Quotable Podcast Episode #46: “The Secrets to Successful Channel Sales Management” with Barton Goldenberg

Kevin Micalizzi: Today, we'll be discussing partner relationship management with Barton Goldenberg. Barton is the Founder and President of ISM Incorporated as well as a best-selling author, his latest book being The Definitive Guide to Social CRM. Welcome, Barton.

Barton Goldenberg: Thank you, Kevin. Nice to be here.

Micalizzi: Barton, for our listeners who aren't familiar with you, would you share a little bit about yourself?

Goldenberg: From Boston, Massachusetts. Currently living in Washington D.C. Married with two wonderful teenage children. I'm an avid blue-water sailor and enjoy all kinds of outdoor sports.

On the professional side, I'm 32 years in the area of customer relationship management. I've evolved with the industry and helped promote the industry over the years. We currently specialize in a concept I call delighted customer strategy, which picks up both the CRM component and some of the more digital components.

Micalizzi: Absolutely love it. I'm from New Hampshire, so right in your neighborhood.

I'm Kevin Micalizzi, Senior Manager Product Marketing here at Salesforce, and I'm joined today by my co-host, Lola Chenyek, Product Marketing Manager at Salesforce. Welcome, Lola.

Lola Chenyek: Hi, Kevin. Thanks.

Micalizzi: So Barton, I want to jump in. A lot of our conversations on the podcast — pretty much all — have been focused on direct sales, so it's great for us to take the opportunity to talk about indirect sales. But I know one concern that I've heard brought up by reps in the past is if you're going to have channel sales, if you're going to have indirect sales, you're going to take away from my ability to sell. I wanted to ask you, is there some truth in that or not.

Goldenberg: I actually don't think so, Kevin. It depends on the industry, but let me give you a couple of examples. In certain industries, and we'll call it industries, that are now being disintermediated.

We have industries like the travel agencies, where you had companies that were prolific on every corner, and now you have Expedias or the Hotwires or Pricelines that have really taken over those industries, and they sell directly to the end user. Or you take the book industry, with the Amazons that have taken over the bookstores, or the Apple computer taking over some of the music stores. Think of Tesla, the automobile company, that's now taken over some of the automotive dealership approaches.

So there's been changes in certain areas of the industry. Another one I think of is the whole hotel industry and how Airbnb has taken over that industry. So there you have a very different and an evolving sales model brought about through disintermediation.

But on the B2B side, particularly business to business, I think the disintermediation is considerably less, and I think it's less for some very good reasons. So let's look at who uses channel partners and why they're valuable today, and at least why, in my humble observation, they're not going away anytime soon.

So if you are, for example, a PC manufacturer and you're going to distribute through the large PC partners like Ingram Micro or companies like that, you need these companies to house the PCs, to manage the inventory, to be able to get the right product out in the right place at the right time and have the right equipment and capabilities to set it all up. So there's a value add that they're bringing well beyond the PC itself.

Or if you go to — let's just take the large chemical and/or oil and lubricant industry. The manufacturers of these products like to send product in big bulk, so very large containers. The channel partners then take those bulk containers, they break them down into smaller products, into sizes that are usable by the marketplace. The big oil companies don't want to do that business. It's not what they're good at, and it's not what they want to do. So they play this important role, if you will, of breaking up the bulk and then servicing the customer.

If you go over to one that we all know about, and that's restaurants. You often think, "How does food get into a restaurant?" It's not the Kraft Foods or the PepsiCos and so forth that deliver directly to the stores. It's the Syscos or the  US Foodservices or the Gordons.

And those are very important channel partners because they refrigerate the products. They make sure that they call upon the restaurants on a daily basis. They make sure that they're serviced. If they're out of chicken and they need chicken, they can run a quick order over there, or mac and cheese, or whatever it may be. So they play a very critical role.

If you go to other industries, you really are looking at the value add that the channel partner brings, whether it's a distributor or just a big partner, in terms of service, in terms of technical support. So some of the industries really can't do that on their own, and the channel partner adds that value.

And in that regard, if I were a sales rep, I wouldn't be threatened by it. To the contrary, it's an opportunity because you have more feet on the street. Because remember, the actual channel partners typically have a sales force, distribute to sales reps or channel sales reps, and they're selling the products as well. So if you're a clever sales individual, and I can talk about this if you'd like later on or no, but you can begin to manage the channel partner and you can get a bigger bang for the buck.

