Author: David Blackman
Today’s work environment is one where customers, partners, peers and staff expect instant gratification. Perception is reality and if you can’t respond in a timely fashion, or your organisation provides less that expected levels of customer service, there is always a competitor standing by to eat your lunch.

I’ve always pitched work-life balance as being critical. But there are times when I wonder if it’s possible! The Laptop/PDA/Phone/Blackberry is the new boyfriend/ girlfriend/ spouse/ wife/ husband. You spend more time with your electronic communication devices than you do with your loved ones. We can be found on planes, in offices, hotels, café’s, or restaurants more often than in our own homes. More importantly, we also have our family and friends also vying for and requiring precious time. So how do we retain balance?   Read More

Author: Moheb Moses
In our last newsletter, we discussed the difference between Features, Benefits and Advantages, and the importance of being able to genuinely identify the needs of your partners (or end-users, if you happen to be a reseller account manager). In this article, we will delve deeper into this topic of identifying needs, and show you an effective consultative questioning approach that will help you uncover what partners really need, and enable you to deliver genuine benefits.

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that all partners want the same thing - margin, rebates, leads, support, etc. And it's easy to see why - these nearly always get raised in partner review meetings. But the real skill of the professional Channel Account Manager is to delve beyond this and get to the crux of what drives the partner's behaviour. And that means taking off your salesperson's hat, putting on a consultant's hat and asking the right questions.   Read More

Author: Cam Wayland
SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is a simple, proven and well used method of assessing a business, its resources, and its environment. However, most partner account managers would not think of using it as the starting point in a partner or distributor review, nor in the account development process.

This paper takes a fresh look at this simple yet effective tool by using two different approaches. The first is to do the exercise from the perspective of the combined vendor/partner offering (ie. a "Collective SWOT"), rather than the traditional internal management perspective. The second is by adding a “vertical focus” across the tool to create two sets of action items - "MAX" activities (to maximise Strengths & Opportunities) and "MIN" activities (to minimise Weaknesses & Threats).  Read More

ARN brought together six vendors and six channel partners for a discussion on profitability. Moheb Moses was invited as a 3rd party industry expert to provide his observations and feedback.

What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation with a number of breakouts focusing on major discussion points of the day. They include lead generation, deal registration and rebates. We also tackled the contentious issue of vendors recruiting from within the channel.

 http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/184684/partner_profitability/   Read More

Author: Moheb Moses
If you are a vendor, you probably already use a channel to go to market. But have you ever stopped to ask "why?"

For most companies, the channel has been in place for so long, it's just part of the furniture. However, an unclear vision of the role of the channel (and inconsistency within your company as to why you use an indirect go-to-market model) is in many cases the primary reason for a non-performing channel. In other words, the reason your channel isn't working may be due to the fact that you (and hence they) don't really understand what you expect of them.

This article examines the reasons why vendors use a channel, the different benefits that channels provide, and what you can do to build a foundation for a high performance channel   Read More