Things that make me break out in a rash (not a comprehensive list):

-The fifth strawberry in the breakfast fruit bowl, but sometimes it's worth it
-Hearing from my brother-in-law about the Yankees, which is never worth it
-Thinking about deal registration which is, well, the subject of this rant

My latest rash broke out about a month ago, when I was reminded that Diamond Lauffin is credited with being the inventor of deal registration in the storage industry.  Lauffin, you see, once restricted his field of view to one company at a time, when he worked at places such as QualStar and NexSan.  However, he's now achieved the elevated status of "channel evangelist" and will be bringing the good news to as many companies as his consultancy, The Lauffin Group, can fruitfully engage.  Lauffin has his fans, and his customers, and God bless him, I wish his business all the success in the world, but I still have doubts about deal registration.  I'm definitely missing something.

What is it about the idea of stacking the deck in favor of the heroic people who uncover important new business that makes me wobble a bit?  After all, drumming up new business is a pretty big deal, right?  Well, yeah, but is being first on the scene the only criterion in play here?

(Cue dead teenager music)
It's a dark and stormy night.  The road is wet, and I'm late getting home.  My car brakes screech, and while I squeeze the hell out of the steering wheel, I can't avoid a sudden visit with the utility pole on the roadside.  More than a couple of bones are broken, and I need some sophisticated help.  Well, lucky enough for me, within a few minutes, a sharp-dressed EMT comes on the scene, and I am stabilized, comforted, and transported to the local hospital, where elevator music takes the place of this cockamamie dead-teenager soundtrack.  I despise elevator music, but it doesn't matter, since I can't hear it in my unconscious state.

Now, since the EMT was there first, and no doubt accurately judged my condition and my pain points, shouldn't she get a preferential shot at being my orthopedic surgeon?  Or at naming my orthopod?  Or maybe she gets to deliver the anesthesia I'll certainly need as the orthopod is working away?  I hear you saying, "Don't be stupid, Channel Maven Dave--medicine doesn't work like that.  There are doctor-vendors who work in ever-shrinking specialties, and there's a good reason for that--the human body is a complex environment, and no one person can be expected to know everything about everything about it."

I am suitably chastened.  You're right.  My dear EMT angel was there when I needed her, and did what I needed her to do.  This I concede, and if we want her to do it again, and again, and again, we better make sure she gets all the strokes, acknowledgement, and compensation due her for this specific early-stage service delivery.  But wouldn't it be pretty wrong to think that by virtue of having been first on the scene, she becomes the one anointed to carry me all the way to my revival as a completely healthy camper?  (Please--no cards or flowers.   No channel mavens were harmed in the making of this analogy.)

You may have figured out that my real point here is that individual customer needs are usually a sophisticated mixture, and in order for these needs to be properly met, manufacturers need to look beyond simply who gets the first registration.  If you have read other of my channel spotlights (or read more of them in the future), you'll have found that I tend to believe in the value of the competitive process as it pertains to the user/consumer community.  This competition can even get to the point of looking like a bar fight, but it often works.  Lots of energy is expended in the process, with channel disappointment and failure for all but the deal winner and perhaps the user/consumer.  (It's almost always an unalloyed good when the consumer wins.)  The purpose of the selling process is to allow for the needs of the user to be properly matched with the value-add and delivery capability of the supplier.  Short circuiting this process has its own risks, don't you think?  And for those who believe that preferential treatment for the first registrant on the deal satisfies the rest of the channel, you should look a little closer or dig a little deeper.

If the primary benefit of deal registration is to create some civility in the selling environment, then the effort may not be worth it.  Registration programs basically say the vendor, not the user/consumer, decides how and from whom the user/consumer should receive products and services, and here we thought the Berlin wall was a dim memory.  Registration programs are only a step or two away from the dreaded exclusive channel-to-customer relationship that this channel maven will rant about in a future spotlight.  It just tries to apply too much control, in my humble...

Lauffin's signal contribution to channel management, deal registration, is good for vendors, OK for partners, and not so wonderful for user/consumers.  Open and freely contested markets don't create a preponderance of losers; in fact, they create champions and even dynasties.  Great channel partners will emerge from the fray, and the best possible news is that users and consumers will win, big time.  And if that be the case, so, my friends, do vendors.

Think about it.