How do you identify and address the gaps and challenges in your channel sales strategy?

é muito importante reservar um tempo para analisar profundamente a sua estratégia de canais atual. N?o é possível avan?ar verdadeiramente sem conhecer a sua situa??o e entender em quais pontos sua empresa performa de maneira inadequada.

Before diving into solutions, it’s crucial to step back and thoroughly evaluate your current position. Start by analyzing your sales data, gathering customer feedback, and reviewing market conditions to gain a comprehensive understanding of your channel’s performance. This evaluation highlights both strengths and weaknesses, offering a clear perspective on what’s effective and what needs improvement. Such an assessment forms the essential foundation for your entire strategy, ensuring that all subsequent actions are well-informed, targeted, and aligned with your overall business objectives.

There has to be systematic approach to track sales performance metrics such as revenue growth, sales volume, and conversion rates across different channels. Also, we need to review the sales pipeline to identify bottlenecks and areas where leads are dropping off.

My opinion, is that any successful channel sales and marketing strategy is developed based on how the end-use consumer purchases. Identify the path-to-purchase, and the value expectation which could differ for the same product, based on the avenue of purchasing for the consumer. Value Analysis, Swot Analysis, and Customer Journey Mapping are helpful initial actions to take.

I emphasize the importance of utilizing data as your compass when evaluating current channel sales performance. Dive into sales reports to discern patterns, identify high-performing channels, and pinpoint areas requiring attention. Data allow to empower you to make informed decisions and align the strategy with what works best for your business

After thoroughly assessing your current situation, the next crucial step is to identify specific gaps and challenges in your channel sales strategy. Are there regions where your sales performance is lagging? Could there be a disconnect between your products and market demands? Identifying these gaps allows you to develop targeted strategies tailored to address precise issues rather than applying a generic solution. By focusing on these specific areas, you can create a more effective and customized approach that aligns better with your business objectives and market needs.

Once you could identify your main gaps you can build a strategy and work to correct your gaps. It's very important engage your sales team and take their commitment with your strategy. They are People who make it real.

One needs to discuss with their respective channel partners to gather insights on their experiences, challenges, and suggestions for improvement. Also, we need to make sure that partners have the necessary training, tools, and resources to effectively sell and support our products/services.

In my experience, the time-consuming aspect is getting your processes and systems lined up with your channel partners' and onwards to their customers so the channel has a frictionless, effortless experience from ordering, through customer service and billing and payment. Your channel partner systems are likely to be on different platforms and inconsistencies will emerge when your processes and systems don't align to yours. If they are bigger than you, they won't change - so you have to adapt and bespoke your processes and systems to theirs - adding more cost. This can be both time-consuming and costly - and needs to be considered when doing the initial business plan behind the sales strategy. Otherwise you can invest a lot for no return.

Understanding the gaps and the inequities in channel selling are important in order to determine opportunities, and how to best spend resources and time. NPS scores and evaluations are an excellent methodology to learn and hear from customers and consumers on pain-points.

Elevating and enhancing relationships with partners, is key to successful a channel channel strategy, especially, as the modern consumer tests loyalty to a specific channel. Communication and partnership building, has never been easier given all the tech tools we have today.

In my experience, this is where things often break down. The time needed to nurture a partnership is often double or triple the amount planned! And the effort isn't just about the sales team. The effort is right across the business. As a new partner is onboarded, it can affect ALL aspects of customer interaction - often depleting the direct channel from time and attention - which becomes a difficult aspect for senior management. I have seen cases where half-way through the implementation, the partnership is dissolved because it is simply taking too many resources to implement it. Good partner selection is vital here, with good, realistic planning as to what it will take to address the gaps and challenges.

Monitoring and measurement is often left too late. Partnerships need daily and weekly attention. Many internal measurement systems can take months or quarters to identify things going wrong. Normally because they have been designed for direct sales - not indirect channel sales. And it's not just YOUR measures that matter. It's your indirect channel partners' measures that need to be relayed up and down the channel - adding another layer of complexity. I have seen companies that venture into indirect channel sales for the first time become totally unstuck because their current measurement systems were never designed for the complexities of indirect channel sales. Don't be naiive. Plan ahead and measure progress on a daily / weekly basis!

"O que n?o se mede, n?o se gerencia". Essa é uma frase famosa em gest?o, exatamente por ser verdadeira. A melhor forma de se gerenciar um indicador é monitorar regularmente os seus resultados e atuar nos ofensores. Identifique seus principais indicadores e monitore o mais frequentemente que puder seus resultados. Analise os piores e melhores resultados, buscando a repeti??o de padr?es para buscar a identifica??o da causa raiz.

1. Continuous Evaluation: Regularly assess performance metrics to identify gaps. 2. Adaptation: Adjust strategy based on market trends and feedback. 3. Stakeholder Feedback: Incorporate partner and customer insights for alignment. 4. Innovation: Introduce new approaches to address evolving challenges. 5. Real Stories: Share success stories of strategy improvements for inspiration.

Os canais de distribui??o s?o extremamente dinamicos e para ter sua estratégia sempre atualizada, você deve acompanhar de perto seus principais indicadores.

Having a static channel strategy or a one-and-done strategy, is ineffective, and a waste of resources. Constant monitoring, and evaluation through transparent and regular reporting, analysis, and after-action-review are critical. Once you are comfortable with your over-all strategy, keep tweaking and adjusting the go-to-market tactics on a regular basis to capture consumer shifts.

Continuously improving your channel sales strategy is essential for long-term success. By evaluating market trends, partner feedback, and customer needs, you can refine your approach to stay ahead of challenges and seize opportunities. Empowering partners with tools, training, and support ensures alignment with your business objectives while fostering trust and profitability. Key actions: + Conduct regular performance reviews. + Provide ongoing training and resources. + Monitor industry trends and adapt. + Foster open communication with partners. + Recognize and reward partner success.

In many ways this should come first! The key issue is that venturing into indirect channel sales requires A COMPLETE REDESIGN of your business. It should not be undertaken light-heartedly. Channel conflict, security issues and poaching of key staff can also become key risks not found in direct sales. Indirect Channel Sales should only be introduced once the company is mature enough and direct sales are appearing to be maxed-out in certain market segments. Enough investment needs to be put into the indirect channel sales programme - as if it were a start-up within the main company. With careful listening, planning and execution the venture should become successful and create a new set of revenue streams to grow the company overall.

In todays dynamic environment, consumers are no longer as loyal as they once were to brands and places to purchase. An effective channel sales strategy is multi-faceted and address multiple avenues of commece and selling at the same time, overlapping.