When selling through a channel, how can a sales person influence without authority?
I was recently contracted to speak at a national sales meeting for a manufacturer. One of the first things I did was interview leadership and several sales people to understand the challenges they were facing. Some examples of comments I heard on my calls …
“My distributors tell me that we’re great, but all they ever push to the end-user is the best price.”
"They don’t want our value-add programs - all they want is for us to ship them equipment.”
“How are we supposed to manage them when we’re not their boss?”
I think I’ve got the topic for my presentation, don’t I? With the suggestion of their National Sales Director, I’ve given it the title Influencing Without Authority.
We’ve worked on this challenge several times in the past, and we’ve developed a process for manufacturer sales teams to gain influence with their channel … without authority. There is one central theme to shifting the vendor-channel relationship to a partnership. The one concept that will help you influence your channel partners …
Uncover and solve their top challenges.
Sounds simple, but don’t dismiss it. You’re probably not doing this right now. Most manufacturers create programs and ideas that solve a problem they think will impact their channel, but never ask them. What are the major problems that their sales leaders and sales people are having? Not problems with you and your company, but in general. If a random person asked them what their biggest challenges are, how would they answer?
Are they full of account managers that haven’t been trained to sell? Teach them. Not how to sell your products, but how to sell. Every time you’re in the area, conduct a 30-minute sales training session that will make them better.
Are they struggling getting into new accounts? Help them. Offer your inside sales team. Develop a campaign to get them appointments. Get out there on your own and open doors for them.
Do they need to increase their recurring revenue? Develop a program with them to make their maintenance agreements more unique and easier to sell.
The examples above are arbitrary. The point is to understand your channel’s most common problems and develop ideas to fix them. When you do, you won’t just be a vendor, but you’ll be their sales trainer / therapist / marketing department / inside sales department / prospector / etc. Then, you’ll have more influence than those that have authority.
