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Name:	Bruce Ahern
Website:	http://conveyservices.com
Email:
Phone:	(770) 580-0810

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Microcast Gaining an Edge This year Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide will not be making an appearance in the college football playoffs thanks.. →

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Cloud Conventions 2021 Will Feature Five Unique Pavilions Focusing on “The Next Normal”

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Atlanta, GA — January 27, 2015 — Convey Services today released two new features to enhance the reporting and sales interface of Convey; the.. →

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____Cloud Conventions 2020 Announces.. → zzzzzCloud Conventions 2020 Announces.. →

Event Registration Opens

Atlanta, GA — April 15, 2020 — In support of its mission of Getting Business Back on Track, Cloud Conventions 2020 today announced its ...

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0 Press-Release-Press-Release jplist-topic-Press-Release 1 99999360064 0.360064 Atlanta, GA — April 15, 2020 — In support of its mission of Getting Business Back on Track, Cloud Conventions 2020 today announced its keynote speakers and session leaders, and opened registration for live virtual sessions from May 11-14. Additional speaker presentations and sponsor sessions will be added to the lineup by May 1. Attendance at this, the largest virtual trade show ever in the telecommunication and cloud channel is being offered at no charge to over 30,000 agents, VARs, MSPs, IT services providers and vendors. “Traditional trade shows feature long, overly technical presentations provided by vendors and sponsors, we decided to break that mold,” said Carolyn Bradfield, founder of Convey. “To inspire the channel to help get American business back on track, we invited elite business strategists, vertical market experts and training professionals to provide content in short, powerful, engaging sessions. Attendees will hear new ideas and tactics to navigate through our new virtualized environment, ways to grow their business and thoughts about how to remain strong and resilient in uncertain times.” David Meerman Scott’s “Fanocracy” keynote explores how to turn customers into fans in challenging times. Jack Shaw, innovation and technology strategist, delivers a keynote with transformational ideas and strategies to ensure success in the “new normal.” Tim Mueller, a mergers and acquisition professional, will direct you to resources if want to sell your business and determine its true valuation. Retired Air Force Colonel Lee Ellis learned valuable leadership lessons from fellow officers as a POW in Vietnam for 5 1/2 years with Senator John McCain. In Ellis’ keynote he will share what he learned and show you how to lead with honor, character, courage, and commitment. In addition to traditional industry topics like contact center strategies, emerging telecom and cloud solutions, connectivity and UCaaS, Cloud Conventions will highlight business resources that you can use today to identify and build new customer relationships by using creative marketing ideas and sales resources. Sessions will focus on the impact COVID-19 has on vertical markets such as healthcare and retail, delivering ideas on what to expect as the recovery evolves, along technologies that will be important to growth and rebirth of the country. “Our vendor partners and sponsors are lining up to share how their solutions are being deployed to create a more virtualized, cloud-based business environment,” added Bradfield. “Sessions are short, focused and worth watching, either live or as recorded events. Vendors have virtual booths with opportunities for live chat, demos and meetings to explore solutions indepth.” Cloud Conventions provides attendees with a custom dashboard to manage session registration and deliver text reminders. When the live event closes on May 14, the portal will remain active so registrants can revisit virtual booths, watch recorded sessions, access content and connect with sponsors and vendors through the end of 2020. Vendors can request information about virtual exhibit and sponsorship opportunities by contacting info@cloudconventions.com. Attendees can register for free today at www.cloudconventions.com and sign up for presentation sessions. XXX About Convey Services Convey Services delivers content and marketing portals and connects them into networks to inform, educate and engage channel partners and direct sellers in the telecom/cloud space, the property and casualty insurance market and food distribution industry. Convey’s portal technology automates and organizes partner management, has tools to engage and educate partners and integrates email marketing technology for members to run packaged email marketing campaigns to their customers and prospects. For information visit www.conveyservices.com, info@conveyservices.com or call 888-975-1382. Cloud Conventions 2020 runs on the ConveyLive™ Virtual Event Platform Press Contact Bruce Ahern — (770) 580-0810 Chief Marketing Officer Convey Services bahern@conveyservices.com

Cloud Conventions 2020 Announces Speaker Lineup

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Atlanta, GA — April 15, 2020 — In support of its mission of Getting Business Back on Track, Cloud Conventions 2020 today announced its keynote ...

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____Cloud Conventions 2020, the Largest.. → zzzzzCloud Conventions 2020, the Largest.. →

Opens Registration on April 8 and Goes Live May 11

Atlanta, GA — April 8, 2020 — Getting Business Back on Track is the mission of Cloud Conventions 2020 when it goes live from May 11-14. ...

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1 Press-Release-Press-Release jplist-topic-cloud-conventions 1 99999358636 0.358636 Atlanta, GA — April 8, 2020 — Getting Business Back on Track is the mission of Cloud Conventions 2020 when it goes live from May 11-14. Attendance at the largest virtual trade show ever in the telecommunication and cloud channel is offered at no charge to 30,000+ agents, VARs, MSPs, IT services providers and vendors.

Cloud Conventions 2020, the Largest Virtual Trade Show in the Telecom/Cloud Channel

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Atlanta, GA — April 8, 2020 — Getting Business Back on Track is the mission of Cloud Conventions 2020 when it goes live from May 11-14. ...

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Doug Green from Telecom Reseller to Broadcast.. → Doug Green from Telecom Reseller to Broadcast.. →

Channel Expo Goes Live May 12 to “Navigate the Next Normal”

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2 News-Clipping-News-Clipping jplist-topic-Doug-Green jplist-topic-Telecom-Reseller jplist-topic-Next-Normal 0 510593 510593

Doug Green from Telecom Reseller to Broadcast Live at Cloud Conventions 2021

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Doug Green from Telecom Reseller to Broadcast.. → Doug Green from Telecom Reseller to Broadcast.. →

Channel Expo Goes Live May 12 to “Navigate the Next Normal”

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3 Press-Release-Press-Release jplist-topic-Doug-Green jplist-topic-Telecom-Reseller jplist-topic-Next-Normal 0 510592 510592

Doug Green from Telecom Reseller to Broadcast Live at Cloud Conventions 2021

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Cloud Conventions 2021 - A Must-See Cloud Conventions 2021 - A Must-See

Telecom Reseller

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4 News-Clipping-News-Clipping jplist-topic-Telecom-Reseller 0 509874 509874

Cloud Conventions 2021 - A Must-See

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Cloud Conventions 2021 Will Feature Five Unique.. → Cloud Conventions 2021 Will Feature Five Unique.. →

The Telecom/Cloud Channel’s Premier Virtual Expo Returns May 12-14

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Cloud Conventions 2021 Will Feature Five Unique Pavilions Focusing on “The Next Normal”

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Cloud Conventions 2021 Opens the Event Platform.. → Cloud Conventions 2021 Opens the Event Platform.. →

Navigate “The Next Normal” Goes Live May 12-14

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Atlanta, GA — August 10, 2020 — Cloud Conventions, a full featured virtual tradeshow and event technology solution today launched a channel ...

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Cloud Conventions Supports ADA Requirements for.. → Cloud Conventions Supports ADA Requirements for.. →

Atlanta, GA — August 11, 2020 — Cloud Conventions, a full featured virtual tradeshow and event technology solution supports ADA ...

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19 Press-Release-Press-Release jplist-topic-ADA jplist-topic-Americans-with-Disabilities-Act 0 398943 398943 Atlanta, GA — August 11, 2020 — Cloud Conventions, a full featured virtual tradeshow and event technology solution supports ADA requirements for accessibility to help event operators accommodate people with disabilities and avoid increasing legal action being taken against failure to provide attendees easy access to content and programming. As most tradeshows, conferences and association events transition from live to virtual in response to COVID-19, accessibility is often overlooked when making the switch. Event planners who normally take steps to ensure their in-person events accommodate people with any level of handicap, are often unaware that virtual events must meet the same requirements.

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Atlanta, GA — August 5, 2020 — Cloud Conventions, a full featured virtual tradeshow and event technology solution now has a dedicated team of ...

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Local Firm Capitalizes on Growing Demand for.. → Local Firm Capitalizes on Growing Demand for.. →

Roswell, GA — August 4, 2020 — Local technology firm, Convey Services discovered a huge new market for their online portal solutions as ...

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25 Press-Release-Press-Release jplist-topic-Roswell 0 398917 398917 Roswell, GA — August 4, 2020 — Local technology firm, Convey Services discovered a huge new market for their online portal solutions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their online portals were originally built for sales engagement, but Convey recently introduced Cloud Conventions, a virtual event platform that is changing the way people connect at tradeshows, conferences or expositions from the comfort and safety of their home. Today the Cloud Conventions business is growing rapidly, delivering virtual events in dozens of different markets around the world.

Press Release

Atlanta, GA — July 27, 2020 — Cloud Conventions, a full featured virtual tradeshow, conference and event technology solution today launched an ...

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Convey Services Receives Top Innovation Award for.. → Convey Services Receives Top Innovation Award for.. →

ChannelVision Announces 2020 Visionary Spotlight Award Winners

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32 News-Clipping-News-Clipping jplist-topic-cloud-conventions 0 396926 396926

Convey Services Receives Top Innovation Award for Cloud Conventions

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Convey Unveils ConveyLive, The Virtual Trade Show.. → Convey Unveils ConveyLive, The Virtual Trade Show.. →

Exhibitor Magazine

Convey Services, a SaaS technology company, today unveiled its new ConveyLive™ Virtual Trade Show platform. ConveyLive is an easy-to-use, ...

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33 News-Clipping-News-Clipping jplist-topic-Exhibitor-Magazine 0 383058 383058 Convey Services, a SaaS technology company, today unveiled its new ConveyLive™ Virtual Trade Show platform. ConveyLive is an easy-to-use, reasonably priced solution for delivering live virtual events, conferences and expositions, creating a rich, interactive experience for attendees, exhibitors and sponsors. ConveyLive can be used by associations, trade groups, event managers, publishers and business organizations to engage audiences, large or small, with interactive exhibit space, live or recorded sessions and networking opportunities.

Convey Unveils ConveyLive, The Virtual Trade Show & Conference Platform

News Clipping

Convey Services, a SaaS technology company, today unveiled its new ConveyLive™ Virtual Trade Show platform. ConveyLive is an easy-to-use, ...

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New Products - Cloud Conventions New Products - Cloud Conventions

Cloud Conventions, formerly ConveyLive is a virtual event platform designed specifically for trade shows conferences and expositions. The ...

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34 News-Clipping-News-Clipping jplist-topic-Exhibitor-Magazine 0 383055 383055 Cloud Conventions, formerly ConveyLive is a virtual event platform designed specifically for trade shows conferences and expositions. The software manages all aspects of a virtual event including attendee registration and management, session scheduling, promotional email campaigns, virtual exhibits, content delivery, and viewership tracking .

Press Release

Atlanta, GA — July 14, 2020 — Cloud Conventions today announced Cloud Conventions 365 a new service for virtual conferences, trade shows and ...

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Cloud Conventions Virtual Trade Show Platform.. → Cloud Conventions Virtual Trade Show Platform.. →

Atlanta, GA — June 17, 2020 — The Cloud Conventions Virtual Trade Show and Conference Platform from Convey Services is bringing new ...

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39 Press-Release-Press-Release jplist-topic-Virtual-Tradeshow jplist-topic-Virtual-Event jplist-topic-cloud-conventions 0 383048 383048 Atlanta, GA — June 17, 2020 — The Cloud Conventions Virtual Trade Show and Conference Platform from Convey Services is bringing new capabilities to a marketplace looking for solutions to replace the thousands of live trade shows, annual conferences and association meetings cancelled in the wake of COVID-19. Originally launched as ConveyLive, Cloud Conventions automates exhibitors and virtual booths, attendee registration, speaker sessions and reminders, invitations and email communication, while at the same time producing detailed analytics that improve ROI.

