Trip to Ireland, England and Scotland - February 15, 2016

Leaving on Feb 15th for an epic roadtrip through Ireland, England and Scotland. 3,000 miles planned with Michelle, Brooklyn and Cali across the entire United Kingdom and Ireland!

Sites to see:

England		Ireland		Scotland
Buckingham Palace		Dublin		Glasgow City Chambers
Big Ben		Belfast		Edinburgh Castle
Tower of London		Wild Atlantic Way		Inverness
London Eye Ferris Wheel		English Market - Cork		St. Andrews Golf
Wimbledon		Guiness Storehouse		McBain Park
Stone Henge		Cliffs of Moher		Holyrood Place
Liverpool - The Beatles Story		Killarney National Park		Falkirk Wheel
Nottinghamshire		The Burren		Urquhart Castle
Manchester		Blarney Castle / Stone		Wallace Monument
Windsor Castle		Ring of Kerry		Glasgow Cathedral
Hyde Park		Kilmainham Gaol Prison, Dublin		Kelvingrove Art Gallery
Trafalgar Square		Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork		Balmoral Castle
Shakespeare Globe Theatre		Old Jameson Distillery, Dublin
Royal Albert Hall
Harrods
Piccadilly Circus
Royal Opera House

Maps:

Itinerary:

 

ChannelEyes Launches OPTYX on Salesforce AppExchange, the World's Leading Enterprise Apps Marketplace

Industry’s first sales workflow tool designed for Indirect Channel Account Managers to close more sales, build partner loyalty and drive channel programs.

TROY, NY — January 27, 2016 — ChannelEyes, the leading cloud-based channel sales acceleration and partner enablement company announced today the launch of OPTYX on the Salesforce AppExchange – the leading enterprise app marketplace.

OPTYX is a predictive alerting, scoring and prioritization solution that helps channel organizations accelerate indirect sales by optimizing partner interactions based on data science. Designed as a workflow tool that runs seamlessly with Salesforce and other CRM systems, it automatically and intelligently processes internal and external data signals to help channel sales account managers work smarter, close more deals faster and continuously grow revenue.

OPTYX will deliver a 20 percent increase in rep productivity over managing with spreadsheets and stale reports which is the norm today.

The solution is a first-of-its-kind, self-learning predictive analytics engine that processes massive and complex data sets to create simple alerts and notifications that drive channel partner and alliance sales. OPTYX was developed by a team of top data scientists processing transactional, behavioral and big data sets from hundreds of data signals across dozens of sources.

OPTYX for Salesforce Key Features:

• Alerts and notifications generated from transactional, behavioral and big data sources
• Prioritized action center, driving next best actions for the channel sales rep
• Channel health score – easily understand partner trending and insights
• Partner interaction panel with an agenda of suggested topics, prioritized by importance
• Social climate and sentiment – understand the current universe of partner social feedback

“We are very excited to launch OPTYX on the Salesforce AppExchange,” said Laura Rotter, Director of Product Management at ChannelEyes. “It is the first sales workflow tool purposely designed for channel account managers - replacing stale reports, spreadsheets and antiquated indirect sales processes.”

It brings together the most important information about an indirect partner sales channel, and then uses data science to produce partner insights and visibility a channel seller can act on. OPTYX makes it possible to engage with channel partners and alliances in more productive and meaningful ways.

Internal and external data signals are leveraged to generate alerts and notifications; then OPTYX calculates and prioritizes the optimal order and assigns the workflow. The channel account manager takes action on the prioritized list and is assisted with detailed call agendas and partner report cards.

“OPTYX is modern way to execute the indirect sales process,” said Rotter. “The predictive algorithms and environmental analysis provide channel teams with the definitive knowledge on how to best contact their best partner opportunities. Channel account managers gain one day a week of productivity by not having to chase data for management and partner reporting.”

OPTYX is now available globally for vendors, manufacturers, OEMs and Distributors in all industries.

About Salesforce AppExchange

Salesforce AppExchange is the world’s leading enterprise apps marketplace that empowers companies to sell, service, market and engage for the Internet of Customers. With more than 2,700 partner apps and more than 2.9 million customer installs, it is the most comprehensive source of social, mobile and connected cloud apps for business.

Salesforce, Salesforce1, AppExchange and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.

About ChannelEyes Corporation

Founded in 2011, ChannelEyes is a global software company that is reinventing how vendors drive channel partner sales and loyalty. The SaaS platform includes ChannelCandy, the world’s largest mobile-first product for partners, as well as OPTYX, the first indirect sales workflow product to help sellers with predictive analytics and leverage big data science to drive more sales.