So to the contrary, I think you certainly have the potential to get more customers and you have the potential to make more money if you manage the partners effectively. If you're concerned about them and feel they're a threat, then quite frankly you'll probably do worse off, but that's an error on the rep side rather than on the channel partner side.

Micalizzi: Right.

Chenyek: You just explained a couple reasons why working with channel partners could help. It's a low-cost option. You can scale easily. But what are some of the ways that it might be challenging to work with channel partners? What challenges might people be facing?

Goldenberg: That's a great question. It's tough. There are many, many challenges associated with effective channel partners and managing channel partners. The biggest dilemma you have typically is that channel partners are almost always independent organizations. If you think about what that means is they're always looking after their own business goals, not necessarily the manufacturer or the vendor's business goals.

And so it creates a bit of a conflict as to every day when I get up as an owner of a channel partner or as an owner or a manager of the reps in that dealership or in the partnership: what am I selling and whose profitability am I maximizing, mine or the vendors? And so that's always a big conflict.

And it's a challenge just because the vendor would like the partner to be gung ho when selling their products all the time, top of the list, and the partners might be thinking, "That's one of X number that I carry, and so it gets my fair shake, but it's not necessarily my top of mind." That gets even more complicated, if you will, when you get to what are called multiline partners. So if you have an exclusive channel partner, you have maybe a little bit more influence as to what they might be doing, how they're doing, et cetera.

But when you get into a multiline partner that might include your product and either direct competitor products or low-end competitor products or high-end competitor products, then you have even less say in the matter. That's very often the case where you have the situation where the channel partner is not always looking after your best interest. They're looking after their own best interest. And so it creates a bit of a challenge.

There's another couple points that I think are important in terms of challenges. Given that they're an independent organization, you can't always tell them what to do. You can encourage them what to do, you can incentivize them what to do, but you can't tell them what to do. Whereas a sales rep, you can also tell them what to do if you're the sales manager, in terms of how you want to implement a strategy.

Another challenge in the channel partner side is they tend to be somewhat more reactive than proactive. A manufacturer, a vendor might say, "Hey, this is what I'd like to do," and the channel partner says, "That's very nice, and I have 15 requests from 15 other manufacturers that I represent. I'll take it into account," and they may be reactive to what you're doing. Whereas in a corporation, if it's your own sales rep, you could be proactive and take your own initiatives and do what you want to do. So there's a bit of a challenge there as well.

There's a couple ones that I think are very important that I'd like to also add, dealing with process in technology. A channel partner may or may not be willing to utilize the sales processes of the vendor or of the manufacturer. Let's just use sales pipeline management as an example.

The manufacturer may have a certain way they bring product to market. They identify leads. They pass them on to the channel partner. They expect the channel partner to follow up a certain way in the process. And eventually they're going to track the leads and so forth. And there's certain steps in the sales pipeline that the manufacturer or the vendor is expecting.

The channel partner either may not be proficient in the use of sales pipeline management or account management or contact management or national account management. So they may not just be proficient. They don't have one. They're not used to it. They sell in their local conditions their own way and they feel very comfortable. So that could be a challenge.

But you could also have a technology challenge. The channel partner may have their own sales pipeline or sales force automation system and they're very happy with it, and it works just fine. Now the vendor comes in and/or the manufacturer comes in and says, "Hi. The way we do business is we use this particular technology and we'd like you to use ours."

Now remember, they're an independent organization. They say, "No, we're very happy with ours, and we're definitely not going to use two. So why don't you begin to use ours?" And the manufacturer says, "Excuse me, I'm the manufacturer. I'd like you to use ours."

And so you get into a bit of a spat, and that can happen. I've seen that happen a lot where the vendor or the manufacturer imposes a certain type of technology or process on the channel partner, and the channel partner doesn't like it, or doesn't feel comfortable with it, or is not proficient, or uses something alternatively. And it ends up that you get more into almost a pissing match than you do an accommodation of each other. So that's a big challenge.

Then when we talk about the technology tools, the same type of issue. I've talked about, again, proficiency and the willingness to use.

The challenges, they're not unimportant. But properly understood and properly — by working closely with the partner through both understanding of what their goals are, what processes they feel are important, what technologies they're using, and then looking at "What are we doing? What do we want?" and trying to align the two, it works and it can work. But the challenges can be certainly large.

