ZINFI Technologies, Inc.

Introduction

Channel management is complex primarily because of what it tries to manage. The word “management” implies some level of control to achieve performance from an individual or from a team, either through inspiration or through some level of enforcement. The meaning of “management” varies greatly when it comes to an organization’s structure—depending on whether it’s a startup, a more mature company or a governmental organization like the military. However, in every one of those instances there is a direct relationship between the manager and the subordinate or employee or team member. In the case of a reseller network or a partner network, that relationship is very different, and it presents some unique challenges. Let’s take a moment to explore those challenges.

Challenges

1. Channel partners are companies, not people. Ordinarily when we talk about management, where there is some level of control over employees or consultants or contractors, we are exerting some level of control over people. But when we talk about managing a channel, the level of control is much lower: first of all because it’s an indirect sales force and, second, as I’ve already noted, we’re managing companies, not people. Of course those companies are made up of people—sales people, technical people, marketing people—but in the end we’re trying to manage an entity rather than individuals. That’s an important difference that creates a huge amount of complexity.

2. Channel partners do not report to vendors. In the case of a direct sales force, there is a hierarchy. You have a manager who reports to a director who may report to a VP, but with a channel organization, you have a company reporting to a channel account manager or a partner business manager. That reporting relationship is indirect. If some partners don’t perform over one or two or three quarters, they don’t get fired for missing their mark. They may miss some incentives, but they don’t get fired for poor performance. Eventually, if a partner doesn’t perform over a long period of time, that partner may be replaced, but it doesn’t happen as quickly as it would when you’re managing a direct sales force.

3. Channel partners have their own priorities. The challenge here is that those priorities do not necessarily align with the priorities of a vendor. If a vendor is trying to promote a specific product or trying to penetrate a specific market—say, verticals like manufacturing or healthcare or whatever–it may or may not be in the interest of the partner to carry out those activities. So it’s crucial for the organization to understand what the priorities of those partners are instead of randomly pushing programs and deploying resources.

4.There are different types of partners, and they require different engagement models. Some partners sell to small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), some partners sell to midmarket organizations, some sell to enterprises and some sell to all or a combination of two or more segments. For an organization to align behind the needs of various types of partners, have appropriate programs and make them meaningful requires a significant level of thinking and homework which, a lot of times, companies skip. Therefore, many of the initiatives that are rolled out in the channel don’t really have an impact. In addition to differences in types of partners—what we might call practices or areas of focus—there are also differences in relationship based on revenue. Partners who are larger—larger in the sense that they carry a bigger portion of a vendor’s revenue—tend to more important to the vendors than those partners who don’t carry a lot of products. Aligning the appropriate level of resources with high-velocity and high-volume partners vs. low-velocity, low-volume partners is critical, and that can make channel management quite complex.

5.

Introduction

Channel management is complex primarily because of what it tries to manage. The word “management” implies some level of control to achieve performance from an individual or from a team, either through inspiration or through some level of enforcement. The meaning of “management” varies greatly when it comes to an organization’s structure—depending on whether it’s a startup, a more mature company, or a governmental organization like the military. However, in every one of those instances, there is a direct relationship between the manager and the subordinate employee or team member. In the case of a reseller network or a partner network, that relationship is very different, and it presents some unique challenges. Let’s take a moment to explore those challenges.

Challenges

Channel partners are companies, not people. Ordinarily when we talk about management, where there is some level of control over employees, consultants, or contractors, we are exerting some level of control over people. But when we talk about managing a channel, the level of control is much lower: first of all, because it’s an indirect sales force and, second, as I’ve already noted, we’re managing companies, not people. Of course, those companies are made up of people — salespeople, technical people, marketing people—but in the end we’re trying to manage an entity rather than individuals. That’s an important difference that creates a huge amount of complexity.

Channel partners do not report to vendors. In the case of a direct sales force, there is a hierarchy. You have a manager who reports to a director who may report to a VP, but with a channel organization, you have a company reporting to a channel account manager or a partner business manager. That reporting relationship is indirect. If some partners don’t perform over one, two, or three quarters, they don’t get fired for missing their mark. They may miss some incentives, but they don’t get fired for poor performance. Eventually, if a partner doesn’t perform over a long period of time, that partner may be replaced, but it doesn’t happen as quickly as it would when you’re managing a direct sales force.

Channel partners have their own priorities. The challenge here is that those priorities do not necessarily align with the priorities of a vendor. If a vendor is trying to promote a specific product or trying to penetrate a specific market—say, verticals like manufacturing or healthcare or whatever–it may or may not be in the interest of the partner to carry out those activities. So it’s crucial for the organization to understand what the priorities of those partners are instead of randomly pushing programs and deploying resources.

There are different types of partners, and they require different engagement models. Some partners sell to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), some partners sell to midmarket organizations, some sell to enterprises and some sell to all or a combination of two or more segments. For an organization to align behind the needs of various types of partners, have appropriate programs, and make them meaningful requires a significant level of thinking and homework which, a lot of times, companies skip. Therefore, many of the initiatives that are rolled out in the channel don’t really have an impact. In addition to differences in types of partners—what we might call practices or areas of focus—there are also differences in relationships based on revenue. Partners who are larger—larger in the sense that they carry a bigger portion of a vendor’s revenue—tend to be more important to the vendors than those partners who don’t carry a lot of products. Aligning the appropriate level of resources with high-velocity and high-volume partners vs. low-velocity, low-volume partners is critical, and that can make channel management quite complex.

