Aventi Group

Time for that Annual Partner Satisfaction Survey?

by Anne Merkert

Thinking about surveying your partners to assess your channel program and prioritize objectives for the coming year? We recently conducted such a survey for a global software organization, and despite current challenges in the economy, we heard channel partners asking for some fairly common resources.

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Posted February 3, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Making your Channel “Product-Friendly”

by Al Morgan

A few months back Sridhar discussed the importance of tailoring your product or solution to the channel. It’s a vital step to ensuring that you will maximize the revenue opportunity through channels. An integrated program will ensure initial mindshare AND pave the way for initial success. Your channel partners have lots of products, and shifting attention to your solution will take focused effort. At Aventi, we have been assisting a major IT vendor roll out a major worldwide program to channel partners over the last few quarters and I’d like to share a few lessons learned.

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Posted January 25, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted to Channel Management , Marketing , Sales Effectiveness

Launching Products in a Social World

by Reena Kapoor

Many of our clients ask us this: What do all the new social media tools and vehicles mean for launching new products? A number of our projects involve developing go-to-market strategies and plans for our clients. Increasingly the strategies and plans we develop take account AND advantage of these new vehicles to engage in a two-way conversation with prospects and users. Why do we do this?

Because:

It's essential - if you don't, someone else surely will and guess what? users are out there talking, discussing, creating already; so whatever you do, don't ignore the conversation

It's ubiquitous - you may think your users are not engaged in this way, think again...

It takes resources - despite what everyone may tell you, it is not FREE.

All of this does not mean that you need to start spending on social media willy-nilly tomorrow, nor does it mean that all the old rules of marketing are defunct. My partners Anne and Jeff from the Aventi Group and I jointly conducted a workshop on precisely this topic at the recent Social Media World Forum on November 9th.

Our presentation covered the following: "Launching New Offerings in a Social World: What to consider when incorporating Social Media in your Go-To-Market Planning!". Topics included:

How to create a good go-to-market plan?

What sound principles of marketing still apply?

When is it appropriate to consider social tools?

How should one incorporate social media vehicles in such plans?

You can view this presentation here.Social Media Work Shop Deck Nov 09 2009

Want to know more? My partners Anne and Jeff from the Aventi Group and I jointly conducted a workshop on precisely this topic at the recent Social Media World Forum on November 9th.

Posted November 24, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted to Marketing

It's that Target Market again...

by Reena Kapoor

Lately I've been advising a couple of different companies who are either introducing a new product or contemplating a new market. Invariably the question comes up how should we think about which markets to enter. Simple answer: wherever you can maximize your opportunity! Well not so simple really, when you start thinking about it.

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Posted October 7, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted to Marketing

CIO Tells Us How to Sell to CIOs

by Sridhar Ramanathan

I had a great conversation with my dear friend and neighbor, Walt Thinfen. He’s the Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Visioneer, a high tech company here in Pleasanton, California. I took the opportunity to get his thoughts on how our clients and other technology vendors could do a better job of selling to the CIO. Listen in on this conversation for some great gold nuggets some of which might really surprise you.

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Posted October 4, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (4)
Posted to Leadership , Marketing , Sales Effectiveness , Technology

Leading Globally Distributed Teams

by Sridhar Ramanathan

If you’re like most executives you manage a global team. But what’s the secret of running a team that cuts across time zones, cultures, and languages? How do you create a strong culture that balances centralized control with distributed authority? What metrics drive the right behaviors and business outcomes when you can’t see your team on a daily basis?

I had a great lunch with my friend, Suresh Balasubramanian, who is a director in charge of a sales/field marketing team in a very large software company. He built a good sized team that spans 13 time zones. Listen in on our lunch conversation and I think you’ll find it both entertaining (see his funny story at the end) and highly informative.

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Posted September 23, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Posted to Channel Management , Leadership , Marketing , Marketing Management , Sales Effectiveness

Announcing Aventi’s Vector for Channels

by Sridhar Ramanathan

I’m very pleased to announce a new Aventi Group’s offering masterminded by our very own Bill Reed. Aventi’s Vector for Channels is a deliverable made up of methods, tools, templates and even a bit of software aimed at helping technology clients optimize channel sales. Specifically, Vector for Channels is intended to help the VP of Sales/Marketing drive higher response rates from demand generation programs for the channel, increase channel sales rep effectiveness with sharper honed needs-based messaging, and to dynamically prioritized channel sales pipelines using and powerful, lead scoring system.

We encourage you to attend Bill’s webinar on Wednesday, August 19th at 8:00am PT. Click here to register for the event, and looking forward to having you join us.

Posted August 10, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted to Channel Management , Leadership , Marketing Management , Sales Effectiveness