Collaborating with Other ConnectWise Partners: How to Partner for More Profits and Fewer Headaches

Transcription

1 Collaborating with Other ConnectWise Partners: How to Partner for More Profits and Fewer Headaches Mark S. A. Smith Outsource Channel Executives, Inc.

2

3 What Do You Want from This Session? ü What solutions? ü What strategies? ü What tactics? ü How much more business? ü How will you know that this session has been worth it? ü What to expect

4 What Is a Collaboration? ü An agreement to share, at some level, resources and wisdom to the benefit of all parties.

5 10 Reasons to Collaborate Increase profits 2. Increase customer satisfaction 3. Increase resources 4. Increase expertise 5. Introduction to new customers and markets.

6 10 Reasons to Collaborate 6. Fill ability gaps 7. Fill credibility gaps 8. Create synergy 9. Create new products 10. Increase personal satisfaction.

7 Ask Yourself These Questions ü Why is it that I would want to join forces with somebody? ü What is it that I would like from another company?

8 When You Shouldn t Collaborate ü When your prospective associate has a different value set ü When you provide substantially higher value ü When their reputation is questionable ü When there s no clear advantage to do so ü When it places you at risk ü Be aware of how you represent yourself ü Partner can imply accountability.

9 How to Find a Collaborator ü Ask colleagues ü Ask customers ü Read publications ü Check bulletin boards ü Peruse the Yellow Pages ü Network.

10 Low Emotional Risk, High Financial Reward Low Emotional Involvement Low Risk, Low Reward Levels of Partnership Business Investment, Creating Capital No Investment, Creating Comfort High Financial Involvement Low Financial Involvement Career Investment, Creating Enterprise Personal Investment, Creating Commitment High Risk, High Reward High Emotional Involvement Low Financial Risk, High Emotional Reward

11 Types of Partnership High Financial Involvement Financial Investment Shared Employees Full Partnership Low Emotional Involvement Shared Resources Multiple Contracts Shared Convenience Cobranding Customers Joint Vendor Marketing Referrals List Mentoring Coauthorship High Emotional Involvement Low Financial Involvement

12 The 10 Characteristics of a Successful Collaboration

13 1. Commitment ü To the customer ü To each other ü Common goals ü Common values.

14 2. Investment ü Invest in your People ü Invest in the Partnership ü Invest in Yourself.

15 Invest in Your People ü Hire for attitude ü Business cards for all ü Regular sales meetings ü Train everybody.

16 Invest in the Partnership ü Regular planning meetings at all levels ü Review all projects ü Celebrate success.

17 Invest in Your Yourself ü Sunrise school ü Your association ü Your mastermind.

18 3. Patient ü It takes time to get it together ü Work with each other ü Work with the staff ü Work with their spouse.

19 4. Progressive ü Who s the next customer? ü What s the next level in the association? ü Who s the next associate to bring along?.

20 5. Consistent ü Consistency is interpreted as longevity, credibility, and trust ü Consistent customer interaction ü Consistent marketing ü Both parties can produce.

21 6. Confident ü In your people ü In your product ü In your collaborator ü Testimonial letters ü Wall of Fame.

22 7. Assortment ü More Marketing ü Competitive advantage ü Combined value proposition ü Joint marketing.

23 7. Assortment ü More Sales ü Networking ü Shared leads ü Joint sales pipeline ü Shared customers ü Shared sales force.

24 8. Convenient ü Associates are user friendly. They are in touch, easy to reach, and do everything immediately. ü Better hours ü Faster response ü Mystery shop your partner.

25 9. Measurement... ü Increased business ü Increased revenue ü Increased profitability ü Increased customer share ü Increased market share.

26 9. Measurement... ü Increased product performance ü Proprietary technology ü Plug-ins, add-ons ü Enhancements.

27 9. Measurement ü Increased customer satisfaction ü More choice ü More resources ü More support ü More satisfaction.

28 10. Excitement ü If you re not excited about this collaboration, don t do it!

29

30 What s Your Opportunity? ü Customers ü Yours ü Your associate ü Prospects ü Yours ü Your associate ü Your dream list?

31 What Outcome Do You Want? ü Your outcome ü Your associate s outcome ü Your customer s outcome ü Check for agreement.

32 How Will You Know When It s a Success? ü Money ü Skills ü Industry recognition ü Market penetration ü Customer satisfaction ü Your satisfaction.

33 What s Needed to Succeed? ü What do you need? ü How can your associate help? ü What does your associate need? ü How can you help? ü What does your customer need? ü How can you both help? ü Assess each other s skills.

34 Assessing Skills: Business Task Ability... ü Strategy: Big picture thinking ü Planning: Detail management, forecasting scenarios ü Management: Leading, motivating, and supervising others ü Marketing: Creating and communicating compelling value propositions.

35 Assessing Skills: Business Task Ability... ü Sales: Creating customer relationships and managing customer expectations ü Customer Development: Growing the market opportunities ü Design: Creating a product that does the job and can be built.

36 Assessing Skills: Business Task Ability... ü Implementation: Building the product consistently and to specifications ü Support: Fixing problems rapidly and to customer satisfaction ü Operations: Managing human resources and physical facilities.

37 Assessing Skills: Business Task Ability ü On a Scale of 1 to 10 ü Rate yourself ü Rate your associate ü Have your associate rate you ü Compare results for hidden misunderstandings.

38 Planning Business Interaction ü Who does what? ü Who gets paid for what? ü Is this worth it for me? ü Is this worth it for my associate? ü Is this worth it for the customer? ü How does this make us unique and superior for the customer?.

39 Creating the Action Plan ü What are you going to do and when are you going to do it? ü What is your associate going to do and when are they going to do it? ü What is your customer going to do and when are they going to do it?.

40 What Makes this Work? ü Agree on roles ü Agree on control ü Agree on measurement ü Agree on reward.

41 What if You Don t Agree? ü Is it a real problem? ü Is it germane to the outcome? ü Is it a deal killer? ü Agree to disagree.

42 How to View Disagreements ü Not as a barrier ü It s an opportunity ü How did you make this decision?.

43 How to View Disagreements ü Your view is valid for you ü My view is valid for me ü There are 1,000 ways to be right ü Do you want to be right, or do you want to be effective?.

44 Plan for Conflict Resolution ü Agree to be fair ü What constitutes fair? ü Informal mediation ü Arbitration ü Lawyers dead last.

45 How to End the Collaboration ü Agree how to end the collaboration at the beginning ü Splitting assets ü Splitting customers ü Splitting resources ü Meet once a year ü Why are we still doing this?.

46

47 What s the Best Idea You ve Gotten ü Think about it ü Write it down ü What is it worth to you? ü Pledge to act on it immediately ü Mark.Smith@OCEinc.com from this Session?