Channel leaders keep addressing doubt with more data, but data isn’t the problem. Make the bet in public, name the proof up-front, and let the results do the arguing.
By Larry Walsh
Few vendors dispute the need for partners. They know they can't cover the total addressable market, reach niche segments, or serve specialized customers on their own, and they know that trying would cost more than it returns.
What they doubt is whether partners earn what they're paid.
Ask people outside the channel organization — sales leaders, finance teams, product experts — and you'll hear some version of the same question: "What did the partner actually do for that money?" The channel team will go through Olympic-class gymnastics to justify the payment and dissolve the doubt, but their argument always lands in the same place.
Channel pros have a standard answer: attribution. If we could just track influence, sourcing, and closing precisely enough, the doubters would have nothing to argue with.
I don't buy it. Attribution is a real problem, but it's not the problem. You can assign all the attribution points you like and the doubt will persist, because the doubt isn't about data. It's about belief.
The challenge most channel leaders face isn't producing numbers that show what partners contribute. It's getting other people to accept those numbers. Non-channel executives come to the table with preconceived notions about what partners can and should produce. They trust what they can see and touch — their own salespeople — and discount what operates outside their field of vision. They have unquestioned faith in their own experience and reflexive skepticism toward faceless third parties that operate independently.
That's why I shake my head every time a vendor talks about building "autonomous" or "self-actuating" partners. No vendor is going to trust a partner with its quarterly number and no touch. I was talking with a senior sales executive about developing a reseller channel. I told him he'd have to assign salespeople to work deals alongside partners. He asked why. I told him no one at his company would let a partner walk into General Motors or Johnson & Johnson alone. He didn't argue.
What those executives are missing isn't a report. It's an appreciation of what partners do on the vendor's behalf: the outcomes they drive with customers and, just as important, the costs they absorb. The channel isn't only about coverage; it's about cost deferment. Partners get paid when they produce. A direct salesforce costs money whether it sells or not.
If bias is the obstacle, more attribution data won't clear it. Demonstration will.
Channel leaders need to make bets — in public, in advance, in writing. They need to tell their stakeholders, superiors, and non-channel peers what their team is going to do, what partners will contribute, and exactly how that contribution will show up. Then they need to assign the attribution before the revenue arrives, not after.
A bet looks like this: "Partners will source 30% of net-new midmarket logos this fiscal year. Sourcing means the partner registers the deal before any direct rep touched the account. Here's the deal-registration trail we'll use to prove it, and here's the quarterly checkpoint where we'll review it together."
That's not a forecast, a mere number. This is a number with a mechanism, a definition, and a witness. When the results come in and match the attribution assigned up-front, there's nothing left to argue about. And when they don't, the channel team finds out why with everyone watching. That openness is its own kind of credibility.
Partners want this too. In our most recent survey of solution providers, 88% said credible, third-party analysis of the total economic value they create with a vendor would influence where they put their sales focus. They're as tired of arguing about their worth as channel leaders are of defending it.
Is there risk in putting markers down? Of course. But the alternative is what most channel organizations do now: Generate and present the numbers, then wait for people who never believed in the model to be convinced by a spreadsheet.
They won't be. Belief follows demonstration, not the other way around. Make the bet, name the proof, and let the results do the arguing.
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Larry Walsh is the CEO, chief analyst, and founder of Channelnomics. He’s an expert on the development and execution of channel programs, disruptive sales models, and growth strategies for companies worldwide.
