How To Accelerate SaaS Channel Sales With Agents And MSPs
By Rob Spee, Channel Journeys Consulting
Craig Schlagbaum VP Indirect Channels Headquarters Philadelphia, PA Year Founded 2006 Mission Helps businesses perform better with technology solutions that take them Beyond Fast. Channel Experience 29 Years |
“Comcast Business has thousands of partners. Most are agents, acting like independent insurance agents or financial advisors. But the fastest growing segment are MSPs who want the benefit of residual income for the life of the customer.” Craig Schlagbaum, Comcast Business.
Telecom companies drive massive sales through agents with their referral commission model. Now they’re looking at Managed Service Providers (MSPs) for growth as their offerings move up market from commodity voice to complex data services.
Craig Schlagbaum, VP Indirect Channels at Comcast Business, shares his channel strategy and secrets to success on my Channel Journey’s Podcast. Both Agents and MSPs provide an excellent opportunity for SaaS vendors looking to accelerate sales through the channel.
Key Take-Aways
- Consider copying the Telco partner model where Agents and MSPs get the benefit of residual commissions for life of a customer.
- Your MSP partners could have 3 revenue streams from your SaaS offering;
- Residual commissions for referrals and sales of your SaaS offering;
- Revenue from services they bill on their own paper for add-on services that they create such as implementation and adoption services;
- Revenue from the heavy lifting of software and system integration services.
- Find ways that your partners can still retain control the customer even though you bill the customer directly for your SaaS.
Take Action — One Thing You Can Do Today
View your partners as customers and focus on their ease of doing business with your firm. Track key channel metrics such as sales per month, churn rates, how long it takes partners to get a quote, and how long it takes them to get paid their commissions. And Listen to the complete podcast to learn more about Craig and how he’s accelerating channel growth.
About The Author
Rob Spee is founder and CEO of Channel Journeys Consulting and host of the Channel Journeys podcast. Rob applies his channel expertise to help clients create and execute channel strategies to accelerate revenue growth. His global channel experience spans from building channels at startups to vendors and distributors like Arrow, BMC, Carbonite, and SAS. Follow Rob on Twitter and LinkedIn.