Chenyek: You're mentioning that there is a lot of competition with the partners. There could be other vendors that they're working with. They've got a bunch of different requests. What would be some recommendations or maybe some good examples that you've seen on how you might stand out among a bunch of different competitors in that space?

Goldenberg: Yeah, so that's a great question and it's another tough one. I'll give you just the classic example and you can work it out.

So in the old days, and particularly even up until very recently in the foodservice industry, which [is an] industry I know very well. Those were all the guys that delivered to restaurants and to cafeterias at universities and cafeterias inside buildings, to park services, to prisons, and all the food side of the house. The, what do you call it, the operators.

They would typically carry, a distributor, anywhere between 50 and 300 products. They could carry all products, meaning meat, the dairy, plates, and cleaning equipment. They could do it that way. Or they could carry just the chicken component, but there's 15 different types of chicken.

There's a high likelihood that they're going to have multiple suppliers of the products and services that they ultimately sell to the restaurants. So why would I push chicken over beef, or why would I push Kraft mac and cheese over some other mac and cheese? Because I can carry whatever I want. It's my business. Why would I do that unless I'm properly incentivized?

And so it comes down to a couple of things. One, aligning the goals of the manufacturer or the vendor with those of the channel partner. And in order to do that, that's typically your one-on-one meetings where you kind of have a powwow. You talk through "What are you trying to accomplish? What are we trying to accomplish?" And so you try to align at least the sales goal, the way you were going to sell, to whom we're going to sell, et cetera. That's one thing.

But then the channel partner can sit back and say, "That's great and I appreciate it and we're aligned. So how are you going to line my pockets above and beyond the other guy who's paying X% more than you're paying me?" Really, your channel partners can be crafty and very clever. Can be very annoying to the manufacturer and vendors because they play one off against the other, or they know what are the margins and what are the incentives that one of the vendors or manufacturers are offering and they're going to try to ante it up and discuss and get exactly what they want.

So how do you differentiate yourself? Typically, you'll do it through incentives and rewards.

For example, the concept of trade promotions — where you'll say to a channel partner, "If you advertise in this industry, or if you'd make promotions at a trade show, or if you go to whatever, an email campaign or a marketing campaign, we will cover X% of the costs." In that way, you are countering a little bit the differentiation of "I'm willing to help you more than the other guy is willing to help you, so you're going to push my products more than others." That's one way to counter some [other] thing through incentives and rewards.

There's been a big shift in the market though in the last five or so years where the manufacturer or the vendor has said, "I'm not going to rely only on the distributor, on the channel partner." Because typically you'll sell to a channel partner, and then it's the channel partner's job, at least in the old days, to sell back out, sell through down through the distribution channel: retailer, customer, end user, et cetera.

That's very dangerous. Because what if the channel partner really is not very good at selling through the distribution channel, or doesn't really like your product enough to push it? I've faced that time and time over the years.

And so what the manufacturers and vendors are doing today is they're not relying uniquely on the channel partner, which is a push, by the way. I, manufacturer, push my product through the channel partner, and then they ultimately push it down the distribution channel.

What the vendors are doing and what the manufacturers are doing is they're now pulling the product. And the way you do that is they're figuring ways of going to the end user — the retailer, the customer, the restaurant, whatever it may be — and they're creating a demand for that particular product, and then the customer is pulling that down through the distribution channel so when the channel partner comes to visit the particular customer and says, "I'd like to sell you X," the customer says, "No, actually I'd like Y."

They're like, "Why?" Because either they're getting an incentive directly from the manufacturer, so that's a possibility. I gather up the names of my customers, that is the channel partner's customers, and I work directly to incentivize the end customer to pull the product through the channel.

That's one way that the manufacturers are beginning to do this. They're saying, "Okay, we'll try to work with the channel partners as best as possible. We'll try to add the incentives that are meaningful. We'll give them the necessary technology so that they can get the leads and we can help them create marketing campaigns and help them track the leads. We'll give them all that we can. But we're not relying only on the channel partners. We're clever enough to know that that's the push component of a good marketing approach, but we also need the pull component."

So they're figuring out ways. These are things like private communities or public communities, social media communities, where I get my end customers to join. They're talking to each other. I sponsor the community. I get the name and the email of the particular end customer and I start to direct market to them. Now I'm pushing through the distribution channel partner and I'm pulling through the end user. And so we're finding that dual strategy more effective these days. These are some of the ways of getting around.

