Interview with
Mike Kiefer
BRADLEY: First, some background
about you and your company.
MICHAEL KIEFER: Currently, I’m
executive vice president of SecurePipe (www.securepipe.com). At
SecurePipe, we provide managed network security services to hundreds
of financial institutions and other regulated industries and organizations
such as hospitals, schools and utilities. I am a student of channel
marketing and am currently testing different ways to reach these
communities. Many years ago I was in the channel as a franchise
owner and learned what partnering really meant, from an owners’
perspective. Some of our manufacturers thought of us as an end of
quarter dumping station and others were an extension of our staff.
Prior to SecurePipe I helped create branded channels for National
Semiconductor and Cisco Systems (responsible for ½ the US
channel or $4.5 billion) and AVAYA North America (direct and channels)
$4+billion.
BRADLEY: Do you think that technology companies have become
more sophisticated about marketing and channels-to-market in the
last few years?
KIEFER: No. Not really. Most still struggle with the age old problem
of volume vs. value. What I mean by that is the large volume channel
partners get such additional discounts and back end dollars that
the smaller, high value-add partners get crushed on price when they
advertise the products nationally at a price lower than what the
small partner can buy it from in distribution.
BRADLEY: Give us some examples.
KIEFER: A small, specialized demand creator, designs a wireless
network for a small business. The owner of that business looks at
the quote and checks CDW, SBC or Insight and the hardware price
is 25% less. The first lesson learned here for the small demand
creator is to bill for design work. Another lesson learned is that
manufacturers should avoid signing big partners with big discounts
too early or they will kill the rest of their channel. The big partners
should be signed later, when logistics are more important than design!
BRADLEY: What is the most efficient way to build an efficient
channel?
KIEFER: Very few companies do it from scratch. In technology, you
start out with direct salespeople who can sell the story and create
the selling model. Once you have an active base, touch the customers
you have already sold and ask them who they would prefer to buy
from. Building channels is all about building an eco-system and
creating dependencies upon one another.
BRADLEY: And can most companies do this?
KIEFER: They can but they don’t. Many small companies make
the mistake of trying to get channels working for direct sales.
The channel then becomes a direct sales scapegoat or a place to
make the quarter.
BRADLEY: How are companies approaching partner and reseller
communications? How has it changed?
KIEFER: Unfortunately, it is the same as has been but with much
more spam. Ultimately, the way to improve partner communications
is to stop selling and start educating. True marketing is understanding
what the customer needs then delivering it to them. What the customer
needs, especially in the case of an emerging technology such as
ours, is educational selling at both the direct buyer and the channel
buyer level. Making sure our indirect team knows how to tell the
right story is critical.
BRADLEY: What is the right story?
KIEFER: Here’s one of my favorite stories. The
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is one of the most important and most difficult
pieces of financial legislation passed in the last 65 years. The
long-term goal of GLBA is to see a greater diversity of financial
products and services for the consumer, improve the financial products
and make them available at a lower price to spur participation of
a larger part of the population.
From an information security standpoint, GLBA states that each bank
shall “train staff to implement the bank’s information
security program.” This statement seems innocuous enough,
however, we are finding that our channel partners that truly understand
the implications of network security and GLBA are better equipped
to tell meaningful stories about information security and are better
equipped to appreciate the recurring revenue we help them generate.
Since one of our key end-user markets is financial institutions,
our story must work on two levels: at the partner level and at the
“end-user” or customer level. At part of the story has
a “what’s in it for me” or a WIFM.
We run the risk of frustrating our partners if it is difficult for
them to educate their customers.
BRADLEY: What have you done to prevent frustration?
KIEFER: It is really about harvesting best practices. In
order to harvest best practices, you need to understand what your
partners are currently doing. This is the “eco-system.”
If you build the eco-system correctly, you prevent frustration.
Specifically, we observe and shadow and make joint-sales calls with
our partners. We train with regular webinars. We’re high-touch.
We document these interactions. We’re now in the process of
moving this data into a partner support portal. Repetition is key
to the implementation of a successful plan. The WIFM factor is critical.
Ben Bradley is president of the Bradley Group and GrowingCo, Inc
– marketing and market research firms serving enterprise technology,
services, distribution and manufacturing companies. If you’d
like to be profiled in an upcoming Q&A article, please send
an email to ben@benbradley.net.
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