Customer Catcher™

By Martin Wales

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Shabby Marketing
Poor marketing is poor marketing. If you’re not doing a good job at it, you’re going to die sooner than later anyway. But beyond this basic truth, it is more likely a lack of pull-through marketing on the part of the manufacturer that retards the success of its own channel most frequently.

National advertising and PR must be consistent and continual for resellers to have the ability and confidence to carry and sell your products. In comparison, resellers do not have the resources, especially the money, to educate the target market or spend money on campaigns for product branding, recognition and awareness…in case you hadn’t noticed.

Poor Tech Support and Customer Care
There are two areas to check here. First is the support of the sales channel itself. How quickly and knowledgeably do you respond to your “Partners” issues? Not just for technical questions but for requests for sales and marketing support, i.e. brochures, Web site listings, and trade show participation.

Second, how happily and respectfully do you serve the customers of your resellers? While on the surface the help desk appears to be a cost center, it is really the best customer loyalty program going. If you’re getting too many 1st level support questions at headquarters, then you haven’t trained your Resellers well or, as mentioned above, recruited unqualified partners.

Unattainable MDF
Manufacturers Development Funds (MDF) that can’t be attained or used frustrate your partners and don’t help you sell either. Research has showed that on average 86 percent of MDF funds are never used. In fact, some manufacturers know this and actually earmark those funds for other projects. I would go so far as to say that a select few manufacturers do this on purpose to push the marketing costs down to the partners for reaching end users. This is ridiculous as resellers are not known for being strong marketers. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Lack of Communication
A software publisher that sends out an e-mail promotion to its database of software license holders without informing its resellers might cause some ill will. The end users who are really the direct customers of the resellers start calling in and the reseller is left looking uninformed and understandably embarrassed too.

Constant and timely communication builds better relationships. Yes, finding ways to get the darn resellers to read your e-mail is part of the challenge. Whether it’s your life partner or your business partner, why would it be any different for your sales channel? Most issues are the result of poor communication, so most can be avoided with good communication.

Sibling Rivalry
While reseller events, or partner conferences, are meant to be motivating and pivotal events, they can also lead to partner envy. Think of a Thanksgiving dinner when loving families get together and drive each other nuts! On one hand, I’ve seen all resellers treated alike so the leaders felt unappreciated. On the other, the less sizeable or less productive dealers felt under-loved too, when accumulatively they provide the manufacturer with a significant and consistent revenue stream.

Selling Direct
Oh…nobody does that. Do they? While it’s important to respond to the “huge” customers who demand direct involvement of the manufacturer or publisher, it is possible to involve and reward your partners indirectly. Get creative. More importantly have a clear policy, communicate it and stick to it to avoid the inevitable channel conflict.

IN CONCLUSION
Since I started with an expression, I will end with one. “Dance with the one that brought you.” When you recruit and build your sales channel, business owners and people are willing to work with you and have faith in your product. They may have been with you “from the beginning,” either as a company or for a specific product. That relationship has to remain a two-sideD contribution.

It’s a shame to be placing blame on the people and organizations called “Partners.”

Aside from our self-evaluation here, treat your sales channel with the respect and continued attention they deserve. Listen to them as much as you "decree" to them from on high. They are closer to "real" customers than you are. The channels remain the best source of real feedback and your future wealth.

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