Industry Resources

The following are Chanimal and industry resources that will help you as a Channel Manager. It is only visible if you are logged in and is similar to the content found in “The Cave” at Chanimal.com (but that also has non-channel specific sections). Most of these are in alphabetical order.

Associations

• Software Publishers Association (now SIIA).  This site contains information about their calendar, publications (great pubs), research, special interest groups (CIGS) for academic, international, games, retail, corporate, etc.
• The American Marketing Association.  The “home base” for all marketing professionals.
• Small Business Administration.  Link to the Marketing Plan template.

Distributors

• SaaSMAX. The world’s largest SaaS distributor. Offer SaaS channel consulting, a reseller market-place, plus Partner Optimizer (the world’s most comprehensive partner database–great for profiling and discovering the best partners). Chanimal works side-by-side with the team symbiotically and much of the SaaS consulting goes through SaaSMAX.
• Ingram Micro. 800-456-8000. They are the world’s largest wholesale high-tech distributor.
• Tech Data. 727-539-7429. Used to concentrate on VARs. Now universal.
• Avnet. Electronics distributor. Ranked #1 in Fortune magazine’s list of most admired companies.
• Douglas Stewart. Distributor for schools.
• Infogrames.  Games distributor. Now Atari.
• Visco Entertainment. (888)291-1900. Entertainment distributor.
• D&H Distributors. Handle PC, education, Home Entertainment , Security and Government products.
• Activision Value. Games distributor.

Graphic Design

• Mrityunjay Gautam. He has worked with numerous Chanimal clients (he does all the graphic design for some of my oldest clients). I especially like his amazing white paper / eBook designs, plus he has helped with trade show signage and collateral. Very personable and easy to work with–quick turnaround, always a creative flare.

Legal

• Aber Law Firm. I have consulted with several companies that have used him–excellent reputation and concentrates entirely on SaaS and software companies.

International

• The York Group. Harold is the contact and CEO. I have referred several clients looking to build International resellers. Although Chanimal helps with International program setup and some recruiting, it is limited to English speaking countries. Harold has offices and connections world-wide and can get clients into the hardest to penetrate countries. He is a wealth of information about International channels–and he is a great guy. He is for International, what Chanimal is for North America.  His biggest client is Microsoft (he helps their ISVs).

Internet Service Provider (ISP)

• BlueHost. WARNING–do NOT use. This is where Chanimal used to be hosted. However, once they were acquired their service and reliability tanked. Chanimal was down for days at a time for several weeks and support was unempowered to fix it–and lost over 6,000 inbound links and traffic dropped by over 50,000 in a single month.

Management Training

• FranklinCovey.  Stephen R. Covey is the author of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”  Franklin Day Planners are part of the other-side of the business.  Both offered incredible seminars that change the way you manage time and people.
• Kenneth Blanchard.  Author of the One Minute Manager series.  I highly recommend it.

Newsletters

• Channel Futures. Great industry news that I subscribe to.

PR

• Spread the News. Todd is a pitching machine for proactive press. One of my clients had 8 press hit in 6 months. He got them over 300 press hits in 6 weeks! He is my preferred PR specialist for the proactive press. See the Blog where I wrote about him and it contains his audio interview–some of the most valuable PR advice ever.
• The Peters Group. I have worked with Lauren Peters since 2000. VERY class act group. I used them while at Metrowerks, Motorola, GE and referred them to several Chanimal clients. GE had a PR firm but had no press appointments for the biggest trade show. I contacted the Peters Group and had over 22 appointments set up within the week–they just produce.

Publications & Podcast

• SoftLetter. Longest running industry newsletter with insights and metrics for software companies.
• VARBusiness. Searchable databases of VARs and integrators. This one links to the VARBusiness 500 resellers.
• Channel Journeys. Rob Spee conducts regular (about twice monthly) podcasts where he interviews channel pros.

Reseller Training / Merchandising

• MarketStar.  The original channel training corporation starting in 1989 (was called TempReps, then Technology Advancement Corporation.  Represented IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, HP, Canon, Corel, WordPerfect, Novel, Ashton-Tate, Franklin Covey, Autodesk, etc.
• The Distribution Network. One of the nation’s largest US and Canadian rep firms – handles sales and distribution.

Sales Leads

• Partner Optimizer. The world’s best database for reseller profile. I usually say, “If a reseller spits–they can tell you which direction.” HIGHLY recommend them as the #1 source for perfect partner profiling.
• VARBusiness. Searchable databases of VARs and integrators. This one links to the VARBusiness 500 resellers. ChannelWeb has the “master” directory that includes the 500.
• Chain Store Guide. I used to buy their CDs of chain store locations and contacts. Now it is all online. Great for retail but also several vertical chains.

White Papers

• That White Paper Guy. Learn how to write a white paper and case study. Great resources including great Q&A, articles, book reviews. Also, Gordon Graham can write your white paper from scratch for a fixed fee, or edit existing first drafts on an hourly basis.