This week, hosts Charlene O'Hanlon, channel industry editor & writer, and Diane Krakora, CEO of PartnerPath, chat about one the mistakes highlighted in our recent webinar, Top 10 Channel Mistakes: Set It and Forget It. And by the way, where did these mistakes come from?
Topics: videocast, Channel Best Practices
By Diane Krakora, CEO
In my last post I discussed what we believe are the top 10 mistakes vendors make when it comes to working with their channel partners. It’s a topic everyone in the industry tends to ask me – so I expanded the discussion to a recent webinar with Stephanie Sissler (at right), Senior Research Director, Channel Sales Strategies at SiriusDecisions. During our hour-long discussion, Stephanie took on each of the 10 mistakes, as well as a few anecdotes on what some of her clients are doing to help smooth the often bumpy road for their channel partners.
Topics: Channel Best Practices
08.24.16
By Diane Krakora, CEO
On a plane, train or even Uber I’m regularly asked, “so, what mistakes are we making in the channel?” Okay, so not just anyone asks me this question. But at any channel event or conversation with someone who is even tangentially related to partnering I rarely have more than a 15-minute conversation before this question surfaces. I typically call to mind this handy checklist of channel mistakes, which unfortunately hasn't changed much in recent years. It’s easy to remember them because – regardless of industry – most companies fall prey to at least 3 of these mistakes.
Topics: Channel Best Practices
This week, hosts Charlene O'Hanlon, channel industry editor & writer, and Diane Krakora, CEO of PartnerPath, chat with special guest Tim Harmon, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. He answers questions about his most recent publication, The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Platforms.
08.17.16
By Chris Smith, VP of Technology
PRM stands for Partner Relationship Management and is a critical set of tools for companies hoping to engage and empower their channel partners. Whether it’s family, friends, co-workers, customers, partners or the over-achieving neighbor down the street, all relationships are unique and above all, challenging. But the good ones, the thriving relationships, are built around these four things:
Topics: Channel Best Practices, PRM
This week, hosts Charlene O'Hanlon, channel industry editor & writer, and Diane Krakora, CEO of PartnerPath, chat about the 2016 CRN Women in Channel list. What's the relevance of this list and what does it indicate for the channel?
Topics: videocast
The following is an excerpt from our 2016 State of Partnering report: 10 Trends for a 2020 Vision, using survey responses from over 100 vendors, 200 solution providers and years of industry data.
As the transaction model shifts to the cloud and channel partners become more ingrained in developing full solutions for customers, they will develop more partnerships as well. We’ve been talking about peer-to-peer or partner-to-partner relationships for almost a decade. In the age of reselling in 2006, the thought was almost unimaginable. VARs only partnered with other VARs under duress – in cases when they needed to partner for the bench strength to service customers with dispersed regional offices. This year, nearly 40% of solution provider respondents reported regularly partnering with an average of three to five other solution providers. And 30% of respondents regularly partner with six to eight other solution providers. This is a 10% increase over just last year. And less than 10% reported they didn’t partner at all with other solution providers. In ten years, we’ve had a complete reversal of these metrics.
Topics: Channel Best Practices
This week, hosts Charlene O'Hanlon, channel industry editor & writer, and Diane Krakora, CEO of PartnerPath, attempt to finish off our ongoing conversation started through blogs and a recent webinar about the evolving role of the Partner Account Manager (PAM).
Topics: videocast
By Diane Krakora, CEO
How would you define your partner account managers (PAMs)? Are they reactive, fighting fires and responding to partner issues, or are they proactive, helping partners improve their relationship with your company?
If you answered “reactive,” you’re not alone. For so long, the role of PAMs has been just that, focusing mainly on onboarding new partners and taking care of the needs of current partners. The PAMs of yesterday were designed to be reactive in nature.
Topics: Partnering Tips, Channel Best Practices
07.27.16
By Diane Krakora, CEO
I was a Channel Account Manager two, maybe three, decades ago. Way back then, the role was primarily reactive and somewhat administrative. I recruited new partners into my territory, harangued them to a sales goal, ate a ton of bad pizza during “lunch and learns,” and chased stocking orders through distribution. Although the role of the Partner Account Manager has changed to a more pro-active business adviser to your set of partners, the underlying traits of a successful PAM haven’t changed much.
Topics: Channel Best Practices
