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Kiernan added, “If you are a large company selling to resellers, you can bring great credibility on whom you select in a local/regional market.” While much of what Kiernan shared focused on what vendors need to know to enter a global market, his informa- tion can be instructive on how partners might approach the companies when they seek to grow their local portfolios. For example, choosing the type of partner can be challenging. Kiernan offers two ways of approaching this. “What are the capabilities needed to sell your product with your customer decision maker?” he asked. “The next level of capability is demand knowl- edge of the space you are selling into to give you the ability to assess an opportunity and give back sure, quali- fied leads to take the sales process to a whole new level. You want to be able to sell it and then be able to deliver it.” The second approach is how the vendor can help improve its partners’ businesses. “If the vendor is selling products of a certain type, it should consider whether it can give its partners a product that can help them generate sales,” Kiernan explained. “Once your partner implements your solution, it can open an opportunity for that partner to sell more. “The way we view this, we first look at the vendor’s sale process. What is needed to get the sale? Then we look at the customer journey, so what kinds of service advisory comes before the sale of the type of services and solutions and then what comes after the implementation or delivery?” He continued, “As a partner, there is a market ecosystem, and the partner needs to get into the head of the decision maker. Within that ecosystem, the vendor needs to assess what company types can it be compelling for, to satisfy its profit proposition and have the right capabil- ities for the chosen partner to resell or sell its products and services.” Too Many Cooks Kiernan cautioned, however, too many partners in the same market can create concerns. “If your product has been used to open up new doors and provide a competitive advantage for your partner/reseller in the marketplace, then you can’t give everyone the same competitive advantage or it is no longer an advantage,” Kiernan explained. “If you have a crowded market and everyone is selling the same product, there’s no difference; there’s no choice for the customer.” He said the Tenego Academy tackles over-distribution and over- supply, saying either can devalue the product and can create huge overhead on partner management. This can occur when the enterprise has too many partners in one market. “The challenge is to identify only one partner to go to and invest in to sell the solution,” Kiernan said. A partner in a market where INTERNATIONAL AGENTS 60 CHANNEL V ISION | July - August 2021 THE BEST CANDIDATE FOR THE JOB ISN’T ALWAYS THE TYPICAL CANDIDATE. LEARN HOW TO FIND, TRAIN AND CULTIVATE A GREAT POOL OF UNTAPPED TALENT. ACLYUPP4006_Mag_HalfPgHrz_v1b.indd 3 8/28/14 10:44 AM