Had a great time at the PHONE+ The Channel Partners Conference in Las Vegas and met some very cool people.  I ran a session on Social Media in the Channel and was really impressed with the reception. There are three groups people usually fall into when it comes to social media:

1. Totally get-it, are drinking the kool-aid, might even be making the kool-aid
2. Realize it is important but aren’t quite sure how to measure or what it’s getting them
3. Skeptics who want to be proven wrong or are just in the room to heckle

By a show of hands we probably had 20%, 60%, and 20% respectively in the room.  While you can never convince everyone, I did see a couple of the self-admitted hecklers nodding their heads in agreement once in awhile.  Here are a few key take-aways to share:

• Creating valuable content is the  #1 key to success with social media
• Twitter is not for everyone, if you just aren’t going to use it correctly, don’t use it
• Cold-calling doesn’t work by itself anymore, get over it (note in conjunction with social media and other multi-touch elements it can be very successful)
• LinkedIn is the first step to acclimating yourself to social media, get in, make connections, look around, create discussions
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is key but don’t just optimize for the obvious terms because your bigger, stronger, wealthier competitor is doing that…find your niche and identify keywords from there.

Boarding my red-eye, I leave you with this, if you had $10 (think of it as a percentage of your total investment) you could spend on social media this is how I would spend it:

• $2 SEO specialist to find the right keywords for you or a service like www.hubspot.com so you can do it internally
• $8 to create valuable content whether eBooks, webinars, videos that you can then post out using free platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn
• The rest of the investment is just time but well worth it!

Last point, have to give a huge shout out for www.mandalaybay.com which upgraded me to a ridiculous suite…we’re talking media room people!

I’m not sure if the economy truly is turning around but if the increased number of job openings for the channel is an indication, we are certainly on the road to recovery.  In the past month, I’ve been asked for a valuable channel professional to fill an opportunity by at least a dozen companies.  Is it that all areas of the IT market are rebounding or are good channel professionals just that hard to find?

I think it’s a little of both.  While I can’t do anything to help the market rebound…other than shopping…here are some suggestions for finding or becoming a quality channel professional:

1.  Remember ALL of your audiences:  you don’t just have one customer like your corporate counterparts.  You need to worry about the end-customer and their pain points that will drive sales of your company’s products as well as your partners and what will help them sell said products.

2.  Find your joint value proposition:  While your company may have the best widget in the world, your partners aren’t just going to promote that product without wanting to highlight their own value proposition as well.  It’s important in any programs or support for your partners, that you make space for the JOINT value proposition.  Your product with their services or your product with their product or your product with their product and services or….you get the idea.

3.  Never create programs in a bubble:  if you’re developing tiers, communications, incentives, or sales programs and you haven’t spoken to a partner in months…STOP.  Get out there and talk to partners of all types and sizes.  Surveys are also a great way to get a ton of feedback.  If you’re looking to change your program entirely make sure that survey includes solution providers outside of your current eco-system.

4.  Quality over Quantity:  It’s funny to me when vendors brag about how many partners they have.  Okay great!  So from the partners’ perspectives there’s that much more competition.  When recruiting be sure to get the right type of partners who will enhance and grow your business not just grow your number of partners.  If you do have a ton of partners in one specialty or region, make sure each partner knows how they are going to be successful even with the large number of competitors.

5.  Know your partners:  similar to the first point it’s important to understand your partners and their business.  If you make it a requirement that all partners run national integrated multi-touch marketing campaigns and 20% of your partners are tech geniuses but wouldn’t know an email campaign if they tripped over it, then no one is going to be successful.

It’s so important that channel professionals truly “get” the channel but with so many brilliant marketing, sales, and management people out there on the market I think the channel DNA is something that could and should be taught!

What do you think?  Any success stories of turning a marketing/sales/management person from corporate into a channel guru?

Influence Insiders 2010 – A Look Back

…and a partner program solution providers and vendors alike can derive value from.

More marketing assistance, the right kind of marketing assistance, free training…what else to solution providers want from their vendors for a holiday gift?

