Channel partners don’t have the same level of access to sales or marketing training sessions as most salespeople have. This means that your channel partners are usually not afforded the luxury of having well-structured sales plans dished out to them on a regular basis. Despite this fact, channel partners are still expected to deliver in terms of sales and marketing. That expectation presents one problem, and it is the problem of how to help partners sell more. This article shows you some of the most effective strategies to apply if you want to increase partner sales.
7 Actionable Tips
In no particular order, here are 7 methods you can use to help your partners sell more:
Offer the Right Training
Recruiting talented and competent partners isn’t all that there is to do. Regardless of how qualified your partners are, it is still necessary for you to offer them training in certain key aspects that are unique to your business.
You have to have a solid partner on-boarding process. Does your partner on-boarding process cover every important aspect of your business and product line that partners need to know?
If you are intent on having your partner deliver impressive sales results, a well-structured partner onboarding/training process must be prioritized. It will help your partners better understand your market, product line, and sales strategy as well as you do.
Keep Partners Informed
To ensure that your product gets sold as much as you’d like, do well to always bring your partners in on sales strategies that work and those that don’t. By doing this, you will help your partners save time and effort that would have been spent on trying to figure things out for themselves.
Also, by giving your partners updates on campaigns and promos on regular basis, you will ensure that they succeed in delivering your product to consumers quickly and easily. If you are wondering the best way to go about this, it is by implementing a robust PRM solution with a dashboard that is easy to use and delivers a central access point for all levels of your business.
Provide Support
One way to ensure that you stand out amongst competitors is by offering your partners support. Support your partners with documented sales processes and playbooks, as this strategy will help them know which direction to take. If you have made PRM software available to your partners, ensure that the software is uncomplicated and offers great technical support.
The secret to establishing a strong partner relationship is creating a system that makes selling easy for your partners. One way to achieve this is to create and undertake sales and marketing campaigns for them.
Do you think this is too much work? The truth is, it doesn’t have to be! When choosing a PRM Software, ensure that it is one that allows your corporate marketing teams to participate in sales and marketing campaigns for your partners.
Your PRM software should come with an on-behalf marketing feature that allows your corporate marketing teams to send out emails and update social media pages for your channel partners. This will eliminate the stress of getting things done manually.
Deliver the Value Proposition
Your partners need to clearly understand your value proposition to be able to sell your product(s) with the right amount of motivation.
Channel partners would like to know what they stand to gain, and you have to be ready to settle their concerns. Be sure to avoid using a one-size-fits-all approach, because any decent channel partner will see right through it.
Help your partners understand what makes your product stand out, as doing this will help make the partnership beneficial to every party involved. Here are a few tips:
- Clearly explain what your product does and what makes it special – resist the urge to catchwords or industry jargon
- Outline the major problems that your product solves, describe your competition, and let your partners know what makes your company different
- Bring your partners in on your plans for the future and make them feel like an extended part of your inside team. Even better, encourage them to share their ideas.
Once you’ve passed across a convincing and honest value proposition, give your channel partners the resources that will help them convey that proposition to the end-user.
Offer Your Partners Competitive Incentives
Create a system that encourages referral marketing. This is because referral marketing can help retailers achieve impressive results, especially in today’s business atmosphere. That’s why, more than ever, it’s more important to offer your partner enticing incentives that will encourage them to set and achieve new goals, refer clients, and sell your product.
Whether your partner a cash reward for each percentage of new business, sales discounts, or a flat rate reward for each sale, make sure whatever you are offering is competitive.
Enable Your Partners to Create Multiple Quotes
Partners like to look at multiple pricing scenarios and configuration options before deciding on which ones work best for customers. Customers may also ask to see different options so they can make considerations.
You need to make it easy for your partners to create multiple quotes, with the ability to combine several options.
Provide the Right Tools
Are you making the right tools available to your partners? If you are not, you need to start. Don’t leave your partners to depend on a set of outdated presentations and marketing strategies to sell your product. Provide them with tools that will help them market and sell your product with ease.
Conclusion
Despite spending lots of time and resources on channel marketing automation software and partner relationship management program, many retailers end up discovering that there is a gap between their expectations and how their partners perform.
You can bridge that gap by teaming up with a channel enablement company that can handle every aspect of PRM and Channel Marketing Enablement – from recruiting the right partners, on-boarding the partners, providing them with the tools needed for effective marketing and sales to offering the right kind of support.
Doing this will help ensure that both you and your partner benefit from the partnership.
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