Marching Orders 2014: Focus on the Business, Not the Technology Flavor of the Day
As part of our 2014 "Marching Orders" feature, RCP asked channel experts to share their best partner tips for the new year. Here are some insights from Keith Lubner, managing partner of Channel Consulting Corp.
Mobility is here. Cloud has been here. What's next?
"Who cares what's next?" should be your mantra. In 2014, those companies who prepare their business to succeed will be successful regardless of the technology flavor of the day.
The old saying, "If you have a solid foundation, you can build anything," was never as true as it will be in 2014. There are three things we see that every solution provider should focus on in order to be well positioned next year, and the year after that:
Turn your sales people into consultants. We preached this last year and actually implemented a tool called Business Guidance which helps accomplish this goal. It's important that sales folks make this change because it will let you focus on quality in your pipeline instead of quantity. Who wouldn't want more quality opportunities? Invest in a program that will help you change your sales culture.
Think of unique ways to partner in order to expand your portfolio in 2014. Here's an example: If you need mobility expertise, there's a risky way to go about it. You can invest in hiring talent (which is tough these days) and invest in the time to spin up a mobility practice. On the other hand, you can partner with custom mobility development firms who are establishing unique channels of their own. I'd recommend the latter, because you can immediately offer mobility specialization to your customers without incurring the tremendous uncertainty in doing it yourself. Partner to buy yourself some time and immediately offer a valuable service to customers.
Reinforce. I can't tell you how many times I hear the line, "We tried that, it didn't work." Well, often the reason a program or initiative or training didn't work was because it wasn't reinforced. That is, there weren't mechanisms put in place to ensure that what is taught is retained. It's just like school. Invest in training but reinforce it in 2014. Your organization will thank you.
A solid business foundation can accommodate any technology trend in 2014 and beyond.
Posted on December 30, 2013