A partner’s loyalty is driven by financial motives. Just like in a startup environment, where people may be partly motivated by a belief in a cause or inspiration but are ultimately driven by the prospect of financial gain, most of the time the relationship between a partner and a vendor is fundamentally driven by financial gain. If the path toward that financial gain is not clearly defined, it can cause a lot of friction. Similarly, if the expectations change or are realigned with respect to an initiative, that can create complexity.

Partner success depends on their competencies in an ecosystem. Very rarely does a partner—especially in the technology or solution domain—sell only one product. So, for example, if a partner is selling to the construction industry, the technology sector, manufacturing, or other areas of high tech, that partner may carry two, three, four, or as many as 50 different vendors. A partner’s competencies play a big role in determining its interest in a specific set of solutions. Understanding that and aligning those competencies is critical for success. One last point: While many companies have alliance programs, and they tend to apply them to solution selling, they do not apply much to franchise or retail businesses. Therefore, if an organization is addressing those types of markets, the level of complexity can be quite high.

Forecasting is very hard when it comes to run rate and large-deal businesses. One of the major challenges in channel marketing is developing forecasts, especially if a company is growing. In cases where there is a revenue business, and the revenue doesn’t change much from quarter to quarter—which may be the typical scenario with retail and franchises—it’s relatively easy to predict within a few percentage points what the demand is going to be. However, if the economy is in distress, or certain product categories are growing faster, one of the big challenges is to work with the partner base and come up with a forecasting model. This is where understanding various types of partners, their own sales velocity, and the mix behind that velocity is critical. Without proper systems and processes in place, it is incredibly difficult for vendors to come up with these forecasts.

These seven major channel management challenges are common across every type of channel. Of course, there are other types of challenges that may be very specific to a market segment or a country. However, if these seven challenges are not addressed consistently in each market in which a vendor participates, the maturity of the channel and the realization of the potential may vary greatly.

So let’s talk a bit about the solutions for overcoming these challenges when it comes to channel management.

Solutions

A structured channel program. Every company needs a structured channel program. It may not be a single program but a set of programs aligned behind different types of partners—by their verticals, their competencies, their sales mix, by their location: different strokes for different folks. Thinking that through in a systematic way can reduce a lot of waste and frustrations for both parties involved as you try to grow your business.

Ease of doing business – doing less to get more done via the channel. Ease of doing business comes up as a major factor when it comes to channel management on both the partner side and the vendor side. Often the account manager ends up spending an enormous amount of time fielding emails, phone calls, etc. from partners. That problem can be addressed through a proper structure. That may mean sales concierges or partner marketing concierges, or it can be a combination of inside, outside, and field support, but thinking through that structure and optimizing the productivity of the organization is critical. Many times when smaller organizations get acquired by larger ones, by default the larger organization tends to roll the acquired organization into their existing structure, and even though on the surface this integration may make sense, in reality, a lot of the supporting infrastructure that was actually working and making the smaller entity successful falls apart. This is why a lot of acquisitions that occur in the technology space don’t realize their potential, because when it comes to ease of doing business, that structure gets changed dramatically.

Systems for partner relationship management and partner marketing management. While enterprise resource automation—as well as sales force automation and more recently marketing automation—has been around for a while, very few companies have deployed structured systems when it comes to partner relationship management and partner marketing management. With a little bit of investment and structure in this area, a company can realize significant returns and reduce labor costs, increase ease of doing business, and create a structure around its

channel programs. This leads to my fourth point:

Program alignment – training, product promotions, incentives. When we think about partner training, product promotions, incentives related to rewards, rebates, market development funds and so on, it is very important to think through these programs in a systematic way. Throwing out a bunch of incentives just for the sake of doing it—we see it all the time: $100 rewards for certain activities, $1,000 prizes, opportunities to win an iPad—really doesn’t make a lot of sense for partners. That’s because, fundamentally, if the incentives are not aligned with selling a product or service, they will not go the extra mile for the sake for winning an iPad or whatever. But when programs are aligned and a channel is performing, it’s a different story, which leads to my last solution:

Celebrate success – make it fun. Many vendors do have annual partner conferences where they award a premier partner or two or perhaps more across certain categories. That is incredibly important, and it’s quite common. But it’s not enough. For a channel to maintain its energy and its direction and its commitment,...

With the rise of content marketing as a primary way to engage the target audience and drive sales, channel marketing is also evolving rapidly. A decade or two ago, channel marketing pretty much meant running events (for recruitment, training, and lead generation) and giving away market-development funds to those who knew how to leverage them. Today, unified partner management is changing the way companies invest, track, and improve ROI from their channel marketing activities. A core set of channel marketing metrics play a critical role in driving better ROI.

Before we take a deep dive into the channel marketing metrics that truly matter, let's step back and clearly define the objectives of channel marketing. If marketing is about driving awareness, engagement, and customer intimacy, channel marketing essentially means the same thing, but it operates in more dimensions: The first two dimensions are the channel partners who resell the products and services, and the end users who procure them. To that you add a third dimension: increasing reach at a lower cost. Channel marketing metrics need to address all three core dimensions, measuring ROI from partner marketing, ROI from end-user marketing, and expansion of reach.

