About Partnership Programs: I will Resell your product, but?
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...
Comments (4)
TLCC does not charge a partner fee!
We used to require a $500 deposit, used towards your first reseller order (or internal use order) but figured that was just an impediment, like you mentioned.
Keith, I don't actually mean vendors in my post...
From the vendor part, certifications and trainings could be costed to the partner. I am OK with that because they are building this for several reasons. To name a few, creating a barrier, preventing abusive use, etc.
However, one company (I won't name it) mentioned around 2000€ partnership fee and I haven't spent this money in my 8 years for IBM-partnership! It's similar in Microsoft or Oracle.
There is NOT a requirement to pay it at all, BUT if you want to sell licenses you must be certified, etc.. and if you want access to various programs, not just what your clients buy, you have to purchase the subscription.
If you don't care about the other products you could work with, rather just with each client's logins to get code but you find it makes life difficult some times.
Other companies charge even more money just to be a BP of theirs. Others charge less or nothing at all, but you pay through other means as you noted.
Also each company may have different rules/prices/guidelines in each country.
Yes I have seen/heard about some like this and all I can say from our experience was we have received more leads than we ever got from any other vendor, by far.
So ask around, get more details and check on what you will have from day 1.
Buyer beware :-)