competitive advantage

Perspective and Expectations Establish your Starting Point

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We may have seen the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and now I am seeing more and more articles about the “New Normal” and “Next Normal.” Interestingly enough, I have also been seeing a few articles over the past two weeks about this being an opportunity. Once the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (aka “FUD”) began to diminish, people finally began to look for a silver lining.

Picture of the Toronto City Hall taken from ground level.

Fear is a powerful demotivator, so I find it interesting that some managers and executives use it to help achieve their goals. There may be short-term gains, but the long-term effects can be devastating. In times of chaos (real or perceived), one of the best things that a leader can do is be genuine and concerned for the welfare of their team, communicate in an honest and timely manner, and display confidence as a way to help shift emotions from a negative state towards a positive state. Fear holds you and your team back.

What I find interesting is that two months ago, I posted about this unfortunate time being an opportunity – something that led to several negative comments at the time. Three weeks ago, I posted about changes coming as part of the “New Normal.” I believe this is simply insight coming into play, which is one reason why Consultants, great Salespeople, and new Executives can often add immediate value to an organization.

As an aside, diversity of backgrounds, experiences, knowledge, expertise, and opinions lead to various perspectives- fostering creativity. The best team-building practice is finding people whose strengths help cover your weaknesses.

Picture of the Toronto City Hall taken from a much higher vantage point.

So, perspective and expectations determine where you begin and not where you will end. The benefit of having a better starting point is that you should be in a much better position to win. The best part is that you can teach yourself to become better at identifying different perspectives. You may find it much easier to understand the big picture of whatever problem you face with that new skill.

From time to time, we are all faced with situations that we know will suck. Avoidance may be an option, but it usually isn’t the best option. The military has a saying, “Embrace the Suck,” that essentially boils down to “just deal with it.” Focusing on “the gain” (rather than “the suck”), identifying the small wins along the way, and visualizing success is part of the process that I have personally found helpful to maintaining a positive attitude and an open mind. This simple process helps balance optimism with realism and, most importantly, creates high expectations.

So, what are your thoughts? Do you want to lead or follow? There is nothing wrong with following, especially when contributing to the team’s success. Perspective and Expectations are two tools that can help in any role.

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Could a New Channel Model Lead to Sales Amplification?

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Over the years, I have helped successful companies and start-ups improve and strengthen their Channel and Strategic Alliances programs. Those companies do a great job closing deals but usually have concerns about not generating or receiving enough new business leads. Or, they develop strong relationships with one or two vendors, only to find later that a key vendor has been sending deals to a competitor.

Word cloud for strategic thinking.

Most traditional channel models support Distributors, Resellers, OEMs, and ISVs. The business mainly flows upwards to the main vendor. If that vendor has popular and widely used products, then business can be good because of sufficient demand. But when that is not the case, your sales pipeline usually suffers.

Doing something the same way as everyone else may not be a bad approach when there is enough business for everyone, and your growth goals and aspirations are aligned with your competition.

Sales Channel business is usually not the main source of revenue for most companies, but it does have the potential to become the largest and most scalable revenue source for nearly any business. Just think about the money left on the table by not adopting a growth mindset and executing a new and better strategy.

In the summer of 2016, I attended the “Sage Summit” in Chicago. It was impressive to see the Sage Group’s efforts to build, strengthen, and protect their Customers and Channel Partners community. They tried to foster higher levels of collaboration between the various types of partners – implementation services, consulting, staff augmentation services, complementary product vendors, etc. They had created their own highly successful Business Ecosystem, which is an excellent proof point.

When designing a channel partner program, my focus has always been on finding the balance between promoting and protecting the partners’ business and helping ensure that the end customers have the best experience possible (and have some recourse when things do not work out as expected). There are a variety of methods I have used to accomplish those goals, but the missing component has always been the inclusion of a systematic approach to seed relationships between those partners and facilitate an even greater volume of business activity.

Nearly a year ago, I began working with a management consultancy run by Robert Kim Wilson, which has a business vision based on his book, “They Will Be Giants.” I will provide links for this book and other relevant resources at the bottom of the post. Kim asserts that Entrepreneurs with a Purpose-Driven Business Ecosystem (PDBE) are more successful than those without one, providing examples to prove his point. Having experienced Kim’s PDBE, I see how purpose fosters trust and collaboration.

As I did more research, I found that, especially over the past two years, a lot of focus has been placed on Business Ecosystems and Business Ecosystem Organizers (such as Sage in the earlier example). Those findings reinforced the PDBE approach, and external validation is always good.

It is just as important from my perspective that this concept applies to businesses of any size, and it is especially helpful to small to midsize businesses. The fun part for me is exploring a specific business, analyzing what they do today, and quantifying the benefits of adopting this new strategy.

So, how does this new type of Business Ecosystem work?

  • The Business Ecosystem Organizer expands the overall network, vets new “Business Ecopartners,” and provides a framework or infrastructure for the various Business Ecopartners to get to know one another, exchange ideas, and discuss opportunities.
    • This can become an incredibly sustainable revenue source for companies willing to invest in the necessary components to grow and support their Business Ecosystem.
  • Business Ecopartners will have access to trusted resources to augment existing business and take on new, bigger projects by leveraging the available expertise.
    • Suppose that you have products or services that work with commercial CRM (Customer Relationship Management), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), or SCM (Supply Chain Management).
    • You have seen a growing demand for functionality that relies on highly specialized technologies like:
      • Cryptocurrency support.
      • Blockchain for financial transactions and things like traceability in your supply chain or IoT data.
      • AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) to detect patterns and anomalies – such as fraud detection, Deep Learning/Neural Networks for image recognition or other complex pattern recognition.
      • Graph databases to better understand a business and infer new ways to improve it.
      • Knowledge Graph/Semantic databases to assist with Transfer Learning and deeper understanding.
    • Building these practices in-house would not be practical or cost-effective for most businesses, so partnering becomes very attractive to your company.
      • This type of business can also be very attractive to a Business Ecopartner because someone else handles sales, billings, account management, etc.
  • Other Business Ecopartners could leverage your products or services for their projects and engagements, thus becoming another source of revenue.
  • By leveraging this network, your business can compete on imagination and innovation – which could become a huge source of differentiation from your competition.

Value realized from this New Business Ecosystem model:

  1. These new sources of business and talent can become a real competitive advantage for your business.
  2. This becomes the source for Sales Amplification because your business is, directly and indirectly, expanding its reach and growth potential.
  3. The weighted (based on capabilities, capacity, responsiveness, and Ecopartner feedback) Business Ecopartner network model could lead to exponential business growth – a winning strategy for any business.

References:

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