Choose Your Partnerships and Invest In Them
Prioritize your partnerships and invest. A good way to do this is to evaluate your vendor partners. At least once a year, rate your partnerships from 1 to 4. A rating of 1 means you would heavily invest in technical competencies, marketing funds, and joint selling efforts. A rating of 4 is considered "dying on the vine". This means that you would be happy if you got a deal now and then, but would not cultivate the relationship.
There are several hundred storage startups out there making a splash and looking for partners. While many solution providers attempt to take the high road and be "vendor-neutral", a serious investment in time and loyalty to a few select partners will often pay huge dividends.
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