What best aligns interests in a channel sales strategy? Get pro tips from an expert.
Book office hours at Dreamit Ventures https://www.dreamit.com/office-hours
Tell us more about your startup https://www.dreamit.com/tell-us-more

A good reseller sales strategy can do wonders for your startup's GTM and scalability. However, many founders fail to build a successful reseller partnership with a startup. In this Dreamit Can, Mel Shakir asked Evan Blair to share key insights he's gained over the past decade leading global sales and partner programs at ZeroFox, Accuvant, and Ciphent. Evan offers several reseller sales tips to help you build relationships with partners that are truly mutually beneficial. His reseller sales tips can apply to value-added reseller startups, broader startup resellers, and even reseller marketing. Remember, effective reseller sales channels need input—the right energy and environment to grow. A strategic partner strategy that doesn't create or enable shared value will almost always fail to achieve that goal. Worse, if poor sales results are unknowingly the result of insufficient founder input or effort, your team may decide to abandon the channel partnership strategy altogether. The good news is that many of these misalignments are easy to fix. Founders with strategic partner startups or value-added reseller go-to-market models – this one's for you. That's the key to channel partner strategy for startups in a quick 10-minute dose!

0:00 – Introduction
0:38 – Rhetorical questions about managing channel sales
0:57 – Are you looking for market makers or market takers?
1:31 – What does your ideal partner profile look like?
2:58 – Can you invest the time and resources required?
3:25 – Make offers to partners
3:52 – Do the dirty work of selling
4:36 – Sales Performance Incentive Fund (SPIF)
5:38 – Channel Account Managers (CAMs)
6:32 – Dedicated Sales Engineers (SEs)
7:21 – Quarterly business reports (QBRs)
7:56 – Insights
8:40 – Outro

Please take the opportunity to connect with your friends and family and share this video with them if you find it useful.