The launch of Archer – Aim High with your partners!

It’s almost 6 years to the day since I started my channel marketing consultancy business. I chose She/Her as my business name at the time because it reflected the fact I was working for myself, it demonstrated my pronouns (which less people were using back then), and it spoke about the way I wanted to run my business – based on a more collaborative, partnership-based approach.

But things have moved on (when haven’t they?) and when I went to a week-long SKO with one of my top clients in the US this May, I spent the whole week explaining who I was and who I worked for, and it really clicked for me that my business name just wasn’t working anymore.

What I did had also moved on too. As well as consultancy and partner strategy I was also delivering a lot of the execution. In 6 years, I’ve built a small but perfectly formed team of experts to help me deliver an extended range of services that included design, campaign content, ABM and more. And She/Her didn’t cover any of that. Even worse, people would approach me about their partner marketing problems and start off by saying ‘I don’t know if this is something you do, but…’ I was making it hard for people to choose my business, and that’s marketing 101. Ooops!

So, it was time for a change – and that decision was the easy bit! The hard bit was choosing a name!

I wanted something that spoke about my wider, and more strategic offering. I deliver partner marketing strategy as well as marketing. I’m often working on what’s going wrong in channel businesses rather than just producing marketing campaigns. I wanted something that would show people they can aim high with their partners. Where their messaging was on point, and their campaigns were on target.

I had a bunch of names – some, like ‘Partnered’ that I really liked (until someone told me it sounded like a dating app), some with my initials in, because GT should mean your partnerships go faster, right? But it didn’t feel right using my name when I was trying to broaden my appeal. So, then I looked to the stars for inspiration – Sirius, North Star, all that stuff. But of course those names were taken. Then it hit me – Archer. I’m a Sagittarius and the constellation is a Centaur – and archer. The name worked, I could get the URL and the messaging was easy to make work. Plus, it still had ‘her’ hidden in plain sight.

So, I’ve spent the last couple of months beavering away on nailing my proposition, getting a brilliant new website designed (thanks Fi), awesome new imagery (thanks Dave) and a roadmap I know I’m excited to follow (thanks Serena). I asked a bunch of seriously clever tech marketers for their help too (thank you to all of you!). Now it’s time to go live!!

6 years on I’m as excited about launching Archer as I was about launching She/Her – even more so, in fact! I’ve spent 20 years working in the IT channel and time and time again I see the same issues in partner marketing. Stuff is wrong or missing at a foundational level. Another campaign won’t fix it. I’ve seen brilliant channel marketers struggle with their boards, have conflict with their direct sales organisation and get sidelined by corporate marketing. I’m here to help!

Let’s diagnose what’s really going wrong, and get it fixed, together, before you spend another dollar patching over the cracks.

Fed up of 80% of your partners ignoring you?

Fed up of your channel revenue stagnating?

Feb up justifying your existence to your board?

Don’t let another quarter go by. Aim high with your partners – and let’s talk! :)