Then sometimes if it doesn't work, you basically fire the channel partner and you move on to another one. Depending upon the country and the part of the world, that can sometimes be easier, sometimes more difficult.

Micalizzi: That was one of the things I wanted to ask you, Barton. How do you go about finding the right partners?

Goldenberg: With great difficulty [is the] short answer. It depends on the market. I just use a country like Germany where it's very, very defined who are the wholesalers, who are the distributors. There are only so many, they all know each other, and they're all well defined. If you want to sell your product down particular markets, you have six choices or three choices. You either do well with those three or those six, or you're not going to be penetrating the market with your products and services.

That's a more structured distribution channel where you have channel partners that are very well known. They own the territory, if you want to call it that. And so you just have to work with them.

In other countries, and we'll take the United States, there's continually changing channel partner opportunities. Take the high-tech industry, for example. Look at the VARs, the value-added resellers, over the years. Those have significantly changed.

Think about in the old days when you had partners that would represent, for example, Siebel or [RM] Software in the 1990s or 2000s. Then you had partners that would represent Microsoft — that was a different set of VARs. You might have partners that would represent Salesforce or whatever the case may be. You have different changing technologies, and partners are better at certain things than others. And as a result, you have a changing landscape of the channel partners.

So how do you pick them? If it's in a structured country, it's very simple. They exist. You talk through it. The partners will actually set the terms. You don't have a whole lot to do. That's the way you bring product to market.

In the less structured markets, and I just use America as an example. Britain is another good example of that as well, or some of the Asian countries equally.

But there you can look around. You can see who's currently selling what products, what's their track record, how often have they switched vendors, how effective have they been for the vendor, how many complaints do they have, what type of sales revenues are they generating, how effective are they not only distributing it but maybe implementing the particular — let's just say it's software and supporting the software. So you can do your homework and really begin to understand who's available, their track record, and whether they fit in the way you're thinking of bringing product to market.

Because again, think about technologies. If I went to identity resolution, the integration of online and offline data sources. There are very few channel partners that are doing that very effectively. Whereas if I went to a more, let's just say Salesforce automation, there's a choice of, I don't know, literally thousands of partners in this country that could do that well.

Again, just to summarize, in a more structured market, the market determines how you're going to bring product to market and how to choose a partner. You interview them, needless to say. You look at terms and conditions. You look at chemistry. Do I like the person? Do I like working with them? You look at their track record.

In the countries that are less structured and more open, you then have to look at the fit — literally what's called the product market fit. So your product, the market, and whether that product market fit is good with that particular channel partner versus alternatives.

Again, you go through the same exercise you would when you hire an employee. You interview them. You look at strengths and weaknesses. You might do a SWOT analysis. Whatever you end up doing, the way you choose people.

And then, quite frankly, you sign an agreement. I never like long-term agreements with value-added resellers or with channel partners because you don't quite know how it's going to go. If you get stuck in a five-year agreement and that partner is not producing well, you're stuck, aren't you?

Micalizzi: Yeah.

Goldenberg: Typically, I like to keep the agreement short, at least at the beginning, maybe 12 months, possibly two years, and see how the whole chemistry works out and what they've said and what you've said fits and works and you can go from there.

Micalizzi: Sounds good.

Chenyek: I know that a lot of times it's easy to look at partners and just be like "Let's get as many as we can." But there must be a more strategic way to go about this. How do you access channel capacity and what your partners are capable of, and helping them manage, since you are overseeing these processes and should have more of a say in this?

Goldenberg: Sure. Another great question. More is not necessarily better, that's one thing we've learned, and quality is much more important than quantity. The challenge is are today's partners the quality partners of tomorrow, or are the new and emerging partners really the partners that will be the quality for tomorrow. It's an ongoing challenge.

In terms of channel capacity and so forth, again, a lot of it has to do with doing your homework. It's a shame a lot of companies, particularly in the high-tech industry, don't do their homework sufficiently. They're ready to sign up the value-added reseller or the information systems providers or whatever is the appropriate partner, and they're not doing the homework. They're not looking at what channels do they cover, how effective do they cover it, what areas do they cover, is there overlap, are they looking for medium-sized companies, small companies, large companies.

