I worked for more than 20 years for a major US software company. First as a Regional Director and for the last 10 years as a Regional (North Europe) Vice President. In general, US companies like to think that their Sales and Marketing models work best everywhere, and their (strong) preference is that you take the US playbook and implement it in whichever country you happen to work in. The downside is that if it doesn’t work, they replace the people whom they deem responsible, resulting in high staff turnover and poor financial results – and then they do it again!
The point I am trying to make is not anti-US. I enjoyed those 20 years tremendously. My suggestion is that Routes to Market, often called Channels, vary from country to country, and what works well in one environment may not work as well elsewhere.
Basically, there are only three selling models:
- You sell directly to the customer, only using commercial staff who work for your organization.
- You sell indirectly to the customer, using staff who don’t work for you and who you don’t (directly) manage.
- A combination of both the above.
Almost all the successful commercial organizations I have ever come across use option 3 – a combination of Direct and Indirect Sales.
Choosing the right Sales and Marketing Partners:
And now we come to the difficult bit – choosing the right partners to represent your organization and your products and services:
In my experience, choosing the right companies to partner with is much more difficult than selecting your own Sales and Marketing staff. Suppose you already have good brand recognition and an established place in the market. In that case, companies will be queuing up to become your partner – not because they can add value to your business, but because they hope that you can add value to their business. If you have a new, innovative product or service, but are not yet well known, then finding partners is very tough, and the amount of “commission” you have to pay could leave you making a loss.
Silent Partners:
The usual definition of a silent partner is someone who provides money to fund a business but is not involved in the management of that business. Within Sales and Marketing, “Silent Partner” takes on a whole new meaning – they appear on your website, they make you look as if hundreds of other organizations support your products or service, and THEY ADD ZERO VALUE TO THE SALES AND MARKETING SIDE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
To add value to your business, a partner should have their own Sales and Marketing organization that is at least as good as yours, but generally, we don’t check that. If we take on permanent staff, we have an evaluation process, and that is what you need for Partners as well – Silent Partners are a waste of space. Use the Sales and Marketing Maturity Matrix to evaluate the competencies of your existing or potential partners before you waste more time and money
Norman Manley
Image by ImgSearch: https://imgsearch.com/image/curvilinear-pathway-in-urban-landscape-201556362
Add comment
Comments