What is partner enablement?
Partner enablement is when a business gives its channel sales partners the training, resources, and tools they need to sell its goods well. It involves making helpful content (like product overviews and sales scenarios), giving partners access to technical support, and giving them the sales materials they need.
There are some channel partner programs for almost every business, whether for a value-added reseller, system integrator, distributor, original equipment maker (OEM), or managed service provider (MSP). Partner enablement is a type of sales enablement because these groups work with the leading sales team to make sales easier.
Channel partners are somewhat independent but still offer the parent company’s goods and services. So, they’re still part of its overall plan and vision.
The parent company needs to have a channel partner enablement program to ensure that sales execution is good for the channel partner and in line with the values of the parent business.
Synonyms
- Channel partner enablement strategy
- Partner sales enablement
The Challenges of Partner Management
Channel partners can bring in a lot of money for a business but are also different entities. Things can quickly get out of hand without the proper partner relationship management (PRM) plan.
Trust is at stake, and it’s all too normal for people to be out of sync or not talk to each other.
It can be hard to solve channel conflicts.
When two or more partners are competing for the same customers, this is called channel conflict.
This problem usually happens because there isn’t a straightforward way to assign and keep track of accounts. It’s no surprise that chaos and conflict happen when everyone thinks they can take advantage of any customer.
Imagine that two partners (or more than one salesperson within a single partner) think they are the only ones who can serve a specific customer account. If a customer gets sales pitches for the same product from two different partners, they get annoyed and confused. This costs the partners money and causes them to blame each other all the time.
A channel conflict can make it hard for partners to talk to each other and trust each other, which can annoy and confuse customers and cost businesses money by missing out on sales chances.
Partner sites are often too crowded.
When companies release new programs or goods, they often make more websites or add content to ones that already exist.
The goal is good: to give partners all the tools they need. But what did happen? A maze of information that partners fear going through.
When the partner portal and content are too crowded, partners may miss out on chances, get confused, and work less efficiently. It can also be frustrating for users. Most of the time, it also leads to complete lies about the current offering.
Channel partners have different sets of skills.
There is no such thing as a perfect marketing partner. Each partner will have their strengths based on how their business is set up, how they sell, and how skilled each person is.
This gives channel managers a lot of different types of knowledge, but it also makes it hard to keep track of who is good at what. That would be like having a great chorus but not knowing who plays what instrument.
If you don’t know exactly what each partner can do right now, matching customer needs with the right partner is more of a guessing game than a planned process.
Communication doesn’t happen very often.
In the busyness of daily business, channel managers often get stuck in “reactive communication,” which means they only talk to partners when there is a problem. This means that most trades happen in less-than-ideal conditions.
Freedom is a good thing, especially for companies that make a lot of money from their partners. A partner might be making mistakes for weeks or months before anyone notices if they don’t have the right tools for partner enablement and can’t talk to others about it.
Lack of time is often given as a reason for not communicating often. But really, it’s about setting priorities. Talking to your partner on a regular basis not only helps solve problems before they get worse, but it also builds trust and understanding between you two.
Determining channel success and return on investment (ROI) is challenging.
It’s hard for managers to know what’s going on with partner programs and product sales in real time. They have to guess instead of using complex data to make decisions.
Once they do get the data they need, it’s often out of date, separated, and lacking the context needed to make intelligent decisions.
If the system that keeps track of sales doesn’t connect to partner sites and the rest of the tech stack, it’s hard to make the experience for partners better, which makes it harder for them to close deals.
How important it is to have good relationships with your partner
Partner ties that work well hold the business together, feed it, and let it grow. And just like roots, these ties need care, attention, and the right conditions to grow.
Here are some important reasons why partner relationships must work:
Reach and market penetration have grown.
Partners are like extra arms for your sales team. They can reach parts of the market that your team might not reach otherwise because of geography, culture, or logistics.
A strong partnership protects the business against risk while it exponentially grows its reach and market penetration.
Utilizing shared knowledge and tools
There are different skills and tools that each partner brings to the table. Each business unit can use the other’s skills in a relationship that works.
If you do this right, it will help you reach more customers, make your sales more focused, and give your customers a better experience.
Growth That Saves Money
When two businesses work together, they often bring their own equipment, staff, and market research, so they don’t have to spend as much on these things.
It also gets rid of the need to make upsells and cross-sells for every possible customer. Instead, partners can offer solutions that are specifically made for each group of customers, which will speed up sales.
Innovation and Change
Partners who bring fresh points of view, concepts, and solutions—particularly those from various markets and backgrounds—speed up innovation.
Companies can see how the market changes and act quickly when working closely with partners to cast a giant net.
Customer Retention and Satisfaction
Often, partners are very close with their local customers and know exactly what they need.
A good relationship uses this information to give customers better experiences, which makes them happier and more likely to stick with the business.
Why a good partner enablement strategy is important
Businesses can build trust, openness, and responsibility between partners with the help of a well-thought-out channel partner enablement plan.
This makes it easier to handle the partner program well, leading to happy customers and more sales.
These are the most important perks of partner enablement:
Find new partners, train them, and help them.
Some partner enablement tools can be found online, so people who are interested in becoming partners can look at them and decide if they want to work with someone before they even contact them. Resource materials like articles, PDFs, video lessons, and webinars can get the attention of possible business partners.
Partner onboarding goes more quickly if your enablement plan includes well-structured training. New partners can quickly learn about your goods, how to position them in the market, and how to sell them if they have access to many training materials.
