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Every year our State of Partnering survey* is inundated with mistakes vendors make as they are engaging a solution provider organization. Take a look at the mistakes partners submitted last year then look at the mistakes they submitted this year. Sadly, some themes come up over and over again.  

There are so many moving parts in a channel program. How do you know if your partner program is performing well? Do you just look at sales? How do you know if your partners are successful with your products or their businesses? Do you ask them? Just like we collect data every year on the State of Partnering, you should be collecting data on your channel program. The trick is, figuring out what is the best data to collect. We surveyed vendors to see what they typically measure and we also asked partners what's important to them.

No matter the product or solution, all companies must perform marketing activities and so must their partners. How are vendors helping their partners create successful marketing campaigns and how do co-marketing activities function? The answers vary from company to company and year to year. Take a look at the trends emerging from 2017 and evaluate whether any changes to your partner marketing processes might be beneficial in 2018 and beyond.

All channel professionals care deeply about partner program elements. Perhaps you're one of the channel professionals who spend weeks, months and years designing and re-designing programs. You benchmark the industry, assess your programs against your competitors and plot enhancements and updates years in advance, aligning training and certification with co-marketing, deal registration, co-selling activities and metrics of success.

We've all heard this question thrown around in meetings, video calls and Slack chats. Whether you're discussing ROI, KPIs, MDF or G.O.A.T., folks always want to know how they compare to the other gal. The partnering world is no exception. Knowing what your channel competitors and compatriots are doing with their partner programs may help guide your own programs.