These are just typical questions any good businessman or woman would ask. Unfortunately, not enough people ask. I think a lot of people think I'm going to throw my dart up against the dartboard and I'll hit a particular value-added reseller in the case of a high-tech industry, or a channel partner distributor in the case of others, with the hopes that they'll do well, and I think that's just silly.

The right way to do it is as you would in any structured approach. You're going to evaluate each of the potential channel partners for what they have done. Again, just that sit down, the interview. Which size customer do you cover? What target segments do you cover? Is there a particular geographical area you like to cover? What do you think are your weaknesses? What do you think are your strengths? And you look at it.

Because for example, do you want overlapping coverage in a particular area? Do you want exclusivity within a particular area? These are all questions that are the right questions to ask. And the answer isn't a definite yes or no. I could have two distributors in one particular area, one sells to high end of the sector and the other one sells to the low end of the sector. No competition. Or if there's complementary products I could do it.

So to determine that, you really have to look at — first of all, size of market is best if you can determine it, how large is it geographically, size wise, dollar wise, there's a whole bunch of questions, unit wise, et cetera. Then I'm going to look at who are existing channel partners in that particular area at this time. These are just honest and open questions, and you can do research, third-party research. How much do you sell to whom? What segments? Can you show me your business plan, the direction you're taking?

These are just open and honest questions, thereby narrowing down the hope that when you throw your dart and hit the dartboard, you're going to get something good. Really be a little bit more analytical about it, a little more structure in your approach. Again, with a clear understanding that you might get it wrong, but you have a higher likelihood of managing the channel capacity in that structured manner than in a less structured manner.

Chenyek: Right.

Micalizzi: Definitely. That was a great tip, and I'd love to talk a little bit more about tips for the manufacturers, for the vendors, for the companies that are working with channel sales. What would you put at the top of your list?

Goldenberg: I would put sharing best practices at the top of my list. I'm going to give you a group of them that I think are very relevant in terms of tips for a vendor or manufacturer to effectively sell more through channel partners.

Best practices, sharing best practices. See, what a distributor or a channel partner is looking for is what are others doing. What are the other channel partners doing. How are they being successful. They may not have that aerial view of what's working and what's not, but a manufacturer or a vendor very well might because they're working with multiple partners.

Micalizzi: Are you finding that they're creating communities for their channel partners? Is it as simple as some folks are just doing — an email newsletter with best practices? I'm curious if you've come across [oddly] great examples.

Goldenberg: I've come across all of them. Let me give you one example. I like to go right to what I like to call using technology as a vehicle to collaborate effectively with the channel partner. I'll give you an example of a social media community.

There's public communities, social media communities. That might be, for example, Facebook or LinkedIn communities. They're private or branded or invitation-only communities. Those are ones where you invite the customer. It's a closed community and you discuss.

I've had the pleasure of working with a very large community put on by Exxon/Mobil. It's a very large global corporation. Five years ago, we created something called the Mobil SHC Club. It's for lubrication engineers around the world, and it's by invitation only. Initially, we invited distributors, because 85% of the lubricants at Exxon/Mobil go through distributors or channel partners, and 15% go direct to customer.

So we have a private community with distributors as well as customers, and in their particular case, equipment builders that build the equipment that use the lubrication. I'm going to tell you the results of that, and I'm going to tell you why I think it's been a winning success to create communities to share best practices.

In the case of the Exxon/Mobil community, we know that distributors that belong to the community, the Mobil SHC Club, are, on average, buying 53%. Fifty-three percent of the distributors belonging to the Mobil SHC Club buy more product from Exxon/Mobil than those that don't belong. So we can measure the impact of sales growth coming from the distributors that belong to the community versus those that don't.

Now why would a distributor want to be a part of a best-practices community? I'll just give you some examples. From the partner distributor side, think about this. Their success depends on their ability to sell the vendor or the manufacturer's products. That's kind of logical. That's their job. To do this successfully, they need just-in-time information that will allow them — and is specific enough — to address a customer problem that they're facing and that they're trying to address.

Now in a B2B social media community, they can find success stories from both other distributors that are belonging to the community, they can find them from partners or customers that are belonging to the community, and they're finding success stories that are applicable to the products or situation they're facing. They can ask questions to the customers. They can ask questions to the actual distributors, other things that they're facing.

