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Convey Micro-Cast Series\xa0

This is Carolyn Bradfield and you\u2019re listening to the Convey Micro-Cast audio series. \xa0

This week is our Halloween Micro-Cast series and we gave Freddy Krueger a shout out by entitling our first episode, the Nightmare on Channel Street.\xa0 We identified nightmares in the channel that keep you up at night, can ruin your channel program and destroy your revenue.\xa0 So many of you have seen the Walking Dead, that wildly popular series that has lasted for 9 years and filmed in the state of Georgia, Convey\u2019s home.

This episode of the Nightmare on Channel Street starts off easy enough.\xa0 Partners are throwing deals to you right and left, asking you for quotes and submitting deals.\xa0 But then the nightmare begins.\xa0 You\u2019re working way too hard preparing tons of quotes for companies that are just plain wrong for your services.\xa0 It\u2019s a nightmare because your entire channel team is totally deployed chasing deals that will never convert, partners are frustrated because they don\u2019t know which prospects meet your standards and your channel is being sucked into a never-ending quoting nightmare.

What looked like good deals are the now the \u201cwalking dead\u201d.\xa0 How can a channel program hold off those zombies and get deals that will actually convert?\xa0 If you want to survive this episode, here is what you can do.

Make sure that sales partners have a clear understanding of your ideal customer profile.

If partners are sending prospects over to you and asking for quotes that never produce a deal, whose fault is it really?\xa0 I\u2019ve seen many channel programs complain about the wasted time in quoting bad deals, but not enough programs accepting that they were ones at fault because they never educated the partner on what types of customers are ideal for them.\xa0

Partners need to understand what markets you are strongest in, the size of the company that is right for you, and what type of buyer inside that company you need to talk to.\xa0 Convey had a vendor that was getting absolutely no traction with partners for their hosting solution.\xa0 When we explored the type of customers they already had, we found out that 65% of them were healthcare organizations because of the HIPAA-compliant platform the company had.\xa0 However, their healthcare market focus was never shared with partners, so they had no idea where to focus their efforts.\xa0 Once partners were educated, the right deals began to flow through.

Make sure your program has a clear understanding of the ideal partner you want to represent you.

Not every partner that is out there has the customer base, technical expertise, or sales capacity to sell services, yet many channel programs cast a wide net then wonder why they are either ignored by partners or get the wrong referrals.

Convey\u2019s Channel program has over 23,000 sales partners that belong to 40 master agent portals but trying to influence and form relationships with all of them when selling your services that are only appropriate for some of them is a recipe for frustration and un-met expectations on both sides.

And lastly, clearly define the rules of engagement for deal referral or getting a quote.

Partners like a clear understanding of process.\xa0 They have hundreds of vendor choices and if they are not clear about how to refer, how to ask for a quote, what information you want, and who to deliver it to, they will make up their own process.\xa0 Consider formalizing your referral and quoting process by creating forms to add the information you care about.\xa0 Set partners expectation about what you plan to do once you get their information so everyone is on board and on the same page.

Referrals and quote requests from partners don\u2019t have to join the army of the Walking Dead if you ensure that partners know what the ideal cus