The Seven Myths of Being a Channel Chief

Managing partners and channel sales is a wonderful job, but there are some misunderstandings about the role

By T.C. Doyle

If you’re new to channel sales or management, or even a seasoned veteran of partnering, you likely have many questions on key aspects of your job. You may even wonder how other channel chiefs at companies like yours operate.

No sense operating in the dark or assuming anything. Here are seven myths or falsehoods that we can dispel to help you better understand the challenges you face. In this video, which is part of Impartner’s “Lessons from the Edge” insights series, Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB) member Theresa Caragol unpacks commonly held misperceptions. And she would know.

Caragol is a former channel chief herself (Ciena, Extreme Networks) and, as head of the vendor advisory Achieve Unite, helps educate current channel chiefs in the tech industry on best practices, go-to-market strategies and partner education. Caragol founded Achieve Unite five years ago and has helped channel practitioners, tech vendors and other companies both large and small.

In this video, Caragol explains how to interact with executive management, what to expect in terms of turf battles and how best to set expectations. She also shares some inside secrets that even seasoned channel veterans do not know.

“Revenue is not a leading indicator,” Caragol says. Instead, channel chiefs would be well advised to invest in partner automation so they can track other key performance indicators (KPIs) that are more forward-looking, including partner logins, deal registrations and training engagement.

For more on ways partner automation can help you better understand metrics inside your channels, be sure to check out an Impartner demo today.

T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].