In my last post I mention the tension between Direct and Indirect channels. In my view that tension is a healthy thing as it services two purposes. Firstly a direct sales channel allows the supplier to get a very clear picture of what the market conditions and requirements are first hand. An indirect channel allows you to scale up quickly and cost effectively i.e. pay as you go model. But this is not the primary purpose of todays blog.
Missionary selling is a necessary evil for companies entering a new market. It proves several things. Firstly are we on song and does not product meet the market expectation. Is there a new, although it is a bit late to find out at this point that there is not, the initial market research should have found this out much earlier. Even if the desired outcome is to set up an Indirect channel, often you still have to go into the market to prove that your offering can cut it. You might want to build some reference clients where you have to sell at cost to get a foothold. In that case it is not possible to sell through a channel partner and take a big loss.
On the other hand you might use the channel partner and their client base to test with “friendly” clients. In this case you would still expect to b heavily involved in the sale with the channel partner. This acts as a training ground, builds good will and allows you to identify any channel partner weaknesses. It also allows you to confirm that you partner support materials are up to scratch and that they can survive the sales process without having to ring you every 5 minutes.
So the final thought is that it is a very powerful proposition when the maker of a product or service is sitting in front of a potential client. Think how important you would fel if you had met the makers of the iPad as part of a market validation process.
