How to Get Your Reps to Embrace Partners with Jules Johnston

A big challenge almost everyone in the channel has to face is how do you get direct sellers to embrace partners? Whether you’re just starting in building a channel or you’ve got a long-standing partner program, you’re going to have sellers who don’t understand the value partners bring, or don’t know how to engage partners […]

A big challenge almost everyone in the channel has to face is how do you get direct sellers to embrace partners? Whether you’re just starting in building a channel or you’ve got a long-standing partner program, you’re going to have sellers who don’t understand the value partners bring, or don’t know how to engage partners effectively. That’s the question we’re going to answer today.

 Jules Johnston, SVP of Global Channels, faced this challenge at Equinix, a massive digital infrastructure company with over $7 billion in revenues. Jules stood up a global channel organization in a company that had been selling 100% direct for 20 years. It was a monumental task, both from a human and systems perspective, with everything designed for direct sales. Learn how she succeeded in gaining the mindshare of both her direct sellers and the partner community. 

Here are some great tips from Jules on how to get your direct sellers to embrace channel partners:   

Understand your seller’s motivation. Direct sellers aren’t against the channel or against you. They are just for themselves. You have to make the channel impactful and helpful for them.
Align with your sellers’ compensation model. Start with a comp neutral strategy so the partner discount doesn’t impact the seller’s compensation. Or, better yet, provide an incentive that makes it more lucrative for your sellers to work with channel partners.
Align your sellers with the right partners. Make sure you are aligning your sellers with the right partners who have overlapping customers, offer a strong value proposition, and have adjacent products and services to offer.
Start with what your customers need. Make sure your customers see the benefit in your sellers co-selling with your partners.
Hire channel savvy sellers. When hiring new direct sellers, hire those who have partner co-selling in their DNA.
Know the partner close plan. Teach your sellers how to work with partners to build a “path to paper”, understanding what it takes to close the deal, where the partner sees it in their forecast, and all the steps to get a PO from the partner.
Celebrate your heroes. Make heroes out of your sellers who are early adopters of the channel. Make sure all the other sellers are hearing of their successes with partners to spread channel DNA across the company.

LINKS & RESOURCES

Connect with Jules on LinkedIn
Check out the Top 5 Ecosystem Plays for 2024 with Jay McBain
Hear 10 Ways to Measure Partner Ecosystem Performance
Try Impartner Partner Management
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