Supporting present partners on a regular basis, whether it’s technical, sales, marketing, or operational, helps them do their best work, gets rid of problems faster, and ultimately boosts sales.
Build stronger bonds with your channel partners.
A partner enablement plan gives channel partners the tools they need to sell and give customers a good experience.
This sends a strong message: “We value you and believe in you.”
This kind of reinforcement is what makes partner relationships solid and last. It shows that the parent business is committed to the partnership and ready to share what works to make it successful.
More importantly, a good partner enablement strategy encourages open communication and openness, which are two of the hardest things to do when managing a partner relationship.
This two-way conversation helps to clear up any confusion, settle disagreements, and reach both parties’ objectives by allowing regular talking, sharing of feedback, and working together to solve problems.
Make sure the partner sales process is always the same.
Setting up a uniform partner sales process through enablement has several clear benefits.
- It’s clear what to expect. Partners are aware of what they need to do, what standards they need to meet, and what their jobs are. Since there’s no doubt about what needs to be done, partners can focus on carrying out the sales process instead of trying to figure it out.
- Always send the same message to buyers. Partner enablement strengthens a brand’s identity and builds a robust and dependable image in the market.
- Resources and tools to help with consistency. Training in sales, access to CRM systems, knowledge about products, marketing materials, and ongoing help. These tools make sure that all partners, no matter where they are or how big or small they are, can follow the same sales process.
- Analysis of performance. It’s easier to find trends, keep track of performance, and set goals for success if all partners use the same method. This vital information can help you make decisions, change your approach, and find ways to improve things or develop new ideas.
Partner enablement helps businesses standardize the process from start to finish by providing helpful content, ongoing support, and iteration. This makes it easier to bring on new partners.
Get your partner to do better.
Partners won’t sell if they don’t know how. To help partners find prospects, turn them into sales-qualified leads, and move them through the pipeline, they need partner enablement tools like sales playbooks, product training materials, and account-specific support (for business accounts).
Similarly, partners can tell their customers about your goods and services with the help of a variety of marketing materials, such as web content, case studies, and brochures.
Make your customers happier.
Partner support is good for customers at every step of the way.
- Sales methods with no problems
- Less time between leads
- Partners who know their stuff
- Support all the time
- The same feeling every time
The length of the sales cycle is one of the main reasons why customers are unhappy (or why a deal is lost). One more is that the seller can’t help customers find the correct goods and give them the correct information.
Consumers move faster and more smoothly through the sales process when partner enablement material is used. Buyers also get helpful information that helps them make intelligent choices.
How to Make Partners Work Together
The partner enablement approach is not the same for every business. Because each product and its way of making money are unique, partner support isn’t a precise science.
Still, every company does these four main things to make sure their partner network works:
Starting up
In the first step of partner support, the company looks at potential partners and chooses the ones that meet its needs.
As part of the onboarding process, the business gives these new partners all the tools and information they need to learn about its products and how it makes sales.
Assembling a partner includes the following:
- Letting people use company tools
- Setting up a partner page
- Setting up user accounts for the business CRM
- Training in account management
- Procedures for auditing and rules for compliance
Cohesion is the most essential part of onboarding a channel partner. To ensure that everyone on the team is up to date and on the same page, you need a combined CRM, project management tool, and partner portal.
Plus, system interaction makes it easy to share information and keep track of onboarding progress.
Setting Goals
Setting goals means deciding what the partner’s success should be measured against. Some of the company’s internal sales indicators are similar to these:
- Amount of deals completed
- Size of a typical deal
- APU, or average income per user
- Rate of conversion
- Scores for how happy customers are
It’s also important to look at the company’s overall health and compare it to that of other marketing partners. You can see how profitable the relationship is by looking at the customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (CLV), retention rate, and revenue growth rate of a company.
The parent company must examine the sales data by market segment in order to fully comprehend which market segments are worth selling into. For example, consider how the business’s sales for small and large projects look.
To use these metrics to set goals that are fair and attainable, you need to know what the goals were in the past. Existing channel partners, internal sales performance, and customer feedback are all very important for making these kinds of choices.
Process and technology training
Channel partner support is more than just telling partners about the company’s goods and services. It also means teaching them how to:
- Handling the sales process and the pipeline
- Work in the back office
- Tools for managing projects and customer relationships
- The best ways to market
- How to report things
During this learning time, partners will get to know the company’s technology stack and learn how to combine the processes of the two groups.
Training in how to make sales
Channel partners must be taught how to make sales as the last step in the partner development process. As part of this, full training is given on:
- Talking about sales
- Plans for getting leads
- Ways to negotiate
- Tips for closing
- Marketing to turn leads into customers
This is the most critical place for partner enablement material. Giving partners the correct information, like product guides, sales scripts, case studies, and other learning materials, that they can use whenever they need to cuts ramp time down by a considerable amount.
The Conversation
During the whole process of partner support, communication is essential. If the partner isn’t told ahead of time, even small changes in pricing, features, or extra goods could significantly affect how well they do their job.
To be vigilant, it is best to always use the right technology. Among these are:
- Systems for partner relationship management (PRM)
- To help people work together (like Slack)
- Tools for managing projects and keeping track of tasks
- Systems that help with managing learning
- CRM stands for customer relationship management.
- Working together on documents and managing them
That way, partner contact can be fully merged, and people won’t miss any updates. It’s also easier to talk to partners on the channels they already use, rather than through an email thread.