Cloud Conventions Virtual Trade Show Platform Delivers Automation to Convert a Live Event into a Virtual Conference or Expo

Press Release

Atlanta, GA — June 17, 2020 — The Cloud Conventions Virtual Trade Show and Conference Platform from Convey Services is bringing new capabilities ...

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A Conversation with Dr. Sandy Newes - Developing.. → A Conversation with Dr. Sandy Newes - Developing.. →

Conversation with Nationally Recognized Psychologist Dr. Sandra NewesOur social isolation, uncertainty about our business future, lack of ...

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40 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-podcast 0 361471 361471 Conversation with Nationally Recognized Psychologist Dr. Sandra NewesOur social isolation, uncertainty about our business future, lack of entertainment outlets and having to home school our children have taken a toll on all of us. Learn the secrets behind how to maintain your resilience through the pandemic from psychologist Dr. Sandra Newes as she explains resilience, how you lose it and how you get it back. Learn more at Cloud Conventions: http://cloudconventions.com

A Conversation with Dr. Sandy Newes - Developing Resilience in Uncertain Times

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Conversation with Nationally Recognized Psychologist Dr. Sandra NewesOur social isolation, uncertainty about our business future, lack of ...

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Convey Unveils ConveyLive, The Virtual Trade Show.. → Convey Unveils ConveyLive, The Virtual Trade Show.. →

Technology to Promote & Execute Rich, Interactive Events

Atlanta, GA — April 28, 2020 — Convey Services, a SaaS technology company, today unveiled its new ConveyLive™ Virtual Trade Show ...

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41 Press-Release-Press-Release jplist-topic-ConveyLive jplist-topic-Virtual-Events jplist-topic-Press-Release 0 361169 361169 Atlanta, GA — April 28, 2020 — Convey Services, a SaaS technology company, today unveiled its new ConveyLive™ Virtual Trade Show platform. ConveyLive is an easy-to-use, reasonably priced solution for delivering live virtual events, conferences and expositions, creating a rich, interactive experience for attendees, exhibitors and sponsors. ConveyLive can be used by associations, trade groups, event managers, publishers and business organizations to engage audiences, large or small, with interactive exhibit space, live or recorded sessions and networking opportunities.

Convey Unveils ConveyLive, The Virtual Trade Show & Conference Platform

Press Release

Atlanta, GA — April 28, 2020 — Convey Services, a SaaS technology company, today unveiled its new ConveyLive™ Virtual Trade Show platform. ...

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Convey and UCX - David Converse Interview Convey and UCX - David Converse Interview

David Converse, VP of Sales at UCX Markets, visits with Convey CEO Carolyn Bradfield about the digital transformation that vendors and ...

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42 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-podcast 0 361142 361142 David Converse, VP of Sales at UCX Markets, visits with Convey CEO Carolyn Bradfield about the digital transformation that vendors and partners will engage in based on the evolution of the buying experience to a more virtual format. Take a listen and then attend Cloud Conventions to hear more from David and UCX. http://cloudconventions.com

Convey and UCX - David Converse Interview

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David Converse, VP of Sales at UCX Markets, visits with Convey CEO Carolyn Bradfield about the digital transformation that vendors and partners will ...

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Episode 43 - Communication Strategies in the Age.. → Episode 43 - Communication Strategies in the Age.. →

Fireside Chat with Bob Paff, speaker at Cloud Conventions and Convey CEO Carolyn Bradfield Bob Paff will be leading a session on Wednesday, ...

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43 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-podcast 0 360151 360151 Fireside Chat with Bob Paff, speaker at Cloud Conventions and Convey CEO Carolyn Bradfield Bob Paff will be leading a session on Wednesday, May 11th at 2:00 on communication strategies during the COVID crisis. Listen to a fireside chat between Bob and Convey CEO Carolyn Bradfield to explore what people need to be thinking about as they communication with employees, customers and prospects in the new virtualized world we find ourselves in.Register »

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This time of year, we are obsessed over gift giving. We’ve now been through Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday trying to find ...

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InterAct LifeLine Launches InterAct Cares.. → InterAct LifeLine Launches InterAct Cares.. →

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MicroCast

Being in “the channel” can be a challenge, to say the least. We have to balance our personal lives with our careers, manage through complex ...

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Episode 20 - Curt Allen Joins InterAct LifeLIne Episode 20 - Curt Allen Joins InterAct LifeLIne

Conversation with Curt Allen & Carolyn Bradfield

Listen in to a conversation between Curt Allen and Carolyn Bradfield as Curt shares his transition out of Windstream and involvement in ...

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69 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast jplist-topic-curt-Allen 0 334302 334302 Listen in to a conversation between Curt Allen and Carolyn Bradfield as Curt shares his transition out of Windstream and involvement in InterAct LifeLine. Carolyn and Curt share the mission of InterAct LifeLine and how this new technology company is poised to take on the opioid crisis and disrupt broken processes in addiction prevention and treatment.

Episode 20 - Curt Allen Joins InterAct LifeLIne

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Listen in to a conversation between Curt Allen and Carolyn Bradfield as Curt shares his transition out of Windstream and involvement in InterAct ...

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Episode 19 - Define Your Channel Program Episode 19 - Define Your Channel Program

MicroCast Convey Channel Helps You Define Your Channel Program Let’s face it. Most of you don’t really want or need every partner out ...

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70 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-podcast 0 333413 333413 MicroCast Convey Channel Helps You Define Your Channel Program Let’s face it. Most of you don’t really want or need every partner out there to try and sell your services. You could try that strategy, but you end up with endless quotes, frustrated partners and very few deals. To have an effective channel program, you have to define who you want to do business with, both on the partner and customer side. Vendors who participate in Convey Channel have numerous opportunities to use their content catalog to define their program, focus partners on the type of accounts that are in your sweet spot, and what partner benefits are part of your channel program. Over the years, we’ve seen a number of vendors and master agents make the mistake of being all things to all partners. Unless you are a huge national master agent with lots of resources or a vendor who has an extremely wide range of services, this strategy creates a recipe for disaster. Partners tend to focus their sales efforts and build a customer base that matches their product expertise and sales skills. The partner that likes to sell complex network deals to healthcare chains is likely not the same person that would be stimulated by pursuing a small business for hosted voice or failover service. Convey has built its content and marketing network to help both the master agent and the vendor to define who they are and the type of partner they want to work with. Start by creating an ideal partner profile and communicate your partner strategy through your Convey Channel content catalog. That statement may seem scary to vendors and master agents because certainly it seems less risky to try and work with every partner, right? But the reality is that 20% of partners are most likely to be those that are active with you and produce 80% of the referrals and your channel revenue. I’ve seen master agents be very successful by focusing on managed services providers as agents or vendors succeeding by attracting the partner who likes to sell complex cloud deals. A content catalog gives you many opportunities to let partners know who you are and how you define your partner program. As an example, you can create a page inside your catalog entitled “Partner Program”. Add text & graphics to let partners know if they are right for you or create a short informational video to communicate the message. Use a banner to direct viewers to that page or a content post that define your program. Then consider creating an “elite partner program” and inviting partners to join it. Ask partners to “sign up” for your elite partner program in order to receive special help and support. You can add a form to any page inside your Convey catalog asking the partner to let you know they are interested. Once the form is filled out, you can designate any person in your channel organization to get notified so they can follow up. If you have one of Convey’s partner portals, partners can apply to become members by linking them straight from your catalog on master agent portals to the member application inside your own portal. You can even automate accepting that partner into your program or screen the application first before you approve that partner. Next use the content catalog to educate partners on the type of customer that you would like them to pursue. Unless you want an endless flow of referrals jamming up your quote desk, taking up your channel managers time and not resulting in transactions, you have to help focus your partners’ efforts. Use your content catalog give partners an education on your target markets, the kind of account you want to work with and the individuals inside that account that are the right decision makers. Here is what works best. Add case studies on sales successes in your best vertical markets. Promote a webinar that you deliver to educate partners on the prospect that they can win with and how to sell to them. Add a separate battle card for each industry that you want partners to pursue. It’s important that you use the full range of catalog opportunities to keep reinforcing your ideal customer profile. And finally, consider expanding how you work with partners by adding a Convey Partner Portal. Convey integrates its Convey Channel Network with individual vendor portals to make it very efficient for you to update and engage all of your partners. Vendors that have a Convey portal can have it connected to up to 40 master agent portals in our network. When you add that battlecard, spiff, or case study, it’s available to partners that login to your own portal and can be distributed throughout the network. Having your own partner portal allows you to gain the efficiencies of automation, give partners assets and information they can’t get anywhere else, track what they engage with because they are now logged into your environment and give partners incentives because they are members of your elite partner program. The Takeaway There are more partners than ever before in our channel market with newer partner types such as managed services providers and value-added resellers asking to provide network and cloud services to their customers. Successful channel programs focus their efforts on the type of partner that is best positioned to sell their services, educating them about how to pursue customers in their sweet spot, and providing them resources to be successful. Convey Channel helps you define your partner program and attract the best partners to sell your services. To learn if your company is right for our Convey Channel program, go to the Convey Services website at http://conveyservices.com or visit Convey Channel at http://conveychannel.com

Episode 19 - Define Your Channel Program

MicroCast

MicroCast Convey Channel Helps You Define Your Channel Program Let’s face it. Most of you don’t really want or need every partner out there to ...

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Episode 18 - Eating a Balanced Channel Marketing.. → Episode 18 - Eating a Balanced Channel Marketing.. →

A Balanced Channel Marketing Diet It's easy in business to limit yourself to just a few marketing techniques especially if you are in the ...

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71 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast 0 333359 333359 A Balanced Channel Marketing Diet It's easy in business to limit yourself to just a few marketing techniques especially if you are in the channel with limited resources and marketing budgets. You might look at the success others are having on social media and want to confine your marketing to LinkedIn and Facebook. Or, if your company has been around for a while, you might feel reluctant to dive into new digital marketing techniques and try instead to keep growing your channel using sponsorships and events. One of the most dangerous phases in American business is “but we’ve always done it that way.” If your channel fails to add the marketing diversity it needs to succeed in the modern market, your channel might continue to grow, but at a slower pace and without many key ingredients needed to sustain that growth. Eventually, a person that tries to survive on only pasta will notice they don't feel as healthy as they once did, and you'll notice the same thing about your channel if you limit yourself to just one or two marketing strategies. Partners will likely interact with your business in a variety of ways before they decide to refer customers to you. They may browse your website, view an ad, scroll through your social media, search for reviews… the list goes on and on. This reinforces the fact that today’s partners are no different than today’s consumers who prefer to start their discovery process online and start exploring without your help. Partners are more autonomous than ever and choose to access information online and on demand. Our goal at Convey is to help you achieve a more balanced diet in your channel marketing strategy by adding that all-important element, digital and online presence through our Convey Channel program. Here is how we help you create a balanced marketing diet. First you have to get the partner to the table, so they know what you are serving. In the world of Convey Channel, you have a wide audience of partners who are hungry for services. There are around 40 master agents who have subscribed their over 23,000 sales partners to a Convey partner portal. If you have a content catalog in our network, partners have many ways to find you because we help those master agents drive traffic to the portal. In 2019 alone, we had over 2 million content views and downloads from partners who began their online journey to find you through Convey. Then it’s time to start the meal with an appetizer. The partner may not know you yet, but they know they are hungry for the type of service you offer because their customers are asking for it. In a balanced digital diet, you give the partner a taste of who you are, so they want to dig deeper. Content catalogs on Convey master agent portals can contain a summary of your services in a battlecard, a quick video about your program, or a page that overviews your value proposition. Now, let’s go to the main course. Now that the partner has come inside your content catalog for a meal, you need to feed them what they want. Partners need to know the type of customers that they should pursue, how to sell to them, how to interact with you and how they make money. Partners looking for a deeper dive want a full meal of case studies, white papers, product features, or descriptions of high target vertical markets. You can vary that meal inside of a Convey catalog by promoting webinars, adding content, or being featured in outbound email campaigns. And no balanced marketing diet would be complete without the dessert. For partners, the dessert is most often that financial incentive that sweetens the deal. We’ve seen Convey providers get very creative about how they showcase their spiffs and promotions. They add creative banners to their content catalogs that can also appear on the master agent home page. They get creative with their visuals and add interesting contests. Based on statistics from millions of views, Convey knows that nothing gets more attention than a financial incentive. We all know that between meals, there’s nothing nicer than a snack. It’s important that you keep the content flowing so partners remember that you are out there. Every time you add a new content post, upload a spiff or promotion, or promote an event it gets higher preference in the automated routines that Convey has to add to master agent newsletters or feature it on the home page. And let’s not forget the gourmet meal you can serve up. Every portal we have for both master agents and providers has marketing technology for you to create outbound email campaigns, deliver them to partner dashboards and make it easy for the partner to launch them without having to copy and paste, get creative, do any work, or worry that you might look at their prospect list. Our Convey marketing program is not a meal that every partner will consume, but it’s very satisfying for the partner who wants to go above and beyond in his or her own marketing. The Takeaway With the large number of master agents and their partners relying on Convey portals, you are just not eating a balanced marketing diet unless you become part of the online journey the partners are engaged in by visiting their master agent portal. Content catalogs are managed in a centralized portal making it easy to distribute your information to partners, feed them what they want and keep them coming back for more. Learn more about Convey Channel by getting in touch with us on our telecom industry site, http://conveychannel.com or our corporate site http://conveyservices.com.

