Many wonder if the channels will be eliminated down the road.
Having a roundtable with your peers always brings out the best in people, also the horror stories of being a reseller. After listening to an hour of stories during this roundtable there was one constant: resellers trust their vendors less and less. Resellers are less likely to share leads, meeting information and customer information with the vendors. I am sure that many of you are reading this and asking why? One of the main reasons that came up in the roundtable was vendors stealing sales, taking a sale direct or handing it to another partner who could be a buddy of the vendor.
Many partners in the roundtable said after sharing sales or marketing information with a vendor’s account manager they found that person contacted the customer directly. They found the vendor’s account manager scheduling their own evaluation with the customer and then handed the sale to other partners or they took it direct. Others found that the information was passed onto another partner by the vendor. Some found out after the sale was already done when they were following up with a customer on an agreed upon date. Let me say that none of these partners are small or bad, some are very large with great staffs. Many said they have heard of kick backs to vendor account managers from partner for sales and leads.
So is this just business or should there be some ethics when partners work with vendors? Should partners start to watch the information they share with vendors? If a vendor has a channel program which is supposed to drive sales, should the vendor be allowed to send a customer emails direct or place phones calls asking for sales after receiving information from the partner? Should a vendor make partners work on their own evaluations with customers and not just get handed sales? These were all good questions brought up during our roundtable.
I can say from my own personal experience that vendors sometimes seem to go over that line when pushing for sales. I have some vendors account managers that I only hear from when they are worried about a sale or asking when the sale will happen. I myself have stopped giving information to some account managers on prospective sales or customers until we are at a point where the sale or evaluation will happen. I have lost some faith in some account managers and their ethics, like many other companies have with people they deal with. This protects my company and our work as we have had vendors contact customers direct after getting information. Many at the table said they are doing the same thing.
So should there be some ethics and trust when dealing with your vendors or is just a dog eat dog world and a sale is a sale no matter how is happens for a vendor? Are vendors working with customers on sales and evaluations personally to drive direct sales and more profit? Should they be allowed to tell a customer that they can get better pricing if they buy direct or work direct with the vendor? Should there be a contract or agreement on this subject between the partner and vendor?
A CEO from a Texas company in our roundtable asked if people see the channels going away down the road so vendors can take all sales direct and make more profit. It will be interesting to hear everyone’s opinion and stories.