Partner engagement – This channel marketing metric focuses on how well you are engaging partners across various partner types, geography, and channel programs. A state-of-the-art channel marketing automation platform should dynamically show clear engagement metrics.

Program utilization – Every company has ongoing programs in place to drive channel marketing. The key is to figure out the core metrics of those programs, in terms of partner recruitment, partner training, multi-partner demand generation and incentives programs. It's essential to have a channel marketing automation platform in place that can allow the channel management team to slice and dice the data to understand what is truly going on in the channel.

Program effectiveness – Unlike program utilization metrics, which focus on the ways in which partners are engaged in program activities, program effectiveness metrics are focused on measuring the ROI delivered by specific programs. This applies to both indirect marketing channels (e.g., search and social) and direct channels (e.g.., collateral, email, telemarketing, etc.) as well as marketing programs. These are key channel marketing metrics, and they should allow the channel management team to understand how well each program is meeting its objectives, as well as driving ROI.

Partner portal effectiveness – Partner portals play a critical role in communicating to the partners what is going on with the various aspects of the company's channel marketing They also provide partners with access to all necessary tools related to program components like marketing, sales and incentives.

Sales reach – The very purpose of a channel is to extend reach, but very rarely do companies run territory analysis to understand over- and under-penetration from an end-user demand perspective. We will discuss in detail how to do this separately, as it requires partner profiling. The important point here is that sales reach is an essential metric when it comes to channel marketing program selection. If you don’t understand what is selling where, program selection and execution is a little like shooting in the dark.

Return on incentives– These very important channel marketing metrics measure the effectiveness of three core incentives programs: co-marketing funds (or market development funds), sales rewards and rebates. Without a proper partner relationship management platform, it is almost impossible to track these metrics dynamically. That’s an important consideration, since most channel incentives change dynamically on a quarterly and bi-annual basis. Companies that can track incentives dynamically can make rapid adjustments, quickly realigning behind successful programs and redirecting resources from programs that are not working.

Partner sales velocity – This is obviously a channel sales metric, but it is also an important indicator for effective channel marketing. Since marketing enables sales – with customer awareness, new leads and closing tools – it’s important to understand which partners are increasing velocity, and which marketing programs and tools are associated with those successes.

Partner repurchase rate – When it comes to top-tier partners in a broadly distributed channel, most companies have a good sense of the repurchase rates of their top partners. However, this is a very important metric to track for partners who are not repeat buyers of the company’s products and solutions. Why? Well, when you look at this output metric in light of the relevant input metrics for channel marketing mentioned above, you will enhance your understanding of what is driving revenue forward (from a partner perspective) and what is not.

End-customer repurchase rate – We know that two core factors increase end-customer repurchase rate: solution value and reach. The two factors are tightly linked. Assuming there is a compelling value in the solution, the key is to make sure that there is enough market coverage via a healthy and capable channel network so the end-customer has multiple solution providers that can adapt and grow with their needs when they’re ready to repurchase. The partner who sold to an end-customer the first time may not be the partner who is able to keep up with the growth of the end-customer's business requirements over time. Therefore, it is essential that your channel marketing efforts have a broader reach (which can also be indirectly measured by the repurchase rate) so you have the opportunity to recapture those customers through other partners. Looking at repurchase rates is one way to determine if your reach is sufficiently broad.

Partner satisfaction rate – Finally, one of the most important channel marketing metrics measures partner satisfaction rates. We will discuss in detail how to measure satisfaction and loyalty in another post, but an effective channel marketing automation platform should provide dynamic online survey tools and capabilities that can track partner satisfaction rates and core drivers in an effective way.

As you look at this list of 10 core metrics, you may be wondering what is missing. I can think of two things: granular sub-metrics in each of these areas, and essential channel sales metrics. Remember, we can only see what we measure. With that in mind, it is essential that any channel management team that is striving to produce better results for their partners, end users and the entire ecosystem properly align their channel program, processes and tools to make sure these core metrics are visible.

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Frequently asked questions

+ What are the three core dimensions of channel marketing?

The three core dimensions of channel marketing are:

Partner marketing: Engaging and enabling channel partners to sell and support the company's products and services.

End user marketing: Driving awareness, engagement, and demand for the company's products and services among end users through the channel.

Reach expansion: Increasing the company's reach to new and existing customers through the channel.

+ What are the key channel marketing metrics for measuring ROI?

The key channel marketing metrics for measuring ROI include:

Partner engagement: Measuring how well the company is engaging partners across various partner types, geography, and channel programs.

Program utilization: Measuring how well partners are participating in the company's channel programs.

Program effectiveness: Measuring the ROI delivered by specific channel programs.

Sales reach: Measuring how well the company is reaching end users through the channel.

Return on incentives: Measuring the effectiveness of channel incentive programs.

Partner sales velocity: Measuring how quickly partners are selling the company's products and services.

Partner repurchase rate: Measuring how often partners repurchase the company's products and services.

End-customer repurchase rate: Measuring how often end users repurchase the company's products and services through the channel.

Partner satisfaction rate: Measuring how satisfied partners are with the company's channel program.

+ What are the two most important factors that increase end-customer repurchase rate?

The two most important factors that increase end-customer repurchase rate are:

Solution value: The perceived value of the company's products and services to end users.

Reach: The company's ability to reach end users through a healthy and capable channel network.