Episode 18 - Eating a Balanced Channel Marketing Diet

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A Balanced Channel Marketing Diet It's easy in business to limit yourself to just a few marketing techniques especially if you are in the channel ...

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Episode 17 - Communicating at the Right Time Episode 17 - Communicating at the Right Time

Full TranscriptConvey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. One of the ...

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72 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast 0 328224 328224 Full TranscriptConvey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. One of the key concepts every vendor must keep in the forefront of their mind when it comes to keeping sales partners engaged and interested is “out of sight, out of mind”. With so many vendor choices and services out there, it’s just not enough to sponsor partner events, go to trade shows and travel to meet partners. Communication must be continuous, online, and on-going to keep your company top of mindshare. Your message fades quickly once you are back on the airplane going home after a face to face event. Here are some interesting statistics from the training industry: 1. After only one hour, people retain less than half of the information you presented. 2. After one day, that drops to 70%. 3. After six days, 75 % of the information has gone out the door. So how does a channel program create a communication strategy until the time becomes right for a partner to notice, pay attention, and get engaged with you? You have to go online, attract people to your message, and continuously reinforce your value proposition. Here are 3 simple strategies. # 1 Be present where your target audience is most likely to look. Although sales partners might be on Facebook, they are definitely on LinkedIn, researching companies, finding prospects, and looking for business ideas. They have signed up for email broadcast services like iAgent, Channel Vision or Telecommunications Association. They subscribe to their Convey master agent portal. You need to find a strategy for all of these online or electronic outlets to get to the audience that really matters. #2 Communicate continuously to ensure that your message will be seen You never know when someone is going to be online trying to find strategies or services to sell to customers. You have to continuously feed the content engine to ensure that when someone is on LinkedIn, they find your post in the Channel Partners group, read your email sent from Channel Vision, or find that SPIFF on a Convey master agent portal. And don’t just say the same thing. Vary your messages, inject new ideas, and communicate in a way that grabs their attention. #3 Reinforce your message after a live event You’ve spent a large portion of your marketing dollars on sponsorships and events, only to have that message fade if you don’t do anything else. After the event is over, keep it alive in your social media posts, Convey content posts, or email broadcasts. Take that new product announcement, the latest promotion, or the addition to your channel team that you announced at the regional event and go online to reinforce what partners learned when they met you. The right time to communicate to partners is all of the time and the only way to do this is to have a strong online content strategy that focuses on where your audiences are looking, communicates to them continuously and reinforces your most valuable messages.

Episode 17 - Communicating at the Right Time

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Full TranscriptConvey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. One of the key ...

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Episode 16 - Communicating the Right Message Episode 16 - Communicating the Right Message

Full TranscriptCommunicating the Right Message Convey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to Convey’s ...

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73 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast 0 328223 328223 Full TranscriptCommunicating the Right Message Convey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to Convey’s MicroCast audio series. The way we communicate has changed forever. In our personal lives, we send text messages, use Facebook messenger, and use Instagram. Our communication has gotten shorter, more direct, and to the point. In business, however, we fail to recognize that short, sweet and to the point is the way people like to receive our messages. Communicating the right message in the right way in the channel is no different. Here are three critical mistakes we see companies make when they communicate with their sales partners: 1. Oversharing. We have thousands of content posts across hundreds of vendors on our master agent portals. When we look inside a vendor content catalog and see dozens of content posts, we worry that the vendor is now oversharing. Most of the time, more is not more and having less material gets people to focus on what is important. 2. Focusing only on the product. Knowing the features of the product is important, but it’s not the most critical thing that partners look for. They need to be informed about the right customer, the best markets, and why they should trust you as a vendor. 3. Failing to recognize what partners really care about. Partners care about serving the customer but they also care about the bottom line. Is this product easy or hard to sell? What resources will it take to develop a customer base? And how do they make money with you? So how does a channel program deliver the right message to engage a sales partner. Here are 3 simple strategies to help you with messaging. # 1 Add a simple battle card to serve as an overview. We all like to read the summary before we read the book, the review before we see the movie and the battlecard before we dive into a vendor’s services. For those of you less familiar with them, battlecards are a 1-page overview of your partner program, services, and financial incentives. They are the most viewed content, outside of spiffs and promotions, on Convey master agent portals and an essential content piece for all partner programs. #2 Focus on the ideal customer profile You cannot win every deal that a partner gives you, but you can win the ones that are the best fit. Let the partner know who the ideal customer is by defining the size of the company, vertical markets they exist in, their characteristics, and why they would buy. Knowing who to refer to you is more important than the features of your product and services. #3 Let the partner know how to do business with you and quantify what it’s worth So, the partner has found the right customer. What’s next? Do you want them to get a quote from you? Register the deal online? Set up a meeting? Or what? Partners need to know the rules of engagement, so they know exactly what to do with the prospect. And certainly, a partner needs to know what’s in it for them. If they sell the deal, what’s the commission value? Is there a promotion to incent the customer to buy or a spiff to reward them for the sale? Make sure they understand the numbers.

Episode 16 - Communicating the Right Message

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Full TranscriptCommunicating the Right Message Convey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to Convey’s MicroCast audio ...

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Episode 15 - 5 Reasons to Know About Convey.. → Episode 15 - 5 Reasons to Know About Convey.. →

Some of you listening to this Microcast don’t know who Convey Channel is. Others of you are wondering how we fit into your channel ...

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74 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast 0 332914 332914 Some of you listening to this Microcast don’t know who Convey Channel is. Others of you are wondering how we fit into your channel marketing strategy, and yet others are thinking about expanding your relationship us. For those of you that don’t know us, Convey Channel is designed to be part of your digital marketing strategy. We run an industry content distribution and marketing network in the channel linking over 40 master agents with their vendors and distributing information to their 23,000 sales partners that subscribe to portals as members. Here are 5 quick reasons to get to know the Convey Channel program, how we help bring efficiency to your communication strategy and how we help you get results. First, Convey helps you eat a balanced marketing diet. Being successful at channel marketing is like eating a balanced diet. Some of us have been on these crazy diet plans where we eat an abundance of one food to the exclusion of others. For me, it’s the cabbage soup diet. But once you are into your diet, you start to crave the foods that aren’t part of the plan. Channel marketing is no different. If you don’t vary the menu, partners will get tired of your meal and start looking elsewhere for something more satisfying. Consider the Convey Channel program to be part of that balanced diet because it puts your information online, keeps it available 24/7 and if you do a good job adding content, provides partners with a satisfying meal every time they look at you. Convey promote efficiency and convenience for you and the partner The channel has experienced explosive growth in the last 5 years. Before the cloud, cybersecurity and the move to wireless, partners only had to keep up with a few network vendors, not hundreds of them. And the number of partners selling services has expanded with the entry of VARs, MSPs and other non-traditional referral partners. You don’t have the time to get information in everyone’s hands if you don’t use automation and partners don’t have time to search the web for all things hosted voice and the other services they sell. Convey’s portals puts your information in a single place, make it convenient for partners to find it, help the master agent out because he doesn’t have to distribute it and makes it more efficient for channel marketing to manage it. Third reason: We empower you to define your partner program Let’s face it. Most of you don’t really want or need every partner out there to try and sell your services. You could try that strategy you end up with endless quotes, frustrated partners and very few deals. You have to define who you want to do business with, both on the partner and customer side. Catalog owners inside a Convey master agent portal use pages and content posts to define their program, focus partners on the type of accounts that are in the vendor’s sweet spot, and what partnership benefits are part of their channel program. 4th, Convey creates opportunities to engage Just having content to read with no call to action makes it very difficult for a vendor to see if the strategy of having a digital presence is really working. Partners that look at a vendor catalog on any of our master agent or vendor portals need a call to action, and Convey Channel is designed to help partners engage with you by requesting quotes, registering for webinars, requesting access to your partner portal, or filling out contact forms. And last, but not least, Convey keeps your company top of mindshare Channel programs rely too heavily on face to face encounters with partners, but the fact is that when the event is over and the partner is on the way home, most of the information they learned is already on the way out the window. The Convey Channel program gives vendors a digital strategy to reinforce their message and stay in front of partners even when channel managers are not with them. The fight for mindshare has never been more intense than it is in today’s channel. Takeaway So, as you think about next year, your channel strategy and how you will invest your marketing dollars, we think you should get to know Convey Channel. We help programs balance their marketing strategy by adding a digital element, get information to partners quickly and efficiently, help you define who you are and the partnerships you want, create calls to action and always be present so when a partner goes looking, they find you. The next microcasts will dive deeper into how we deliver our commitments to be that trusted partner in the channel that can help you attract more partners, keep them informed, and motivate them to refer. But you don’t have to wait for those microcasts to drop, just touch base and we’ll be happy to show you Convey Channel’s program.

Episode 15 - 5 Reasons to Know About Convey Channel

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Some of you listening to this Microcast don’t know who Convey Channel is. Others of you are wondering how we fit into your channel marketing ...

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Episode 14 - Sales Leads Episode 14 - Sales Leads

Full Transcript Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we all know there many complexities to building a ...

