (contest, recognition, news)
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Free Resource
• Chanimal.com – The Ultimate Resource for Software
Marketing
– Over 500 pages of software marketing and channel content
– Over 15,000 unique software and channel visitors / month
– Has templates, examples of most everything – all FREE!
• Plus, if you are not signed up yet—stay a day and sign up for the Channel
workshop. This presentation is a small FRACTION of what you’ll learn in
the most comprehensive channel workshop ever condensed into a single
day. Learn in a day what took over a decade to learn from building
channels for over 270 high-tech companies.
• Leverage the channel and increase sales!
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Thank You…
Building a SaaS Channel:
A Step-by-Step Approach
Ted Finch
President, Chanimal Marketing
www.chanimal.com
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