That is when the real fun for me begins. I love putting all those decorations away. The house feels clean, spacious, new.  To be fair, I have my share of OCD personality aspects that likely contribute to me putting it all away so quickly. But to me, the idea of cleaning house in preparation for a new year brings me great joy and infinite possibilities. 

This approach and attitude don’t stop with my house. I feel the same about my business.  Q4 is over and last year is old news. When you work in Sales, the ‘what have you done for me lately?’ message greets me every new year.  Rather than let that bog me down, I feel a rush when I think about what 2020 will bring as I work with my clients and prospects.  

During these early weeks in January, I love strategizing about what’s ahead for my clients, my company and my work community.  What challenges do they face in 2020? What new ways can I approach my job? How can I think differently, act differently, advise differently? As a  channel-focused sales professional, I pride myself on my active listening skills but can I do that better this year? Can I bring a new perspective to the conversation that will help prospects achieve their goals or give clients a new way to work successfully with my organization?  

Channel organizations should be asking themselves those questions, too. But doing so can be a lot more complex and cumbersome than packing up the holiday decorations. That’s where I know Zift can help. We offer Channel Readiness Assessments through our Channel Center of Excellence. This is a fantastic way to benchmark your channel program and partners. Determine key priorities and define your direction for the new year — and even beyond. We’re looking at a brand new decade! This is the time to think big, or even take a revolutionary approach to your channel program. A Channel Assessment isn’t just an exercise. Once it is complete, you receive a performance scorecard that highlights your strengths and areas of concern as well as a detailed action plan to meet specific goals. 

While my musings might sound like New Year’s Resolutions, to me, they are cleaning the slate, starting with the same building blocks but perhaps a new shape that drives different results in the end.  January may only see the start of these changes, but I view these exciting few weeks as a way to think about why I do what I do, how I can do it differently, and what I can learn along the way. Not necessarily a resolution but an intention I carry with me every day.  Unlike a resolution, this is harder to lose after the first weeks as well as easier to evaluate over time and potentially modify for growth and learning. I hope you will do the same.   

Here at Zift, we are so excited about the future of our business, how we can serve our clients with ZiftONE and how we can continue to grow, advise and guide our customers to their success, both for their partner community and their customers. I hope you will consider scheduling a Channel Assessment to kick off your new year with a clean slate and clear plan to define your own intentions to achieve measurable channel success.   

The post 2020 Channel Resolutions — And Revolutions appeared first on Zift Solutions.

At Baptie’s recent Channel Focus conference, the day before the conference proper was dedicated to a Women’s Leadership Council. There were panels and networking opportunities, leadership tips and mentoring sessions all day. It was fantastic. I enjoyed the chance to meet and even mentor my fellow women in the channel and share what I’ve learned.

I came away from Channel Focus thinking of the preconference Women’s Leadership Council Meeting more than anything else. Specifically, I thought of how much we are accomplishing now, in terms of helping women’s IT channel careers — and how much more we could be doing to help elevate them higher.

There’s been a big push in the last ten years to help women take more leadership positions. In the tech industry, there have definitely been efforts — Lean In groups meet over lunches and exchange tips on owning your career, STEM programs work to attract girls to science, technology, engineering, and math, as well as article upon article on the benefits of women in the C-suite.

And yet, here we are, still talking about how to make it happen. Progress is slow. We meet at lunches and talk about balancing work and family or women’s tendency to smooth things over and allow others to take credit for their ideas. We talk about how to negotiate these experiences as they occur, but not necessarily how to solve those problems for good. I often find myself thinking: Will talking about work-life balance again truly help us move forward to gender equity in the channel or workplace?

Here’s what I think will help break apart the monotony and truly start moving us forward: mentoring programs. At the Women’s Leadership Council Meeting, the leadership team started a new program called speed mentoring. It’s like speed dating but focused on empowerment in the workplace rather than awkward conversations about walking on the beach.

Mentorship programs can give younger women just getting started in their careers the support they need to make bigger, bolder moves than they might otherwise feel capable of making. Even well-established, high-powered career women can use the support mentoring provides to keep them going strong! Support systems consisting of women in all stages of their careers help propel movement truly forward. Talking about the struggles women face, addressing those in a positive, career-empowering way, and looking to the future will add more women as channel leaders. One-on-one and group opportunities to address and make positive changes, one woman’s career at a time, will change our field.

The channel is a great place to work, and younger workers are catching on to that. Let’s work together, generation to generation, to ensure it stays on course to a more equitable and fulfilling future.

The post Picking Up Speed: Women’s Leadership in the Channel appeared first on Zift Solutions.