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75 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast 0 331485 331485 Full Transcript Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we all know there many complexities to building a successful channel strategy. Providers that are winning the channel game have adopted agile and innovative solutions to control their message, push their sales strategy, and provide the right tools, all while responding to constant change in their business and in the marketplace. The concept of providing partners with sales leads is not a new one, but automating the way you collect them, distribute them to partners and a process to ensure those leads are not wasted requires new thinking and automation. In this MicroCast we are going to share some ideas about how to generate leads for very little money, the business rules you should consider before you decide to give those leads out, and the automation to deliver, manage and track the way leads move through the funnel using Convey’s partner portal technology. Finding sales leads doesn’t have to be time-consuming and expensive. When it comes to finding leads, you have technology-driven options that improve the quantity and quality of leads that you can provide to partners. Your channel organization can engage in content marketing, social media outreach or drip marketing campaigns to drive inbound demand. But for this MicroCast, I want to focus on a strategy called data scraping to produce larger lead lists. Although you can try data scraping yourself, it’s much easier and cheaper to use freelancers who have technology that scour the web to generate leads. Freelancers use your criteria to create a custom lead list at a fraction of the cost and of much higher quality than any lead lists you might purchase. So how do you gain access to these valuable resources? Freelancers exist all over the world and the hourly rate for someone in India or in the Philippines as an example that can generate a lead list is embarrassingly low for the high-quality output they produce. The best way to engage a high-quality freelancer is to use a service like UpWork or FIVRR, spelled F-I-V-R-R where freelancers are profiled on their portal. You can put in your project requirements, find freelancers who have done projects like this before, and get reviews on their work from other customers. You pay the platform provider and they pay the worker. Freelancers can create a customized lead list using a process called data scraping. In simple terms, they use software to access multiple websites to find information on companies or individuals including names, titles, contact information, email addresses, company size, or locations. That information is delivered to you in a spreadsheet so you can import it into the technology you will use to manage and distribute those leads. You can even take this further and pay a freelancer to do some investigation or calling to qualify that lead. To give you an idea of how effective freelancers and data scraping is as a strategy, Convey employed a freelancer in the Philippines at $3.50 an hour and for less than $600 they delivered a 6,000 person lead list of individuals inside companies in the Southeast that were candidates to use technology in their buildings to reduce energy cost. Set business rules so partners understand your expectations and those leads are not wasted. The worst thing you can do is give leads to someone without any expectation of getting something in return. My suggestion is to have partners opt in to receive leads from you versus just sending them out. Leads are valuable and they should be reserved for partners that have achieved a certain status in your channel, that are willing to act on the leads, and that will allow you to follow up on their progress. Insight from the partner gives you what you need to assess the lead quality, how they marketed to the prospect, and what happened to the lead. Make sure you let the partner know how you got the lead, the stage that the lead is in, whether it is qualified or not, if the lead is in a specific vertical market, or anything about what they are receiving to set their expectation. Use technology to manage the distribution and follow up strategy for leads. Automation is the only way a channel program can effectively get leads into the hands of a large number of partners, track their progress and monitor if their lead program has been effective. Although there are many ways you can do this, I’d like to profile how Convey’s partner portal manages lead distribution with its prospect management technology. Aside from having a CRM to manage partner data, Convey’s partner portals have a separate prospect CRM to hold lead lists. Leads can be added into this customizable database when individuals fill out forms on the portal, but more commonly they are added by uploading them from an Excel or CSV file. Once the leads are in the CRM, the portal owner can set up business rules that define how to transfer leads, have prospects accept them or if you will require feedback on the lead process. Here are some of the rules that you can define for prospect transfer: Decide if leads will be available to multiple partners or delivered to only one partner at a time.Once a lead is available in the system, partners get notified and the last thing you want is a few partners taking all the leads. The system prevents that by letting you set a maximum number of leads one person can have in a given month.If a partner wants the lead, do you want them to formally accept it and if so, how long will you let that lead stay in queue before it’s taken? What information will you let partners see before they accept the lead and what information will you supply once it’s been delivered? You don’t want to give away all the information until the lead is in the hands of a partner.And last but not least, do you require that the partner update the status of where they are in contacting the lead? If the partner lets the lead sit there without getting in touch, you can always pull the lead back into the pool if you want and redistribute it. Using automation to manage the lead transfer process allows you to bake in fairness and neutrality to the way leads are delivered and gives you the insight into which partners are most active and successful in accepting leads and translating them into customers. Help partners market to the leads you have given them. Your channel program likely has a marketing department, but the partner organization likely does not. You may want to help the partner soften up those leads by providing marketing tools they can use to approach that lead digitally before they try and call to schedule an appointment. Provide the partner with sharable content that they can brand with their company graphics and contact information. Deliver an email template they can use to send an introductory message to the prospect. If you have a large number of leads you’ve handed partners, then consider creating email marketing campaigns for partners so that they can deliver campaigns to their lead list. If you are using one of our portals, we have built a service into them called Conduct. You can create the email campaign complete with 4 outbound emails and a sign-up page, deliver it to the partner dashboard and notify the partner it’s there. All they have to do is add their contact list and hit the “launch” button to automate how it goes out. Providing the marketing assets to partners gives you the opportunity to control the message, make it easier for partners to follow up, and if you use the tools built into our partner portals, you gain insight on the effectiveness of how those tools are used and how prospects are responding to email marketing campaigns. Takeaway Nothing will win the heart of your partner more than by giving them valuable leads, making it easy and efficient for them to work them, and the tools they need so they don’t have to spend time inventing the marketing they need to follow up. Remember that leads are valuable so get your partners to opt in to the lead program, make a commitment to follow up and give you insight on the progress they’ve made with the leads. That lets you make adjustments on the type of lead, the quantity, and how you produced it so you can make leads more and more effective. Stay tuned to our MicroCast series to learn more about the marketing tools inside of Convey partner portals and how they can help partners translate leads into customers.

Episode 14 - Sales Leads

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Episode 13 - Partner Marketing Tools Episode 13 - Partner Marketing Tools

Full Transcript Convey Channel MicroCast Partner Marketing Tools Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we all ...

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76 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast 0 331462 331462 Full Transcript Convey Channel MicroCast Partner Marketing Tools Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we all know there many complexities to building a successful channel strategy. Providers that are winning the channel game have adopted agile and innovative solutions to control their message, push their sales strategy, and provide the right tools, all while responding to constant change in their business and in the marketplace. Most of the providers that Convey works with would love to have partners use marketing to promote their services, but the reality is that partners rarely do what we think that they should. So why is it that partners don’t use the same marketing strategies that have proven so effective in the technology marketplace? First, partners just don’t have the time to devote to marketing. Partners are generally attached to very small agencies, so they are having to do it all. They have to secure more customers, educate them about services, manage the order and installation process, and respond to issues when the technology doesn’t work the way they expect. Marketing is generally last on the list. Second, being creative doesn’t come easy for partners. In a former life I was an English teacher and taught writing, among other things. I consider myself pretty good at it, but the vast majority of people I work with struggle to put the right words together. So, imagine the difficulty in creating a marketing email, a social media post or a blog if you can’t think of what to say. Third, partners don’t know how to generate a lead list to market to. If you are going to deliver an email campaign, target people to invite to an event or even try and influence people on social media, you have to have a way to generate a list. Partners don’t really have the understanding how to create lists of people that they can work with and then what to do even if they had a list. Convey’s philosophy has always been that if you do the work for partners, provide them marketing tools, and then show them how to get a good list they will be much more likely to add marketing to their revenue strategy. We’ve built marketing tools inside the Convey portal designed to motivate partners to use them. We’ve added an easy way for partners to share content. You’ve uploaded a case study, a white paper or product information that’s meant to be shared with customers. Partners have two easy sharing options every time they access content. An obvious thing they can do is to download a file if you havean uploaded one for viewing but an even easier process is our One Touch Email Share. Here is how it works. Partners see that case study or product literature and then click the email share button. No matter what email client they use, it opens automatically with a link to the content post already in the email. The partner just adds a personal message, then sends the email to their customer or prospect. When the prospect clicks the link, they don’t come back inside your portal, but they do come back to a landing page to view, download or reshare the content. Easy email marketing! And the best news is that our reporting tool shows you which pieces of content were shared, and which partners did that. For partners that really want to commit to an email strategy, we have a unique service inside of every portal called Conduct. For those of you who are now thinking that email marketing is dead, think again! Email marketing is up to 40 times more effective than social media, according to a study done by McKinsey & Company. The same study also shows that the buying process happens 3 times faster with email than in social media. Moreover, it is also said that most individuals prefer to receive business information via email. For the “Big 3” of social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), the engagement rate isn’t even 0.6%. Compare that to email’s average open rate of 22.86% and even its click-through rate of 3.71%. Emails reach most of the people they’re intended for, so email marketing must be an essential part of a partner’s marketing strategy. We’ve built our Conduct technology to overcome the worries that we know partners have about email marketing: I don’t have the time or expertiseI am worried about adding my lead list to the portalI don’t know if it works Partners don’t need the time or expertise to create campaigns because Conduct lets you create them for the partner. Here is how it works. Login to the portal as an administrator and set up the email campaign. Add the text and graphics, the email subject line and the call to action. Conduct lets you create campaigns of up to 4 outbound emails and creates a personalized landing page for the partner. Once the campaign is ready, deliver it to the partner dashboard and Conduct tells them it’s waiting. Partners can explore campaigns you’ve added and pick the ones they want to use. All they have to do is to add the list of contacts, tell Conduct when to launch it and sit back and collect the leads when people respond. They can create their own campaign if they want, but most choose to have you do the work. Partners don’t have to worry about the security of their lead list. You may have watched TV and seen a commercial on LifeLock™, the service that protects your identity. Conduct has ListLock™, the technology that secures their list and keeps it private. Once Conduct is enabled on a portal, nobody other than the partner can change their password in order to access their account and get at their list. It’s effectively locked and secured. You can use some of the strategies I shared in my MicroCast on how to create a lead list to generate them for the partner or to teach the partner to generate them for themselves. Learn how freelancers and data scraping tools create better leads at a fraction of the cost of purchasing a list. Neither you nor the partner have to worry about whether the campaign is working. When emails are sent out, we don’t wait to see who signs up. We analyze what happens to each email. Conduct knows if the email was delivered or bounced, if it was opened and if so, how many times, and if the recipient clicked through. Then, of course, there are the sign-ups that show people were interested in the message, the offer or the special deal. Reports are available to the partner to show how each contact responded and available to the portal owner to see the overall performance of the campaign without looking at the exact list. Just like any of the larger commercial email services such as Constant Contact or Mail Chimp that have been around for a while, we have tools inside of Conduct that make email campaigns easy, personalized and follow all of the email campaign rules. Partners add their contact information and even their logo to brand emails and sign up pages.We keep emails CAN/SPAM compliant by having the right information in the footer and automatically managing opt outs.Lists are kept in the Contact Manager and partners can easily upload their contacts, organize them into lists, keep custom data on each contact and even use the Contact Manager as an easy to use CRM system. Takeaway You can have the best marketing materials in the world but if the partner doesn’t have the tools to take your materials or message all the way to the prospect you can guarantee yourself that they won’t be used in the way you want them to. Convey’s marketing tools inside of our portals ensure that you can control the marketing message, make it easy for partners to actually use them to market, and analyze the result of your efforts.

Episode 13 - Partner Marketing Tools

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Full Transcript Convey Channel MicroCast Partner Marketing Tools Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we all know there ...

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Episode 12 - Engaging Partners Episode 12 - Engaging Partners

Full Transcript Convey Channel MicroCast Engaging Partners Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we all know ...

