"My product is too complex for the channel"! Have you heard that before? Sometimes is used as a catch all statement to justify a direct only sales approach to the board, other times it means that the product truly is hard to set up or sell. Do you buy the argument? If so you will miss out on sales, but don't worry the competition will handle it.
"I think complexity is mostly sort of crummy stuff that is there because it's too expensive to change the interface."
~Jaron Lanier, (Lanier is best known for his work in Virtual Reality)
In many cases I think that Jaron is right, really clever products have wonderfully simple interfaces, iPod comes quickly to mind. However as you peel back the onion, complex products fall into one of three camps:
1) The Productoid - this product that escapes rather than is finished. Charitably it can be called a tool kit. Whatever term you want to use, it is a lump of code that requires lots of labor to make it work, likely is a challenge to work with as the API's if they exist are poorly documented. The best outcome for this type of product in the channel is to uncover sales leads. If the product is refined, and polished perhaps more can come from channel partners. Typically what happens is that the product gets a bad name among channel partners and the vendor returns the feeling saying that the channel provides no value. The one thing everyone agrees is that the foray into the channel was a failure.
2) Integration Nation - This product is in the middle of a number of different systems and must be integrated with each of them. The skills required are an experienced computer scientist with broad experience, ie they will have implemented many different products. With an organized approach an army of skilled implementers can be developed from resellers and systems integrators. As long as the customer sees the advantage of the product, you can succeed in the channel. This integration challenge is typical in the High-Tech world so firm's can expect to get distribution and implementation leverage.
3) The McKinsey Effect - The last category is the product that requires a ton of business process knowledge, either about a particular type of an industry or a functional area. Examples are Cerner Corporation with it's Health Care Information System a cheerful customer requires this CRM be implemented by people familiar with hospitals, content management software for building and maintaining web sites require companies to establish black and white procedures for making changes, i.e. who approves what changes or by what processes are changes approved - the functions of the software are easy compared with guiding a company to establish formal procedures which may change the behavior of their employees. This type of software requires a business analyst rather than a technologist.
The first step is to carefully decide on your target channel partners, always important it is critical with complex products. A pharmacy automation tool in the hands of a catalog reseller is a "match made in heck". For integration challenges, find resellers with experience implementing some of the applications to be integrated with. They will have to some direct experience and the foundational knowledge to succeed. In addition, the company will be open to talking with you as they understand the business potential.
A business process product will do better in the hands of a reseller from that industry who can speak the language and understand the customer's business. They can be hard to find and harder to engage in a conversation as many times they have a singular focus. However once your firm gets their attention the value proposition can be a nice match as you have a new product or service for their existing customers.
Okay you have a identified the right profile resellers, what next? Determine what you want from the channel, drive the organization to be realistic. Complex products are slow going, so plan to stay for the full journey. A word of caution, sometimes the need is so great for the product that there is a bow wave of interest and sales which generates excitement but then the implementation challenges slow the process and dampen the excitement as well as sales. Keep you finger on the pulse of the channel so you aren't surprised. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is a recent case of the trend, it is not clear if DLP has yet recovered.
Leads, leads, leads is what you are going to get initially from the channel and if you do be happy. Qualified leads cost your marketing department $350 to $750 each. Focus your attention, program and energies here. What that means is that your company is going to do the heavy lifting with the product. So your training goal is to provide a concise knowledge of the product to both technical and business folks at the reseller but then your team will focus on teaching the resellers how to uncover a need and mechanics of a sale, i.e. who is typically the decision maker, who do you initially approach with the value proposition, etc. The key deliverable from the vendor is a clear explanation of the need for the product and who cares about the problem being solved. With each sale by a reseller you transfer more knowledge, pretty soon that reseller will take control of more and more of the sales process.
Once you have the "front end" the process tight then you can move to technical certifications and leveraging the technical resources of the reseller. One of the classic mistakes is for an organization to fixate on getting technical leverage first, not going to happen until there is a business case. Steer your organization away from this pitfall, set the expectations of sales first. When you start the technology transfer phase, be careful not to scare the resellers away by making the coursework too long. Segment the training into bit sized pieces, maybe teach how to install and configure first if your product is a real "bear" work with. That all said you should pitch the opportunity for services revenue to the reseller, if only to set the expectations for the future.
Never fear complex product can be sold successfully with partners, you don't have to go it alone.
