Channel Marketing: Differentiation

During a discussion with a client in Mexico City today, it once again became clear that there is no differentiation between vendors in the Channel unless they focus on solving partner business issues.

We were discussing how to increase revenue through Ingram Micro in Mexico. The account rep proposed targeting a competitor's resellers. Why would Ingram care about one vendor's revenue versus another's, other things (e.g. Margin) being equal?

Ingram, like all channel partners cares only about the business impact of selling a product, not its technology, features, or design. Only issues that impact Ingrams business such as revenue, inventory turns, average order size, support costs, etc. matter.

What we teach is that if a sales rep rep cannot link to these financial business issues, they add no value or differentiation to the channel partner. This is the difference between channel administration and channel management.

Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile from Mexico City.



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