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77 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast 0 331461 331461 Full Transcript Convey Channel MicroCast Engaging Partners Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we all know there many complexities to building a successful channel strategy. Providers that are winning the channel game have adopted agile and innovative solutions to control their message, push their sales strategy, and provide the right tools, all while responding to constant change in their business and in the marketplace. Nowhere is the old phrase, “out of sight, out of mind” more true than in the channel. So many channel programs rely too heavily on face to face encounters at trade shows, regional events or sponsorships, but forget the fact that when the event is over and the partner is on the way home, most of the information they learned is already on its way out the window. Having a digital strategy to reinforce the message and stay in front of partners even when you are not with them is essential to staying top of mindshare. Mindshare is simply the amount of attention you get from your partner network. When a sales opportunity presents itself, are partners thinking of your company first? Keep in mind that your products aren’t the only ones they’re marketing and selling in our crowded telco and cloud space. Your channel program can only have so much to say about the quality, price, and delivery of the products, but you can separate yourself from the competition by winning the mindshare battle with your partners. Here are some general best practices that you should follow when you want partners to notice you and be the first thing they think about when they are in front of a customer. First, be clear about what makes you unique in the marketplace. Is it your market niche? Exceptional service? Highly targeted products and services? Make this value proposition simple and easy to remember. Here is an example in a statement that’s clear, “We provide HIPAA compliant cloud hosting to healthcare.” Second, keep the messages coming. A one-time advertising blitz can get your message out quickly to a large number of partners, but staying top of mindshare requires consistent delivery of messaging over time. Keep it coming. Third, make sure partners know it’s you. Everything from your customer literature to your e-newsletters should have consistent messaging and similar look and feel. One brand, one message. Fourth, use a balanced approach. Stay in front of your audience using multiple channels over time. Awareness is based on repetition. And last, provide information that is useful. Frequency doesn’t have to mean being annoying. Partners should perceive you as a provider of useful information rather than an intrusive pest. Communicate frequently but give your partners genuine value each time. Having a digital strategy that leverages automation allows a channel program to be clear about who they are, have consistent branding, keep the messages coming, and make sure the information is useful. Let’s see how you can accomplish all of those goals using Convey’s technology. Start by defining the type of partner you want, the type of customer you want them to pursue and use technology to get your point across. At Convey, we see that many channel programs trying to be all things to all partners. We have over 20,000 sales partners that use our portals to get information on providers but in reality, only a fraction of those partners will affiliate with you. If a program tries to go “wide” they will end up quoting lots of deals, rejecting many of them because they just aren’t viable, and driving the partner away because they become frustrated. There are digital strategies inside of our Convey programs for providers to define the type of partner they really want to work with and the ideal customer profile they want them to pursue. In our Convey Channel program providers get a portion of a master agent portal called a catalog where content is added on a centralized site to be distributed to over 40 master agents. Or providers can own one of our custom portals and use them to educate partners Here are some digital strategies that work inside of our portals to define the ideal partner and customer profile: Add banners with taglines that clarify your ideal partner or market, then link the partner to a call to action to either learn more, join your program, or refer a deal.Create web pages, case studies or success stories that profile vertical markets that you are strongest in and customer wins.Consider having an elite partner program and invite partners that meet your criteria to express interest in joining by having an automated application process. Use the automation in our portals to keep the message coming. There is no excuse to not keep in constant contact with your partners. Make sure you are keeping them in the loop about current products, training opportunities, changes in prices, upcoming promotions and spiffs, or key events in your business. If you want to leave your channel partner unhappy, just ensure that they’re the last to know about major changes to your services, company or channel program. Convey’s partner portals make keeping in constant contact easy and automated. Here are some communication strategies and how our portals make them easy: Partners need to be reminded to keep coming back to the portal. Our system tracks their login history and reminds them to come back if they’ve been idle too long. Portals automatically notifies partners when they have a lead, a commission statement, or an action they need to take.Portals have discussion forums for partners to exchange ideas and ask questions of you and each other. The technology recaps those conversations, sends out a daily discussion digest and invites partners to come back and join the conversation.Add new content, a promotion or spiff, or an upcoming webinar and highlight those new developments in an automated newsletter. The system pulls from the newest items, highlights them and links the partner to come back to the portal to take a look.Partners can opt in to receive text messages from the portal to remind them about events or other action items. Statistics will tell you that text messages are opened 97% of the time and read within 90 seconds of getting them. Convey’s portals automate the way you reach out to partners to keep the messages coming and draw them back into the portal for more. Try different techniques that promote engagement and calls to action In today’s digital world, you have to assume that people need to see the same message multiple times, presented in different ways that appeal to the way they process information. Some people are analytical and like to read, so giving them white papers, case studies and product details will appeal to that type of partner.Some partners are visual, so big bold graphics in banners and pages or in our portal home page feature boxes are the shiny object that attracts their attention and motivates them to click and exploreSome partners learn by experience, so having webinars to let them hear from the experts makes sense. Discussion forums to exchange ideas in real time may be very appealing to an experiential learner. Use reports in our portal to analyze what partners look at and do more of what’s working and less of what’s not. Every time a partner logs into our portals, visits one of your content catalogs, views or downloads a post or navigates around your portal, we record that event. You can pull a member activity report to get an overview of the most popular locations and posts or an event report to see who registers for a webinar and then look at a specific partner to see who is the most active and engaged. We know through our experience that partners visit case studies, battle cards and promotions and spiffs more often than anything else, but your portal will give you all the detail you need to understand what partners really care about. Takeaway Being top of mindshare is critical in a crowded channel marketplace. If partners aren’t getting your message consistently, they will undoubtedly think about your competitors. We live in a world of digital engagement that requires constant reinforcement and no channel program can keep up with that type of demand unless they use automation to make it happen. Our portals are designed to help you win the minds and hearts of your partners, do it efficiently with automation and not break the channel budget in the process.

Episode 12 - Engaging Partners

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Full Transcript Convey Channel MicroCast Engaging Partners Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we all know there many ...

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Episode 11 - Automate Partner Management Episode 11 - Automate Partner Management

Full Transcript Convey Channel MicroCast Automate Partner Management Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we ...

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78 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast 0 331436 331436 Full Transcript Convey Channel MicroCast Automate Partner Management Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we all know there many complexities to building a successful channel strategy. Providers that are winning the channel game have adopted agile and innovative solutions to control their message, push their sales strategy, and provide the right tools, all while responding to constant change in their business and in the marketplace. Convey is a big believer that every channel program should be automated, have a digital strategy and the right technology tools for their partners. And we believe strongly that having a PRM or partner relationship management system is a must-have for all channel programs. Unlike a CRM that is designed primarily for direct sales, a PRM brings a channel program the following benefits: PRMs streamline partner onboarding. If you bring on new partners constantly, using a manual process to onboard them wastes lot of internal resources versus a PRM solution that is more efficient. PRMs manage education and training. A PRM provides programs the ability to execute a well-defined learning plan to make sure partners know which customers to pursue, the markets they exist in, the right sales process and good basic product knowledge. PRMs keep this training online and constantly available. PRMs offer communication & marketing support. They have tools to manage documents, communications, and other marketing assets in one online location. This ensures that partners can find the right information at the right time, allowing them to sell more effectively. PRMs help you get the ROI for marketing or sales expenses. Incentives are an essential element to drive partner performance. PRMs enable you to gauge what motivates them so you can reallocate funds based on what’s working or not. PRMs automate how you get the word out about new products. Having a well-designed PRM solution lets partners know what’s new and provides the ability to give real-time feedback on products. This ensures that launches can go off without a hitch. And last but not least, PRMs increase partner satisfaction. Partners do not have unlimited resources and time, so when you offer a more efficient and beneficial way to do business with you, partners will naturally look to you to provide them with solutions for their customer base vs. your competition. In today’s MicroCast we are going to focus on the tools inside the Convey PRM system that automate your program, increase your team’s efficiency and make it easy for partners to do business with you. Let’s start with how Convey streamlines partner onboarding. If you participate in Convey’s Channel Program, you may be maintaining a catalog that is viewed on our master agent portals. But those master agents are not going to give you their partner list. Getting partners to become members of your portal allows you to develop personal relationships with and engage directly with them. Convey’s PRM automates how partners become members in the first place by turning on an automated application process. Partners fill out the application, adding information that you find valuable. The PRM can approve partners immediately providing login credentials or have an approval process for you to screen the application and approve or deny it. If you add the partner to the member database directly, Convey delivers a welcome email automatically that you can customize message including a password set link. Convey’s portals are designed to provide education and training. It’s our philosophy that training and education can take many forms, all of which are supported by our portal technology. Portals are divided into content catalogs, so you can choose to consolidate training in one catalog inside the portal or spread it out over many locations. Consider your partner audience and the ways they learn. Some partners like to analyze and read so their education so it can take the form of case studies, white papers, or product feature sheets. Other partners like to visualize, so adding graphics, drawings and pictures to explain who you are may better engage them. While other partners like experiences, so offering webinars, videos, or discussion forums may be their best option. No matter which education option you choose, you can monitor the training that partners are using with our member activity report. Convey portals automate communication and marketing support. There are many ways our portals communicate with partners so let’s start with our Message Library that delivers notifications, reminders and messages. Partners are automatically notified by email when their password is changed, when there is a lead waiting for them, or commission statements are added. Reminders go out if the partner fails to login after a certain number of days. You can create custom messages or newsletters and schedule them to go out regularly pulling new information each time from the portal. We have an entire MicroCast devoted to marketing support that profiles our 1-touch email service and the Conduct Campaign technology that lets you deliver pre-created email marketing campaigns for partners to launch to their prospects. Our portals help you automate how you manage incentives. Partners love promotions and spiffs that incent them to sell your services vs. the competition. However, most incentives are not forever and expire after the month or the quarter is over. If you have added an incentive and are promoting it in a banner or a piece of content, our scheduling engine will let you add those elements to the portal when the promotion begins and remove them when it has expired so you don’t have to worry about having outdated information on the portal. Launching a new product? Convey’s portal can automate how you engage partners. If you have an upcoming launch, you can prepare ahead of time by adding banners, content posts, and outbound emails and holding them so that they appear by using the scheduling engine. Set the message library to send outbound emails on a regular basis to make sure they got the announcement, know where the training is, and can find the spiff that you are offering. Convey has a partner CRM or can link to any other CRM system for member management. We love our CRM tool because it can be customized in minutes, it is easy to use, and comes with the system. However, we recognize that companies may have already invested in a CRM like Salesforce or may be using another tool. No problem. The member management API lets you manage member data in your system and create member records in ours. If you use Convey’s CRM, then you have flexible options about how data gets into it. You can upload partner lists. You can have partners fill out the member application and automatically add that data to the CRM or you can have partners fill out profile information inside the member dashboard to collect more information. Add notes and tasks to a partner record to automate delegating responsibilities or ensuring that you follow up and use reports to extract the data you want on your partners. Takeaway If you aren’t looking into a partner relationship management system, then you are missing an opportunity to do more with less resources, consistently engage your partners and automate everything from onboarding to training. We want you to look at Convey for its capabilities, ease of use, its low cost and its ability to distribute content directly to your partners that are members of your portal or to master agent portals in our Convey Channel Network.

Episode 11 - Automate Partner Management

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Full Transcript Convey Channel MicroCast Automating and Upgrading Your Channel Program Sales partners expect more from their providers ...

