AZtech is pleased to announce The Creative Selling Methodology™ for Alliances. Over the past 15 years we've spent hundreds of hours a year analyzing what works and what doesn't work for alliances. This entry shares the seven reasons alliances fail to meet their objectives even when there is executive commitment and the sales force compensation and quota attainment has been designed to incent the right behavior!
- They fail to create a balanced business development strategy focused on both new opportunities and serving their bases. Far too often the alliance ends up just shifting customers from one partner to the other without significantly growing the base. That frustrates both parties.
- They are not able to capture and communicate the thought leadership and competitive advantage of the alliance as a united entity. They may create a joint value proposition, but they don't go the extra step to develop true thought leadership.
- Once the thought leadership is created, they fail to promote their unique point of view to the market place, particularly to major influencers.
- They don't take the time to integrate their professional networks to facilitate the creation of new opportunities in new customers and markets. This must happen at all levels of the organization.
- They don't refine the pre sales support processes to insure they can support a "sell with/thru" process. This is especially true in direct-centric companies. They simply don't think about the challenges of adding a strategic partner to the mix. Very few companies have a perfect pre-sale/bid & proposal system in place as it is. Add a few alliances and any weakness are exacerbated.
- They don't translate the alliance business development plan into an executable form for the sales force. Far too often alliance planning sits in a bubble. The sales force, even if they are well compensated/rewarded for alliance sales, don't understand the objectives, how it can help them achieve their quota, or how to leverage the alliance.
- And finally, they fail to create realistic investment budgets to insure the relationship is adequately funded. Companies tend to allocate people resources, but don't think through the cost of developing a new market or winning a strategic deal with an alliance partner
Next blog we'll talk about how the The Creative Selling Methodology™can help!
