Today we held our 5th annual HTS planning meeting. We huddled in the KC Microsoft office with our field reps from Microsoft, SonicWALL, Ingram Micro, HP and Altigen. The goal was to review our performance from 2009, evaluate what we could have done better, and then create a joint plan across all our vendor partners for 2010. When we started doing this 5 years ago, there was a lot of question and concern. "You really expect us to sit in a room with competitive vendors and share our thinking and plans for next year?". I have always had a simple answer. "It is up to you. You only have to participate if you want to do business with us next year." This is not an optional activity. It is about partnering and creating solutions across our vendor partners to drive business. No one has ever failed to show up. And each year it gets better and better and the walls have come down and we are working to build cross vendor solutions we can take to our markets.
We come away with joint training plans, joint sales models, joint marketing programs - just a unified approach to making HTS and our vendor partners successful. We started our event last night with a dinner for all our vendor participants to allow some pre-game activity - tailgating if you will to help warm up the crowd. Had a nice time at On the Border eating and sharing about life. Today we dove in early - reported on our YTD status - and shared specific information with our vendors. In fact, we give them all our data on our customers and sales activity. Many would say we are crazy to trust a vendor with the keys to our kingdom. Our feeling is that it is only when we truly partner and work together that we will succeed. Jane Cage, our COO and pivot table queen, is able to slice and dice our data in dozens of ways. Our vendor partners can see things in that data we would never see because they work with many different partners in many different markets. We look to them for guidance and best practices they learn from watching others. It is a very valuable experience and well worth the risk in our opinion.
Our team left today with a list a mile long for us to consider as we write our 2010 business plan. And our vendors left with a list we had for each of them for commitments we expect them to execute for us next year. It is a two way street. Both of us are accountable in this, and we will review mid year to make sure everyone is executing. If you aren't planning with your vendors and distribution partners, you are really missing something special. It truly can propel your business. It will put you in a very elite class of partners - not many are willing to be transparent and go to the work of pulling together an event like this. But it is well worth the effort and can help you grow in ways you will never be able to do any other way. As I say over and over - the differentiator between partners is not sales or technical skills - it is understanding the power of strategic relationship management. That begins with planning with your vendors and disty partners. If you want to be status quo - try and do it yourself. If you want to be one of the elite partners in the channel - get over yourself - reach out and work with the folks who can propel you to the next level!
Showing posts with label Altigen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Altigen. Show all posts
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
HTG firsts continue
At SMB Summit we had .....
1. Our first meeting of MS-HTG Online members and their inclusion in our HTGALL open space time. We graduated 65 people from the HTG online course and they met face to face for the first time on Saturday night. We then opened the wall and both groups were involved together in an open space discussion about three topics:
a. Web 2.0 and social networking
b. How to survive in tough economic times
c. Disaster Recovery – what you are doing and what you need to do
The data collected will be sent in a future email, so watch your inbox for the summary of those notes.
2. Our first vendor technology product test. Altigen, who hosted a focus group for a dozen HTG partners, offered to provide equipment for a couple of HTG members to test on behalf of HTG and evaluate its fit for our membership. Altigen is a VOIP provider and while we certainly are not committed or even recommending their product today, it just sort of happened as we went through the meeting. An idea came up to have a small group of expert HTG telephony partners put it through the paces and give a thumbs up or down on this product. Expect to see results from this solutions in written form, along with a potential webinar to help you onboard more effectively if the results are positive. Look for this practice to be repeated and spread to all kinds of vendor solutions as we move forward.
3. Our first vendor trade show. Ken Shetler, who worked for HTS as a contractor, brought together almost 40 vendors for 6 action packed hours on Sunday night. I realize I was asking a lot of you to be in the rooms and engaged, and many of you attended sessions you weren’t all that interested in but took one for the team. Thanks for being willing to be part of community to make this succeed. The vendors were blown away by the HTG members and quality of partners we brought to the table. We have set the stage for bigger and better things in the future.
1. Our first meeting of MS-HTG Online members and their inclusion in our HTGALL open space time. We graduated 65 people from the HTG online course and they met face to face for the first time on Saturday night. We then opened the wall and both groups were involved together in an open space discussion about three topics:
a. Web 2.0 and social networking
b. How to survive in tough economic times
c. Disaster Recovery – what you are doing and what you need to do
The data collected will be sent in a future email, so watch your inbox for the summary of those notes.
2. Our first vendor technology product test. Altigen, who hosted a focus group for a dozen HTG partners, offered to provide equipment for a couple of HTG members to test on behalf of HTG and evaluate its fit for our membership. Altigen is a VOIP provider and while we certainly are not committed or even recommending their product today, it just sort of happened as we went through the meeting. An idea came up to have a small group of expert HTG telephony partners put it through the paces and give a thumbs up or down on this product. Expect to see results from this solutions in written form, along with a potential webinar to help you onboard more effectively if the results are positive. Look for this practice to be repeated and spread to all kinds of vendor solutions as we move forward.
3. Our first vendor trade show. Ken Shetler, who worked for HTS as a contractor, brought together almost 40 vendors for 6 action packed hours on Sunday night. I realize I was asking a lot of you to be in the rooms and engaged, and many of you attended sessions you weren’t all that interested in but took one for the team. Thanks for being willing to be part of community to make this succeed. The vendors were blown away by the HTG members and quality of partners we brought to the table. We have set the stage for bigger and better things in the future.
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