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79 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast 0 331434 331434 Full Transcript Convey Channel MicroCast Automating and Upgrading Your Channel Program Sales partners expect more from their providers these days but as we all know there many complexities to building a successful channel strategy. Providers that are winning the channel game have adopted agile and innovative solutions to control their message, push their sales strategy, and provide the right tools, all while responding to constant change in their business and in the marketplace. Because Convey lives in the world of automation and digital experiences, we are going to overview several key areas that providers and master agents can execute in an efficient and automated way to distinguish their channel programs in order to attract more partners and keep them engaged. In subsequent MicroCast sessions, we’ll take each individual segment and devote our podcast to the steps you can take to turn one of these concepts into reality using technology as the backbone to execute the strategy. Technology companies should use technology to make it convenient for partners to get product information, to learn how to sell services, to see real life examples of success, and to understand how they fit into your strategy. If partners find it hard to get information or think it’s difficult to sell your solutions, they will switch to selling other solutions that are easier. Digital strategy #1 is to automate how you find, deliver and manage sales leads for partners. Ask any master agent what partners would like most and most of them will answer, “a good old-fashioned sales lead”. But providers struggle with the time and expense of finding the lead, the best way to distribute those leads to partners, and how to make sure that the leads they deliver are not wasted. When it comes to finding the lead, you have many options rooted in technology. Your organization can engage in content marketing, social media outreach, or an activity called data scraping. Freelancers have technology that scours the web to generate leads based on your criteria that will generate a custom lead list that is at a fraction of the cost and much higher quality than most lead lists you might purchase. When it comes to distributing and managing those leads, Convey has options inside its partner relationship management system to add prospects to a sales partner’s dashboard, set the rules around how they accept the lead and a feedback loop to ensure they are following up. Digital strategy number 2 is to use technology to stay top of mindshare by continually engaging partners. Nowhere is the old phrase, “out of sight, out of mind” more true than in the channel. So many channel programs rely too heavily on face to face encounters at trade shows, regional events or sponsorships, but forget the fact that when the event is over and the partner is on the way home, most of the information they learned is already on its way out the window. Having a digital strategy to reinforce the message and stay in front of partners even when you are not with them is essential to staying top of mindshare. You might still print those 4-color marketing slicks, but partners would rather get your information online. If you don’t have a LinkedIn page or up-to-date profiles for your people, you look unprofessional and disorganized. And if you’re using your corporate website to distribute information to both partners and customers, then partners are missing valuable things they need to do business. Digital strategy number 3 is provide tools for your partners that automate how they engage and market to their prospects and customers. One of the biggest challenges in providing tools to your partners is that partners have all levels of marketing expertise. Some partners may be better at marketing than their vendors, but most have limited capabilities, and some have none at all. Most partners have a deep desire to do good marketing, even if they don’t know how, have the time and lack the infrastructure to do it. That’s where technology proves most valuable for vendors to control the message, automate how they get tools in partner’s hands, and track if those tools are effective. As an example, Convey built two tools for partner marketing, one simple and one robust that use automation to help partners market. Add content in one of our catalogs or on partner portals and allow partners to share by email. When they touch the button, their email client automatically opens with a link to a landing page to view the content. The more complex tool, built into partner portals, lets marketing create a multi-email campaign, deliver it to partner dashboards and has enough automation so that all partners need to do is add their list and hit the go button. Digital strategy number 4 is to use automation to onboard, train and manage partners. If you want partners to affiliate with you, the thing that will slow your program to a crawl is the manual processes you might engage in to have them sign up, understand the partner agreement terms, be trained on services, know the right contacts, and be managed on an-ongoing basis. Although I’m biased, any program that wants to grow and thrive that does not have a partner portal is condemning itself to use staff to do administrative things that technology can manage better vs. spending time bringing partners or revenue in the door. Portals let partners automatically apply to affiliate with you, collect their information and add it to a CRM that keep track of them. They can hold partner agreements and keep them available for the partner to review at any time. Training should be on demand and online with modules that include videos, courses, or product information. Training webinars should be recorded and posted for anyone who missed the live event. Portals can automate delivery of commission statements, sales leads or important messages and notifications. And partners should be able to update their information online so you can learn more about them. Takeaway One of the most dangerous phrases in business, and in the channel, is “But we’ve always done it that way!”. Even if the current tactics you are using to engage partners is working, it doesn’t mean that it always will work or that you shouldn’t attempt to evolve and stay current. There are so many examples where businesses fail to see how their landscape was changing putting them at risk. What about Kodak? Technology replaced the 35mm camera film. Or how about answering machines replaced by voice mail and hosted voice? In the next 4 episodes of our MicroCast focused on creating a digital strategy for your channel, we’ll give you some ideas of how to use technology to find, manage and distribute sales leads to partners, to keep partners engaged and you top of mindshare, to provide automated marketing tools to help partners sell and to automate processes to onboard and manage partners.

Episode 10 - Automating and Upgrading Your Channel Program

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Full TranscriptConvey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. This week ...

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80 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-Halloween-Special 0 328222 328222 Full TranscriptConvey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. This week is our Halloween MicroCast series and we gave Freddy Krueger a shout out in our first episode, the Nightmare on Channel Street. We identified nightmares in the channel that keep you up at night, can ruin your channel program and destroy your revenue. Today we’re going to focus on the “Invasion of the Sales Partner Snatchers. You used to go to Channel Partners in Vegas and there were thousands of partners wandering through the exhibit hall or attended regional meetings. Then, all of a sudden, the invasion of the partner snatchers descended on the channel and one by one those partners started disappearing snatched away and gone forever. If pods from outer space didn’t spirit partners away, then where did they go? The answer is complicated. People became agents years ago because they may have been in a company’s telecom department, then decided to branch out and start their own business. Many of these partners are now aging out, retiring, or just not active and they are being replaced by new partner models that may not be so obvious to you. So, what are vendors and master agents to do so they don’t experience the nightmare of the disappearing partner on Channel Street? Here are some thoughts: Diversify your partner base. If the only type of sales partner you have focused on is the telecommunications agent, you are missing a variety of other partner types that have the right customer base not only for network services, but for cloud and business as a service. And you may be putting your channel program at risk as your traditional partner base shrinks. Think about including managed services providers, value added resellers and IT service providers. After you do that, look around and consider less traditional partners that are calling on accounts with non-technology-based services. Here is an example. The other day I ate lunch with an insurance agent who is building a practice around commercial insurance for assisted living facilities. That person would make a great referral partner because those facilities need to upgrade their phone system, move applications to the cloud, use technology to make their buildings smarter, and network their locations together. He’s non-traditional but he’s calling on the right customers in a high-value target market. Once you diversify it’s important to understand the different type of partner models and how they function. Let’s take the managed services provider as an example whose business model is different than a telecommunications agent. An MSP owns the customer relationship because they not only manage their IT and network, they also invoice the customer for services rendered. MSPs will often step aside and let the vendor take the lead when it comes to selling services that they don’t have native expertise in, making them an ideal partner who wants a trusted relationship with a master agent or vendor and is willing to make the referral. It’s also important to learn where the new partner types hang out and plan to go where those partners congregate. If you expect these different partner types such as an MSP or VAR to haunt the hallways of Channel Partners in Vegas or other telecommunications-oriented events, think again. They will likely be elsewhere. Expand your presence at organizations like ASCII or shows like IT Expo to find other technology-oriented partners.

Halloween Special 5 - The Nightmare on Channel Street: The Invasion of the Sales Partner Snatchers

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Full TranscriptConvey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. This week ...

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81 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-Halloween-Special 0 328221 328221 Full TranscriptConvey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. This week is our Halloween MicroCast series and we gave Freddy Krueger a shout out in our first episode, the Nightmare on Channel Street. We identified nightmares in the channel that keep you up at night, can ruin your channel program and destroy your revenue. Today we’re going to focus on vendors that checked into the Bates Motel, handed over their MDF funds, and thought they were getting the key to channel revenue, only to never come out alive. Your Vegas hotel bill, those huge green fees at the golf tournament, or sponsorships for that expensive cocktail party have been washed down the drain with very few partners that you hoped would engage actually selling your services. You try to wake up from the nightmare where you are being chased by your management team, screaming that you don’t know what the ROI is, which partners were converted and what revenue is going to result from your efforts. You are caught up at the Bates Motel in the Nightmare on Channel Street, but there are ways to make sure that your marketing development funds give you a provable ROI, don’t break your budget and produce partner relationships and customer referrals. Here are some thoughts. Don’t overspend on live events by changing your event strategy. Vendors tend to overspend on events by sponsoring a cocktail party, complete with a killer band, great drinks and in a cool venue. But those events often have other vendors clogging them up and little opportunity to engage directly with the partner that you want relationships with. Consider creating a niche event that is more innovative and creates an exclusive gathering that entices your partners to attend and because you view them as important in your go-to-market strategy. More intimate events that give the partner a personal experience and offer the channel team the opportunity to participate in activities directly with the partner are much less expensive than the big blowout. Think a Top Golf outing, wine tasting, or fireside chat with a local celebrity. And, don't feel you have to go it alone. There are vendors that offer services that are compatible vs. competitive to yours. Invite them to co-sponsor and add an educational component that is not product-focused but more industry and market focused. Create educational, virtual partner events that you can execute for a fraction of the cost of a live event. Webinars and podcasts continue to be a hot trend in content marketing. They are inexpensive and effective if they are done right. Make those events short and use your marketing budget to pay an industry thought leader to bring an expert or knowledge perspective vs. focusing on trying to sell your products and services over the web. People will come to hear the thoughts of people that are different and interesting. Think about the power of Ted Talks that attract massive audiences. Consider offering knowledge on the vertical markets your customers exist in, on selling strategies, and on strategies that partners can use in general to grow their business. Virtual events can be delivered with minimal marketing funds because there is no travel involved and no expense in finding a venue, paying for food and drinks, and those pricey giveaways. Execute a digital strategy to help sales partners market directly to their customers and prospects. Partners have spent years building customer relationships or creating contacts in their local marketplaces that could become customers. However, they don’t have the time, creativity or expertise to execute an effective digital marketing strategy. Allocate your MDF funds to reward partners who are willing to let you help them

Halloween Special 4 - The Nightmare on Channel Street: Marketing Development Funds

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82 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-Halloween-Special 0 328220 328220 TranscriptConvey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. This week is our Halloween MicroCast series and we gave Freddy Krueger a shout out by entitling our first episode, the Nightmare on Channel Street. We identified nightmares in the channel that keep you up at night, can ruin your channel program and destroy your revenue. So many of you have seen the Walking Dead, that wildly popular series that has lasted for 9 years and filmed in the state of Georgia, Convey’s home. This episode of the Nightmare on Channel Street starts off easy enough. Partners are throwing deals to you right and left, asking you for quotes and submitting deals. But then the nightmare begins. You’re working way too hard preparing tons of quotes for companies that are just plain wrong for your services. It’s a nightmare because your entire channel team is totally deployed chasing deals that will never convert, partners are frustrated because they don’t know which prospects meet your standards and your channel is being sucked into a never-ending quoting nightmare. What looked like good deals are the now the “walking dead”. How can a channel program hold off those zombies and get deals that will actually convert? If you want to survive this episode, here is what you can do. Make sure that sales partners have a clear understanding of your ideal customer profile. If partners are sending prospects over to you and asking for quotes that never produce a deal, whose fault is it really? I’ve seen many channel programs complain about the wasted time in quoting bad deals, but not enough programs accepting that they were ones at fault because they never educated the partner on what types of customers are ideal for them. Partners need to understand what markets you are strongest in, the size of the company that is right for you, and what type of buyer inside that company you need to talk to. Convey had a vendor that was getting absolutely no traction with partners for their hosting solution. When we explored the type of customers they already had, we found out that 65% of them were healthcare organizations because of the HIPAA-compliant platform the company had. However, their healthcare market focus was never shared with partners, so they had no idea where to focus their efforts. Once partners were educated, the right deals began to flow through. Make sure your program has a clear understanding of the ideal partner you want to represent you. Not every partner that is out there has the customer base, technical expertise, or sales capacity to sell services, yet many channel programs cast a wide net then wonder why they are either ignored by partners or get the wrong referrals. Convey’s Channel program has over 23,000 sales partners that belong to 40 master agent portals but trying to influence and form relationships with all of them when selling your services that are only appropriate for some of them is a recipe for frustration and un-met expectations on both sides. And lastly, clearly define the rules of engagement for deal referral or getting a quote. Partners like a clear understanding of process. They have hundreds of vendor choices and if they are not clear about how to refer, how to ask for a quote, what information you want, and who to deliver it to, they will make up their own process. Consider formalizing your referral and quoting process by creating forms to add the information you care about. Set partners expectation about what you plan to do once you get their information so everyone is on board and on the same page.

Halloween Special 3 - The Nightmare on Channel Street: The Walking Dead – Bad Referrals

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Full Transcript Convey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. This week ...

