About Partnership Programs: I will Resell your product, but?
From time to time, I have been pinging different companies about participation into reseller programs.
One thing I never understand is the 'Partnership Fee' payments or other financial interactions between mother companies and their resellers.
I admit that I am not an ordinary reseller candidate. Because, sarcastically speaking, I don't believe in 'sales' :)
If I were a European company and willing to enter into the Turkish market (talking about the first entrance of course), I would not expect my Turkish reseller to setup a sales team, create a bunch of leads and take a walk from meeting to meeting. These are not first priorities because it's not Starbucks or McDonalds trying to open an additional store to a corner in a very crowded area. Different expectations they should have. Like developing the market, bringing the brand into the stage of perceptions and 'buying' a couple of fancy customers.
But looking into the partnership programs, we don't see 'marketing-based' approaches. Instead, you can hear 'sales figures', 'quarter targets' and the most annoying one: 'partnership fee'. Sometimes it starts with 'We don't have partnership fee...' but at the bottom line, you notice that a 'modest' (!) training fee would be applied.
I am really trying to figure out this 'Fee'.
I will resell X product. I will try to set up a market, reserve a salesforce and/or a pool of technical persons, spend a valuable time and money on my sales meetings, etc. If I'm lucky, I will be able to collect 15-25% of the bill. If I am too lucky, I may bill some services inside my sales. BTW, the bargain happens in my bill in general. Meanwhile, I will rely on that my partner will support my customer well or keep the product's quality high.
After all, I will spend more money for this partnership agreement. One may expect 20K profit from this relation and 2K annual fee would not seem important but I am against the concept itself.
What 'service' will be given for this annual expenditure? Paperwork? Lead redirection? Education? Co-marketing? I don't buy it, sorry...
I am really curious about other partners' opinions. Please comment in whichever side of the desk you are sittting...