ChannelEyes has received numerous accolades for its technology including being named a Cool Vendor by Gartner and one of the fastest growing companies in New York’s Capital Region by the Business Review. Learn more at: http://channeleyes.com/

Additional Resources:

Learn from OPTYX Website: http://channeleyes.com/optyx/

Follow ChannelEyes on Twitter: https://twitter.com/channeleyes

Like ChannelEyes on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/channeleyes

Connect with ChannelEyes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/channeleyes

Watch OPTYX videos at: https://www.youtube.com/OfficialChannelEyes

Media Contact:

Jay McBain
jaym@channeleyes.com
(518) 417-4859

Cali Rose McBain born on December 29, 2015

Michelle and I are truly blessed.

Our fourth little angel, Cali Rose McBain, made her way into the world on December 29, 2015 at 4:57pm. She weighed 8 pounds and 11 ounces and was 20 inches long. She was born at Albany Medical Center in New York.

All of us are in so much love with Cali - she is so beautiful.

Our four beautiful daughters, Danica, Mila, Brooklyn and Cali:

Instead of words - let me tell the story in pictures and video. First chapter in the story was meeting Michelle in Raleigh, North Carolina on October 15, 2010:



I then convinced (tricked) her to move with me to New York.  :-)  She took me skydiving in Long Island for my 40th birthday and I surprised her back with a proposal at 10,000 feet!  Skip ahead to 1:22 if you want to see it:



And, we were officially engaged...

The wedding plans were set into motion and on July 4th, 2013 we were married in New Rochelle, NY with family, friends and furkids:



After the wedding, we set off on a honeymoon of a lifetime - visiting Casablanca Morocco, Cairo and Luxor Egypt, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Mumbai and Delhi India. It was a whirlwind, but we saw 5 world wonders - the Sahara, the Nile, the pyramids, Mount Everest and the Taj Mahal:

This is where the story of Brooklyn began. And a 9 months later we were so excited to meet her...



For Brooklyn's first birthday, we set off on another amazing trip to Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. This is where the story of Cali began:

We soon announced to world that we were expecting Cali (or Schmoo 2 at that time):



And about 20 weeks later, Cali's gender was announced with our friends Fran, Bob & Ben Godgart and family dialed in via Webex:

We couldn't wait to meet Cali...

And then, it was time - December 29, 2015. We arrived at the hospital bright and early and met with Dr. Clark:

As we neared 4pm, Michelle put on her game face:

And just before 5pm, we met Cali Rose for the first time! We were so excited...

We love you Cali!

Five Channel Trends to Plan for in the New Year

With 2016 now in full swing, I am preparing to speak at the 2016 ASAP Global Alliance Summit, “Partnering Everywhere: Expert Leadership for the Ecosystem,” on March 1-4 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C. Here are some of the observations I will share on the ever-changing technology channel.

We are witnessing a changing of the guard from a channel perspective. Fewer companies will fit the traditional reseller or solution provider label, as many have transformed (or born into) a recurring revenue business model around managed services, cloud, SaaS integrations,line-of-business, and vertical specialists.

The channel topped out at roughly 1,000,000 companies worldwide in 2007, employing more than 10 million people. In addition, hundreds of thousands were employed indirectly at vendors, distributors, associations, and media organizations. The deep recession of 2008 had a major impact and hasn’t bounced back the way most of us expected. While the broader economy is trending back up to 2008 levels, the channel continues to slide.

What is happening out there?


1. The channel is shrinking at an alarming rate: Recent reports from CompTIA and IPED show a current North American technology partner base of 160,000 companies (600,000 worldwide). It may sound like a healthy number, but it is down 36 percent since 2008 and continues to face 10 percent to 15 percent annual attrition for the foreseeable future.

Keep in mind the 160,000 includes a much broader audience than just resellers—it includes all kinds of consultants, coaches, etc. A more accurate number, including people who directly influence and resell hardware and software products, is closer to 75,000 (with half of those selling enough product profitably to sustain a business). Your future channel and alliance partners will be smaller in number, but more focused, specialized, and effective.

2. The channel is getting younger—much younger: Todd Thibodeaux, CEO of CompTIA, kicked off his ChannelCon keynote with several pieces of research. First, an estimated 40 percent of the entire channel will retire in the next 10 years. Yes, 4 in 10. Second, those retiring will be replaced by millennials. In fact, in 10 years, 75 percent of the channel demographic will not have been alive when IBM introduced the PC (and the channel as we know it) in 1981.

This generation grew up on computers and will be pursuing different business models than the traditional reseller models we have today. They will look more like vendors, with in-house development teams, software products, and intellectual property. In the future, strategic discussions with partners will be less about incentives and education and more about integrations and co-marketing.

3. The channel is small business, and getting smaller: Much of the attrition that I mentioned above has come from within channel companies. They are doing more with less. The average channel partner has eight employees, and 97 percent of them have fewer than 50.