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83 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-Halloween-Special 0 328219 328219 Full Transcript Convey MicroCast Series This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. This week is our Halloween MicroCast series and yesterday we gave Freddy Krueger a shout out by entitling our first episode, the Nightmare on Channel Street. We identified nightmares in the channel that keep you up at night, ruin your channel program and destroy revenue. Today we’re going to focus how you wake up from the nightmare, run away from the monsters chasing you to not only survive on Channel Street, but to thrive. Let’s focus on the problem of the disappearing commissions. We’ve seen the rapid pace of mergers and acquisitions in the channel, many of those deals financed through debt, saddling the company with large debt-service and interest payments. Take Windstream as a prime example. They snapped up smaller companies like Earthlink and went into debt to do it. You know the rest of the story; this year Windstream had to file bankruptcy in order to survive and protect itself. Now, enter the bankruptcy court, and that channel program lost a level of control over how partners got paid. Commissions became at risk, especially to those partners that stopped selling new Windstream accounts years ago. So how do master agents and partners protect themselves from this nightmare on channel street? Here are some ideas. First, diversify your provider portfolio. The first rule of business is not to put all of your eggs in one basket. Companies that have a top-heavy revenue stream tied up in only a few customers are those at most risk. Although you have your favorite providers, putting most of your revenue in one place elevates your risk. Beyond that, you may be missing new services, new strategies and new opportunities other providers might represent to you and to your customers. Next, upsell existing customers with additional services. If you’ve sold big network deals, you are likely making good commissions from those relationships. However, those companies have evolving technology needs that you can fill. If you affiliate with a master agent that is part of a master agent association like the Technology Solutions Exchange or the Alliance Partners, those master agents very likely own Convey Partner Portals. Inside their portal is a world of other cloud and technology services you can offer your customers to upsell to your customer base and continue to diversify your source of commissionable revenue, reducing your risk. And third, stay abreast of channel developments. Most of the struggles that vendors are facing in the channel are often reported on in the variety of channel publications and websites. Make sure to access those sites and read the tea leaves so that you are not surprised. If you know what might be coming with suppliers you work with, you can make more intelligent decisions about where to place your business so that it is in less jeopardy. The nightmare of being blindsided by changes in your provider’s business is one that can be avoided. Plan now to diversify the providers that you place business on, diversify your portfolio by upselling customers with new services, and stay informed about developments with the suppliers that you are working with. This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’ve been listening to our MicroCast in the Convey Channel Partner special Halloween series.

Halloween Special 2 - The Nightmare on Channel Street: Disappearing Commissions

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This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. This week is our Halloween MicroCast series and ...

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84 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-Halloween-Special 0 328218 328218 This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. This week is our Halloween MicroCast series and we’re going to give our old friend Freddy Krueger a shout out by entitling our program, the Nightmare on Channel Street. For those of you who don’t remember Freddy, he starred as a character in the Nightmare on Elm street, an insane child killer, released on a technicality and murdered by the town’s parents. He comes back in people’s dreams and continues to kill through 9 different movies. So in honor of Halloween week, we are going to identify nightmares in the channel that keep you up at night, ruin your channel program and destroy revenue. Our first episode in the Nightmare on Channel Street is called “the death of commissions”. This episode of unfolds as nervous channel partners watch in horror as big companies gobble up smaller ones, creating a behemoth that lumbers through the marketplace like a zombie trying to feed itself on dwindling sales with a pack of hungry debt holders hard on their heels. The struggling company darts into court to protect itself from hungry debt holders by filing bankruptcy and then the nightmare really begins, but not for the company, instead for partners that sold its services. A new group of characters come on the scene, the bankruptcy court judges who nullify partner contracts gasping in horror at the commissions flowing out the door to partners who stopped selling their services years ago. Judges rule, commissions begin to die and partners that depended on them start scrambling for new sources of revenue. Episode two is called the “The Invasion of the Sales Partner Snatchers” You used to go to Channel Partners in Vegas and there were thousands of partners in the exhibit hall, or to regional meetings full of partners. Then, all of a sudden, there was the invasion of the body snatchers and one by one those partners started disappearing, seemingly snatched away, gone forever. Where did the partners go? Some of them got discouraged with channel sales and went back to their careers working for a company. Some of them simply aged out and retired from active duty, continuing to take whatever commission checks that were still coming their way. Or some of them just decided that it was not interesting enough to keep coming back, only to hear the same old presentations delivered the same way. And the other explanation for their disappearance is that pods from outer space have landed in the channel, snatching up the partners we used to know and depend on. In Episode three, vendors check into the Bates Motel, hand over their MDF funds and may never have their channel marketing budget come out alive. Your Vegas hotel, those huge greens fees at the golf tournament, or sponsorships for that expensive cocktail party have been washed down the drain with very few partners that you hoped would engage actually selling your services. Now, you wake up in a cold sweat being chased by your management team, screaming that you don’t know what the ROI result is, and which partners were converted and what revenue is going to result from your efforts. Next it’s a cold Halloween night and you’re waiting in the Pumpkin Patch for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. But that never happens because you’re in episode 4 of the Nightmare on Channel Street. If you worry about trying to find partners to represent you in the channel, only to have your trick or treat bag filled with rocks, then you are not alone. The channel has expanded, the number of vendors has grown, and it’s much harder to get partners to pay attention with all of the noise in the channel. Trying to get people to pay attention to you can be one of the nightmares on Channel Street. And our final nightmare is entitled the Walking Dead. At first everything seems wonderful for you on Channel Street. Partners are throwing deals to you right and left, asking you for quotes and submitting deals. But then the nightmare begins. You’re working way too hard preparing tons of quotes for companies that are just plain wrong for your services. It’s a nightmare because your entire channel team is totally deployed chasing deals that will never convert, frustrating partners who don’t know which prospects meet your standards and being sucked into a never-ending quoting nightmare. So, if your channel program is caught in one of the Nightmares on Channel Street, what should you do? Hide in the graveyard of other channel programs hoping Freddy won’t find you? Run from the people trying to suck the blood out of your marketing budget? Or hope that the budget chainsaw won’t cut through your team when the results aren’t what management expected? Remember that in all horror movies, the bad guy always loses in the end. The nightmare is over, and the main characters live on to fight another day. So, what about the Nightmare on Channel Street? Well this is what we call in the MicroCast world, a cliff hanger. You’ll have to tune into this week’s Halloween MicroCasts to find out how you, as the main character in your channel movie, makes it past the partner snatchers, out of the Bates Motel, and avoid the Walking Dead to keep your channel program alive and well. This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’ve been listening to our MicroCast in the Convey Channel Partner special Halloween series.

Halloween Special 1 - The Nightmare on Channel Street

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Episode 4 - Communicating to the Right Audience Episode 4 - Communicating to the Right Audience

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85 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast 0 328217 328217 Full TranscriptThis is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. It’s natural to want everyone to like us and nowhere is this more true than in the channel. We get sucked into the idea that engaging thousands of sales partners will create the path to revenue. However, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to executing a good channel strategy. It’s very rare when a service appeals to every partner, that they are comfortable selling, and that they understand. Executing a one-size fits all marketing strategy when it comes to partner recruitment is a sure-fire recipe to confuse the partner and frustrate your team when you are over-quoting for prospects that will never become customers. You have to understand who the right partner audience is for what you do and then help them understand the right customer audience for what you sell. Here are only some of the consequences of connecting to the wrong partner or having partners connect to the wrong customer. 1. Engaging the partner who doesn’t get your service increases your cost of sales. You have to spend more time and resources educating partners, holding their hand through the sales process, and going through more prospects to get a deal. 2. Partners get frustrated when you reject their referral which can damage your reputation. There is nothing more challenging than to get the wrong type of deal in the door, reject it and then have a partner complain about you to their peers. 3. Your attrition rate goes way up. Attrition happens in two places: partners that become disengaged and customers that were less than ideal that don’t stick or renew. So how does a channel program find the right partner audience to connect with and help those partners connect to the right customer audience? Here are three helpful tips: # 1 Define the ideal partner profile to your channel audience. As an example, if your services are more complex or require a higher-level sales skill, then consider creating an “elite partner program”. Define the type of partner you would like to engage with, the type of customer base that you would like them to have that meshes with your service, and some extra perks they might get for being in the elite program. #2 Define the ideal customer profile No matter what the service is, there is always an audience that is more right for your products and services than others. That audience is referred to as the ideal customer profile. Tell your partner who those customers are by defining the size of the company, the vertical markets you most often find them in, and the decision maker inside the company that will best appreciate your value proposition. #3 Seek out master agents who have partners that come closest to your ideal partner profile. Other than some of the mega master agents like Telarus and Intelisys, many master agents have specialized in certain partner types. They might focus on managed services providers as partners, agents who sell complex network deals, or those that specialize in certain vertical markets. Forming a relationship with a master agent that has your ideal partner profile allows you to go deeper, not wider to attract the right partner. Remember, that it is pretty difficult to be all things to all people and certainly this is very true in the channel. It’s OK to exclude or not focus on partners that don’t have the skill set, customer base or desire to pursue the type of customer you want. And, partners will thank you for not wasting their time and wasting yours chasing the wrong deals.

Episode 4 - Communicating to the Right Audience

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Full TranscriptThis is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to the Convey MicroCast audio series. It’s natural to want everyone to like us and ...

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Episode 3 - The 3 C’s of Channel Communication Episode 3 - The 3 C’s of Channel Communication

The 3 C’s of Channel Communication Convey MicroCast Series Hi, this is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to Convey’s MicroCast ...

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86 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-channel-experience jplist-topic-microcast jplist-topic-podcast jplist-topic-Communication 0 328203 328203 The 3 C’s of Channel Communication Convey MicroCast Series Hi, this is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to Convey’s MicroCast audio series. Many companies focus on customer communication but communicating with channel partners is every bit as important because they are your customers. Communication is a second only to financial incentives as the most important tool to motivate and manage partners. Channel partner communications should be strategic, cost-effective and focus on motivation, education, and engagement. Communication in the channel should include a 3-pronged strategy: communicate to your channel, communicate through your channel and communicate for your channel. Let’s take a look at how to execute each strategy. Start with communicate to your channel. Communicating to your channel is all about providing information, training and motivation that is directed at sales partners. Information and training explain what you want the channel partner to do promote your services, upsell customers, understand the features and benefits of your products and services, and knowhow to best position them against each other and against competitors’ products. Motivational communications explain the rewards that a channel partner receives if they do what you want. That type of communication focuses on promotional activities such as incentive programs, special pricing and deals, or commission accelerators. Communicate continuously to your channel by direct messaging, and email marketing through channel outlets such as iAgent or Channel Vision, or on Convey’s master agent portals. Now let's look at communicating through your channel. Communicating through your channel means providing channel partners with customer-facing materials to get your message directly to the customer. Providing your partners with those tools gives you certain advantages. They allow you to maintain a consistent positioning of your products in the market and against competitors’ products You now have a message that reinforces your brandYou are helping channel partners sell your products and services because you did the hard work for them by creating the tools. If you communicate through your channel, the materials you provide should be simple, easy to access, and easy to deliver to the customer. You should allow for co-branding so that the partner can add their company and contact information. Here are some common tools that partners need from you to accelerate their sales: Product PDFs, data sheets, and 1-page overviews that can be emailed or printedPromotional kits that give partners the tools to feature you on their website, in social media posts, and other literature they use. These kits typically have digital versions of your logo, product photographs or illustrations, sample copy, and other graphics about your offerings. Marketing campaigns developed for the partner so they can email prospects or customers and generate inbound demand. Add marketing development funds (MDF) to help sales partners advertise, use digital marketing, and launch other promotional activities for your products. Make sure to attach strings to the MDF funds that come with provable activity and messaging that you control. Now let’s look at the last one, communicate for your channel The most valuable commodity a channel partner can get from you other than training and marketing help is a hot sales lead. Use your company’s marketing resources and automation to generate inbound demand, then deliver leads to partners. Leads elevate your value to partners and reward those individuals that are able to convert prospects into customers. Make sure that there is a process in place to deliver the leads, ensure that the partner intends to act on them, and gives you the insight into how those leads are working through the sales funnel. Remember that all partners are not created equally so communication intensity and frequency should be directed to partners that have the right customer base, refer repeatedly and can translate prospects into valuable deals. Then, execute the 3 “C’s of channel communication. Communicate to your channel to inform and train them. Communicate through your channel so you can get your message from channel partner to customer. Communicate for your channel to do the marketing work for them, deliver sales leads and monitor their progress. Convey’s channel program and technology supports the 3 C’s of channel communication. Use Convey’s Channel network to train and communicate to partners through an online vendor catalog. Create email marketing campaigns in Conduct, add them to master agent portals who will deliver them directly to the partner to run. Use Convey’s prospect transfer technology to add leads, send them to partners and monitor their progress. This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’ve been listening to our “MicroCast” from the Convey Channel Partner Program.

