Entries Tagged 'How to you Implement' ↓

This is a question I’m still trying to find the clear answer to based on interacting with companies.  Who Owns the Allyforce?

It is related to the field reps, so perhaps it is the Sales Managers.

But it is tied to getting names and leads, so perhaps it is in Marketing.

But it involves alliance partners, so perhaps it is for Business Development.

I still haven’t found a definitive answer yet.  I think it’s a powerful role to play, probably not to be played directly by one of these roles but the metric and results should certainly be managed by one of them.

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Another common objection I hear is that the company executives believe they already have "alliance" and "strategic partnerships."

I would agree: they do.  But what is the outcome of that?

But the questions in terms of assessing their success are pretty simple:

• Do you receive leads, say, at least five per quarter per sales person?
• Do you have weekly metric reviews of the mutual exchange of leads?
• Are your reps in the field exchanging "field-level information" about different accounts?
• Do they understand the basic question to ask prospects to find deals for you?
• Is there an effective, consistent, and measurable incentive-system in place?

Without putting something like that in place, it is often very difficult to successfully have a true revenue-generating alliance.

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I had a meeting with a VP of Sales discussing potential partners.

One partner they had been looking at as promising, but he said that the partner’s technology that would complement theirs wouldn’t be ready yet.

So he said they wouldn’t be a good fit.

This is a very common approach to partnership: they look at partners from a product-fit / product-enhancement perspective.  That’s because, typically, they are done that way.

However, I then asked:

"So do the sales reps of this partner call on the same kind of companies yours do?"

"Yes."

"What’s your primary vertical?"

"Marketing-driven entertainment and gaming industries."

"And they call on those as well?"

"Yes."

"Do they call on the same titles within those companies?"

"Yes.  Ah, so they’ll just be giving each other names.  It might not be a hot-lead."

"True.  But do your reps ask pertinent questions such as "Do they have budget?  What are they trying to accomplish now if they’re aren’t ready for the product you’re offering?"  Would the answers to those questions, if they were asked by your partner, but useful for your reps?"

"I get it.  They are a good partner!"

There are other ways to discover good partner fits as we’ve looked at it other posts and will continue to revisit.  The mindset should always be — whom can I exchange contacts, context, and connection with out in the field, sales rep to sales rep.  Don’t think product compliment!

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One of the areas which I’ve noticed is the downfall for many B2B Alliances is consistency and metrics.  This isn’t the answer to all the lead-generation problems.  What it does is provide:

• contact — an update to date contact with information
• context — typically the sales person will know something about the company or contact
• connection — ideally, but not always, the sales person will have a connection with the company

Having these does not guarantee a qualified opportunities.  It still takes getting as many of these as possible.  But the alternative?

• using outdated lists with bad contact information and no idea where the person is on the decision-process
• limiting your scope of targets
• relying on other lead generation activities which either generate nothing or are non-existent

But both sides need to work on it.  And one important component of that is to have metrics.

These don’t need to be complicated.  It basically breaks down into two primary numbers (from a manager’s perspective):

• how many contacts have I received from an Ally?
• how many contacts have I been giving to an Ally?

You could get more granular, but these are the two primary numbers.  Why?  Because as long as these two numbers are relatively equal and growing, you know you are getting transactions.  Something is happening between your reps and the reps of your allies.

But what if they are just gaming me?

Well, let’s talk more about that later, but one key element to successful implementation is to have easy, readily sharable, real-time metrics on activity that does NOT impose more bureaucracy on your field reps or you.

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