Building a channel is not an easy task and there are many things what one has to think about when building one. I have had the pleasure to building channels for more than 20 years in enterprise software space, specifically in business intelligence,  collaboration, document management and integration software.

Today, when doing some preparation work for a channel related gig, I found an amazing link of a case that describes a successful channel development initiative and also some of the common mistakes that software vendors do.  The author of this article (David Skok from Matrix Partners) is definitely an authority in many areas (specifically SaaS related things). He lists a few very important points for software vendors to remember and I am now listing them here with some additional comments based on my own experience:

• You (ISV) have to figure out the sales model first and then using this to teach your channel. I have heard many naïve comments from ISVs where the management explain that “we don’t have to do anything, the channel will take care of that…” Well.. I have not experienced this in my 20 years…..
• Building a channel takes long time and ISVs forget that the channel has different priorities to what the ISVs have. The channel is focusing on products that are paying the bills and if you have not been able to demonstrate your capabilities to sell, why would they want to take the risk with you? I will never forget when a good friend of mine in California asked me once when I had become a CEO for a software company in the US and recently emigrated from Europe (from from a technology role). He asked me: “ How many have you Petri sold yet…. Call me when you have some stories to tell…”. I closed a few deals, called him and he was a man of his word. We closed large deals together during our collaboration. I had to show my friend that I could sell myself and show by example how enterprises would buy my BI solution.
• Resellers need ongoing education on your solution, how to handle objections and how to differentiate your solution from the fifty-nine others on the market. You will have to provide marketing material, PowerPoint decks, PDF White Papers etc. And please do not say that there is no competition for your product. Give me 2 minutes and I will list 20 for you….
• Do not expect your resellers to do lots of marketing, because they expect you to participate and expect you to pass some leads as well. You are expected to help in the channel demand generation efforts by working together with your channel partners.
• Try to identify a pre-existing channel that supports your solution or your solution can be sold as an add-on. Business Intelligence is a good example where you can sell a collaboration solution as part of the value-added delivery. When you do this, you have to customize your messaging in a way where the channel partner realizes that that your solution together with the other solution is more than 1+1, it is in fact 1+1=3.
• When ISVs build a channel and have an existing direct sales model as well, there will always be conflicts between the channel and the direct sales force. This can’t be avoided and if the ISV is committed to the channel, the channel will always come first. It is not easy and there are some rules that the software vendor has to apply. These rules will have to be emphasized from the top management of the company. Skok also states that one should expect the direct sales execs have an issue in moving to the channel sales model. Channel people know that with good channel management and right type of partners, the channel will give much higher leverage than trying to grow with direct sales.

These are some of the statements flavored by my own experience and I could not agree more with Skok on these. The good news according to Skok is that with the “right channel, the right people, good product/market fit and with lots of patience, the channel sales model can be one of the most profitable business models.” I echo with this!

Stay tuned for more in this topic and love to talk about it as I happen to have million different scenarios that I have been exposed to.