As channel professionals our goal is to provide partners with the resources they need to better sell our products.  Sounds easy, right?  Not so much.

The channel and it's programs have evolved and very few vendors are keeping their partners' needs in mind as this evolution happens.  As we talked about in "Got Specialization" vendors are aligning certifications with the partners' ability to sell a specific product or solution.  Previously partners could take certifications and get an overview of all solutions, now they must specialize in specific solutions and are then limited depending upon how many employees they can afford (time and money) to send to training.

Vendors want more of a commitment from partners but what are partners getting in return?  The bottom line is if a partner is not certified to sell a certain product they are going to sell a competitive solution.  I feel like it's 10 years ago when vendors would dictate the program and partners didn't have a choice.  The difference now?  Partners have a choice.

Here are 5 things you should keep in mind when creating specializations:

1. Give partners enough notice.  Let partners know the new requirements of specializations at least 6-12 months before they take effect.
2. Tier the requirements so partners can still sell products they may not have specializations for.  If partners specialize in one product but need to sell another there needs to be some sort of support either from other partners or channel sales teams.  Sounds like you're negating your specialization?  Better then losing the sale to a competitor.
3. Facilitate partner to partner networking.  As we wrote in "Partner to Partner Networking" partners are working together to sell a broader solution.  Vendors could help facilitate this by having an internal listing partners can use to network or a social community where partners can learn about each other and discuss partnering.
4. Make goals attainable.  If partners are expected to send multiple salespeople/systems engineers to attend in-person multiple-day trainings and then an exam and on top of that they are asked to pay for it, they will most likely just not do it.
5. Are you cutting off your long tail?  Popularized by Chris Anderson The Long Tail illustrates selling less of more.  Flip this on it's head and consider the "body" all those partners that will go through the trouble of getting a specialization and the "tail" are all those partners who are now going to sell someone else's product b/c your certification process is too difficult.  How do you keep these partners selling your products?

Would love to hear suggestions.  This is something that concerns me and I think needs a closer look.