Stop Treating Your Channel Like The Bastard Ugly Step Daughter

Marc Sumner runs one of the UK's most successful channel recruitment agencies, #RobertsonSumner which has been recognised by CRN as the UK's best in 2020. He also runs a successful podcast, #ChannelChat.   We rip the arse out of what passes for average in sales and channel sales recruitment. WAKE UP PEOPLE! The channel is not somewhere you send Tim Nice But Dim to chew the cud on his way to retirement. Nor is it somewhere you put your greenhorn salespeople to cut their teeth.   Channel sales is THE HARDEST JOB THERE IS IN SALES, bar none. Nothing comes close to being this difficult. You have over 90 hats to wear. In the morning you could be planning their territory with a partner, settling a dispute and forecasting for LATAM, over lunch you could be midwifing a deal or saving a critical opportunity, in the afternoon you may be having a strategy call with your distributor in Canada and by night you might be training your Australian partners. And that's just Monday.   Treat the channel with the respect and seriousness it deserves. Recruit seasoned channel managers, onboard them well, train them in sales, management, planning, strategy, communication, dispute resolution and emotional intelligence. Coach them, love them to death, teach them how to coach, make sure they are spending as much as 70% of their time in their partners' business, helping them achieve their goals, targets and objectives. That's what the best channel managers in the world are doing.   Why aren't your channel managers up to snuff?    Marc and I pull no punches in this episode. Bring a pen and take notes.   Contact Marc via LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/marcsumner Website: robertson-sumner.com  (Company Website)Twitter: MARCSUMNER76- -Book a confidential 1 to 1 with me using this link https://calendly.com/marcuscauchi/linkedin-discovery-call Subscribe to my newsletter, #TheGrumbler: http://eepurl.com/gu2Yd1   #TheInquisitorPodcast Podbean: marcuscauchi.podbean.com Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/show/7C3pmVfHbwu84oZCqUQq81 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/welcome-to-theinquisitor-podcast/id1341867086   The #ScaleupsAndHypergrowthPodcast Podbean: scaleupsandhypergrowth.podbean.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3t0Gge9e5XaB8REaqkiQ6u Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/scaleups-and-hypergrowth-podcast/id1508754065