With the rapid growth of freelancing (think oDesk and Elance), offshoring (Fiverr), and rapid software development (Mechanical Turk), many companies are outsourcing their own functions, such as marketing, operations, finance, and custom development. Vendors are looking at opportunities to help their partners with these functions and keep them focused on (selling and) delivering solutions for end customers.

4. Vendor numbers are exploding: The above trends have an interesting side effect—the number of vendors in the marketplace is growing at a surprising pace.

Channel companies are leveraging their deep industry knowledge with unique integration skills (across dozens of vendors’ APIs) and creating products and specific intellectual property to deliver niche solutions.

At one time it was called “value add,” but today partners are incorporating these ideas into new companies and products and then going to market themselves. These products have narrow addressable markets, and the need to find resellers will continue to grow.

I predict that in 10 years, the number of vendors will outnumber the amount of pure-play resellers. Start thinking about future competitive threats and how to manage co-opetition moving forward.

5. Influencers and connectors are becoming more important: Without naming names, our entire channel ecosystem boils down to a small number of individuals who connect large amounts of like-minded people. You probably know many of them!

For example, the North American IT channel has roughly 100 people that will get you one degree of separation from anyone else. These super-connectors are very different from one another—some are media, some run associations, others are vendors or distributors, others make a living on making connections for you.


Some things are clear...


The amount of noise and clutter will not stop growing. People buy from people they like. Economic scarcity is evolving into information scarcity. The network effect will drive winners and losers in the next 10 years. Start thinking about your network—do you have the right mix of influencers and connectors to drive your channel sales?

Seventy percent of all IT dollars are now being spent outside of IT by people that vendors and channel partners don’t know all that well. Sales, marketing, finance, HR, operations, and development teams are rapidly deploying technology, and it is forcing the channel industry to get smarter.

These trends are reshaping the channel, not replacing it. As with every other threat in the past 30 years, the channel will come out stronger, more nimble, and better able to serve evolving customer needs.

Happy Belated New Year!


- Jay

ASAP Info:

I will be presenting the session “Five Future Channel Trends That You Need To Be Planning For Today” 

http://www.strategic-alliances.org/page/sum16sessions, 

March 1–4, 2016, ASAP Global Alliance Summit “Partnering Everywhere: Expert Leadership for the Ecosystem,” at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland, USA.

Channel Industry Press Gets Behind OPTYX Launch By ChannelEyes

In the first 7 days after officially launching OPTYX, the channel industry press has really got behind the new platform.

We are very excited and want to thank each of the magazines for their support!

Read more at: http://www.channelinsider.com/tech-analysis/big-data-to-transform-channel-management.html

Read more at: http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/news/2015/12/channeleyes-keeps-channel-managers-from-chasing-data.aspx

Read more at: https://www.channele2e.com/2015/10/02/5-channel-partner-observations-2-oct-2015/

Read more at: http://www.channelpronetwork.com/blog/entry/channeleyes-announces-optyx-%E2%80%93-first-sales-workflow-tool-built-channel-account-managers

Read more at: http://channelline.com/2015/12/05/channeleyes-announces-optyx-the-first-sales-workflow-tool-built-for-channel-account-managers/

Read more at: http://e-channelnews.com/storydetail.php?ref=437964&title=OPTYX-Tool-Poised-To-Empower-Channel-Account-Managers

Read more at: http://thevarguy.com/channel-roundup/doyle-report-how-impartner-channel-mechanics-channeleyes-and-others-reduce-friction-

Read more at: http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/morning_call/2015/12/channeleyes-latest-product-could-double-business.html

To learn more about OPTYX, you can visit on the web at http://channeleyes.com/optyx or watch the video:

What Did I Learn After A Month Of Lifestreaming?

We are living in interesting times. The technology to track every step, minute of sleep, calorie consumed, and heartbeat is literally at our fingertips.

This blog pulls together two of my own stories:

1. Lifestreaming starting at a young age - keeping track of every penny I have ever earned and spent, scanning every document as proof, and digitizing every photo going back generations. More on that story here.

2. After 6 months of owning the Apple Watch, I can now give my official thumbs up on the product. I was hesitant at first, citing 10 reasons on why to buy it and 8 reasons why not to. More on that here.


Tools of the Lifestreaming Trade

First of all, I didn't go nuts on equipment - no blood pressure monitors, wearable cameras, audio recording devices, etc.

What I did use:

Apple iPhone
Apple Watch
Withings WIFI Scale
Sleep++ App
MyNetDiary App

This was sufficient to give me insight into every moment of the day, 24/7. I started on November 1st, and my primary goal was to watch and regulate my sugar intake (a day after Halloween of course).


