Influence

It may seem daft, to declare a sales process worse, or even overrated but the acquisition of the general purchase order is, as it stands, absolutely meaningless. Revenue is paramount in this day and age, and the act of transacting business with customers may seem to be the most relevant course of action. This is especially the case when you look at the sales cycle.

It should be noted that it doesn’t actually matter who gets the PO from the customer. Customers can always transact with the vendor directly, through a channel partner or even through a marketplace such as AWS. They don’t actually care about where the product that they want comes from. It has been cited time and time again that over 73% of buyers find that buying online is the most convenient way for them to do things. The business customer doesn’t need to have a channel partner at all, but as the industry moves to a higher subscription model, it would appear that buyers are now becoming more and more comfortable with buying online, purchasing products has become easier. Business heads can buy products themselves with their own credit card and this makes it easier than ever for them to complete their task.

Who is making the decision to influence the customer?

So, it should be noted that if 65% of purchase decisions are made before the customer wants to buy, then who is actually making the decision to influence your customer in the future? Partners design solutions that happen to produce outcomes that meet both needs and opportunities. Partners help to install solutions and they have also worked hard to change the entire business procedure. They do this to try and optimise as many products as they can. All of these partner roles are why 75% of the trade in the world flows somewhat indirectly.

Manufacturers need to work hard to try and focus less on the percentage of revenues that are being transacted through the channel partners that they work with. If they want to keep up with the new buying behaviours, then they need to make sure that they are engaging and even rewarding the channels that are affecting their purchasing decision. For decades, vendors have been measuring the success of their channel and in the last 5 years, they have even started to measure the revenues from the partners too. Many vendors have started to try and track their partner sourced revenue, and they are also trying to make sure that they deal with the registration programs that they have as well.

Current measures and even metrics of channel performance are now starting to shift so that they are more influenced based. Vendors need to try and recognise and reward partners so that they can drive the branding decision. Partners are on the front line and they are steering the customer too. Measuring the fact that a channel can influence a customer decision is now more difficult when compared to tracking an order that they have made. One way for you to shift the measuring influence would be for you to try and map out your sales process. You also have to work out your buyer’s journey too. You then need to try and inspire, reward and even recognise the customers who are going to pick you and then work hard to try and transact them to the ultimate goal.