All very good points and important things to keep in mind. I would like to clarify that your advice is intended primarily for consumer retail channels. While most of your points hold true no matter who your customer is, when your end-goal is to sell to businesses, there are a couple of key differences in how one should approach the sell.

Having worked in consulting and sales within the enterprise channel for the past 7 years, I’ve found that sometimes marketing (not selling) directly to your intended client can be quite effective, if your value proposition is good enough. This holds true especially for the tech sector where most often the products that are pushed from the top of the channel on down to the clients are influenced by financial incentives to the distributors and resellers, as opposed to meeting the clients’ needs. Very often I see clients bringing very good products to the attention of their resellers, therefore spreading the sale upwards (or at least creating a more direct sales channel). These are great opportunities which shouldn’t be missed, in conjunction with your other points. Thanks,

Jake