 

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With the rise of content marketing as a primary way to engage the target audience and drive sales, channel marketing is also evolving rapidly. A decade or two ago, channel marketing pretty much meant running events (for recruitment, training and lead generation) and giving away market-development funds to those who knew how to leverage them. Today, unified channel management is changing the way companies invest, track and improve ROI from their channel marketing activities. A core set of channel marketing metrics play a critical role in driving better ROI.Before we take a deep dive into the channel marketing metrics that truly matter, let’s step back and clearly define the objectives of channel marketing. If marketing is about driving awareness, engagement and customer intimacy, channel marketing essentially means the same thing, but it operates in more dimensions: The first two dimensions are the channel partners who resell the products and services, and the end users who procure them. To that you add a third dimension: increasing reach at a lower cost. Channel marketing metrics need to address all three core dimensions, measuring ROI from partner marketing, ROI from end user marketing and expansion of reach.* Partner engagement – This channel marketing metric focuses on how well you are engaging partners across various partner types, geography and channel programs. A state-of-the-art channel marketing automation platform should dynamically show clear engagement metrics.* Program utilization – Every company has ongoing programs in place to drive channel marketing. They key is to figure out the core metrics of those programs, in terms of partner recruitment, partner training, multi-partner demand generation and incentives programs. It’s essential to have a channel marketing automation platform in place that can allow the channel management team to slice and dice the data to understand what is truly going on in the channel.* Program effectiveness – Unlike program utilization metrics, which focus on the ways in which partners are engaged in program activities, program effectiveness metrics are focused on measuring the ROI delivered by specific programs. This applies to both indirect marketing channels (e.g., search and social) and direct channels (e.g.., collateral, email, telemarketing, etc.) as well as marketing programs. These are key channel marketing metrics, and they should allow the channel management team to understand how well each program is meeting its objectives, as well as driving ROI.* Partner portal effectiveness – Partner portals play a critical role in communicating to the partners what is going on with the various aspects of the company’s channel marketing They also provide partners with access to all necessary tools related to program components like marketing, sales and incentives.* Sales reach – The very purpose of a channel is to extend reach, but very rarely do companies run territory analysis to understand over- and under-penetration from an end-user demand perspective. We will discuss in detail how to do this separately, as it requires partner profiling. The important point here is that sales reach is an essential metric when it comes to channel marketing program selection. If you don’t understand what is selling where, program selection and execution is a little like shooting in the dark.* Return on incentives– These very important channel marketing metrics measure the effectiveness of three core incentives programs: co-marketing funds (or market development funds), sales rewards and rebates. Without a proper partner relationship...

With the rise of content marketing as a primary way to engage the target audience and drive sales, channel marketing is also evolving rapidly. A decade or two ago, channel marketing pretty much meant running events (for recruitment, training and lead generation) and giving away market-development funds to those who knew how to leverage them. Today, unified channel management is changing the way companies invest, track and improve ROI from their channel marketing activities. A core set of channel marketing metrics play a critical role in driving better ROI.

Before we take a deep dive into the channel marketing metrics that truly matter, let's step back and clearly define the objectives of channel marketing. If marketing is about driving awareness, engagement and customer intimacy, channel marketing essentially means the same thing, but it operates in more dimensions: The first two dimensions are the channel partners who resell the products and services, and the end users who procure them. To that you add a third dimension: increasing reach at a lower cost. Channel marketing metrics need to address all three core dimensions, measuring ROI from partner marketing, ROI from end user marketing and expansion of reach.

* Partner engagement – This channel marketing metric focuses on how well you are engaging partners across various partner types, geography and channel programs. A state-of-the-art channel marketing automation platform should dynamically show clear engagement metrics.

* Program utilization – Every company has ongoing programs in place to drive channel marketing. They key is to figure out the core metrics of those programs, in terms of partner recruitment, partner training, multi-partner demand generation and incentives programs. It's essential to have a channel marketing automation platform in place that can allow the channel management team to slice and dice the data to understand what is truly going on in the channel.

* Program effectiveness – Unlike program utilization metrics, which focus on the ways in which partners are engaged in program activities, program effectiveness metrics are focused on measuring the ROI delivered by specific programs. This applies to both indirect marketing channels (e.g., search and social) and direct channels (e.g.., collateral, email, telemarketing, etc.) as well as marketing programs. These are key channel marketing metrics, and they should allow the channel management team to understand how well each program is meeting its objectives, as well as driving ROI.

* Partner portal effectiveness – Partner portals play a critical role in communicating to the partners what is going on with the various aspects of the company's channel marketing They also provide partners with access to all necessary tools related to program components like marketing, sales and incentives.

* Sales reach – The very purpose of a channel is to extend reach, but very rarely do companies run territory analysis to understand over- and under-penetration from an end-user demand perspective. We will discuss in detail how to do this separately, as it requires partner profiling. The important point here is that sales reach is an essential metric when it comes to channel marketing program selection. If you don’t understand what is selling where, program selection and execution is a little like shooting in the dark.

