Building a profitable business with IP services – round 2 – pricing models and building a channel

A key question I get asked by Partners when we talk about building IP is how to approach pricing for their packaged offerings. How to determine pricing based on costs, how to think about incorporating a freemium model and of course moving to a subscription model.  Another frequent topic I hear from Partners once they have created their offering is the pros and cons of building a channel model. Many Partners realise there’s a potentially huge opportunity if they expand their reach with Partners with complimentary offerings. But how do you go about this?

A couple of weeks ago I shared 2 videos from Harald Horgen from The York Group focused on defining your target audience and the operational changes needed when you are building and going to market with IP. This week I have included videos from Harald that focus on pricing models and building a channel.

In this video Harald covers the options to consider when defining pricing for your offerings, including:

• Incorporating freemium offerings.
• Moving your customer base from perpetual licensing and pricing to subscriptions
• How to approach discounts.

In the following set of videos Harald provides guidance on how to approach setting up a channel to expand the reach with your offerings. Including:

• The keys to a successful channel program.
• A ten step Partner recruitment program.
• Partner Program - key processes and Partner support.

Next week I’ll introduce the next modules focused on legal and financial considerations as you build IP. Meanwhile, a reminder that we have Masterclasses coming up soon focused specifically on how you may approach sales differently as you grow your cloud services business.

Building an unstoppable sales team

Led by Luke Debono from Incredible Results. Is your sales engine working brilliantly, winning more quality business than ever before whilst scaling seamlessly? Is it driving consistent profitable growth in ways that your whole organisation loves? Are you attracting and on-boarding sales talent successfully in this mobile first cloud first landscape? This workshop is designed to help business leaders and sales management professionals create an integrated sales plan that makes a science of the numbers and enables the whole organisation to work better together. For leaders and managers of technology companies, the workshop offers methodology, which helps address age old dilemmas of scaling sales in a technical arena. Register today.

• Thursday 28th May - Sydney
• Wednesday 3rd June - Melbourne

If you have any issues registering for these sessions please email partnerau@microsoft.com.