What I Learned

Working in a computer related job makes it difficult to get to the magical 10,000 step count that every magazine and fitness wearable manufacturer seems to be touting. Other than some family walks and Black Friday shopping, the average is 3,851 for me. That results in 1.84 miles per day.

I use my weekly hockey game as high-intensity exercise. Averaging 96 minutes of aerobic exercise a week keeps me in reasonable shape.

I learned long ago that fitness is scientific. If you can get 20-30 minutes of high intensity workout, 3 times per week, you will be in the top 5th percentile in fitness in North America. This doesn't mean walking or warming up at the gym - it means high heart rate, deep sweat type of working out.

Using the Apple Watch 24/7, I can gauge heart rate every minute of the day. On the days I have hockey you can see spikes up to 200 beats per minute. This is beyond my maximum, but those games have me between 135bpm and 180bpm which is optimal.

I do realize that I am not lifting at the gym which isn't optimal - aerobic and weight training should be combined for optimal metabolism and injury avoidance.

Sleep is a critical component of health. Not getting enough (or getting too much) is not good for you and a simple Sleep++ App combined with my Apple Watch monitored every second of sleep.

I was pleased with the 7 hour 30 minute average but there were some 5 hour ones tucked in there. The quality of sleep was about 95% meaning I only tossed and turned about 20 minutes a night.

I also fall asleep within minutes of hitting the pillow which is great. November had me going to bed, on average, after 1am which is not ideal.

Now for the fun part.

By tracking every meal, every snack, and even every vitamin I take, some interesting results were produced.

I learned that tracking every bite ended up putting me on a diet - I only ate one desert in November which was Apple Pie the day after Thanksgiving. My original goal was to curb sugar in my diet and that ended up restricting my calories to 1,579 per day.

This intake is too low for a guy my size.

The app further breaks down food into dozens of nutrients and other components. Here is a sample of the daily averages:

The 1,579 calorie average drove 202 Carbs, higher than Atkins would approve of, but significantly lower than my normal. Fat and saturated fat stayed in an acceptable zone and protein was always in a good range.

The real stat I was after was sugar. Consuming 76 grams per day was probably half my normal intake and very difficult to do. In fact, starting my day with an apple, mandarin orange and banana already put me half way there.

The World Health Organization recommends 50 grams of sugar per day and I am not sure how to get there without cutting out fruit.

I am not sure the Withings scale has this completely accurate, but it did show a gradual decline in body fat percentage during the month of November.

The thing that is accurate is weight - take a look at this decline in November driven by a limited sugar / calorie diet with normal exercise:

I ended up losing over 10 pounds in the month. Not ideal as the target should be 1-2 pounds per week maximum. It was definitely interesting to see what a shift in eating would do while keeping other variables constant.

It is a recommendation that experts give - if you want to change behavior, write it down! In this case, technology did the writing down for me and having this as a constant reminder did in fact change almost everything I ate.

The question is whether this is sustainable in the long term. The technology is still a bit manual - having to record food and tell your watch when you are going to work out or sleep begs for human error.

These technologies will get better with time - more predictive and utilizing machine learning. Recording food by UPC code was slick, and there are now services that you can just take a photo of your food and someone else will determine portion size and calorie content.

All in all, a good experiment and I am excited to see wearable technology drive better nutrition and life choices in the future.

ChannelEyes launching OPTYX - Catch a sneak peek here

After a year in secret development, ChannelEyes is soon launching OPTYX... the first workflow tool built for indirect partner sales.

It brings together the most important information about your indirect partner sales channel, and then uses data science to produce actionable partner insights and visibility. OPTYX makes it possible to engage with channel partners in more productive and meaningful ways.

Replacing the spreadsheet, and sitting on top of the CRM system, OPTYX is a SaaS product that changes the game for indirect sellers. By combining different data sources, including transactional, point of sale, behavioral and external Big Data, this platform has the ability to predict, notify and prescribe the next best action with partners.

Find out more here:  http://optyx.channeleyes.com/

The Channel Technology Stack - Future of Channel Management

We have been witnessing an explosion of software vendors in the past 5 years. In fact, it has been the fastest growing segment of the technology industry and a big reason why the number of vendors will outnumber partners by 2025.

The go-to-market of these new software companies is very different than it was in the past. Before cloud and SaaS (software-as-a-service) industries became mainstream, software companies built foundational software which tended to have wide functionality and appeal.

For example, in heathcare, over 300 companies competed with Allscripts and GE for a slice of the EMR (electronic medical records) market. When Salesforce started it's meteoric rise in share of the CRM market, it also had about 300 competitors.

Once the winners started to emerge in each line of business (think Salesforce, NetSuite, Workday, Eloqua, etc.), a new phenomenon started around integrations and open API's.

This was the unofficial start of the stack concept. 

