In the “Channel Not Selling (enough of) Your Product Series, we’ve been exploring the root causes of low channel revenue and what you can do about it. Below you can see an overview of the topics discussed so far, links to these posts and a summary of how these posts fit together to help readers take action.
In Part 1, we discussed,3 Questions You Can Ask to Diagnose the Problem
- What is the Value Proposition for partners to invest their time in selling your product?
- Is your product and go-to-market program “Channel-Ready”
- What is the Sales Process for your product and how does it fit into how your channel partners sell?
- In Part 2, we discussed Question #3 as 2 layers to understand, “How Do You Fit Into the Way They Sell?”
– Layer 1: What 3 Questions Indicate Whether You Need to Sell “Solutions”?
– Layer 2: Getting built into a Partners’ Business “Practice”
- In Part 3 we discussed how to address Question #3 in “2 Steps to Connect Your Products to How Your Channel Sells “
– Steps to overcome the “Solution Branding Box”
– Steps to make your GTM programs connect with how partners do business – by helping partners “Productize” selling your product within their business
- In Part 4 we talked about the balance between recruiting and enablement – Should You Recruit, Enable Or Both? How Do You Decide?
- In part 5 today, we will drill down on what it means to “productize” offerings
In today’s post we are going back to the recommendation to help your partners sell your products within their “Productized” solutions. What does that really mean and what are some concrete steps you can take to help partners “Productize selling your product within their business?
In my earlier post, “2 Steps to Connect Your Products to How Your Channel Sells” we talked about how solution/services-oriented partners consume programs from vendors. Figure 1 below shows this 2-phase process that the partner runs to plan and execute a solution/services oriented GTM program. Note the elements of this process: Plan, Productize, Promote, Sell and Deliver (or PP-PSD). This is the basic process partners follow to sell your products as part of their solutions.
Figure 1: How Partners Consume (Plan and Execute) a Solutions GTM Program (PP-PSD)
Let’s look at Phase 1 of this process in more detail. The “secret sauce” in this process is “Productization.” I find that people are more familiar with this word in the context of selling professional services, than they are in the context of selling solutions and products, but it works in exactly the same way. The challenge of selling services and solutions is that you are not selling a single physical product (like a car), you are selling an outcome – and getting to that outcome requires understanding the current customer situation and where they want to end up.
For example, a firm selling services can do initial discovery and positioning through a discussion that matches customer challenges to the vendor’s services capabilities. This leads to a custom proposal, but it takes a lot of work and requires very skilled sales staff. Another approach is to create “service packages” that solve common customer problems, and sell these as packaged service offerings. For example, an IT service firm could create a “Windows XP Migration” service that included software, services such as an assessment and implementation, along with hardware and software to deliver the desired outcome. This is an example of “Productization” – and a key benefit for the channel and for technology vendors is that Productized offerings (such as this Windows XP Migration service) can be qualified and positioned effectively by generalist salespeople, with specialists brought in later in the sales process once the opportunity has been qualified.
So what can you do to get your products “Productized” within your partners’ solutions?
The answer goes back to the process shown in Figure 1 above: Plan, Productize, Promote, Sell and Deliver (PP-PSD). This is the basic process partners will need to follow to sell your products as part of their solutions – and this is the process you need to connect into to help partners sell more of your products.
To get started, you need to be built into the partners’ planning process. This typically is done with an executive-level alignment session. I’ve done a number of these over the years and that could be a separate discussion and post. For today’s post lets focus on the middle section of planning – Defining the Solution and Building the solution tools, shown below in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Underlying Phase 1 Planning/Productization Process for Partners
Let’s take a specific example to see how this approach plays out.
- The next generation of your de-duplication software requires significant work to upgrade, but opens the door for a number of new capabilities and lucrative upsells around Disaster Recovery.
- These upsells incorporate both your products and the products from other vendors – and represent service opportunities for your partners.
- Some customers will want a basic upgrade, but some will want the full upgrade with other products and capabilities that enable DR.
- How can you get partners to sell this upgrade and the upsells for your product?
In this model, a partner “productizes” your upgrade into specific solutions with descriptive names like 1) “De-Duplication Upgrade” and 2) “De-Duplication to DR Upgrade”. Behind each of these solutions, the partner has identified the specific products and services they will sell and deliver to provide the desired outcome. The partner then creates a set of assets, to help them market and sell these solutions.
For you to be successful “Productizing” your offerings with partners, you need to:
1) be aware of the solutions that your partners sell where your products can fit
2) provide standard materials to help them build these “Productized” offerings in their business.
By helping partners “productize” offerings you develop a new path for your revenue and also help your partner build a stronger, more differentiated set of offerings for customers. In future posts, I will talk more about the details of a solution GTM program for these “Productized” solutions, including topics like the assets BOM, professional services enablement etc.…
I welcome any comments below — And make sure you “Follow” our blog (look for the “Follow” link on the upper left) and have your say. I’m also available as a public speaker, to support local and global events in Silicon Valley, or the rest of the flattening world… For more details, contact me via the form below.
“Climbing Out of the Box”™ 