Are You A Deal Maker?

I am sure many of you are acutely aware of the increasingly common practice by many vendors to let solution providers declare or disclose certain customer prospects that represent new account wins or new areas of focus for both the vendor and its channel partners. More often than not, this registration process represents a way to protect the interests,and margin,of a business or technology integrator who has invested a lot of time in evangelizing the sale.

Many of you speak positively about the various programs out there, especially those from Citrix Systems and Network Appliance, although you admit that the administrative part of the process is less than appealing. Especially if you're feeding four separate registration systems from four different vendors for just one opportunity,because, after all, you're selling solutions, not just stand-alone products.

As I've gotten deeper into my research, I've begun to see inextricable links between opportunity registration policies and the lead-generation debate. If you think about it, the opportunity that any solution provider registers is the hottest of hot leads. And it should be treated as such by both the solution provider and the vendor.

When a vendor hands you a lead, it expects you to follow up quickly and thoroughly. Well, when you hand a vendor a lead, which is what you are really doing when you register an "opportunity," shouldn't you expect the same treatment from your vendor partner? You are, in fact, providing that vendor with forecast visibility into a sale that actually has a pretty good chance of closing. So, the field-sales contact should be more than willing to help you with things like presales consultation, proof-of-concept equipment and engineering tips in exchange for your willingness to declare yourself. If it's a question of resources or compensation policies, I suggest that vendors consider dumping otherwise useless lead-generation programs and refocusing those funds here.

What's your view on deal registration (or whatever you'd like to call it)? Contact HEATHER CLANCY, Editor at CRN, at [email protected].