As a channel and marketing professional I’ve worked with a bunch of different software tools that allow marketing automation or content syndication OR social media monitoring.  If I write about them, it’s because I think they are one of the best at what they do.  I was recently introduced to Marketing Advocate and until then had never seen one tool that does all three of these things so well.  Not only that, the Marketing Advocate team has a true understanding of channel vendors’ and partners’ needs and caters to them by customizing, you heard me, customizing their solution.

You’re probably thinking the same thing I was when I first heard about Marketing Advocate, “why have I never heard of these guys?”.  I was even more surprised when I saw some of their clients include Dell, IBM, and Xerox.

How does it work? The Marketing Advocate professional services team helps vendors and partners ramp-up with their customized set of tools including:

• Resource Center and Lead Nurturing System: syndicates information to the partners website while keeping the same look and feel.  Makes the partners’ website the key location for content and information while tracking all clicks, registrations, and downloads.
• Automated Marketing and Campaigns: An intuitive and flexible system for building user-action triggered email marketing campaigns continues to nurture leads and drive opportunities automatically for your partners.  They don’t have the time, resources, and, in some cases know-how, to do it, so you can do it for them.
• Partner/Reseller Marketing System: co-branded marketing system for partners that provides frequent easy-to-use campaigns including new media and organic and paid search campaigns, with nightly delivery of nurture and request-a-sales call leads to partners.

There really is no one solution that’s right for everyone. Other portal, syndication, and marketing automation suggestions I have made are very appropriate for many organizations.  Like those, Marketing Advocate is well worth a close look.

Have others heard of similar solutions?  Is this something that would make your life easier?  How about your partners?

*Disclaimer:  I had the pleasure of being taken to lunch by the Marketing Advocate guys to learn more about their product and give them some social media pointers.

As Channel Professionals we have a lot of responsibility.  It seems as if the work will never been done and partners will never have everything they need.  For that reason, we tend to fall into a way of doing things that can be detrimental to our channel program and more importantly, our partners.

As a consultant I’m asked to take a look at elements of channel programs or the entire channel program and suggest improvements.  At times I hear the tell-tale, “that’s not how we do things here” – a major red flag.  As the world changes, the way people do business changes, and the way we reward and support our partners has to change.

In other posts such as Channel Programs, One Size does not Fit All! I’ve talked about those elements specifically here I talk about HOW to make those changes.  You can sit in your bubble (a.k.a. cubical or office) and pretend that you know what your partners want/need OR you can find out for sure.

Here are 4 key things you need to do to get our of your bubble:

1. It’s fine to sit in a room talking to CAMs, CADs, Pre-sales Engineers, and Sales people but until you actually meet face-to-face with a partner and hear from them what their challenges are you’re not getting in touch with your constituents.  Yes YOU. Insist that you get out there and walk in the partners shoes once in a while.
2. Have you ever met someone that is up to date on entertainment gossip like Houses Wives of  Wherevertheheck but has no idea that we’re at war in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Are you that person?  Ruh-roh.  It’s so important to educate yourself about your industry and how it may effect your partners.  Read everything you can get your hands on about your industry and take that into account when formulating programs.  Is SaaS the latest and greatest?  How do you help partners better sell your premise solution?  Is there a recession?  Time to beef up promotions and decrease rebates.
3. You can reach out to your partners one at a time as I mention in #1, but it’s hard to talk to each and every partner individually.  I am sure your Partner Advisory Council gives you loads of feedback but they don’t represent everyone.  It’s also important to send a survey to all partners at least once a year. Not only do you get great feedback but your partners also know how much their opinion means to you.
4. While other Channel Professionals may seem like “competitors” to you, they shouldn’t.  Your products may compete, but we’re in the channel….we get along with everyone!  Tap into your peers. Learn from other Channel Professionals about pitfalls, challenges, wins, and opportunities.  Some of the people I’ve kept in touch with and enjoyed networking with the most were at “competitive” channel programs.

By getting out of your comfort zone and reaching out to others, your channel program is going to benefit as will you as a Channel Professional.

Are there suggestions I missed?  Folks who don’t agree?  I’d love to hear from you.

Has anyone formed a Channel Support Group yet?  We all know that The Channel has always been seen as secondary to corporate activities and marketing.  The Channel gets less budget for marketing activities or has to re-purpose the corporate marketing content that was not exactly partner friendly or has to defend their partners against channel conflict with the direct sales team.  It is a huge struggle and one that we, as channel professionals, take in stride.