Episode 3 - The 3 C’s of Channel Communication

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The 3 C’s of Channel Communication Convey MicroCast Series Hi, this is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to Convey’s MicroCast audio ...

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Episode 2 - Crafting the Right Online Experience.. → Episode 2 - Crafting the Right Online Experience.. →

Podcast Transcription: Hi, this is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to Convey’s MicroCast audio series. We’d like to welcome ...

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87 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-channel-experience jplist-topic-microcast jplist-topic-podcast 0 324451 324451 Podcast Transcription: Hi, this is Carolyn Bradfield and you’re listening to Convey’s MicroCast audio series. We’d like to welcome our listeners to our Channel Partners MicroCast audio series from Convey Services, a technology specialist that runs a content and marketing portal network in the channel used by over 23K sales partners. Today’s series is all about crafting the right online experience for your channel program. Without fail, most of us begin our buying experience online. We google the product we want to buy, read reviews, compare prices and often complete the transaction without leaving the comfort of our living room. Most of us look at that experience as easy, quick and convenient. However, when it comes to helping our sales partners with an online experience to find services they want to represent, compare options and complete the transactions, vendors in the telecom and cloud marketplace may not be have elevated their strategy enough to make it easy for sales partners to go online and get what they need to sell services. If your company is highly active in face to face interactions by sponsoring partner events, going to trade shows and traveling to meet partners, a key fact that you must remember is that your message fades quickly once you are back on the airplane going home. Here are some interesting statisticsfrom the training industry: After only one hour, people retain less than half of the information presented.After one day, that drops to 70%.After six days, people forget 75 percent of the information has gone out the door Without a good online strategy to reinforce your message, attract partners to keep looking at you, and make information easy to consume, most of the dollars spent in sponsorships, events, and face to face contact will be wasted. Because Convey runs an online portal network connecting partners to vendors through our master agent portals, we have the opportunity to evaluate how effective vendors are at their online strategy. Here are some ideas to elevate your game. Tip #1 Know what your online presence looks like when people search for you. Many companies would be shocked to see that much of the information that appears about them in search engines or other online outlets is just out of date, or plain inaccurate. We learned this from one of our vendor-partners, Vivial who runs free online assessment to show you where people will get tripped up when they try and find you. Believe it or not, number one reason customers can’t find you on Google comes from incorrect business listings that can leave partners wasting valuable time searching. Find more information about Vivial on the Convey Services website and get a free evaluation of your online presence to see what needs to change. Tip #2 Take a hard look at your website Unfortunately, many channel programs don’t have as much control as they need over their website; however, there are certain things a modern website must have to be effective. Most interactions with websites will be on a mobile device so it must be responsive so you can view it on your phone as well as on your laptop. If a website is designed for both customers and partners, make sure that the partner section is easily accessed from the home page and you focus your message on the benefits of becoming a partner. If your website is old, tired, and out of date, it is imperative that you do a refresh to bring it current. Tip #3 Invest in LinkedIn. Although there are a number of social media outlets you could use to promote your business, Linkedin is the gold standard for all channel programs. Your company page should have a succinct overview loaded with good keywords, your logo and a cover image, Make sure to add information about your organization including your website URL, your location and the industry you are in. Commit to posting content regularly and make sure your posts have images to make them stand out. Tip #4 Simplify your message I often look at a vendor’s website or the online catalog on one of our Convey portals and struggle to understand just what business this vendor in. In only a few seconds, a viewer should understand what you sell, who you sell it to, and the value of doing business with your company. As an example, a great banner message in your website or online Convey portal might be: HIPAA compliant application hosting solutions for the medical industry....or try this one...Improving the patient experience with our contact center solutions. For vendors who maintain an online catalog through the Convey network, we always advise them to narrow their focus to the services partners are most interested in, define the type of customer that is ideal including what industries they exist in, what you want the partner to do when they find that customer and how the partner makes money. Tip # 5 Invest in a Partner Portal So I’m sure you are asking yourself, if you have a website, what is the point of a portal? Remember that websites are designed to speak to the end customer first, so the information partners need to know may not be appropriate. Portals function not only as a “partner website” but do other valuable things that automate a partner program and engage the audience. With a portal, your message can be targeted to help the partner better understand the product, the sales process, and the economic value of the customer. You can stay top of mindshare by having the portal reach out to the partner to get them to visit repeatedly and get rewarded for being inside your portal. You can analyze what they look at, get them to write reviews on your content, and see who is really engaged with what you do so you can focus your efforts on nurturing those relationships. My advice to channel programs is to keep in front of your partners not only in person but reinforce your message online. Make sure that your online information is accurate so you can be found, that your website is as good on a desktop as it is on a phone, that you invest heavily in Linkedin and a good content strategy. Simplify the message and summarize who you are, who you sell to, how partners should interact with you and how they make money. And consider investing in a partner portal to deepen your online interaction with partners, keep them engaged and reward them when they come back and look at you online. 5 years ago, Convey transformed how master agents and their partners engage with vendors through an online portal network that now has over 40 master agents and 23,000 partners. We provide individual partner portals to vendors that serve the cloud and telecom space that have tools to automate partner management, keep partners engaged, and give them marketing tools to promote your services. Explore our website, which is also one of our portals, to get connected to the right online experience for your channel program. This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’ve been listening to our “MicroCast” Convey in our Channel Partner Program.

Episode 2 - Crafting the Right Online Experience for Your Channel Program

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Episode 1 - New to the Channel? Our Advice Episode 1 - New to the Channel? Our Advice

Podcast Transcript: New to the Channel? Take our Advice We’d like to welcome our listeners to our Channel Partners MicroCast audio ...

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88 MicroCast-MicroCast jplist-topic-microcast jplist-topic-channel jplist-topic-Telecom jplist-topic-channel-partners jplist-topic-sales-partners 0 324352 324352 Podcast Transcript: New to the Channel? Take our Advice We’d like to welcome our listeners to our Channel Partners MicroCast audio series. I’m Carolyn Bradfield, CEO of Convey Services, a technology specialist that runs an informational portal network in the channel used by over 23K sales partners. In the next couple of minutes, we are going to focus our time on vendors that are new to the channel, pointing out some of the misperceptions they have about developing a channel program that will likely cost them time, money, and results. What used to be the traditional telecom channel has grown by leaps and bounds over the years transforming the type of services that are being offered attracting vendors that focus on cloud services, security, the internet of things, mobility and a host of other offerings that were not around 5 years ago. If you are one of those new vendors, it’s easy to get sucked into the idea that engaging the tens of thousands of sales partners in the channel will give you an immediate pathway to revenue. It almost never happens as quickly as you think it should, it’s much more difficult to get traction than you planned for, it costs more than you budgeted for and it's much harder for the new guy on the block to succeed. Well then how does a new vendor break in without breaking the bank and leverage those thousands of revenue producers calling on customers that could buy your services? Let’s take a look at some of the common misperceptions and mistakes that vendors make that will derail their chances of having a solid channel program. Mistake #1: Thinking that revenue will happen overnight Although there are thousands of sales partners in the channel, there is no pathway to getting rich quick. Companies need to understand that growing channel revenue takes time. It starts by developing relationships with master agents who have sales partners that affiliate with them to sell through their vendor contracts and get paid a commission. Next you have to get known by the individual sales partner so that he or she knows you are out there, understands what you sell, knows the type of customer you want and gets how they make money when they represent you. Getting to know those partners requires that you eat a balanced diet including showing up at regional meetings, trade shows and events along with an online presence so partners can find you, read about you and begin engaging. It just takes time. Mistake #2: Not being willing to invest A solid channel program takes time and investment dollars. Failing to allocate budget dollars for a channel program and understand how much you should invest is a sure-fire recipe for not spending enough to get a solid footing in the marketplace. Companies must be willing to add infrastructure to support administrative processes such as commissions and quoting, add people to connect with sales partners and their customers, and add marketing dollars so partners will know you are out there. Mistake #3: Not understanding the master agent Invariably, we see vendors that think they’ve achieved the pathway to success by getting a contract with the largest master agents who have the most sales partners. Those vendors seem to be willing to invest thousands of dollars in marketing development funds to get those thousands of partners to notice them. But then nothing happens. Agents don’t know who they are and no deals are flowing in. Consider that the largest master agents in the market also have the most vendor relationships. If you are only 1 of 300 vendors, it’s harder to stand out in a crowd. Sometimes a more-regionally focused or specialized master agent can give you better results. Consider what type of sales partner a master agent specializes in, what they are willing to do to help you, and if those big MDF funds are really necessary. Remember that bigger does not always mean better in the channel. Mistake #4: Failing to define who you are It’s rare when we see a vendor that can be all things to all people. But often vendors will promote themselves that way. The reality is that you have a sweet spot, an ideal customer that sees your service, gets it right away, and most often buys from you vs. your competition. Partners need to understand the vertical markets that the ideal customer comes from, what business need your solution addresses, and the characteristics of that company such as their size. It’s much more powerful to say that you are a HIPAA compliant hosting service focused on medical practices than to say you are a cloud hosting provider. Don’t be afraid to narrow who you would like the partner to focus on. Mistake #5: Thinking that all sales partners are created equally Just as there is an ideal customer profile, there is also an ideal partner profile. Think about the type of person you would have the most success with. If your solution is complex, then the partner that sells solutions to the mid-marked vs. the SMB might be better for you. You might be better off with a managed services provider who understand complicated integrations vs. a traditional telecom agent. It’s important to know who you should focus on because focusing on 20,000+ sales partners is an impossible task. You might spend all of your time returning quotes to partners that are not well equipped to sell your services with none of those quotes turning into accounts. Mistake #6: Overcommunicating Partners don’t have the time or the bandwidth to learn all of the complexities of how your service works, yet vendors make the mistake of trying to give them a full understanding of the features. You need to think higher level. Partners want to know who your ideal customer profile is, when they find that customer, what do you want them to do....should they refer, set up an appointment, get a quote, and how they make money. Stick to the overview, not the details and partners are more likely to pay attention. That’s why so many vendors create a 1-page battlecards as an overview. Mistake #7: Not explaining how partners make money. Sales partners are independent business owners and they live and die based on the commission checks that come monthly. If they are unclear about how they get paid, what their commission opportunities are, and any special incentives you have to motivate them, I guarantee you that they will not pay attention to you. You might be competing against services that pay high commission dollars like SD WAN, and if so, you might want to make the case that your service adds to the incremental revenue an existing customer by selling more things to the same customer. Mistake #8 Not eating a balanced diet with your promotional strategy Marketing to partners is all about rising to the top of mindshare and staying there as long as you can. It’s great to have face to face contact through events or shows, and it’s also great if you can get someone to attend your webinar. But be clear, partners don’t retain as much information as you think they do. Once the event is over and the webinar concludes, they are on to other things. You have to layer in a good online strategy that reinforces your message and gives partners the tools to represent you in the marketplace. The bottom line is that channel is an ever-expanding marketplace, attracting new partners, and new opportunities for your business to get more feet on the street and generate more revenue. Vendors that are new to the channel need to remember that: Developing a channel program takes timeIt requires investmentIt needs you to understand the role of the master agent and sales partnerYou have to be clear about who you are, who you sell to and how partners can make money with youYou have to be succinct and focus on the information needed for the partner to gain interest and refer the right deal.You have to have a balanced approach, so that you combine in-person, virtual events and an online strategy to stay top of mindshare. Convey offers a Channel Accelerator program to help newer vendors navigate the world of the channel, avoid the pitfalls that cost them time and money without delivering results, and have a strategy to attract the right partner and stay top of mindshare with them. This is Carolyn Bradfield and you’ve been listening to our “MicroCast” in our Channel Partner Program series.

Episode 1 - New to the Channel? Our Advice

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