Being in “the channel” can be a challenge, to say the least. We have to balance our personal lives with our careers, manage through complex relationships, get people to notice us when the field of people who want attention is crowded, and deal with the uncertainties of businesses that combine with each other, go under, or fail to perform like we think that they should.
Having said that, there is quite a lot to be grateful about when we think about the decisions we made to chart our careers, run our businesses, and form relationships with colleagues in “the channel”. Being grateful and appreciating what is good about our industry, our careers and our relationships has a number of positive benefits.
Being grateful makes you a happier person. Research reveals that if you just spend 5 minutes a day writing down what you are grateful for increases your feeling of long-term happiness.
People that express gratitude are generally more well-liked. Social capital never hurts, and gratitude tends to make us nicer, more trusting, more social, and more appreciative. As a result, we have more friendships and better business relationships.
Grateful people tend to progress further in their careers. Gratitude can make you a more effective manager or team member, help you network, increase your decision-making capabilities, increase your productivity, and help you attract others to you. The result is that you move up the ladder quicker and your workplace becomes a more friendly and enjoyable place to be.
An attitude of gratitude promotes health. Channel careers can take a toll on your health with lots of travel, eating on the road and long hours. Research shows that grateful people are generally healthier, so it’s good to get all the help we can.
I’ve had a long career in technology, much of that involving developing and working in the channel. At Convey, we have thousands of sales partners that use our portal services, master agents that we have automated and dozens of vendors that streamline their marketing through our services. The bottom line is that I know the channel and here are some things that we should all be grateful for.
The Channel creates entrepreneurs. I’ve been an entrepreneur for most of my career, owning my own businesses since 1995. Sales partners and master agents are also business owners. Without needing significant start-up capital, thousands of you left the comfort of your jobs with carriers and vendors to start businesses and create recurring revenue streams that have afforded you very good lifestyles. And for a lucky few, you’ve been able to sell your businesses creating generational wealth for your families.
The Channel is constantly evolving. Over the last 5 years, we’ve seen many advances in the channel that have given us more opportunities to serve our customers with a wide breadth of new technologies. We’ve seen businesses move their phones and applications to the cloud, find better ways to connect to the Internet, cloud-based services to run every aspect of a business operation, the Internet of Things to track assets and the list goes on and on. Evolving industries like ours grow, create opportunities for all of us, and ways to keep expanding our businesses.
The technology we offer transforms how businesses operate. I spent a good part of my career in the conferencing industry. We made it easy and cheap to have a remote team dial in from anywhere to meet virtually instead of getting on a plane to fly into headquarters. The technology was transformative because management became collaborative, people’s opinions were solicited and valued, and the remote worker became the norm not the exception. Think about how we are transforming businesses with cloud services, contact centers and other technology. &