But is there a shift?  I’m now consulting so I get to see inside many different channel organizations and I wonder if The Channel’s time has come!  Don’t get me wrong, I still see channel conflict and hear of struggles with channel budgets but I get the sense that IT organizations are finally seeing the immense value of the channel and their partners.

Without calling out specific organizations some examples include:

• Channel Summits continuing to happen while Sales Kick-offs are postponed due to budget
• Expenditures around New Media “To and Through” partners
• Partner responses to a survey that Channel Conflict is actually down (you heard it here first!)

Maybe it’s not every organization but I’m encouraged that some of the larger IT vendors are putting partners first in their marketing, providing more support, and protecting their partners from direct sales conflict.

Are others seeing a trend?  Is The Channel finally getting more attention?

One huge change that Social Media has brought about is the willingness to collaborate.  Recently I’ve been involved in several situations where people or teams that are perfect strangers and in some situations considered competitors are brainstorming, sharing resources, and supporting each other.  Amazing things are coming of this as 1+1 equals 3 when broad experience comes together.

With that in mind Paul Hebert of I2I brought together a group of thought leaders in different areas of business and influence and started the Influence Insiders.  What better way to get the ideas flowing, exchange information, and generally innovate then on a radio show?  The Influence Insiders BlogTalkRadio show will be the first Wednesday of every month, 12:00-1:00 pm eastern time and we want to hear from YOU!  The show can be found here:

We’ve set up our station at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/i2i

The call in number will be the same for every episode: (646) 381-4430

You can read more on Paul’s blog or see information below about the team.  We hope to see you, I mean hear you, next week!

Influence Insiders is a core group of experts, bloggers, thought leaders and smart folks who will be getting together monthly to talk about the things that challenge them and their clients associated with engaging audiences.  The line up is impressive and should provide all of us with some interesting points of view.  I know I’ll be learning and you can to if you tune in and listen & contribute.

The Team

In no particular order:

• Ann Bares (Minneapolis): Managing Partner  – Altura Consulting Group, author of the blog Compensation Force (a Workforce.com featured blog)  and editor/contributor for multi-author blog Compensation Café and one of the Top 25 Talent Blogs as ranked by Fistful of Talent (FOT) – a popular talent management and HR focused blog.  Ann has been a compensation consultant with RSM McGladrey, Inc., Riley, Dettmann & Kelsey LLC, and Watson Wyatt Worldwide.
• Frank Roche (Philadelphia): Partner iFractal – sponsor and contributor to very popular KnowHR blog.  Frank and his team focus on helping their clients talk to their employees.  In the past Frank led Mercer’s Human Capital Practice in the Netherlands and worked at Hewitt Associates.
• Heather Margolis (Boston): President Channel Maven Consulting – Prior to her current role Heather led channel programs for companies like EMC, EqualLogic, and Dell.
• Julien Dionne (Ottawa, CN): Julien authors the very informative blog leap.com and works with OpenSymmetry a consultancy that specializes in Sales Performance Management strategic planning, business process optimization, technology assessment and system integration engagements across diverse industries and software providers.  He has worked with Accenture and nGenera prior to OpenSymmetry.
• Lance Haun (Portland, Or): Lance has a long history in the HR field and authors the highly rated and read blog YourHRGuy – now called Rehaul. He currently is VP Outreach for a company called Meritbuilder – an online employee reward/recognition portal with a unique feature of being portable – moving with the employee as they move.
• Todd Hanson (Appleton, WI): CEO of Catalyst Performance Group.  Todd’s group is heavily into measuring the ROI of marketing and incentive/reward programs.  They are currently measuring the ROI on the recent Motivation Show, works in partnership with the ROI Institute and he authors the blog called the ROI of Engagement.
• Paul Hebert (Greenville, SC): Managing Director I2I – author of Incentive Intelligence, contributor at Fistful Of Talent and general good guy.  20 years helping companies design and operate incentive, recognition and loyalty programs – degree in Statistics, worked on the Space Shuttle and B1 Bomber while employed at Rockwell and did a stint at a branding and corporate identity firm.

