INSIGHT Marcus Cauchi
Never Marry for Money!
A good partnership is like a healthy open marriage. I know that sounds like an oxymoron but for such a marriage to
survive the rules need to be agreed up front, both partners need to be clear, specifi c and certain about the terms;
there needs to be mutual agreement, acceptance and understanding and there needs to be mutual comfort and
commitment to the relationship and to each other. Without any of these conditions, the marriage probably won’t last.
In this piece Marcus Cauchi, Sales Trainer Sandler and Author, explains why.
A s an MSP, VAR or IT
Service Provider you
have many relationships
with a variety of vendors,
several, probably competing.
You don’t lie awake at night
thinking about selling a
speci c vendor’s products,
whatever they may believe.
You are in business for your
reasons, not their reasons. But,
their behaviour suggests that
they don’t understand this. It
feels less like a partnership of
equals and more like a driveby
shooting with the monthly
check-in call “What have you
got for me this month?”
Have you ever been bowled
over by the high standards
and quality of the channel
manager assigned to you? If
you said yes, is this the norm?
Or do you see them turnover
faster than a lover with an
uneasy conscience? It won’t
surprise you that the average
life expectancy of a channel
manager is 2.1 years - 6 months
to nd the loo, 6 months to
wave their hands in the air
complaining about how bad
things were before them, 6
months to make (unwelcome
and irrelevant) changes and 7
months to get their CV out and
18 | Comms Business Magazine | May 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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