Resellers and distributors are excellent extensions of your product marketing and sales efforts, and should be considered in any expansion of your marketing plan. However, the direct selling, distribution, and reseller options are very different approaches that have their own relative strengths and weaknesses.
At a high level, direct selling provides the advantages of loyalty and singular focus on your products in spite of any competitive pressures or product support and fulfillment challenges, customer ambassadorship and brand building, and a strong feedback mechanism to help drive product development and support mechanisms.
Additionally, with Sales Partnerships as your partner you will be able to exercise a much higher degree of control over the volume of sales activity, product presentation, placement, messaging, and customer experience.
Distribution and reseller channels are an excellent way to greatly expand your product sales reach when your product or brand is very mature, has a clear support and implementation path, is well understood and recognized in the market, or is best sold in conjunction with other products and services (a value added sale) that you don’t or can’t provide yourself.
There are many other factors to consider when deciding which direction to go or whether both strategies can and should be considered for incorporation into your marketing plans. Sales Partnerships can help guide you in your decision making and can provide services and support options to suit both strategies.