How To Drive Breakthrough Channel Performance

“When we look for examples of what's a great partner, it's usually the ones with the strongest cultural fit.” Josh Lewis, Alteryx.

In cycling, as in business, there are certain things you can do to breakthrough to a higher plateau of performance. Getting in more miles on your bike isn’t enough. The right intensity of training, nutrition, equipment, and rest all play a role.

What are the secrets to driving breakthrough channel performance? That was the topic of my Channel Journeys podcast with Josh Lewis, Vice President of Global Channel Sales at Alteryx, a rapidly growing provider of a data science and analytics platform.

Josh highlighted what he’s doing to find the right partners and drive higher performance from these partners, as well as from his channel team.

Key Take-Aways

• The partners who are most successful are the ones with the strongest cultural fit with your company. Therefore, find partners who speak your language and share a common view of your mission. It’s hard to measure on a dashboard, but you know it when you see it.
• Cull non-productive partners who aren’t willing or able to re-engage and commit. Furthermore, take a data-driven, targeted approach to recruit new partners who have vertical industry expertise.
• Marketing teams place huge importance on customer and brand experience. Make sure your channel marketing team is always seeking ways to fuse your brand experience into your channel program and improving partner experience.
• Align your channel teams and partners to the sales teams to gain sales relevancy. Also hire, train and coach your channel managers with the skills they need to drive breakthrough performance from their partners.

Take Action - One Thing You Can Do Today

Make sure your channel managers and their partners are aligned with the regional sales teams. This will help you drive higher partner-attach rates and create more productive partners.

Listen to the complete podcast to learn more about Josh and hear many more tips for driving breakthrough channel performance.

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.