Layering highly targeted, narrow focused software tools together started to become the new normal. There was no way that wide platforms could optimize across different industries, geographies, segments, job roles and lines of business.

Example of Marketing Technology Stack:

Marketing, sales, finance, HR, customer success and operations were all early adopters of the technology stack. Channel and indirect sales groups have been laggards up till this point. The quality of software for channel professionals has been steadily improving.

With 72 key attributes of a strong program, no one piece of software can manage all the moving parts effectively.

A channel technology stack is a grouping of technologies that vendors leverage to conduct and improve their partner programs, compliance, revenue and loyalty. Often, the focus of channel technologies is to make difficult processes easier, and to measure the impact of multiple activities and drive more efficient spending.

The channel technology landscape is rapidly evolving, with dozens of different software technologies growing in an ever-increasing number of categories. With so many choices, it’s essential for channel professionals to have a clear understanding of which technologies are most fundamental to their business and program goals and to understand how technology can help.

The type of channel program you have will also impact which technologies you might find important, and how they should be organized. When assembling a channel technology stack, it’s important to know which technologies are foundational, and should be put in place first.

Here are some essential parts of the channel technology stack:

Partner Relationship Management (PRM) - Foundational software that manages the plumbing of a channel program. Partner management, portals, incentives, training, certifications and the like. Players such as Salesforce, Relayware, IMPARTNER and Channeltivity play here.

Partner Marketing Automation - The ability to score, nurture and have visibility to partner online behavior is critical to good channel management. On top of traditional marketing players such as Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot and Hubspot, there are channel specific options such as Zift Solutions, StructuredWeb and MindMatrix.

Portal and Content Management System (CMS) - technology that powers a partner portal, website, blog, or other relevant web properties where channel marketers want to engage their partners.

Mobile-first Partner Enablement - New mobile technologies that drive real-time communication, share selling and support tools, as well as driving partner motivation and loyalty are growing quickly in prominence. Companies like ChannelEyes are leading the way here.

Incentives and MDF Management - Focused tools that manage incentives, payments, compliance, fraud and ROI measurements. CCI is one of the leaders in this space.

Channel Data Management - Vendors that are generating mountains of transactional data are looking for new ways to analyze buying patterns, inventory controls and distribution effectiveness using modern data tools. Channel focused companies such as Channel Insight, Zyme and Entomo are leading this market.

Channel Social Media and Syndication - technology to monitor social activity, make social engagement easier and facilitate syndication of content is growing quickly as part of the stack. Companies such as Tie Kinetix, purechannelapps, ChannelRocket and Allbound play here.

There is a new part of the stack...

Channel Predictive Analytics, Data Science and Indirect Sales Workflow - ChannelEyes has developed the first ever Channel Sales workflow product that is based on advanced data science, business intelligence and channel analytics. It is called Optyx.

Replacing the spreadsheet, and sitting on top of the CRM system, this software-as-a-service product changes the game significantly. By combining different data sources, including transactional, point of sale, behavioral and external Big Data, this platform has the ability to predict, notify and prescribe the next best action with partners.

The average Channel Account Manager (CAM) is only managing 10-20% of their territory effectively. In fact, over 50% of their Executives fear that they are not calling the right partners with the right messaging at the right time.

Optyx changes that equation. It can watch EVERY partner with built-in algorithms that trigger alerts and notifications. I am sure a CAM would like to know if one of their key partners D&B credit rating dropped or another partner is on a hiring spree with a new successful practice just launched. What if a competitor just gave an award to one of your partners? Good information to know.

There are hundreds of data sources on the public web, however the most powerful information doesn't tend to be free. Even researching one partner could take a full day sitting behind a Google Search bar.

It isn't about data though. It is about action. Specifically, a CAM's next best action.




Optyx is a workflow tool that takes these alerts and notifications and translates them into actionable and measurable activities. Calling, emailing, social selling and even on-site visits can be prioritized based on predicted outcome and then noted and tracked in the CRM system, whether it be Salesforce.com or other.

Another powerful feature is the Partner Dashboard. Having transactional, behavioral and external Big Data all in one spot will make for informed conversations with partners and significantly cut down on the time and energy in tracking what a partner is doing and how they are performing.

CAM's report that 20% of their time is building reports for management and collecting information for partner Quarterly Business Reviews. This is now automated and that one day a week can go back to selling.

Long live the Channel Technology Stack!

Running a successful channel program is a complicated endeavor. Trying to do it with antiquated tools and gut isn't enough anymore. The channel is in need of advanced purpose-built tools based on the latest technologies such as cloud, mobility, social, predictive analytics and big data.