* Return on incentives– These very important channel marketing metrics measure the effectiveness of three core incentives programs: co-marketing funds (or market development funds), sales rewards and rebates. Without a proper

When it comes to business-to-business (B2B) social network, LinkedIn is the gorilla, and has certainly started to act like one. Why do I say that? Well, it's based on a lack of innovation. The stock price is down, and the analysts are no longer sure – the future is not as clear as it used to be. Believe it or not, LinkedIn has been around for well over a decade now. It is older than YouTube. In the beginning, it was an incredible tool for upgrading your static Rolodex into a dynamic database of personal contacts, but then it morphed into an online resume, networking tool and much more. Thanks to Reid Hoffman's brilliance in pulling a team together that was incredibly successful in harnessing the untapped potential of a B2B social (or should we say also B2B social marketing?) network, LinkedIn became a valuable tool for the professional world. Certainly some of its success was attributable to timing, as Malcom Gladwell points out in Outliers, but a lot of its success was tied to the uniqueness of its original vision.

Vision, timing and execution to date have been almost flawless for LinkedIn – a B2B social network whose business model was based on a pure connectivity platform for job seekers and recruiters. As digital social behavior evolved, LinkedIn did an amazing job of capturing feature ideas from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and others, but it also added original solutions that logically built on its core strengths. All of this has been great until recently, but I have started to wonder why the experience needs to be so complex when the core activities are relatively simple. While LinkedIn is being touted for both personal (career) and professional (sales and marketing) uses, and data shows that it tends to drive more traffic to a company website than other social media, the social marketing aspect of LinkedIn still is in its infancy, leaving much to desire both for ordinary users and “hyper-users” like myself.

Can it be true that, 450 million users later, LinkedIn is now struggling to innovate and differentiate? Yes, the stock price is up almost 100% from the day of its IPO, but it’s down significantly from its highs in early 2015. Could it be possible that the company needs to radically rethink how to increase its utility further for users and increase usage (minutes) per day per member? Lately, the innovation has been far from what you expect from a leader. The recent mobile release is questionable at best, as is the current focus on fully monetizing the user base using a freemium model. Now don't get me wrong: I love LinkedIn. I log in every day for personal and professional uses, but also to keep up to date on industry activities. But I think we should expect a lot more from a leader in B2B social networking. As a hyper-user in recruitment, sales, marketing and more, if I were running product management at LinkedIn I would simplify the offering into two core areas: recruitment and social marketing. I would get rid of the hodgepodge of other features and offers, which are too complex and add no real value. This approach, allowing LinkedIn to focus its resources on two core offerings, should liberate the company and solidify its future for some time to come.

And now for some specific suggestions:

Focus on the user – Yes, monetization is important for LinkedIn – and for that matter, for any organization (profit or non-profit) – but the products and solutions need to flow together. LinkedIn needs to work hard to move away from the disjointed experience it offers today across its solutions (recruitment, sales and marketing). Fifteen (15%) percent of LinkedIn users pay for the eighty-five (85%) percent who are using it for free; maybe LinkedIn needs to segment its use cases that way. Today, LinkedIn products try to reflect how the organization is structured: different product groups and lines of business vs. a unified experience from a "paid customer" perspective. At the same time, it also reminds me of the Windows Mobile phone vs. the iPhone experience. When iPhone launched, it was unified – a perfect marriage of hardware and software – but the Windows Mobile ecosystem represented a much more disjointed product experience for its users. That's how LinkedIn is today. The experience in LinkedIn Recruiter is different from its sales and social marketing. Why? Many users use all three offerings, especially in SMB segment. We all market, sell and recruit, at both the personal and company level – don't we? It may be more true for social marketing and sales professionals, but ultimately we are all in charge of the "Me" brand.

Aggressively stop fake profiles – The only way to do this is to close the network for some time. Seriously! Change the rules so that, before you can open an account, you must upload at least 100 legitimate emails, and request them to authenticate who you are. Even a student knows 100 legitimate people. And at least 50% should accept. It is so easy to set up a fake profile, and then use InMail to connect. It’s truly annoying. I get multiple emails every day from someone trying to sell me something. Why? How is it different from spam? You expect me to mark every one spam? Why? Close the gate, and figure out how to better serve the 450 million (or should I say 300 million real) members that you have first, before you look for more. Why take on more customers as a $2 billion company when the current ones are being stalked by fake profiles?

Improve search– This is a real pain today. Yes, there is an advanced search feature, but it doesn’t work very well. The search function needs to be simplified. I suggest it focuses narrowly on finding people, companies and content. How difficult can this be? Especially for its recruitment and social marketing offerings, LinkedIn needs to fix this rapidly. If it proves too difficult, reach out to or hire from Google. I am sure they can help.

Make Pulse an alternative to Wikipedia – LinkedIn has an amazing opportunity to do a better job of integrating SlideShare with its Pulse offering. Both are about sharing insights. At this point, however, what could be a useful, integrated offering is actually two patched-up solutions from two different companies. LinkedIn acquired SlideShare two years ago; you would think in two years they would figure out how to make the product flow much better. What an amazing opportunity it would be to have experts writing topical and serious material rather than random thoughts that essentially replicate a Facebook experience. But it’s not the writers’ fault. LinkedIn is causing bad behaviors by promoting volume over quality. Wikipedia is also about volume, but it has distinguished itself by becoming stringent on quality. If LinkedIn laid out a three-year vision with a similar focus on quality, it could tap into real experts contributing substance instead of becoming a shallow promotional vehicle for selling books. Aren't you tired of those experts pitching their books at the end of posts? That is so 2015!

