Want Cloud Growth? Focus On Sales Team Incentives, Education

Mike Conlon

By Mike Conlon, VP of Global Channels, Mitel

With “as a service” becoming the de facto way suppliers package technology, there’s pressure on partners to deliver cloud expertise. This may seem daunting to longtime channel execs, but remember: Launching a cloud practice doesn’t mean doing away with the traditional, one-time sales model. In fact, offering on-site, cloud and hybrid/multi deployments gives you, and your customers, the flexibility necessary for long-term success.

Still, you do need to make adjustments to rally your sales team behind a monthly recurring revenue model. Today’s marketplace calls for sales pros who are equipped to clearly explain the impact on annual spend and offer actionable insight that will help customers select the right IaaS or SaaS provider for their needs. Equipping your sales team for success demands a plan. How will you compensate and adequately educate them about the cloud?

Here are some tips to meet these objectives.

Update your incentive program: First and foremost, build the right incentive program to compensate sales team members for a monthly recurring sale. It’s Job No. 1 – and for good reason. If the sales team isn’t adequately motivated to sell, then how can you expect to succeed?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this cloud sales-incentive program question. I see many partners trying to build a program with the same look and feel as one that compensates their teams for traditional on-site solution sales. While this might sound like a solid plan, annualizing and paying a portion of the MRR is actually very capital-intensive. And there’s risk: What happens if a customer decides to leave in the first 12 months?

Other partners are paying a portion of the MRR to sales reps, like many cloud agents do today, so another option is to build an incentive program based on MRR quotas.

The other big question is around incentives outside of MRR. Some partners keep incentives like spiffs at the company level, while others pay a portion to the sales representative. What works best for one firm might not work for another. My advice is to look at your current customer base, areas of growth and current compensation and build an incentive program based on how you believe you can best motivate your sales team to adopt the new model.

Re-educate your sales team: The main focus of any sales team is on driving the company’s value proposition. If you as a reseller want business customers to see you as a digital-savvy cloud services provider, each and every one of your individual sales representatives must be knowledgeable about these offerings. Customers need to know they can rely on their trusted adviser to guide them toward the solution that best fits their unique needs. Thus, while you are restructuring your incentive program, you should simultaneously be equipping your sales team with …

… the knowledge they need to succeed. Your master agents and distributors are all over this, with myriad live seminars and online trainings available.

Each sales team member should know how to identify whether an all-cloud, hybrid or on-site system offers the best solution for a customer’s current deployment — and should be able to explain why. A well-educated sales team will be equipped to confidently reassure customers that the cloud can be as dependable and secure as their traditional on-site solutions. Sales pros have the most one-to-one interaction with customers, meaning they must be able to provide clear direction on the right time to migrate and where they should start.

In the years to come, the gap between those customers who shift to the cloud and those who don’t will continue to grow. Partner execs who mobilize a cloud-educated sales team today will have the valuable “first-mover” advantage of setting the tone for how cloud adoption can and should happen.

Mike Conlon was named vice president of global channels for Mitel in 2017. In this role, he is focused on advancing strategic, collaborative relationships with Mitel’s channel partners and the channel community. During his first year at Mitel, Conlon led a series of initiatives aimed at aligning the company’s global go-to-market approach, including consolidating and unifying Mitel’s partner program across regions, as well as streamlining the distribution of Mitel’s U.S. onsite portfolio. Conlon has been in the unified communications industry for 20 years, focused on growing, building, and managing all types of partners and distributors. He started his technology career with Cisco Systems in 1998, before joining Tandberg in 2004, where he spent five years in a channel capacity with the last year focused on helping grow and develop the Federal System Integration practice. He joined Polycom in 2009, where he helped re-establish the channel go-to-market strategy and was responsible for Worldwide Channels and Distribution. Following that, he spent three years working at Series A funded startups before accepting his current role at Mitel.