Helicopter Partnering

Hi all,

Just got back from the SiriusDecisons Summit in Vegas and now heading out to DattoCon in Denver on Monday. This week, I got the chance to spend time with my eldest daughter by going to a Penguins playoff game. In addition to watching the next Stanley Cup Champions, (can't pass up mentioning that) watching a game with someone seems to lend itself to a good, easy-going conversation. She just graduated from college (she’s the smart one), so the focus was all on her future. Now things are all about the planning and preparation. What does she want for herself? What goals does she have? Or more importantly what do I want her to do, my expectations as her father?

On an annual basis 12.5% of partners opt out of a vendor partner program voluntarily and 11.3% are terminated by the vendor. CSO Insights’ 2016 Channel Research Study

She’s been setting goals–and we’ve set goals for her also– all of her life. Academic, social, extracurricular, and she’ll need to keep creating new goals as she heads into the “grown up” world. She’s done, for the time being, with the structured development that comes with formal education. Now she has to set out and succeed as an adult. A lot of influences have gone into shaping and enabling her to be successful-teachers, friends, relatives, and I’d like to believe, good parenting. With guidance, support and constant follow up (being nosy), she is ready and able to go out there and produce. 

It is the same with your direct sales and channels. You can’t just expect that they will appear fully-formed at your doorstep, ready to sell. They don’t just appear “fully-enabled.” Instead, they need 2 major things, very similar to my daughter. They need to have plans set-specific goals that are achievable yet will push them. Second, they need help and support with their own development. In this case, that means the training, on-boarding, and playbooks you create to get them ready to sell “out in the world.” Just like it is a parent’s responsibility to give their kids the education, counseling, support and encouragement to be ready to be an adult, you need to determine what your channels and direct sales will need to succeed in your markets your sending them into.

The average channel partner size is less than $5M in gross revenue. The 2112 Group: 2017 Channel Forecast Report

Today's post is a little heavy—but this is 22 years in the making and every parent knows it takes a great deal of determination on both side to make this a success.  You have to ask yourself, how does someone you haven’t helped with planning, on-boarding, training, certifying, ever going to hope to succeed! You never stop worrying about your kids, but I do feel secure that she has been given everything she needs to make it. Are you doing the same for your channels? Same for the soon-to-be Stanley Cup Champions (gee, wonder who THAT will be??). No team makes it that far without training, practice, and very demanding goals.