HVACexpert

sales engineer

Valued Contributor

Channel Partner Questions

So I work for what's called a manufacturer's representative, which is similar to a channel partner. We partner with suppliers/vendors to be their sole source representation within a given market. My company is small and family owned so I have to put on different hats from time to time and help out (which I am happy to do).

My questions are regarding managing the relationships with your vendors/partners from the channel partner side of the business.

If you're approached how are you vetting the tech companies that reach out to you?

Typically how long is the contract for between the partner and tech company? Is meeting minimum sales a part of the contract?

Are you building in rebates or additional incentives into the contract for the channel partner if certain sales dollar values are met?

Is your contract exclusive for your territory or do they give access to other partners?

Are you ever sharing a territory with the tech company sales team selling along side you directly?

What else are you doing to manage the relationship with your supplier or vendor?

(sorry that's a lot of questions)

As I have been given more responsibility I am helping manage some of our relationships now. I have some limited experience dealing with partners/reps from the manufacturing side.

Thanks in advance for the help and feedback.

👬 Partners/Resellers

🧢 Sales Management

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7 comments

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Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

4

Director of Revenue

I spent some time as a channel manager for a software company and what you're describing is generally done from the vendor side.

You, as the channel partner, hold all the cards with your existing accounts and relationships. The vendor should be wining-and-dining you, so you're more likely to pitch them in your accounts.
If this isn't happening, I imagine that being a small org, they may just not know of your company? If that's the case, I'd setup time with their sales teams to learn more about them, but also be able to talk about the work you're already doing. If you have some whales in your territory, they'll want to incentivize you with higher margin, rebates, events, etc.

I'd stay away from exclusive contracts because that will inevitably come back to bite you. Send business to the people/companies that put in the effort. If they're sharing info with you and talking about their pipeline, setting up territory planning meetings with you, then hook em up. Build a mutual relationship with them, send some business their way, ask for intros to customers that you aren't already talking to etc.

Probably too much info in here to talk about in one post, but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

4

🦊

Thought y'all were supposed to be "vendor agnostic" 😏

jefe

Arsonist

2

🍁

I'm thinking this is probably as thorough as you'll get. Good shit @Phillip_J_Fry

medhardwaredr

Opinionated

2

Director of Sales NA

I cannot add much to this! Nice summary and you’re spot on

HVACexpert

Politicker

0

sales engineer

Hey thanks for the response. Here is some more information.

We have a good reputation in the market, and our approached often, however, some of these vendors are smaller privately owned manufacturers themselves, so it’s hard to vet them out sometimes.

The typical contract is exclusive with the vendor within our region, it’s actually super annoying to share a territory with other reps/sales teams with the same product/brand. From a manufacturing side I understand the argument (been there) but on this side of the fence if there is any inbound oops I don’t want to fight that with another rep, or if I talk to a customer explaining how this rep/individual does this while we cover this can be confusing and create a lot of grey area and lost opportunities.

I would love to hear more about negotiating incentives, rebates, etc. that is not typical for our industry.

GTMLeader

Good Citizen

1

GTM Leader

Several years experience on both sides of that fence. To answer some of your questions:
How would I vet: I would start by looking at what other products they repped. Do they have the market presence. How big are they, just to name a few.
Contract length was two years with an evergreen clause.
No minimum sales needed.
The channel partners had a wholesale cost, they could give the software away as part of a larger take for them. There were wholesale cost discounts based on volume. Each of my Area mangers had a channel partner marketing budget to use at their discretion. The area mangers sold direct in the same geographic area and it was first come, first serve. The AMs were comped on the revenue for the partners in their territory so they had an incentive to help their partners succeed.
Didn’t put exclusive in the agreement but had a gentleman’s agreement that as long as they moved product, I wouldn’t sign up anyone else in their area.

Hth

Beans

Big Shot

1

Enterprise Account Executive

We've launched a channel partner initiative this year and it has been a massive headache, our contacts at AWS, SAP, Oracle are not helpful and only care for quick wins.
I hope your experience is different.

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