Eliminate or radically rethink social selling – LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator capability is a complete nuisance. We signed up for it, but then cancelled for two reasons. First, the search doesn’t work very well. Second, we don't want unsolicited InMail any more than we want unsolicited direct mail. LinkedIn’s messaging capability should be focused on interacting with someone you know, not with someone you don’t know. (Heeding this principle would also stop the fake profile issue.) That's why the social selling capability of Sales Navigator doesn’t have a lot of value, but it if were conceived as a social marketing tool it could have a serious impact. A better way to provide value would be to integrate the social marketing and sales roles into a single offering – a social marketing tool that allowed access to contact profiles via CRM. This is where an API needs to be opened up where you are NOT able to send an InMail to annoy potential prospects, but you are encouraged to promote your content via the network to engage and create interests.

Improve analytics – The analytics LinkedIn provides as a $2-billion-dollar company is pitiful. If an enterprise software company provided this level of analytics, they would simply get replaced. I understand analytics is not easy; we struggle with that on our own platform as well, but with LinkedIn's war chest, they should be able to buy, license or hire their way to top-notch analytical capability. The more we can search, target and manage content properly via LinkedIn Pulse and understand it via analytics, the more sales and marketing professionals will gather around this capability and celebrate. In addition to recruitment analytics, advanced social marketing analytics would make a big difference in usage, content contribution and value add at an industry level.

Stop pushing Influencers – By pushing content from Influencers, LinkedIn is running on the false premise that people will start following and use the platform more every day. Well, how is it working? Not very well, in my experience. Instead of pushing Influencers’ content, LinkedIn could show articles from specific interest domains and from the people I follow. Sure, there is probably a way that I can search for topics, Influencers, etc. and find the people I want to follow, but please don’t push Influencer articles via Pulse in an automated way. I don’t want to be distracted by random articles. Show me what I care about. It's a professional network, not a fraternity or sorority club. This is why people spend a lot less time on LinkedIn than they do on Facebook. Facebook is an accepted alter-ego of our school and college lives, powered by our inner anxiety to keep up with the Joneses. The same mechanism of random thoughts and news streams don’t really add value for the typical LinkedIn user. LinkedIn pushes to its users – in a Big Brother way – what it defines as important instead of what the user wants.

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When it comes to business-to-business (B2B) social network, LinkedIn is the gorilla, and has certainly started to act like one. Why do I say that? Well, it’s based on a lack of innovation. The stock price is down, and the analysts are no longer sure – the future is not as clear as it used to be. Believe it or not, LinkedIn has been around for well over a decade now. It is older than YouTube. In the beginning, it was an incredible tool for upgrading your static Rolodex into a dynamic database of personal contacts, but then it morphed into an online resume, networking tool and much more. Thanks to Reid Hoffman’s brilliance in pulling a team together that was incredibly successful in harnessing the untapped potential of a B2B social (or should we say also B2B social marketing?) network, LinkedIn became a valuable tool for the professional world. Certainly some of its success was attributable to timing, as Malcom Gladwell points out in Outliers, but a lot of its success was tied to the uniqueness of its original vision.Vision, timing and execution to date have been almost flawless for LinkedIn – a B2B social network whose business model was based on a pure connectivity platform for job seekers and recruiters. As digital social behavior evolved, LinkedIn did an amazing job of capturing feature ideas from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and others, but it also added original solutions that logically built on its core strengths. All of this has been great until recently, but I have started to wonder why the experience needs to be so complex when the core activities are relatively simple. While LinkedIn is being touted for both personal (career) and professional (sales and marketing) uses, and data shows that it tends to drive more traffic to a company website than other social media, the social marketing aspect of LinkedIn still is in its infancy, leaving much to desire both for ordinary users and “hyper-users” like myself.Can it be true that, 450 million users later, LinkedIn is now struggling to innovate and differentiate? Yes, the stock price is up almost 100% from the day of its IPO, but it’s down significantly from its highs in early 2015. Could it be possible that the company needs to radically rethink how to increase its utility further for users and increase usage (minutes) per day per member? Lately, the innovation has been far from what you expect from a leader. The recent mobile release is questionable at best, as is the current focus on fully monetizing the user base using a freemium model. Now don’t get me wrong: I love LinkedIn. I log in every day for personal and professional uses, but also to keep up to date on industry activities. But I think we should expect a lot more from a leader in B2B social networking. As a hyper-user in recruitment, sales, marketing and more, if I were running product management at LinkedIn I would simplify the offering into two core areas: recruitment and social marketing. I would get rid of the hodgepodge of other features and offers, which are too complex and add no real value. This approach, allowing LinkedIn to focus its resources on two core offerings, should liberate the company and solidify its future for some time to come.And now for some specific suggestions:* Focus on the user – Yes, monetization is important for LinkedIn – and for that matter, for any organization (profit or non-profit) – but the products and solutions need to flow together. LinkedIn needs to work hard to move away from the disjointed experience it offers today across its solutions (recruitment, sales and marketing). Fifteen (15%) percent of LinkedIn users pay for the eighty-five (85%) percent who are using it for free; maybe LinkedIn needs to segment its use cases that way. Today, LinkedIn products try to reflect how the organization is structured: different product groups and lines of business vs.

