Four questions, four instruments
- Does this distributor fit the way your line has to be sold? Channel Fit, before you appoint, add a territory, or consolidate.
- Do they lead with your product when you are not in the room? Channel Health Index, scored distributor by distributor and role by role.
- Can they sell it and support it? Specialist Health Index, for the people carrying the line.
- Do their leaders see what their own people already know? A Gunslinger day, with Voice of Customer when the answer needs a second question.
What it costs
Published prices, which in this field is unusual. They are starting prices, and what moves them is named next to each one.
- Channel Health Index, network wave. From 18,000 dollars across 15 to 25 distributors or reps. Annual re-run from 12,000 dollars, timed to land before line review. What moves it: how many distributors, the role mix inside them, how many interviews sit behind the wave, and whether it has to land before a review already on the calendar.
- Channel Health Index, small network. 12,000 dollars for up to 10 distributors, 8,000 dollars to re-run.
- Extending the wave to the shops and integrators who specify your line. Priced by respondent count inside the wave. For many industrial lines this is where the brand is chosen, well before a distributor quotes it.
- Channel Fit. 2,500 dollars for the survey and the report on one distributor, with that distributor's consent. A comparison report across two or more distributors on the same instrument is 2,500 dollars on top, and it is usually the read that changes the decision.
- Specialist Health Index. 350 dollars per seat with a 15 seat minimum, 250 dollars per seat above 40. A mixed sales force scored by role starts at 8,000 dollars.
- Voice of Customer. From 9,000 dollars for 12 interviews, running 4 to 6 weeks.
- Gunslinger. From 18,000 dollars on site for the session and the analysis, 9,500 dollars for one room run remotely, and 15,000 dollars when it follows a CHI wave inside 90 days. Recruiting and participant incentives are quoted separately, travel at cost, and the 90 day follow-up is 4,500 dollars.
Payment is half at signing and half at delivery. Agencies pay the same prices and can bill Net 60. How a marketing firm subcontracts this.
What we do not sell
We do not score candidates, at any price. SHI is answered by your own people under a written non-punitive frame, and that frame is the only reason the answers are worth reading. An instrument that scores a named person for a decision about that person is the opposite arrangement, and running both out of one practice would teach every future respondent that a survey from us can cost them something.
Founding clients
The first 3 clients on the Channel Health Index or Channel Fit take 25 percent off, in exchange for permission to publish a de-identified case. Nothing in a published case names a client, a distributor, or a figure that identifies anyone.
The terms that come with it
Roles are never blended. Owner, outside sales, and inside sales are scored apart, and a role is reported separately only where it has 3 or more respondents. Below that, roles merge and the report says so, because at 2 you can identify people by elimination.
One paying side per relationship. BrandLoyalty is independent of any distributor. Relationships are disclosed before contract, and no engagement puts this practice on both sides of the same handshake in the same period.
The pooled benchmark uses de-identified data only, and it grows with every wave. It is what lets a score be read against brands selling through similar channels rather than against an abstract norm, and it is what makes the second year of any instrument worth more than the first. Every report states the size of the pool and what is in it. The terms every engagement runs on.