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Use Partners to Crush CX

01.25.23

3 Reasons to Engage Partners in Customer Success

We all know that customer success is important. If customers aren’t successful using your products, they’re not going renew their subscription let alone grow their footprint. As soon as they hit ‘cancel,’ the investment you made in landing that customer vanishes. In our recent study we highlight several ways to engage partners in customer success motions.

Topics: Channel Best Practices

3 Ways to Engage Partners in a Subscription Model

01.26.22

As we continue to move into a digital age in which individuals are comfortable researching and buying online, a transition accelerated by the Coronavirus pandemic, the buying journey has become non-linear. A potential customer may read a review, ask a friend, then browse the web before ultimately purchasing online (without consulting any sales professionals or entering a store).

Topics: Channel Best Practices, Industry Perspective

How Partner Business Models and Activities are Changing

03.10.21

10 Effects of the Global Pandemic on the Channel

How are the people who design, recommend, resell, integrate, support and manage technology solutions doing in the global pandemic? We conducted a survey of solution providers at the end of 2020 and asked how their business had been impacted by the pandemic with options of 'increased, decreased or stayed the same.' Their answers provided the basis for our recent report “10 Effects of the Global Pandemic on the Channel.” At a glance, see the effects we identified.

Topics: Channel Best Practices, Industry Perspective

Partnering is Personal

02.24.21

Partner Relationships Need a Personalized Touch, Even When You’re Not In-Person

In our recent channel chief virtual roundtable, we asked leading technology channel executives what was keeping them up at night. Surprisingly, it wasn’t partner sales, additional enablement, driving customer adoption or even the plethora of small solution providers teetering on the edge of a pandemic-fueled extinction. What they were most worried about is the damage social distancing has done to their ability to nurture relationships with their partners. Without a plane flight and dinner meeting with a partner, how do you make sure your relationship remains positive and prosperous?

Partnering is personal and the pandemic has hampered relationships in a myriad of ways. We can’t safely break bread inside our favorite bistro or shake hands to solidify our agreement to invest and grow together. But beyond physical touch, creating a personal relationship with partners means personalizing how you do business.

Topics: Channel Best Practices, Industry Perspective

Tips for Virtual Partner Events - Conference & Council

01.21.21

Lessons from a virtual road warrior

I attend a lot of events. I’m usually crisscrossing the globe between partner summits, partner advisory boards, sales kick-off meetings and industry conferences. I’m one of the weirdos that actually misses large gatherings. No, I don’t miss the conference chicken or sitting in a freezing cold dark hall. I miss the energy of a packed room, the chitchat with people sitting around you before and after the sessions and catching up with friends and colleagues. The many virtual events I’ve attended in the last six months have left me, and others, wanting – but not all for the same reasons.

Topics: Channel Best Practices, Industry Perspective

5 Predictions for 2021

01.07.21

Welcome to 2021! Boy am I excited to see the calendar turn over. There’s been so much up and down in the news for the last nine months I can barely keep track. The pandemic that ravaged the world medically and financially also accelerated five of the six buyer trends changing IT channels we predicted back in December 2019:

Topics: Partnering Tips, Channel Best Practices, Industry Perspective

Partner Recruitment: Profile customers to find your partners

08.19.20

Recruit partners like you would a customer. Attract and nurture.

By Diane Krakora, CEO of PartnerPath

You would be amazed at how many people call us every month to help them with partner recruitment. On the one hand, it's usually companies who see the value in leveraging the channel to grow their business (awesome!). On the other hand, I sometimes think they want me to hand them a top-secret document and say, "Shh, here's the magic list of partners for you. Go call them." But calling a list of partners to recruit them into your program not only wouldn't work, it wouldn't be a good partner experience. And a good first impression once lost is lost forever. You might lose the opportunity to work with some great solution providers. Plus, there's no top-secret list.

Topics: Featured, Channel Best Practices

Vendors, Fix Your Mistakes

11.20.19

What mistakes are vendors making with their partner ecosystem?

A major data point driving home MAKE FEWER MISTAKES is the list of open-responses from partners* detailing mistakes vendors make as they are engaging a solution provider organization. Direct from partners, the submissions center around three themes again this year:

Topics: Channel Best Practices, Industry Perspective

Fostering the Partner Ecosystem

10.30.19

The primary goal of vendors focused on recruiting and onboarding partners is to identify and engage new types of partners. These are organizations that aren’t traditional IT solution providers and yet have influence in cloud-based technology solution purchases. Jay McBain of Forrester calls them shadow channels as they aren’t engaging with customers or vendors in the traditional way. We at PartnerPath take a bit more positive nomenclature and call them next-generation channels.

Topics: Channel Best Practices, Industry Perspective

3 Cloud Considerations

10.16.19

The Roles of Enablement, Spending and Distribution in a Cloud Sales World

 

Does enablement ever end?

Enablement is a key tenet to partner success. Both the vendors* and the solution providers* want to invest in enablement. The better trained a partner is the more they design effective solutions to customer needs, produce differentiated marketing campaigns, accurately position the products and troubleshoot issues. Enablement is really a win-win for all sides – vendor, partner and customer.

Topics: Channel Best Practices, Industry Perspective