The joint Avangate – The VAR City webinar is just what the title says: a 60 minute crash course on channel management – touching on key things about selling through resellers, from what it takes to lay the foundations for a successful reseller network to the latest technologies available for channel management.

Are your products channel ready?

Channel expert Ken Beam @ The VAR City brought in his 25 years of experience in Strategic Partnership Management and Development. Channel readiness quiz aside (assuming you passed it :)), Ken pointed out you need to really understand resellers and what motivates them, what business model they work on (a reseller on a 70/30 model, where 70% of revenue comes from services will obviously be interested in services opportunities).

In a twisted, fortunate kind of way, along with news on the economic crisis, recession, however you want to call it, bombarding us for the past few weeks, there’s also hope and help – a myriad of tips, to do lists, practical advice on how to survive the crisis. You cannot apply everything ad-litteram to your business, but at least it’s a starting point, an idea that generates ideas applicable to your own business. And this is good, it helps disperse panic, it helps you focus on a plan.

One article that I particularly liked was “What the recession means for the software business: five things to think about” by Dan Nunan. Although written back in April, it is so very up-to-date.