The Role Of The Channel In The Technology Buyer's Journey
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Jason Bystrak Headquarters Year Founded Mission Channel Experience |
“The last year has been around the technology buyer’s journey and how it's changed with things that are happening with as-a-service models and new ways technologies are taken to market.” — Jason Bystrak
The technology buyers’ journey has changed and with it the role of the channel. CompTIA’s Channel Advisory Board has been studying this change to determine what vendors, distributors, and partners can do to adapt to new way technology is bought and consumed.
I recently had an opportunity to discuss this topic with Jason Bystrak on my Channel Journeys podcast. Jason is the Vice President of the Cloud Business Unit at D&H Distributing and a board member of the CompTIA Channel Advisory Board. Jason shared the four stages of the buyer’s journey and the role of channel at each stage.
Key Take-Aways
For each of the four stages of the buyer’s journey, CompTIA lays out the role of the vendor, distributor, and partner in that journey.
- Marketing Stage
In this first phase, buyers are predominantly going online for information. Vendors and partners online strategy should focus on “how do you educate the buyer?” vs. “how do you sell to them?”
- Sales Stage
Vendors should provide partners with adequate training to take the buyer through all stages of the sales process, with special attention to assessment, evaluation, and competitive review stages.
- Technical Stage
The technical phase includes delivery, implementation, and support. Partners, distributors, and vendors should all be asking “how do we integrate our products to make it easier to implement and manage?” to ensure a positive customer experience.
- Customer Success
Support and adoption are two critical steps in the Customer Success stage. Vendors should be sharing use cases, performance indicators, and trends to help their partners drive deeper adoption that will result in higher customer success and expansion of the business.
Take Action — One Thing You Can Do Today
Read more about the Technology Buyer’s Journey from CompTIA and listen to the complete Channel Journeys podcast for more insights from Jason.
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.