General Consultant Discussion

Sage Roadshows. Does anyone have a copy of invitations or information about the recent Sage roadshows? Were you sent a mailing? Contacted? Were customers only mailed? I cannot find any advance notice and don't know if this was just a regional mailing. It seems like Sage would have wanted to meet with both partners and customers. I am curious to learn how this was marketed -- and if you went what the partner and customer attendance was in your location (approx).

http://www.altec-inc.com/Documents/Press%20Release%20PDF's/6-13-12.pdf

I would like to see how @ToddMartin invites compared to @JohnnyPabian invites. Did the message change between events? (Double-post from a different thread).

If he was using sage's marketing stuff I would think they were the same. We got the marketing material on Tuesday the week before the event on Wednesday. The agenda was setup to have breakout sessions after the main content in the morning. They changed this that day to not have break out sessions but instead let each vendor talk about their product one after the other. Which i think worked out better. As you look at the agenda you see that the day is going to talk about other solutions you can add, X3 and business intelligence. I think the initial marketing email might have gotten more people if they didn't have a link to the agenda which really showed what the show was about.

The attendance was small 1/2 doz customers 1/2 dozen reseller organizations, 1/2 dozen endorsed partners, 10-12 Sage people. Probably around 40 in Atlanta. Not enough time to get more. I had 2 prospects click through and none show up.

I found a MAS ERP Channel News Supplement from April with an article about the roadshow. It listed 4 events: Chicago 4/26, New York 4/27, Atlanta 4/28, Miami 4/29. Then in the May News Letter, there was a brief blurb about an ERP-Integrated Products Roadshow with a link to www.erproadshows.com. The site only reflects one event an event in New York on 5/23. No future events are listed on the site.

Thanks Shawn - my leading theory (possibly wrong) is that the roadshow started out as a group of vendors doing this tour independently. At some point Sage became involved and thought it was a good idea and perhaps took the lead on inviting partners to attend. i have an email into John Schoutsen who is the head of PR at Sage. I also have a request into Altec's head of PR to see what they have to say. What strikes me as odd: 1. Doesn't appear to have been promoted in any channel newsletter 2. Only open to invited partners 3. Appears to have covered some roadmap ground which I think would have been of high interest to partners. This raises questions: 1. Is this more channel ""hide and seek"" where Sage is seemingly afraid to go out in public to face questions from partners? 2. Is this a testing of what it would be like to market direct to customers? 3. How were partners selected (assuming it was selective) 4. Is this creating two (or more) classes of partners - and if so what's the dividing line to getting an invitation by Sage to hear about relevant product plans for the product you make your living selling.ff 5. And if this is the start of a more selective relationship with Sage - should partners (who all need to meet the same training and renewal requirements) be aware of that changing relationship? I may be making a lot more of this than what's there. It could be just a test. I don't buy the ""we were just testing"" theory.

I believe that only a ""select"" group of partners were invited, and while I've no specific confirmation, they seem to be higher tiered partners. I agree with your train of thought @WayneSchulz.

Your paranoid theories may be right on the money. Personally I think they were testing the waters but that doesn't mean they weren't testing the waters for some nefarious, go direct to customers purpose. To add fuel to your fire ... the comment that @ToddMartin made in a different thread about pushing people to use Zift to register the customers could be taken the following ways: 1. They want partners to start using Zift because it makes marketing easier and more effective. 2. They want the customer contact names. I think it's pretty well known that Sage has limited visibility into all the contacts at a customer and they would love for us to provide them. 3. Both of the above.

The attached slide deck may give some insight as to who's in/out. Also has a few on the stellar sales of subscriptions.

Appears there is a new ""Sage Channel Growth Marketing"" area within Sage. Whether this is a separate department I have no idea. The area seems as if it's tasked with selecting partners who show the most active growth. I did not get an answer as to what this criteria was. I did get the ""this was a test"" response. I am not sure that this overall plan of ""Sage Channel Growth Marketing"" has been spelled out to partners. If it has been - it's an email that I overlooked or a webinar that I missed. In other words it looks as if you now have to meet: - Tier - Renewal / education - Some un-defined Channel Growth benchmark This is in essence an undefined tier because Sage didn't just take the sliver or bronze -- or whatever tier -- partners. They in essence created a separate tier based on qualifications that are only known to Sage. Maybe it's too difficult to run that perpetually mentioned ""balanced scorecard"" and Sage is just calling partners who they want to invite to these events. Big deal? Dunno. In reviewing the agenda of the Atlanta session it does appear primarily marketing oriented. If there was a session where the roadmap was discussed in more detail then I'd probably be a lot more concerned. <Paranoid> This is also a great way for Sage to pick out the partners who might ask uncomfortable questions during a combined partner/customer meeting. </Paranoid>

An audience full of ""yes men/women"". Why Wayne, how could you possibly think that Sage would behave like that?

... Lifestyle consultants to the left ... growth partners to the right...

We were invited because we signed up for Fast Track for Growth (I guess we are on the right). The deal is truly a no-brainer if you have the time as it pays for itself if you market the products at any level. Sage has always been a scratch my back organization and this is no different. If you are asked to participate, you say yes and then you get a perk.

I would agree with @GaryFeldman. If Sage sees you active with their programs they will try to get you involved. Things like Hire assist and Fast Track for Growth are great programs they have for the partner.

We are signed up for Fast Track but did not get an invitation. We learned about the roadshow when Altec was doing an online demo for our customer in Chicago on June 26th. They mentioned it was too bad we all missed the roadshow last week.

Two observations: 1) We at CS3 have always believed that the best way to get Sage's attention is to participate in their programs: Consulting Academy, Sales Academy, Fast Track for Growth, Firm of the Future, yada, yada, yada. Sometimes it's purely a distraction (Hire Asssist). Sometimes it's brilliantly successful (Sales Academy, Sage Leadership Academy, Firm of the Future). Our understanding is, If you want them to play with you, you have to play in thier court, at least more of the time than not. 2) As Mel Gibson once said, 'Just because your paranoid doesn't mean their not out to get you!' Cheers!

While I understand and agree with inviting growth (Fasttrack/etc) participants to the roadshow - this is the first time that I've noticed Sage did a roadshow that was restrictive. I remember going to shows in Boston that were likely the same general model (customer/partner) and there was no restriction. If I were Sage and the environment is what it is -- I'd probably do the same thing. Can't fault them for it. I think it's worth noting this change of course. Some good additional feedback here - thanks

My guess is that another consideration they had was they didn't want to cannabilize Summit for these roadshows. I have to imagine that - as a customer - I might be inclined to say ""this will work instead of three days"".