When it comes to business-to-business (B2B) social network, LinkedIn is the gorilla, and has certainly started to act like one. Why do I say that? Well, it's based on a lack of innovation. The stock price is down, and the analysts are no longer sure – the future is not as clear as it used to be. Believe it or not, LinkedIn has been around for well over a decade now. It is older than YouTube. In the beginning, it was an incredible tool for upgrading your static Rolodex into a dynamic database of personal contacts, but then it morphed into an online resume, networking tool and much more. Thanks to Reid Hoffman's brilliance in pulling a team together that was incredibly successful in harnessing the untapped potential of a B2B social (or should we say also B2B social marketing?) network, LinkedIn became a valuable tool for the professional world. Certainly some of its success was attributable to timing, as Malcom Gladwell points out in Outliers, but a lot of its success was tied to the uniqueness of its original vision.

Vision, timing and execution to date have been almost flawless for LinkedIn – a B2B social network whose business model was based on a pure connectivity platform for job seekers and recruiters. As digital social behavior evolved, LinkedIn did an amazing job of capturing feature ideas from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and others, but it also added original solutions that logically built on its core strengths. All of this has been great until recently, but I have started to wonder why the experience needs to be so complex when the core activities are relatively simple. While LinkedIn is being touted for both personal (career) and professional (sales and marketing) uses, and data shows that it tends to drive more traffic to a company website than other social media, the social marketing aspect of LinkedIn still is in its infancy, leaving much to desire both for ordinary users and “hyper-users” like myself.

Can it be true that, 450 million users later, LinkedIn is now struggling to innovate and differentiate? Yes, the stock price is up almost 100% from the day of its IPO, but it’s down significantly from its highs in early 2015. Could it be possible that the company needs to radically rethink how to increase its utility further for users and increase usage (minutes) per day per member? Lately, the innovation has been far from what you expect from a leader. The recent mobile release is questionable at best, as is the current focus on fully monetizing the user base using a freemium model. Now don't get me wrong: I love LinkedIn. I log in every day for personal and professional uses, but also to keep up to date on industry activities. But I think we should expect a lot more from a leader in B2B social networking. As a hyper-user in recruitment, sales, marketing and more, if I were running product management at LinkedIn I would simplify the offering into two core areas: recruitment and social marketing. I would get rid of the hodgepodge of other features and offers, which are too complex and add no real value. This approach, allowing LinkedIn to focus its resources on two core offerings, should liberate the company and solidify its future for some time to come.

And now for some specific suggestions:

* Focus on the user – Yes, monetization is important for LinkedIn – and for that matter, for any organization (profit or non-profit) – but the products and solutions need to flow together. LinkedIn needs to work hard to move away from the disjointed experience it offers today across its solutions (recruitment, sales and marketing). Fifteen (15%) percent of LinkedIn users pay for the eighty-five (85%) percent who are using it for free; maybe LinkedIn needs to segment its use cases that way. Today, LinkedIn products try to reflect how the organization is structured: different product groups and lines of business vs. a unified experience from a "paid customer" perspective.

The most recent trend in channel marketing automation has been the rapid deployment of Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Software along with Partner Marketing Management (PMM) capabilities in multiple industry verticals. In this article, we will focus specifically on the value of Partner Profile Manager (PPM) as a core feature for PRM Software.

Before we begin, let's discuss the rationale for using a Partner Profile Manager (PPM) and how it can help. The primary use for a Partner Profile Manager (PPM) in PRM Software is to make sure the vendor selling through the channel has detailed records for each partner company and their team members. This functions almost like CRM software, but with a lot more data and search capability associated with a specific partner profile. We have discussed earlier how partner profiling can boost channel sales. The main objective of the Partner Profile Management tool in PRM Software is to give a vendor the ability to profile or segment their partner on a dynamic basis, and use that segmentation data to take different business decision and actions.

Partner Profile Management plays a very important role in PRM Software by helping users understand the following:

Firmographics of the partner company – This typically covers how many employees the partner company has, the key office locations, the market segments they serve, how long they have been in the business, what their credit rating is, etc. This information can be collected dynamically in the PPM tool of the PRM software from various database sources that are publicly available in most developed countries. In developing countries, this information will need to be pulled together manually from various sources, including telephone research and surveys.

Business mix – Once you know who your partners are, the next most logical parameter for profiling is to understand their business mix – i.e., product versus services. A partner's ability to sell services directly depends on their ability to understand a specific vertical. As a result, partners who sell services also tend to specialize in certain verticals. These partners tend to work with a group of vendors and carry their solutions as a bundle. The right PRM Software can capture this information for you.

Technical competence – A specific partner may sell into multiple industry verticals, such as healthcare, finance, insurance, real estate, manufacturing and education. If the product or solution the partner is selling varies by segment, then the partner will need specific marketing, sales and technical ability to sell that specific solution. It is crucial to dynamically track this data in PRM Software via the PPM tool.

Sales velocity – One of the core capabilities of your PRM Software is the ability to access your point-of-sales data and dynamically show the sales velocity of your individual partners. Once you align this data with data about partner firmographics, business mix and technical competency, you will be able to see a storyline that will start making sense. Having this storyline allows you to differentiate partners by programs, capabilities, etc., so you can focus on partners with different storylines in different ways. This differentiated approach will not only help you increase your sales velocity, but will also enhance partner profitability by allowing them to differentiate from each other.

Growth potential – Last but not least, the most important outcome of the partner profiling capability embedded in your PRM Software is continued engagement with your partner base, getting their feedback and linking feedback to their performance data to predict the growth potential of each and every one of your customers. You cannot control how a partner will run their business and where they will invest specifically. However, you can clearly lay out investment criteria by informing the partners what the rules of engagement are and where your organization is willing to invest to make them successful. Alignment of your program strategy via growth potential analysis is critical.

