5. Are you prepared for resistance?

You have to have the humility to expect resistance. And you have to be ready to help partners to deal with change.

The initial reaction may be one of denial: "You can't do that." This will then change to resistance: "I am not going along with this." It is only at this stage that partners or employees can start to explore what the change really means, and how they will live with it. You have to help them along each step in this process to reach the fourth stage - commitment.

6. Are you trusted?

If your partners don't fundamentally trust you, then change may well prove to be impossible. Lou Stern (see interview) defines trust as a combination of competence, honesty and benevolence. The last is important. Partners need to believe that, at some level, you have their best interests at heart.

Look at your past history. Is this your fourth big initiative in four years? And did the others just fizzle away to nothing? If you always hit them for big orders at the end of the quarter, are they really going to believe you when you talk about moving to a sell-through model?

Gauging how people will react can be hard. It is always worth asking how partners feel about the status quo today. Paradoxically, if they are happy with the present, then it may be particularly hard to move them with you. But if they are dissatisfied with the way you work today, then they may welcome change.

Change is easier for companies which invest long-term in building relationships with partners. Forums where partners can meet and discuss the market, how they work with you and explore ways of improving things, are not a fancy luxury.

Remember that channels is a people business. A company whose managers have formed real friendships with partners is much more likely to succeed than one which hasn't. Ideally, you want to reach a situation where you really are working with them in a consultative way very early on in the change process.

7. Don't overestimate your power....

Managers who work for large suppliers assume that their tens of billions of dollars of sales equates to power. Most of the time, it doesn't. Unless they are in a monopoly position, suppliers often have very little real power over their resellers. History is littered with failed initiatives. Making changes to routes to market is several times harder than making changes with employees.

Unlike employees, partners can simply switch from one supplier to another. Most distributors and resellers don't have much time, and what time they do have, they want to invest in maximising profits. If your changes won't net them any extra profits, they are unlikely to bother participating.