Reform School

Ever since the economic downturn, when vendors began cutting back their direct-sales forces to get expenses under control, companies have been preaching fundamental business disciplines such as the need to make sure that revenue growth exceeds expense growth.

It's clear that the only way to do this effectively is to create a vibrant channel that can work cooperatively with a given vendor's direct-sales force. So, as part of this broader industry movement, most vendors now talk a lot about how they are moving to more of a "direct-touch" sales model, in which their salespeople work accounts and earn incentives for driving business to channel partners.

The theory here is that more channel partners can close more deals than a few direct salespeople, and as long as the salespeople are compensated for the sale at the end of the day, everybody should be happy.

The problem is that old habits die hard.

More than a few salespeople have had trouble adjusting to this new cultural and economic reality. The end result is that their irrational need to keep control of the account often results in continuing anti-partner behavior, regardless of the economic incentives in play.

The good news is that many vendors are now recognizing this reality and are taking some corrective steps to counter it, namely in the form of retraining. In fact, a whole cottage industry has sprung up around the retraining of salespeople; notable is a sister organization of CRN—also owned by CRN's publishing parent, CMP Media, and led by Toni Clayton Hine—called the Institute for Partner Education and Development.

On the whole, most of the conflict in the channel stems from ignorance rather than perfidy. So the more vendors do to retrain their own people, the better off we'll all be. After all, the only way to combat ignorance is through education.

Who would you like to see get educated? I can be reached at (516) 562-7477 or via e-mail at mvizard@cmp.com.