The Channel Vendor 10 Commandments

When you dig further into the relationship between partners and vendors, there seems to be an infinite number of ways the relationship can sour. In fact, CompTIA reported in their annual State of the Channel study that 60% of partners report that channel conflict is on the rise in the last few years, with 21% saying it rose significantly. 

Looking further into the research, the most common reason partners leave a vendor include high cost, low margins, constantly changing requirements/benefits, insufficient support and lack of marketing support. An astonishing 80% of partner firms said conflict affected their business negatively in the past few years.

There are many reasons for this increased conflict. The shifting customer landscape has vendors shifting go-to-market strategies from indirect to direct sales as well as increasing their services arm. Other reasons fall into trust and transparency issues - including not honoring rules of engagement, deal registration policies, sales engagement and territory violations.

It is time for a set of common sense rules for Channel leaders to keep in mind around their programs. Thus, the The Channel Vendor 10 Commandments:

THOU SHALT BE HONEST, ALWAYS

Being completely honest with channel partners is the most important part of building a lasting, trusting partnership. One lapse can cause irreparable damage and can halt a promising alliance in its tracks. Partners are a resilient bunch, and while it may be painful in the short-term, bad news delivered straight and in a timely fashion will usually be forgiven.

THOU SHALT BE TRANSPARENT

Trust is built over time through consistency and honesty. With so many moving parts inside a vendor organization and the ever-changing business dynamics, it is hard for partners to know what is happening. The best policy is to have open dialogue and share more than before. Partners run businesses too and will appreciate hearing the opportunities as well as the challenges. This can have a positive effect where partners may actually help with the challenges or suggest how other vendors solved them.

THOU SHALT BE PREDICTABLE

One of the most common complaints a channel has is change. Not change for the better, but change for the sake of change. Larger vendors are guilty of changing up their rep coverage on a yearly basis and the partners are forced to re-educate new people constantly. This goes for programs too - when the average partner has over 10 vendors, keeping up with the changes can be a dizzying experience.

THOU SHALT BE COMMUNICATIVE

Most vendors think that they over-communicate. However, when they bring together their partner advisory council, a different story is heard. There are roughly 30 communication vehicles that vendors use today including email, newsletters, phone calls, field visits, webinars, tradeshows, social platforms, etc. In many cases, these vehicles aren't owned exclusively by the channel organization and partners are bombarded by every division and perhaps every well-intentioned product manager at the vendor.

THOU SHALT BE VISIBLE

Pre-sales, post-sales and 24/7 technical support are now table stakes for vendors. Visibility also extends to the marketplace - partners shouldn't have to bear the brunt of marketing, educating and selling the vendor's products. Communities are everywhere, and vendors must participate in the associations, peer groups, tradeshows and industry media that drive awareness.

THOU SHALT BE FAIR

As noted above, conflict continues to be a challenge in the channel. A published rules of engagement that is supported by upper management at the vendor (as well as escalation and mediation policies) are critical. Not every situation is unique, and vendors need to  have consistent and predictable responses to conflict situations as they arise. The results could be positive or negative for the partner - but as long as they are fair and consistent, then cooler heads will prevail.

THOU SHALT NOT OVER DISTRIBUTE

Vendors tend to work on a pendulum when it comes to recruitment. Every other year, a new VP will come in and put recruitment efforts in overdrive without a proper go-to-market strategy and capacity planning exercise. Current partners will feel the encroachment and suffer further competition in their geographies. At least till the following year, a temporary reprieve when focus will go back to nurturing and development.

THOU SHALT BE CONNECTED

Partners need their systems and business processes to integrate better with their vendors. Giving partners a dozen passwords for every different part of the program doesn't make sense and will cause abandonment of the behaviors originally sought. Careful thought should be put into the channel software stack and to make sure the labor doesn't get passed to partners.

THOU SHALT ENABLE PARTNERS

This may seem like common sense, but partners would tell a different story. Building a channel program isn't easy - especially with the permutations and combinations of industries, geographies, business models, lines of business and partner types are included. Persona based incentives, education and motivation techniques are needed by very rarely delivered - and it causes unnecessary friction.

THOU SHALT NOT BURN BRIDGES

It always amazes me to see vendors sweep in a new management team and want to fire the bottom 10% of their partners without studying why they are the bottom 10%. People have long memories and the industry is smaller than you would think. Yes, there are 160,000 partners in North America (which seems like a lot) but when you look at merger & acquisition statistics as well as people changing jobs, those faces can come back to hurt you later.

The average channel chief wears about 10 hats and drives 72 functional areas of channel management, sales and marketing. Lost in this complexity are the core reasons partners don't perform and sometimes leave. 

More often than not, following these commandments will have a bigger impact than forever tweaking 72 parts of the channel program. Try putting this on the agenda of your next offsite planning session.

