Boost Your Business with an Effective Channel Advisory Board. Here’s How to Start Building Yours

By Lisa Masiello, president and founder, TECHmarc Labs, Inc.

A channel advisory board provides leadership in identifying, cultivating, and strengthening a technology vendor’s relationship and business interactions with the rest of their partner community, industry leaders and influencers, other IT vendors and potential clients. It also provides external guidance to a vendor’s management team on their corporate strategy, go-to-market plans, reseller channel programs, marketing activities, and product or service portfolio.

As the name implies, the channel advisory board includes representatives from your partner channel community. These members are on the front lines of your industry on a daily basis, meeting with customers and observing changes up close. The objective is for them to share their knowledge and expertise with you as your strategic business advisors.

When organized and managed correctly, a partner advisory board can be one of your most successful tools for growth, enabling you to expand your partner community; increase partner retention, loyalty, and engagement; significantly widen your sales footprint; obtain market insights; and quickly adapt to changing customer needs.

Building Your Advisory Board

How can you ensure that your advisory board will be successful in supporting your organization and helping your management team to achieve your business goals? Here are four key steps.

Select the Right Board Members

• The Right Mix of Partners:  Select a diverse mix of partners who represent a cross section of your channel community. This is not a popularity contest, nor should you select only those partners who sell the most. Select partners based on what is important to your business goals. Some criteria might include geographic reach, company size, growth potential, industry focus, technical expertise, or breadth of product offering.
• Partner Participation:  The goal of an advisory board is for its members to actively participate and communicate freely, driving actions which are beneficial to both your business as well as all channel partners. It should be a win-win for both sides. Therefore, it is imperative that you select partners who are vocal and express their expertise, industry knowledge, and suggestions without hesitation.
• Yes-Men vs Truth-Speakers:  Urge your board members to always speak the truth no matter how awkward it may be for your team. If all you are interested in is having your channel partners agree with every suggestion or plan you have, then don’t waste your team’s time or your partners’ time by convening an advisory board. Nothing will change.
• The Ideal Number of Partners:  The value of your advisory board is realized in its individual members and their expertise, willingness to actively participate and honesty in sharing their beliefs, rather than the group’s overall size. Six or seven well-chosen channel partners may deliver greater value to your business than a larger group of twelve or fifteen members.

Define How You Would Like Board Members to Participate

The purpose of an advisory board is not just to talk amongst yourselves. It is to take action, helping to drive change in both your company and your partners’ companies to achieve increased sales, revenue growth, and customer acquisition.  Action requires active participation. But, depending on the location of your board members, frequent in person meetings may not be possible.

When establishing member guidelines, consider the following:

• Will you conduct in person meetings quarterly, bi-annually or annually?
• Will all in-person meetings be held at your corporate office or at an offsite location?
• As an alternative to quarterly in-person meetings, could you conduct more frequent Skype calls and meet in person once or twice per year?
• How long will each meeting last? 1 to 1.5 hours for a Skype call? A half day for a bi-annual in-person meeting?
• How will you solicit member feedback at other times of the year? Opinion surveys or questionnaires?
• What are your expectations for your partners’ participation? Should they verbally provide expertise, input, and ideas as needed? Speak on your behalf at events? Participate in vendor recruitment activities to onboard new partners? Raise the profile of your company across your industry? Represent the partner community at your vendor events?

The answers to these questions will be different for every vendor based on your individual needs.

Clearly Outline Your Advisory Board Policies

Providing a set of clearly defined roles and responsibilities is critical to ensuring that expectations are set up-front. Here are just a few examples of items to be included:

• Length of Term – A term of two years is most common. This gives members enough time to achieve specific goals but not too long that they become complacent. However, you can make member changes at any time should you require different types of expertise or if a member is not attending meetings or actively participating.
• Grounds for Dismissal – Advisory board members can be removed from their position for a number of different reasons including:
  • Missing a specified number of virtual or in person meetings
  • Actively speaking or working against the best interest of your business
  • Acting inappropriately when representing your company at public events
  • Not meeting the business requirements or financial obligations of all channel partners
• Partnership Status – There should be no requirement that a channel partner must meet a specific revenue threshold to be considered for your board. However, maintaining standard business and financial obligations and adhering to your channel “rules of engagement” must be a requirement. If an advisory board member’s company is no longer considered a partner in good standing then the member must be removed from the board. Remember that not only are these partners representing the other members of their channel community to your company, but, by your selection of them, they are also presented as leaders and companies your other channel partners can look up to or aspire to be like.
• Reimbursement Policy – If the first question from a potential advisory board member is “what is your reimbursement policy,” they might not be the right person for you to select.  Other than your company picking up the cost of lunch or dinner for meetings occurring during those times, board members are not usually reimbursed for hotels, transportation, phone or other expenses when attending regularly scheduled meetings. If you request a board member to attend a special industry conference and speak on your behalf, then some financial reimbursement would be appropriate.

Promote Your Advisory Board to the Greater Partner Community

Do not keep your advisory board a secret. This will foster mistrust in your company by your other channel partners. Be straightforward and honest. Let them know that you are forming a channel advisory board and explain your company’s objectives and long-term goals. Promote the activities of your board to the broader partner community, demonstrating that you are actively listening to their needs and challenges. The addition of this advisory board will stand as a confirmation that you are committed to their success.

The Last Word

A partner advisory board is not a one-way conversation where the vendor pushes out new management directives or uses each meeting as a sales platform.

A well planned, properly implemented, and effectively managed partner advisory board has the opportunity to do more for business growth and positive partner engagement than the most successful marketing campaign. It requires a commitment to active listening on your part and true collaboration from both parties. These hand-selected channel partners are your strategic advisors. They are there to challenge you, educate you, and inspire you. An active and engaged board will drive an active and engaged partner community, resulting in more support for your products and steady sales growth.

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TECHmarc Labs is focused on building successful partnerships that drive sustainable growth for both IT vendors and channel partners.

• Channel Advisory Board