Demo and you shall receive money

Lantronix Demo Dollars-$50 SPIFs: Through 9/30/04, receive a $50 SPIF for every qualified customer demo of a Lantronix SecureLinx(tm) Remote KVM(tm) or Secure Console Manager. The Lantronix' SecureLinx data center management solution provides secure, anytime, anywhere access to IT and telecommunications equipment--even when networks are down. And there's no need for costly add-on hardware or software!

Register here: http://newsletter.crn.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eirP0GhoFj0ElM0CgIg0A7

Campaign Tools Offered By IBM (and paid for)

IBM has a campaign design took kit that is offered to qualified members of its partner program. Here is a link to the campaign details. http://www-1.ibm.com/partnerworld/pwhome.nsf/vAssetsLookup/WelcomeKit2004-US.pdf/$File/WelcomeKit2004-US.pdf

IBM Campaign Designer Marketing Link refers IBM Business Partners to third party vendors who offer marketing services that complement IBM co-marketing offerings. Take advantage of the services listed below, which are available directly from each vendor (at the vendor's special prices, terms and conditions). Some servcies include • Database access program • Direct mail/printing services • e-mail marketing • Webcast services • Teleservices • Event services • fulfillment • Marketing analytics

Costs associated with Campaign Designer vary by country, by campaign, and by the marketing materials you choose to create. The costs are outlined in each campaign. What you will find is that using Campaign Designer is more cost-effective than creating a campaign on your own because continuously strive to lower the costs of printing and other services to increase program value to you. Eligible IBM Business Partners may use their earned PartnerRewards dollars for reimbursement of these costs. For more information on the PartnerRewards program, please contact IBM PartnerWorld Contact Services.

A number of success stories are available here too for review:. http://www-1.ibm.com/partnerworld/pwhome.nsf/weblook/campaign_success.html

Vendor management - there are tools to help you

A big problem today for partners and resellers is cost effectively managing their vendor relationships. Vendor relationship management is not a common software term and most software companies are not overtly offering tools for this. You need to be creative. But still, many companies today struggle with keeping track of all of their vendor relationships and interactions. Companies today tend to resell Microsoft, Adobe, HP, Sun, and other offerings. It is difficult to keep track of who you are working with and what you are working on.

Here are some examples of things you are probably struggling with:

-Profiling (lists and segmentation)
-Vendor recruitment and registration
-marketing planning and marketing collaboration
-joint campaigns and funding for campaigns
-soft funds management/prior approvals and collaborative marketing
-portal for vendors
-Dashboard for performance metrics
-notifications and emails
-vendor employee profiling

One tool that is alright at solving some of these problems is the one offered by Net Suite. The product is called NetSuite Small Business. It offers PURCHASING & VENDOR MANAGEMENT FEATURES like
Requisitions, Purchase Orders, and vender centric information/profile views. Here is a link to the product information:

http://www.netsuite.com/portal/products/nsb/purchasing

Next I'm going to evaluate Microsoft's small business solution and kickbacks. I know that www.salesforce.com does not offer a solution for this as they are just a pipeline management and contact management too.

Watch for further journal entries on this topic. Reseller Central.

The MDF Dilema and what to do

An article was recenlty written by Rob Wright from Var Business. Strangely enough, Marek development funds (MDF) rules are detailed and complext to understand. This poses a problem for small businesses as they need to understand under what conditions they can request funds. If they don't understand the how and why of the MDF world then they won't ask for funds.

"Yet many VARs have found themselves
in an unfortunate rut when it comes to MDFs, paralyzed by their frustration with
vendors or unable to collect because they have run afoul of austere policies and
uncooperative channel officials"

The stringent rules resulting in frustrated channel partners is due to the high number of fraudulent claims that have been submitted over the years. The article identifies the problems and even quantifies it very well. I urge all channel partner s when faced with a stringent MDF program. Pick up the phone, call your account manager, ask some questions about the program and find out if a marketing plan listeing all sales and marketing activities will help you get more funds and get more funds paid quicker. Here is a link to the article.

http://channelweb.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=18842115&pub=var&_requestid=558690

A second article by the same author summarizing his thoughts and industry trends.

http://channelweb.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=18841032&pub=var

For details on marketing planning and what a channel account manager would expect to see to get funds approved and paid with claims or with short pays from invoices check out the following link that I wrote a few weeks back.

http://resellercentral.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_resellercentral_archive.html

Reseller Central

Survey on channel management

The following survey put out by the Aberdeen Group really highlights some of the key problems and issues faced by vendors today from channel conflict, revenue recognition, and more. Take a few minutes to read through this survey. It offers you a glimpse into the minds of vendor channel executives. The final results of this survey will be posted in September when they are availalbe.

http://www.zoomerang.com/recipient/survey-intro.zgi?p=WEB2NNY7GRMC