ZINFI Technologies, Inc.

Appointment setting has actually existed for nearly two decades. Over the last five to seven years, however, it has undergone a dramatic transformation. When appointment setting began, it focused primarily on the business-to-business environment, where an inside or outside sales rep would cold call into an account to set up a face-to-face appointment. Even today, it is common to observe salespeopl...

Many organizations selling through the channel today are trying to determine how best to automate their partner relationship management (PRM) process. In order to do so, quite a few are getting online and searching on Google and other search engines for “ PRM software .” When you do so, multiple vendors pop up. How do you distinguish among them? And how do you select a PRM software vendor that can...

Introduction Channel management is complex primarily because of what it tries to manage. The word “management” implies some level of control to achieve performance from an individual or from a team, either through inspiration or through some level of enforcement. The meaning of “management” varies greatly when it comes to an organization’s structure—depending on whether it’s a startup, a more matu...

With the rise of content marketing as a primary way to engage the target audience and drive sales, channel marketing is also evolving rapidly. A decade or two ago, channel marketing pretty much meant running events (for recruitment, training, and lead generation) and giving away market-development funds to those who knew how to leverage them. Today, unified partner management is changing the way c...

When it comes to business-to-business (B2B) social network, LinkedIn is the gorilla, and has certainly started to act like one. Why do I say that? Well, it’s based on a lack of innovation. The stock price is down, and the analysts are no longer sure – the future is not as clear as it used to be. Believe it or not, LinkedIn has been around for well over a decade now. It is older than YouTube....

The most recent trend in channel marketing automation has been the rapid deployment of Partner Relationship Management (PRM ) Software along with Partner Marketing Management (PMM) capabilities in multiple industry verticals. In this article, we will focus specifically on the value of Partner Profile Manager (PPM) as a core feature for PRM Software . Before we begin, let’s discuss the ration...

With the passage of every day, month and year, content marketing continues to take over marketing (branding and lead generation). Unfortunately, most channel marketers still remain stuck in the archaic 20th century model for lead generation, using appointment setting for their business-to-business (B2B) channel partners. This model still requires a phonebook, a telephone and a script-driven telema...

Managing a direct sales force is tough, let alone managing an indirect (channel) sales force. The concept of a channel has existed since the existence of fire when one person bartered with another. While technology has evolved rapidly over the past few thousand years, for many companies the state of their channel maturity still resembles how the channel was managed in the Stone Age. That doesn’t n...

When selling through a channel, chances are every now and then you will need to run partner recruitment (existing and new partners) campaigns into your channel program. Automating your recruitment and onboarding activities via purpose-built partner relationship management (PRM) software will significantly increase your speed to revenue and reduce ramp-up costs substantially by streamlining many of...

Before we delve into the reasons why you should consider insourcing your  event marketing management  activities, let’s take a moment to define clearly where this logic could apply and where it wouldn’t work. In our experience, companies tend to outsource events because they have been working with a provider for a long time and think that’s the easiest way. But as a company using both ou...

Consumer and business buyers all go online to do their research before committing to a purchase, reading peer reviews and comparing products as a normal part of their decision making process. The entire sales cycle has turned upside down: now it’s a buying cycle. This dependence on online research has made  web   content syndication  critical for content marketers. In the B2B and B2...

Organizations selling via networks of channel partners (resellers, VARs, distributors, wholesales, agents, or other third party arrangement need to have a systematic approach towards partner relationship management (PRM) if they are to achieve long term success . This starts with the three primary stages of partner recruitment , partner enablement and partner management, all of which require a set...

A significant portion of both B2B and B2C sales are made through a network of partners and resellers. Even today, however, most companies have antiquated channel management tools that do not live up to the full promise of their partner network. Only a very few organizations adequately invest in upgrading their channel management infrastructure, due to certain channel management misconceptions. In...

Lead management is one of the top marketing keywords that is searched on Google every day, which is a clear indication of the huge and growing amount of interest in the topic. Are we clear on what lead management means? Basically, lead management is an organized way of generating, distributing and managing contacts with potential prospects, and engaging with those prospects to identify or generate...

Every organization selling through a network of partners; be they resellers, system integrators, agents or franchise holders, struggles with partner engagement. And, one of the main areas of challenge for them is to make a partner log into the partner portal for content consumption and program awareness. There are multiple reasons why partners don’t use a vendor’s partner portal (please see our ea...

Many vendor organizations today are considering the implementation of end-to-end  partner marketing automation tools. What’s more, many have already put in place a set of point-tools that are trying to make them all work together. The key for both of these scenarios is to make sure that  partner marketing automation  doesn’t take a life on its own and serve as a means to an end. The...

The process of selling has changed, because the process of buying has changed. No longer do we wait for our phone to ring and to be interrupted by a pushy telesales or telemarketing person, or expect to find out about a product through advertising; today we proactively search for what want to buy. This change in the selling process has given social syndication  a key role in helping organizat...

Over the past few years, we have gained some fascinating insights into shifts in channel dynamics using our Unified Channel Partner Management Software and Concierge Services to run a number of partner profiling programs for our technology clients. And as we compare this data with the information we’ve gleaned from the dozens of worldwide studies that we have done, we have uncovered an amazing set...

At ZINFI , we work for major global brands and every day help thousands of their channel partners improve productivity. This is not as straightforward as it might be. One of the main complaints we hear constantly from channel partners is how hard it is to use most vendors’ partner portals . Yes, a few are great, but most  partner portals  are complex to understand. When we ask partners w...

Vendor organizations that sell through a network of channel partners (resellers, VARS, affiliates and agents) know that most of their partners do not have dedicated marketing resources to keep their respective websites updated with fresh content from their vendors. This is where  content syndication can play a significant role, allowing vendors and their channel partners to significantly enha...

As the world gets more and more digitized, and technology touches every aspect of our lives, one evolution that is consistent across all segments of lives is software-driven automation of work steps. Whether it’s in the connected home or connected workplace, intelligent manufacturing processes, financial management, and business automation are here to stay, and will only increase with time. Within...

Over my three decades’ experience in channel sales management , I have watched some people rise to the top, while others just don’t know why they are not getting promoted. Based on from-the-trenches observations, I have some suggestions about how to break the deadlock if you feel you haven’t achieved the recognition you deserve. I have identified nine typical behavior patterns that our organ...

If an Information Technology (IT) solution provider doesn’t manage a few key technology trends effectively (please read our previous article “ 3 Macro Trends That Could Put Your IT Channel Partners Out of Business “), the significant opportunities they create may be dwarfed by the seven major risks associated with these changes, and could result in the partner’s going out of business....

Whether you are selling through the channel to end businesses or consumers, chances are you may be grappling with one or more of the following challenges: too much churn in your partner base, lack of partner marketing and sales competencies; poor marketing ROI from co-marketing activities; loss of sales velocity due to increasing channel management costs. While the success of a channel program dep...

The Information Technology Channel Partners has gone through three profound changes over the four decades or so of its existence. The first was the channel’s transition from being largely white box resellers to a more organized computer retail model. During this first phase, anyone with some cash and a lot of enthusiasm could build a personal computer. Remember the days of Computer Shopper? The ne...