Now into my 42nd year of selling and marketing telecom equipment and services to businesses, I thought I would share some wisdom to the partner community on the importance of closing sales during this first quarter of 2024. You, the independent partners, are the backbone of our channel. You might be associated with a solutions broker or distributor, but you operate your own business and are compensated solely by your own production. That compensation is based on spiffs and residual income. Front-load selling this first quarter means you are going to benefit from nine to 12 months of residual income for those sales in 2024. It also sets up the rest of the year by establishing a solid foundation of new residual income that you can build upon with future sales throughout the year. Set some goals now to plan out your work year. The internet is full of goalsetting strategies. I like the one called “SMART” goals — meaning Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. Set a goal that you can easily define, such as “I want to sell more ‘X’ to my base of business” or “I want to learn more about a service or technology that will help me get more strategic with my customer and sell more.” Make sure you can accurately measure your progress. Things benefit by being pushed or stressed. Whether it’s working out in the gym or trimming shrubs in the fall to encourage spring growth, you need to stretch a bit to achieve your goal. Make it attainable, not impossible, and be realistic. Most people can’t walk into a gym for the first time and lift 500 pounds — nor should you trim your shrub to the roots. It’s also important to be timely, with a clearly defined starting and target date. For example, you might set a goal to reach out to five new logos a week for one month and track your success at getting meetings, opportunities to present solutions and closed sales. Here are some ideas on setting up goals for this quarter and the year: Set your sales growth target: Make it ambitious but reachable and break it down into measurable monthly and quarterly objectives. Contact your client base: Look for opportunities to upsell or migrate to better, cheaper, faster services. Create a schedule to contact a certain number of contacts per week until you have gone through your customer base, and then set up another one to check in. Consider setting a budget for customer events or appreciation gifts to build stronger relationships. Embrace technology to help. For example, leverage and maintain CRMs and take advantage of AI analytics to boost your productivity. And remember to take care of your customer, or someone else will! Expand your client base: Acquire new customers by attacking different markets, industries, verticals and solutions. Enhance your product knowledge: Stay updated on the latest product and tech advancements and get passionate about valuable subjects so you can enthusiastically talk to your customers about them. Improve your sales techniques: Nothing remains the same. But you do not have to be a network engineer or MSP to sell up the STACK. Remember, you can rely on the expertise of your solutions broker or communications service provider to design, manage the sales and maintain the solution. Invest in yourself: Attend industry conferences and workshops offered by folks such as ChannelVision Magazine (CVx), TSDs or communications service providers such as NHC. Collaborate more with your internal team and other industry professionals. Share success stories. Measure and analyze performance. Do it regularly and don’t be afraid to adjust as needed. There are more opportunities to make money solving customer network issues, and more solutions to meet those demands in our industry than ever before. Our team at NHC markets solutions exclusively to partners. Your success at selling up the STACK with stickier, more strategic solutions is vital to the growth of our channel and the success of us all. o Glen Nelson is a 40-year veteran of the telecommunications industry and is co-founder, VP marketing & business development at NHC, The Communications Stack Provider and one of the largest partnerexclusive network resellers in North America. Partners Set Yourselves Up for a Successful 2024! CHANNEL MANAGEMENT 44 CHANNELVISION | JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2024
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