Channel conflict
Channel conflict occurs when two routes to market can legitimately claim the same buyer, and no rule decides which one wins.
The conflict is structural, not interpersonal. Self-serve and sales-assisted paths both reach a mid-market buyer; a partner and a direct seller both work the same account; an expansion motion and a new-business motion both touch the same customer. Each is a valid route, and each carries different economics and different compensation.
The resolution is a set of precedence rules registered in the system before the conflict occurs: deal registration windows, account ownership tenure, self-serve ceilings above which a deal must be routed to a seller. Governance here protects the revenue model from being arbitraged by whichever channel is fastest to claim.
Where it breaks
Deal registration exists as a policy but not as a record, so ownership disputes are settled by escalation.
Related terms
- Go-to-market motion
- A go-to-market motion is a repeatable path by which a specific offer reaches a specific segment, including the channel, the qualification standard, the selling model and the economics that make it viable.
- Routing
- Routing is the deterministic assignment of a record to an owner based on registered rules, segment, territory, coverage, and existing account relationship.
- Coverage model
- A coverage model specifies how many accounts of what type each seller or team is responsible for, and what level of attention each account tier receives.
- Attribution
- Attribution is the rule set that assigns credit for revenue to prior touchpoints, a definitional choice, not a measurement you can discover.
Field notes on this
- Write the stop rule before the pilot starts
A market-entry pilot with no decision rule written before exposure cannot end. It gets extended until it is the default motion, without anyone choosing that.