A recent survey of 200 VAR’s and SI’s show less than stellar usage of Social Media platforms.  Under 60% use LinkedIn and approximately 38% are using Twitter.  Okay, not horrible…but how many of them are using it correctly?  Let’s just assume that their profiles are up-to-date, they’ve got links to their company, website and they have more that 12 connections/followers.  Are they leveraging the tools in the right way?  49.7% of these partners are using LinkedIn Groups and 38.5% are using Twitter to communicate with Prospects.  Not as many as I would have hoped.

Vendors I’ve talked to say, “Okay, Partners just aren’t using social media, so we won’t communicate with them there”.  Wrong.  While more than half of your partners haven’t embraced Social Media almost ALL of your Customers have.  A post on the Marketing Pilgram highlights a study showing that 91% of IT Decision Makers consume social media such as blogs, videos, and peer reviews.  There is a huge disconnect between Customers who seek information on social media platforms and Partners who aren’t equipped to create it.

So what can Vendors do?  The model isn’t much different from the  co-branded emails, banners, and landing pages you’ve provided in the past.  I’m currently helping clients create an out-of-the-box social media solution and the one piece of advice I would give is, no one solution will work for all partner communities.  It’s important to understand what their capabilities are and how you can best help them get their social media strategy off the ground.  How do you do that?  Ask them!  Your biggest challenge as a Vendor is showing them how important this is and how much of an impact it will make.  Here are the high level steps to getting your Partners engaged with social media:

1. Convince of the value
2. Survey/Focus Group/Interview to see what they need and what they are capable of
3. Create easily digestible content showing them how to use different types of social media
4. Launch and educate, educate, educate!

Would love to hear what Vendors are already doing to help their Partners.  What’s working and what’s not?

Those of us who have ever worked for large companies know that “branding” comes with a 462 page document called The Branding Guidelines.  If you read the document cover to cover you would find out how much space needs to be open around a logo in a document or presentation, how the company’s name can and cannot be written, and how each and every product needs to be referenced.

Believe it or not there are even more rules for representing a large organization, small firm, or even your personal brand.  That’s right, from Microsoft to the smallest VAR or one-person consulting agency you should have Branding Guidelines for online use.

1. Make your name original: I learned this very important rule from marketing expert and social media guru David Meerman Scott.  Growing up I had a last name to end all last names Loitherstein.  While it was a mouthful and no one EVER spelled it right, it was original.  If you searched Heather Loitherstein everything that came up was about me or one article about my brother Scott Loitherstein and someone else named Heather.  Now, if you search for Heather Margolis you get content on 30 people who aren’t me, content about me, and content on the most downloaded woman of 2003 Cindy Margolis – not related.  To better differentiate myself online I always, I mean ALWAYS use my middle initial.  Heather K. Margolis is how you will find me all over the web.
2. Consistency is Key: Use your name, company and personal, the same way everywhere. This not only keeps the integrity of your company or personal branding but it also makes you easier to find on the internet.  One of the worst things CA (formerly Computer Associates) did was to change to the acronym CA.  It’s one thing to search IBM, HP, or EMC, because they aren’t a group of letters that would ever form a word, but search CA and you get everything from Cat to California Waterfowl Association.  We all know why they changed it but did they have to use CA?
3. Control the buzz: Are people talking about you?  Chances are if you’re putting your brand or your name out there to be noticed, they are.  It’s so important that you know what they are saying and where so you can either thank them and comment or engage in debate.  Google alerts notify you as soon as something is posted.  I have alerts set up for Channel Maven, Channel Maven Consulting, Heather K. Margolis, Heather Margolis, and a bunch of my clients.  This way I know what is being said and can respond immediately.
4. Ambiguity doesn’t work on the web: In business school everyone talked about embracing the ambiguity.  Great when you’re talking strategy internally, not great on the web.  When people see your website, your LinkedIn profile, your twitter account they need to know in 3 seconds or less what value you are going to provide to them.  Make it simple and if you’re name is not, you need to overcompensate everywhere else.  Channel Maven Consulting, you know I’m in the Channel, I think I’m smart, and I’m a Consultant.

This is just the tip of the iceberg but a foundation that is really important to get right before starting to launch your Social Media/SEO initiatives.  Important to a channel organization but also important to VAR’s, SI’s, and MSP’s.  Brand your company and yourself.

I’d love to hear other tips or horror stories around good or bad online branding practices!