Keeping in mind these requirements that PRM Software can fulfill via its PPM capability, now we need to consider how to make this happen. This is a much-needed capability, especially as your channel grows, but it can provide truly significant insight even if you are dealing truly only with 50 to 100 partners. As we noted earlier, the primary goal should be to carry out the profiling in a dynamic way. For example, when your partners update their records (based on regular update requests or programs, etc.), those changes should be reflected dynamically in your PRM software. Up-to-date knowledge of your partner base is a critical competitive advantage, because it allows you to do more with less.

Certainly you can jump-start the profile activity manually by carrying out surveys, adding data from secondary databases like Hoover’s and so on, but the platform should allow you to do the profiling dynamically and keep your database fresh and up-to-date so that your channel sales organization can act quickly.

Here are the five core technical requirements that you must consider to make sure your PRM software is capable of providing you with dynamic Partner Profile Management:

Dynamic data connectivity – In most developed countries, there are multiple business data providers like Dun & Bradstreet, Hoover’s, Data.com, etc. Today, most also provide a dynamic data connection interface, which, when properly integrated with your PRM software, pulls in your partner business information on a regular basis. This allows you to keep your firmographic data for your partner base up-to-date and current.

Technical certification integration – If you are using a Learning Management System (LMS) then you should be able to connect your PRM software to your LMS module and dynamically populate the status of your partners.

Point-of-sales data integration – There are various vendors in the marketplace who can provide you with this capability, but you can also do this manually by getting POS data from your distributors, organized by partner ID, in Excel format. As long as your PRM software allows you to upload POS data in an Excel data file, then you can update this once per quarter and see where your partners stand. This is an easy way to get you almost 95% of the way there.

Manual research update – In addition to the dynamic data updates from various sources, you will also need to update your partner records via survey and telephone research. This can be done for the following areas:

a) Attitudinal & satisfaction research – This measures how your partners feel about various aspect of your business relationship with them.

b) Needs discovery research – This is primarily for scoping out new products and services ideas.

Once you have got the data from these two types of surveys, that information must be kept within your PRM software and Partner Profile Manager.

Business planning – Last but not least: Ensure that as your channel management organization engages with your partners – especially the top-tier ones – and as they develop business plans, those data get synced back to your PRM software and its Partner Profile Manager

Any organization considering deployment of PRM software must carefully think through how it is going to increase its maturity across the channel management. Before an organization makes a significant investment in channel automation, their first step should be to build a Partner Profile Management infrastructure and management process around it. The right PRM software can not only enable the deployment, but also significantly streamline (and reduce costs for) day-to-day management, driving better decisions to achieve profitable growth. Proper deployment of Partner Profile Management capability can accelerate an organization’s understanding of the status of the channel, thereby allowing the organization to make the right investment decisions. This is the ultimate result of “doing the right things right.”

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The most recent trend in channel marketing automation has been the rapid deployment of Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Software along with Partner Marketing Management (PMM) capabilities in multiple industry verticals. In this article, we will focus specifically on the value of Partner Profile Manager (PPM) as a core feature for PRM Software.Before we begin, let’s discuss the rationale for using a Partner Profile Manager (PPM) and how it can help. The primary use for a Partner Profile Manager (PPM) in PRM Software is to make sure the vendor selling through the channel has detailed records for each partner company and their team members. This functions almost like CRM software, but with a lot more data and search capability associated with a specific partner profile. We have discussed earlier how partner profiling can boost channel sales. The main objective of the Partner Profile Management tool in PRM Software is to give a vendor the ability to profile or segment their partner on a dynamic basis, and use that segmentation data to take different business decision and actions.Partner Profile Management plays a very important role in PRM Software by helping users understand the following:* Firmographics of the partner company – This typically covers how many employees the partner company has, the key office locations, the market segments they serve, how long they have been in the business, what their credit rating is, etc. This information can be collected dynamically in the PPM tool of the PRM software from various database sources that are publicly available in most developed countries. In developing countries, this information will need to be pulled together manually from various sources, including telephone research and surveys.* Business mix – Once you know who your partners are, the next most logical parameter for profiling is to understand their business mix – i.e., product versus services. A partner’s ability to sell services directly depends on their ability to understand a specific vertical. As a result, partners who sell services also tend to specialize in certain verticals. These partners tend to work with a group of vendors and carry their solutions as a bundle. The right PRM Software can capture this information for you.* Technical competence – A specific partner may sell into multiple industry verticals, such as healthcare, finance, insurance, real estate, manufacturing and education. If the product or solution the partner is selling varies by segment, then the partner will need specific marketing, sales and technical ability to sell that specific solution. It is crucial to dynamically track this data in PRM Software via the PPM tool.* Sales velocity – One of the core capabilities of your PRM Software is the ability to access your point-of-sales data and dynamically show the sales velocity of your individual partners. Once you align this data with data about partner firmographics, business mix and technical competency, you will be able to see a storyline that will start making sense. Having this storyline allows you to differentiate partners by programs, capabilities, etc., so you can focus on partners with different storylines in different ways. This differentiated approach will not only help you increase your sales velocity, but will also enhance partner profitability by allowing them to differentiate from each other.* Growth potential – Last but not least, the most important outcome of the partner profiling capability embedded in your PRM Software is continued engagement with your partn...