In 1900, the French simply didn’t drive enough to wear their tyres out. No discount in the world could fix that.
So Michelin did something unexpected.
They published a travel guide full of restaurants, hotels and other reasons to get out on the road.
They didn’t wait for demand.
They created it.
If you sell through resellers, this isn’t a story about marketing.
It’s about who really controls your channel.
You have two paths.
The first is to buy your way in.
Discounts and margin that make the reseller’s salespeople prioritise you over the alternatives. It works for as long as you keep paying and no competitor offers more.
The second path is far stronger.
You make the reseller better at selling you specifically.
You create demand with the end customer that makes your offer easy to recommend.
But you don’t stop there.
You give the reseller’s salespeople the arguments, the questions and the perspectives that let them change how the customer sees their problem, rather than just answering a price enquiry.
Suddenly the relationship is no longer about margin.
It’s about the two of you selling better together.
This is the heart of Upstream Selling.
The key insight is that it isn’t about when you enter the deal.
It’s about where in the customer’s thinking you stand.
Two resellers receive the same enquiry.
One starts pricing the solution.
The other tries to understand why the customer framed the problem the way they did, and whether there’s a better way to see it.
Same deal.
Completely different position.
Even with the bid already on the table, there’s a choice:
To answer the customer’s question.
Or to help the customer ask a better one.
Upstream isn’t a moment in time. It’s a choice.
Resellers don’t become loyal to whoever gives the highest margin. They become loyal to whoever helps them win more deals.
So the question is simple:
Are you helping your resellers sell better, or hoping they’ll manage it on their own?
Take the Upstream Selling analysis and find out where you stand.
No sign-up. No data stored. Takes five minutes.
