For many software companies there is a real challenge in continuing to develop the software to keep pace with changes in their sector. To be successful you need a business strategy that makes sure you meet the needs of customers in your target market . . . and it’s here where Product Partners play a crucial role.

Product Partners are different to straightforward channel resellers who include your software in a portfolio of other solutions to sell to their target market. Instead, Product Partners have created software of their own which adds value to your existing solution. They can help you to offer a functionally-rich solution, create better revenue opportunities, position your company as the strongest supplier, and create new active and passive income streams.

There are four main different types of software Product Partner, all of which need to be carefully managed to make the business successful:

1.      Advocate partners – this is where you would recommend a partner product and company to your customers in return for remuneration, but would remain in control of the sale from proposal through to closing. It’s a low-touch partnership to add value to your solution.

2.      Strategic partners – these are high-value relationships between your company and the Partner, working together for common goals and revenue-share incentives and aligned around the same values and messaging.   This involves working in true collaboration and allows your business to position itself as a leading supplier in a given deal.

3.      Technical partners – partners who pay a fee to pass information between their product and your product, but their product does not feature within your portfolio. This can represent a separate but active revenue stream for your company.

4.      Referral partners – you would pass leads to Partner companies in exchange for commission remuneration, either per lead or per sale, and allow them to lead the sale through to closure. This is more of a passive income partnership where you are allowing partner companies to capitalize on your customer base in exchange for % revenue.

Whichever Product Partner strategy you go for (and it can easily be a combination of all four) it’s important to keep the main goal of any partnership in mind; both sides must get value from the relationship.

Many organisations would claim to be Customer-focused and, indeed, hold it up as their USP and a reason to do business with them. In truth, to say you’re focused on your customers should really come as standard. Keeping customers happy and giving them the products and services they need is basic business common sense.

However, being just Customer-focused is the old way of doing things; to be truly successful you need to start being Customer-centric – an entirely different approach.

Customer-focused organisations

Customer-focused organisations address customer needs as a way of addressing business goals. They look at how they can get more business by creating a product or service that is ‘better’ than the competitors (and in the software industry this often means ‘has more functionality’) or is cheaper than the competitors. The reasons for being Customer-focused are about maximising revenue and this often comes across as a bit self-serving.

Customer-centric organisations

Customer-centric organisations aren’t just responding to customer needs. They spend time properly understanding their needs and creating a strategy that brings long-term mutual benefits. And they do all of this while delivering a great product to the customer and creating an easy and positive experience for their customers to buy. The revenue which results from this approach is a result of the degree to which their customers have been satisfied.

Customer-focused organisations make decisions that superficially address customer expectations, driven by their desire for improved profit performance. Customer-centric organisations make meaningful changes in order to address their customer’s expectations.

And it’s the Customer-centric approach that results in increased engagement, support, loyalty – and essentially profits – from a happy, expanding customer base.

I work with many, many companies who want to use Twitter as part of their business but the individuals themselves are using it for the first time and – quite understandably – don’t know where to start.  There are lots of great guides and blogs out there around using the best keywords in tweets, the optimal time to tweet info, etc. but this is still a bit too complicated for those that are new to Twitter.  I feel what’s needed here is a newbie’s guide to using Twitter for business, so here are my 4 golden rules:

1. Be clear about your Twitter account’s purpose

Before creating an account and publicising it on your website and collateral, have a think about what the account is for and who you want to reach.  It’s a good idea to have a company account which is used as the single point of information for customers; a lot of the time I see the MD tweeting under one name, the Development Director tweeting in another guise and the Marketing team tweeting under a further name which is confusing for your customers.  Decide on what your company Twitter account will provide and plan accordingly.  Also take time to think about who will tweet using that account; putting a human face behind your company account will help your customers relate so be sure to add that info into your profile.  Which brings me to . . .

2. Create a great profile page

Your profile page is your shop window on Twitter so be sure to keep it up-to-date.  It is here where you can add a few concise sentences around what it is exactly that your business provides, your location, an introduction to the person tweeting and a link to your website.

3. Find like-minded people

You will want people to find and follow you and the best way to do that is to find people you are interested in and follow them.  And once you’ve done that you can also start following other people who follow them.   It may be that they are in the same field as you or perhaps in the same geographical location as you, but doing this starts to build a community of like-minded people with whom you can interact.

4. Don’t just broadcast, engage

So you have your Twitter account and people are starting to follow you; the temptation now might be to promote, promote, promote.  My advice – don’t!  A constant stream of adverts will turn people off and they will eventually unfollow.  You need to post relevant, engaging content around the industry as a whole which will compel your target audience to follow you.  You can of course mention your own solutions and the impact they have had on schools, etc. but it has to be a reciprocal relationship.  Be sure to chat with your followers around what’s interesting to them too!