There seems to be a long held tradition in B2B marketing, especially in the Telecom and IT space, to be as boring as possible.  What I see most frequently in the market is a very stiff, feature-advantage-benefit oriented approach to messaging.   I think it’s byproduct of so many years of selling on features, "speeds and feeds", and “bits and bytes”. This may have served partners well in the past, but the market has shifted and the way customers buy has changed.  Your brand as a trusted advisor needs to change too. 

Last post, we discussed some strategies to use targeted marketing strategies in your partner recruitment and channel marketing efforts. This week, let's talk about all those inactive partners that you already recruited and that aren't producing. We've got some strategies to get more partners active, and the active partners selling more, that will get some new revenue flowing.

Everybody hates the 80/20 rule, but it's so common in the channel that we just accept it. Or in some cases, we may over react to it. Here is a two part series taking a holistic look at how to improve your partner activity levels, starting with the first post here where we'll cover three strategies for recruiting partners that will produce.

With Halloween right around the corner, sweeping in the holiday season, we need to talk about your marketing campaigns for this time of year. I'm talking about the uninspired designs and clichéd messaging that we're all guilty of cheapening the season with. Give me the opportunity to talk you out of creating ad-hoc, holiday themed campaigns. Or at least doing them right.  

While tending to a family member who had a hospital visit this past weekend, I was introduce to a device that enabled a specialist to monitor her condition remotely. This real-life application of computer and connectivity technology that we sell everyday combined for a powerful reminder that there's human side to what we sell, and that we do a poor job selling the human benefits.

Let's talk about the right way to position yourself in the market. The days of screaming your message at the marketplace should be long gone, but it's still happening in the channel. It's time to retire the push strategy, and learn how to pull. Here's how, by way of an anecdote about a webinar.