Designing a Comprehensive Incentive Strategy that Engages

your Channel Partners

Craig DeWolfRVP, Channel Solutions

Part 3: Defining your Incentive Strategy for Maximum

Effectiveness

©2015 Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, Inc. Confidential and not for replication or distribution. 3

Shift the incentive focus from sales alone to the behaviors that result in more sales (and behaviors that impact your GTM goals)

Why?• You can change behaviors (and by extension, the

outcomes) via incentive engineering• Behaviors are easier to track individually, their

collective impact is what improves sales performance

• Use incentives to remove “friction” in the sales process to streamline lead to revenue management (L2RM)

Incentive Engineering

©2015 Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, Inc. Confidential and not for replication or distribution. 4

A sampling of pre-sales behaviors

• Sales training

• Technical training

• Marketing training

• Deal registration

• Deal conversion %

• Advertising/Marketing

• Portal engagement

• Community involvement

• Lead generation

• Lead follow-up

• Lead conversation %

What Channel Behaviors Drive your Success?

• Customer event hosting• Vendor events attendance• Joint Business Planning• Participation in vendor marketing

programs• Social media• Customer training • Customer satisfaction• Co-op/MDF utilization• Proof of Concept via demo

or seed unit placement• Vendor SE engagement

©2015 Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, Inc. Confidential and not for replication or distribution. 5

How do Desired Behaviors Align with your Incentive Strategy?

1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.540%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Sales training

Product/technical training

Demos/proof of concept

Deal registration Receiving leads

Marketing emails

Vendor marketing

Vendor social mediaVendor microsites

Customer trainingCustomer webinars

Customer events

Vendor events

Business planning

Vendor emails

Vendor portal Login

Co-op/MDF

Vendors marketing

% Incentive Investment

Impact on Sales Performance

Find efficiencies through focus

Increase investment

Scale back investment

Selective investment based on broader GTM alignment

©2015 Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, Inc. Confidential and not for replication or distribution. 6

Sampling of desirable sales behaviors that build your business• Sales growth period/period

• Net new business/competitive displacement

• Sales to target verticals

• Sales of new solutions or bundles

• Cross sell/upsell to existing clients

• Attaining overall sales targets

• Closing opportunities

Sales Behaviors that are Easy to Measure and Trend

©2015 Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, Inc. Confidential and not for replication or distribution. 7

How does your Incentive Strategy Align with the Behaviors?

• Net new business

• Sales of to targeting verticals

• Sales of new solutions or bundles

• Cross sell/upsell to existing clients

• Closing sales opportunities

• Sales growth

• Deal conversion %

• Lead conversation %

• Customer satisfaction

• Attaining overall sales targets

• Sales training

• Technical training

• Marketing training

• Advertising/Marketing

• Lead generation

• Customer event hosting

• Joint Business Planning

• Participation in vendor marketing programs

• Proof of Concept via demo or seed unit placement

• Vendor events attendance

• Vendor SE engagement

• Lead follow-up

• Portal engagement

• Community engagement

• Deal registration/ management

• Social media participation

Post-Sales RewardsPre-Sales Enablement

©2015 Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, Inc. Confidential and not for replication or distribution. 8

3 Incentive Programs is all it Takes

Promotional Allowances Headquarter Rebates

Individual Rewards

Traditional SPIF Programs

• Net new business

• Sales of to targeting verticals

• Sales of new solutions or bundles

• Cross sell/upsell to existing clients

• Closing sales opportunities

• Sales growth

• Deal conversion %

• Lead conversation %

• Customer satisfaction

• Attaining overall sales targets

• Sales training

• Technical training

• Marketing training

• Advertising/Marketing

• Lead generation

• Customer event hosting

• Joint Business Planning

• Participation in vendor marketing programs

• Proof of Concept via demo or seed unit placement

• Vendor events attendance

• Vendor SE engagement

• Lead follow-up

• Portal engagement

• Community engagement

• Deal registration/ management

• Social media participation

Post-Sales RewardsPre-Sales Enablement

©2015 Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, Inc. Confidential and not for replication or distribution. 9

What Should your Investment Look Like?

Product Characteristic

Pre-sales enablement

Post sales Rewards

Market sizing Niche Mass market

Sales cycle Long Short

Category maturity Early Stage Mature

Information exchange needed

High Low

Partner community New Mature

Product differentiation Highly differentiated

Commoditized

Allocation between pre-sales activities and post-sales rewards

©2015 Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, Inc. Confidential and not for replication or distribution. 10

What Should your Investment Look Like?

SiriusDecisions Core Strategy Report, 2013

How does your budget stack up?

Channel Marketing Budget as % of Revenue*

Company Size % of Revenue % SplitProgram/ Personnel

$100M - $1B 2% - 4% 50/50

$1B - $5B 3% - 5% 55/45

$5B - $10B 1% - 4% 60/40

$10B - $20B+ 1% - 3% 70/30

*For companies with greater than 60% of revenue through channels

©2015 Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, Inc. Confidential and not for replication or distribution. 11

Questions?

Craig R. DeWolfRVP Channel SalesBlackhawk Engagement Solutionsp) 415.407.5741e) Craig.Dewolf@bhengagement.com

Get more details through these whitepapers:

Designing an Effective Channel Incentive Strategyhttp://info.bhengagement.com/acton/media/7506/effective-channel-strategy-design

Evaluating ROI for your Channel Incentive Programshttp://info.bhengagement.com/acton/media/7506/evaluate-roi

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