Relevance

Everybody wants to be relevant.

Every organization needs to be relevant.

People don’t often think of the competitive nature of charitable organizations. They fight every day for donations against other equally deserving charities. The way to get to the donations is by becoming relevant; not only at a macro level, but more importantly at a micro level. By making it personal, you establish relevance. People are more disposed to support charities that serve a personal need. It might be cancer, poverty, AIDS, or the mentally challenged. All of these are deserving of support, but people will more than likely contribute to a cause that has touched them personally.

Every organization fights for relevance, because that is how you achieve mutual commitment, mutual growth, mutual profitability, and brand.

When you sell through independent channels, you have to focus on relevance. Your channel organization should be built on the premise that you want to constantly increase your relevance to not only your entire channel community, but to each of the individual partners, as well. It why you have to be bigger than the widget and it is why your communications plan needs to be better than your competitors.

As you increase relevance you create need and, in turn, that need builds switching costs. Your channel relationships develop roots and competitive barriers. Ask yourself, “How relevant am I to each and every one of my channel partners?” If the answer is not as positive as you would like, consider what you have to do to increase your relevance.