How do you measure your relationship with your partner?
Many suppliers still use sales as the yardstick.  Surely how profitable each account is to your organisation is a better measure?  And, if you want to develop solid long-term relationships, you should probably consider measuring your partners' satisfaction with you, as a supplier. 

Ultimately, what really counts is end-user satisfaction.  That may sound daunting, but such surveys can quickly reveal huge differences in treatment.

What actions do you take, if you are not reaching your plan?
This can be very revealing.  Distributors often say that they are first subject to a volley of phone calls exhorting them to buy more, followed by the withdrawal of marketing support and then silence. You are unlikely to learn anything from this process. Nor does it endear you to your partner.

Better to call a meeting to review and revise the plan. And this is where the power of mutual goal setting really comes into play. If you genuinely set the goals together, then you can genuinely review them together and ascertain why they are adrift.

How are your account managers perceived by your partners?
A revealing question to ask in your research.  Some account managers are still perceived as salesmen out to flog stuff.  Many are seen as people with whom one can have a discussion about joint marketing.  But very few are perceived as trusted business advisors, who can genuinely contribute to debates about the future of the intermediary. 

Frequent rotation of account managers kills momentum and prevents genuine trust developing.  Often account managers are just getting to grips with their partners when they are moved on.  Most suppliers move people after 18 months - three to five years would be better.

How do you really view your partners?
Time for some honest soul-searching.  If you are, in practice, setting unilateral sales goals and withdrawing support if they are not achieved, then you are treating your channel as not very bright employees, or, as Fabian von Kuenheim puts it opposite, as "slaves".  Better, perhaps, to view the partner as an outsourced function. Companies which see intermediaries in this light are likely to take a keen interest in how their channel operates and how they could do it better.

What is your attitude to training and improving your account management function?
Again, be honest. Is your real attitude "We don't mind doing that sort of thing, as long as it doesn't take up any time and so hinder us from hitting this quarter's sales goals!"  Or are you prepared to spend time and effort getting account management right?