Grassroots or Mahogany Row

Channel management is not a marketing function. Sure there are marketing components, but there are also operational, financial, sales, and other considerations as well. I find that channel organizations tend to reside under Sales or Marketing…which is fine. It has to sit somewhere after all.

The issue is that because your business…your entire business…is dependent on your go-to-market model, you have to have alignment in the way in which you manage your channels. It is not enough to simply build a channel program, assign quota to a few sales representatives, and expect extraordinary returns. There is a cultural element that needs to be taken into account.

Senior management (Mahogany Row) needs to be on board with your plan and evangelize the vision, both internally and externally. Likewise, the team of people needed to effectively implement the plan need to not only be on board, but also enthusiastically share in the success. Many people will point to the sales teams and decide that their support is all that is really required. It is certainly important, but if you do not have the finance, accounting, marketing, and operations teams in full support, you’re probability of success will be greatly reduced.

Part of your job as a channel leader is to represent each of your channels individually and all of your channels holistically to your internal audience. It is always exciting to get the endorsement of the bigwigs on the top floor, but don’t discount your need to build cross functional teams with the people that make the day-to-day successes.