Channel: Building a Modern Go To Market (GTM) Strategy

A lot has changed in the 20+ years I have spent in the Channel. New technologies, business models, communities, demographics, communication vehicles and customer behavior have created a whirlwind of change for vendors and distributors.

The one constant is the complexity of managing hundreds of thousands of partners globally, each with their own unique set of business practices, target markets, customs and values. Channel Partners know that to be successful, they need to carve out a niche – whether that be geographically, technologically, vertically and/or business model.

We come from the dreaded triangle methodology of segmentation. Largest partners by revenue on top, followed by some type of regional midmarket, then SMB transactional partners and finally the unwashed masses at the bottom of the triangle.

Because of the uniqueness of each partner, this completely missed the point of segmentation. Trying to build programs, training, incentives and coverage for partners lumped together based on historic sales of your product was faulty logic.



Enter the Persona.

The ability to dig a little deeper with each partner and ask the right questions has produced some breakthrough wins for some vendors. That small managed services partner in the U.S. Northeast who sells to healthcare and specializes in security solutions looks very different than the box-pusher across the street.

Building the right persona based segmentation plan will group like-minded partners around the country (and perhaps the globe) allowing the proper program mechanics to be developed. Above the obvious benefits of higher partner sales, satisfaction and loyalty with this type of focused approach, it is also a major cost savings for the vendor. Billions of dollars are wasted every year in programs that are not targeted and don’t drive behaviors.



So the dreaded triangle has been replaced with a hodgepodge of personas – now what?

It is somewhat of a herculean task to go back through your entire channel and start classifying partners in a new way. Not to mention the workload in revamping the PRM or CRM system to handle the new segmentation.

The good news is that like-minded people tend to gravitate towards each other. Whether that is face to face in peer groups, digitally in forums or using social media, these communities are some of the best ways to define personas and actively build recruitment plans.

I wrote a blog about the size of the IT Channel.

We know that executives at ultra-large partners such as CDW do not tend to hang out with Larry who runs a small storefront in the strip mall down the street. Larry hangs out with other people just like him. Behaviorally, what Larry reads, what events he attends, and who he follows says more about him than the average questionnaire could gather.



Why are communities important?

Gartner Group conducted an interesting research piece where peer networking, associations and communities are the highest ranked ways that small and medium businesses learn, form opinions, and in the end, make decisions.

IDC reported the same finding when they were digging into healthcare. In fact, 4 of the top 5 reported resources for Electronic Medical Record (EMR) selection criteria involve associations, affiliates, colleagues, and buying groups.



With Google at our fingertips, why do partners choose communities?

During this time of growing “electronic ubiquity”, the need for trusted and expert sources of information has increased significantly. The amount of competitive choices for products and services, combined with vast information on the internet and endless buzz through social media, has created a scenario where cutting through the “white noise” has become one of the most important skills.

Communities offer a smaller group of like-minded people (perhaps even competitors), sharing similar experiences and challenges, the ability to collaborate and improve decision making. The feeling of belonging is strong, as well as the affinity of membership. There is a feeling that communities are more democratic as they are built by the membership, and participation is encouraged and celebrated.



Who starts these communities?

Tracing back some of the more popular IT Channel communities to the beginning, the sources are:



1. Connectors

Malcolm Gladwell does a great job of explaining the concept of connectors in the Tipping Point. These are people that you would recognize, even dating back to grade school, that seem to be the center of the universe. Another way you can recognize connectors is in a place like Facebook. You seek out this person, and they are 1 degree of separation from everyone in your school, company, neighborhood, etc. 

In the business world, many connectors have translated this skill into organizing and building a strong following. They have also recognized that vendors will pay top dollar to participate in these already established communities. There is also a feeling by these connectors of altruism, or “giving back” to the industry or geography where they do business. 

You may think that connectors are the most extroverted and charismatic people, but in reality, not always.

I recently wrote a blog about Paul Revere and the super-connector phenomenon.



2. Industry verticals

Several communities start as a result of a new technology or sub-industry. An example in the IT industry is Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Electronic Health Records or Managed Services. When the needs of a group are not being met by larger or non-related peer groups, new communities form organically from members as they branch out.



3. Traditional Media 

Trade magazines and event promoters have been quick to recognize the communities trend, and have formed powerful groups under their trusted brand. Having a strong subscription or attendee following, makes the transition to community a logical step for these organizations.

There are about 16 major magazines in the IT Channel. This doesn’t include technology derivatives (Print, Point of Sale, Pro Audio/Video, etc.), industry derivatives (healthcare, government, hospitality, retail, etc.), geographic derivatives (UK, Canada, Australia, etc.), and business model derivatives (managed services, cloud, mobility, iOT, etc.).