What that's beginning to allow you to do is get deeper insight into the particular problem that that particular partner is facing. You can get answers back not just, as I said, from the vendor or the manufacturer, but from other partners that are doing the exact same thing you're doing. If you have a community of best practices, it's worldwide, potentially. It's open 24 hours a day. You sit back and think "What's not to love about a best-practices sharing community?"

Now if you have partners that are competing with each other, there are some regulations and things you have to put into the community to be careful: noncompete, antitrust, that sort of thing. It gets a little more tricky. But from a partner distributor perspective, it's a tremendous place where you can get answers to questions that your customers need solved, not necessarily going back to the manufacturer or the vendor, but using the community, fellow distributors, and customers in ways to solve it.

From the other side, the vendor and the manufacturer use these communities as well. They have a tremendous benefit. What could be more important to them than having successful partners and distributors that are selling products and services?

A B2B community — for example, a social media community — is a very cost-effective way to provide both your partners and customers with the information that makes that partner more successful. So the B2B community can empower each member of the community. It doesn't require all the support comes from the vendor and the manufacturer. The manufacturer and the vendors leverage all of the expertise of their distributors around the world.

There's lots of studies that have looked at is it cost efficient to use a community for support and for all kinds of personal support, phone support, community support. All the studies tell you that a social media community is a very effective way of getting answers to questions and building loyalty in a very cost-effective manner. And that goes back, if you will, Kevin, to this concept of best practices.

I think that the social media communities is a tremendous way of sharing best practices whether it be through sales processes like sales pipeline management or national account management, or the roles and responsibilities of salespeople, or rewards and incentives that work. It's a great way to show, for example, gold-standard benchmarks, so you can use best practices and work with your distributors or channel partners as a way of sharing with them benchmarks.

For example, sales pipeline metrics, what percentage is average at each stage of the sales pipeline and set the gold standard. The partners love that, they're looking for those types of tips. Are my sales guys and gals, are they doing a good job? Do they have the right amount in each stage of the pipeline? The manufacturer can also implement more structured programs with the channel partners. I'll give you some examples.

On the sales side, they can do sales pipeline training. That's a way to get the actual partner to like working with the manufacturer. They can teach them how to do sales coaching — what's the best way to coach the distributor sales reps, for example. There's different programs you could do, for example, circle of excellence. I've seen companies nominate certain key distributors or channel partners as best in class and reward them publicly at ceremonies, various vacations, and that sort of thing.

I've seen some tremendously good programs like Million Dollar Club or hero programs for distributor sales reps where they sell a certain amount and then you can reward them accordingly. Again, in the foodservice industry, one of the great ways of leveraging and gaining the in to the channel partners is through these trade promotions — effective ways of helping them promote your products and services.

Obviously, the one that everybody would like to talk about is the manufacturer or the vendor passes leads, so helps generates the leads and then helps track the programs through SFA tools and related toolsets. I've mentioned, Kevin, best practices. I've mentioned gold-standard benchmarks. I've mentioned structured programs. There are a couple more that I think are worthy of discussion if you would like me to continue. You tell me.

Micalizzi: Yeah, in interest of time, because we are definitely getting close on time, I would love to change gears a little bit and talk about tips for reps just to make sure we have time. Because I know a lot of our audience are out there actively selling, and I just want to make sure we cover that. Lola, did you have any questions on that side?

Chenyek: Do you want me to go ahead and just — ? Do you want me to ask that question?

Micalizzi: Totally up to you.

Chenyek: You're asking for tips for sales reps on the vendor side to work through the channel more effectively.

Goldenberg: I think what you're asking is if you're a sales guy, what's the best way to maximize sales through channel partners. Right? I think that's what you're asking.

Chenyek: Yeah. Sure. Okay. Perfect.

Goldenberg: Because that's what a salesperson wants to hear.

Chenyek: Right, right. Yeah, so for our sales leaders out there that are listening in, what tips do you have to sell more effectively through channel partners as a salesperson?

Goldenberg: Sure. There's a bunch. One is co-selling with the partner reps, whether they're distributor sales reps or partner sales reps. Remember, those are feet on the street above and beyond your single self.

A great sales rep will understand that it's time well invested when you're working with the reps of the channel partners. What does that mean? It means going out on sales calls with them. It means buddying up with them and answering questions. It means taking them out to a ballgame if that's appropriate. It means visiting a customer on your own and then referring them back to the sales rep. But it's this whole idea of helping the distributor sales reps, the partner sales reps, be successful.

