Pragmatic treat ebooks like software. They manage releases, distribute, and communicate with customers about their products like a software company. This is big.
I decided recently to polish up my coding skills and get serious about learning Ruby. After several online tutorials, I was ready to dig in deeper and buy a book. I researched, read reviews and chose Programming Ruby from The Pragmatic Programmers, not just for the positive reviews, but for their innovative view of ebooks.
Channel partnerships are an extension of your direct sales efforts. Treat them that way by setting and measuring against sales targets.
Partnerships are formed for a variety of reasons, from commercializing undeveloped IP to reducing the risk of entering a new market segment, to creating new sales channels. In all cases, clear objectives are a must. In the case of channel partners, none should get the green light without first establishing formal sales targets, but all too many do.
What makes or breaks a channel partnership at the outset isn’t how great the product is, but the opportunity it represents—one defined by expanded markets and increased revenue. More money.
We all have a natural bias in favor of the things we send out into the world. When those things are products we make and sell to customers, we necessarily believe they’re the greatest. If not, how else could we persist and prevail when the going gets tough?
Simply put, having someone “on the inside” doesn’t close deals.
In the course of my work, I’m often asked “So, who do you know?” The question is intended to get at the number and rank of people I know inside a given company. It assumes that building partnerships and closing deals is first and foremoest a matter of having the right connections.