4. New Media – Social Media

The fastest growth of communities has occurred with the explosion of social media. Whether Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, or the dozens of other purpose built community tools, the cost and complexity to start a community is approaching zero. Many connectors started as bloggers who have built a loyal and passionate following.

Many bloggers have evolved into connectors and community leaders.



5. Distributors and vendors

The fact is that some companies get it and some don’t. Several organizations now recognize the power of communities and have built organizations around persona/community marketing. It is becoming more common to hear the title Chief Community Officer in vendor organizations. In fact, I could drop a number of names of the super-connectors in the industry and they come from this fold.

Organizing a community goes far beyond marketing and advertising however, with product development, pricing and programs all tightly connected.



How do these communities interact with their followers?

A dizzying array of new marketing vehicles have popped up in recent years. Traditional media such as magazines and events are very important in communicating to a community, but new media allows innovative ways to extend and enhance the message. From webinars, podcasts, vodcasts, blogs, tweets, Linkedin groups, to virtual trade shows, community groups are using as many as 30 different marketing vehicles to be pervasive within the group.

I wrote a blog about this new channel marketing phenomenon called Dandelions and Blowfish.

The challenge with these marketing vehicles is different than in the past. The main inhibitor to effectively marketing was money, today it is effective content and delivery. Many of the vehicles I mentioned above are free or cost very little compared with traditional media. Keeping content fresh, abundant and delivered daily takes resourcing beyond the marketing department.

Media savvy Executives who can keynote an event, tweet about it offstage, promote the message to the media gathered, and then write a blog about it later on is the new model for the future. Messaging that would have required triple-checking through legal a few years ago, needs to be just-in-time and delivered on a daily cadence.

I have always followed the mantra “be visible everyday”.

Finally, community members have very effective personal spam filters. Anything that doesn’t add value to the community will be rejected and have a negative result for the organization delivering. The old days of PowerPoints and product spec slides doesn’t cut it. Active selling into a community is an invitation to be ignored or kicked out.



Why are communities important to your GTM strategy?

Beyond the human requirements of personal interaction and belonging, communities provide tangible benefits to all involved. Unfiltered information based on common experience will always trump random white papers and case studies posted on the internet. The give/get relationships within a community inspire openness and, in most of the communities I have seen, a level of bluntness that is refreshing.



Some key advantages of communities:

1. Cost of entry low as compared to traditional media and other marketing opportunities. Very much a “grass roots” feeling.

2. Ability to communicate and receive value is high. Tons of touch points, combined with a high degree of passion.

3. Trusted source – community members have likely experienced your challenges, or will shortly. The feeling you can “steal with pride” best practices and contribute your own successes.

4. Ability to enter new markets or industries. Opportunities to network, build like-minded connections and potentially drive business development opportunities.

5. Credibility that comes with “member of” status. Make the affiliations and partnerships that make your organization seem larger and more connected. Getting published or quoted as an expert or thought leader is invaluable for your organization and personal brands.



What is the future of communities – and why now?

Based on the data from analysts, combined with the relentless growth of information available across the internet and the behavioral habits of people, communities will keep growing. Exponentially growing, in fact.

Specialization will continue to expand as well, driving more need for these groups and subgroups. There is an upper limit to the size of a community where the point of diminishing returns kicks in. The point at where coordination of the group and the generality of messaging outweigh the benefits listed above.

Smart communities will organize sub-groups before the fringe members go off and launch a competing community. The permutations and combinations of geographic, technology, industry, line of business, solution and business model specializations is endless.



Are you saying I should join thousands of communities?

No. Without some level of focus, you would stretch your organization too thin and not add value anywhere. There are, however, about 30 different master communities around the world that will give you access to roughly 80% of the total partner population.

As an IT Channel vendor, names such as CRN, CompTIA, Channel Partners, ASCII, Microsoft Partner Network, ChannelPro, Business Solutions Magazine, Vertical Systems Reseller, SMB Nation, ChannelE2E, ChannelInsider, SearchITChannel.com, Redmond Channel Partner Magazine, VAR Guy, MSPMentor, HTG, Connectwise IT Nation, Autotask Community Live, Microscope UK, ITEuropa, MSP Alliance, Channelnomics, Computer Dealer News, eWeek, ITWorld, Infocomm, ChannelNext, ITExpo, ITEX, Interop, Channel Visionaries, Channel Focus and Channelline should all be in your vetting process.

Go to Market strategies by vendors need to be highly-nuanced. New technologies, business models, communities, demographics, communication vehicles and customer behavior have driven the need for new thinking around partner relationships. Engaging on a personal one-to-one level with partners is more important than ever, understanding that their business practices, target markets, customs and values are different. 

The majority of channel partners know how to be successful or they would not have survived the 2008 economic meltdown. Vendors need to enable them to carve out their niche with the right mix of education, support, incentive and community support.