Think about it. Maybe the distributor might have, I don't know, a hundred or 50 sales reps. You're one. If you can motivate 50 or a hundred sales reps, there's a much greater likelihood that you're going to sell a lot if they sell a lot. So it's worth investing time to help co-sell with partner reps.

I think another thing that's very important is to work with the partners on promotional activities. For example, a partner comes to you and says, "We're going to do a trade show," or they're going to do a special event, and they'd like you to be represented there.

You're going to show up there as the vendor or as the manufacturer. But you're going to play an active role in helping to generate leads, to helping the sales reps see how you sell because you're the manufacturer, you know your product very well. You're going to bring people into the booth or into the whatever it may be, the event. And you're going to help create the lead and then pass it right over to the sales rep. So working tightly with the partners on promotional activities, I think, can be very important.

I mentioned the one that I think is very important, and that is the whole area of communities, of social media communities. I've seen a lot of sales reps finally get this. Now it started out with LinkedIn. They figured out that if you get on LinkedIn, a lot of people with X degree of separation, they can really understand who's who and figure out who to contact and ask somebody, "Hey, I'm trying to penetrate this industry. Do you know somebody that can help me," or who knows who type of thing. And that could be very effective.

I think I can just speak from practical experience, whether it's the various communities we've been involved in. When a sales rep is active in a social media community, there's an amazing amount that the sales rep can learn by listening. What you're doing is you're on the community. Customers are asking questions, or distributors are asking questions, or distributor sales reps are asking questions. And you're sitting there listening, providing some level of expertise. Maybe other customers are providing expertise. Maybe the manufacturer is providing expertise. Distributors are providing —

But you're able to listen, kind of like a quarterback, and figure out, "Okay, this is interesting. If I had a play over here, that would deliver this impact. If I played it over that way, it would deliver that impact." I think the sales rep's time spent on social media communities, particularly the private communities that companies have where they invite their customers, is a tremendous way to sell more and to sell more effectively through partners.

I'd also encourage salespeople to encourage their organizations to adopt some of the tips that I've previously discussed. For example, have their company create a best-practices forum with the distributor, or have their company create benchmarking standards, gold standards, that can be shared with the channel partner, or have their company create some type of a structured program. I've mentioned the Million Dollar Sales Club or whether it's any of the programs that I've mentioned.

There's one that I think is also very important. Have them encourage their manufacturer or vendor to do what's called co-investing. Autodesk, which is a high-tech company, is a very interesting company here in the Bay Area. They did something several years ago that was quite unique in the industry.

They said a couple of things. We're going to put some of our own sales reps inside the channel partner or the distributor and we'll pay for them and you just give them a desk, and we'll help your other distributors' sales reps sell, or we'll co-sponsor the cost of a sales rep. Because remember, a channel partner would like to have more salespeople, but they cost money. So if the manufacturer says, "We'll co-sponsor or co-invest," that makes it a whole lot more attractive.

Now if you co-invest, if your company co-invests, and they say, for example, "We will pay for 50% or 75% of the sales rep, but here's the criteria: they have to go to our rep training school, or they have to make X number of new calls per day, not to existing customers but to new customers, or we'll reward the rep three times the amount of commission on a new customer versus an old customer." So there's different ways that your company can incentivize the representatives that your company may co-invest in, and I think that's another very good way to help create sales.

To summarize the tips I would give to sales guys and gals: very, very important, co-sell with your partner sales reps. Very, very critical. Work with your partners on promotional activities. Be seen, be at the events, help them sell. They'll forever remember that.

Then play an increasingly important role in social media communities. It's an amazing amount — You might think, "I should be selling, not listening to social media communities." My feeling is it's a very good place to learn what you should be selling, where you should be selling, and how you should be selling.

So these are some examples, tips, that I'd like to share. All of the ones that I talked about, bend the arm of your boss or of the manufacturer of the company or the vendor you work with to implement some of the more structured programs that I talked about.

Micalizzi: I love it. Thank you so much for joining us in the studio today, Barton.

Goldenberg: No problem.

Micalizzi: And thank you for co-hosting with me, Lola.

Chenyek: You're so welcome, Kevin. Happy to be here.

Micalizzi: And for those of you listening in, if you love what you're hearing, please take a minute and subscribe at Quotable.com/subscribe. You'll get an email two times per month with all the greatest content coming out of Quotable.