Channel Partner Recruitment Best Practices + Common Mistakes
Partner recruitment is going to keep on occurring throughout the life of your channel program. It’s essential that you learn the best practices so that you can understand some of the most common pitfalls out there.
Pre-Plan your Recruitment Strategy
Companies tend to want long-term results and this requires a lot of planning. It’s vital that you do your research and that you figure out the types of companies that are going to reflect yours the most. The goal is for you to try and find a company that can reach your target audience, without finding someone who is a direct competitor. There may well be some overlap in terms of what you offer and what your partners offer, but that being said, there is always the potential for a mutually beneficial partnership overall. In situations like this, you have to make sure that you go through all of the overlaps in your business and that you also take the time to understand overall, what your challenges might be. A vital part of the whole process is how you choose to market your program.
Have you Created a Model that will Grow your Base?
Do your prospective partners actually know how to find you online? Are they even aware of your brand? You have to think through avenues so that you can increase your brand awareness and so that you can boost your paid search too. The same applies to your email and social media. In some ways, getting new partners can be compared to getting new customers. The value proposition has to be there if you want them to commit to your partnership. Your promotion has to communicate all of the benefits of teaming up with your company. Your marketing is ultimately how potential partners will see you before the dialogue begins. A PRM platform will serve as a vital building block for your partnership strategy, so keep this in mind if at all possible.
Who is your Ideal Channel Partner?
It’s so important that you determine the overall criteria you want from your partners before you go ahead with the vetting process. The ideal partner profile is a list of the necessities that your partner must have in order for them to be considered. The criteria will ultimately help you to qualify your partners and it will also help you to ensure that they have the right attributes for the job. Ideally, when you create your partner profile, you need to think about things such as:
Geography
Customer base
Full product line
Business Goals
Company reputation
Specialisations
Use your Partner Profile
You should never hesitate at all to promote the fact that you have a partner profile. When you do your company evaluation, partners all want to know that your organisation is professional. Automation within your program will let your partner know that they can ultimately train in their own time and independently too. They should also do this with co-brand materials so that they can utilise an optimised level of registration.
The recruitment process is made way easier when partners see your program as being organised. A partner wants to know from the moment they sign on that they are going to have access to training, resources, support and organisation.
Streamline your Onboarding Process
Once you are fully committed to your program, your PRM will then assist you by giving you a very robust onboarding process. This will be done for all of the roles that are in your partner ecosystem. You have to make sure that you are structured and organised, as this will ensure that everyone has the best first experience and it will set the tone for your partnership too. A Zoom kick-off meeting is the easiest way for you to build some rapport for the partnership.
Mistakes You Need To Avoid
Many companies decide to have a very passive recruitment process overall. They choose to handle every request as if it was a one-off circumstance. The issue with this is that it’s not effective and it’s certainly not scalable either. If you can do all of the work upfront then you can easily create a repeatable process for the future of your partners. Remember that recruiting a partner is not a one-off process. It will occur habitually.
Not Promoting your Program
If you don’t market then it may be that you end up missing out on lucrative partnerships. Effective marketing will attract the perfect partners, who are eager to conduct business on your behalf. You should never just disregard your visibility, because if you do then you may end up losing out on valuable business opportunities.
Choosing Quantity over Quality
Narrowing down the partners you have is essential if you want your channel to be reliable. At the end of the day, quantity is never more important than quality. This is especially the case when it comes to partners. More partners does not always translate into more business. In some cases, having too many partners can actually harm your business. If you have too many partners working for you then you may find that you end up investing your valuable time into something that is not performing well and this is the last thing that you need.
Not Vetting your Partners
It costs time and money for you to properly vet your partners, but that being said, it’s totally worth it. You have to remember that your partners quite often do business on your behalf and this will affect your overall reputation. You have to put the work in and you also need to dig for information on your partners if possible too. This will help you to safeguard the reputation you have and it will also help you to get an in-depth overview of the company who you are looking to team up with.
When you are recruiting partners, you have to make sure that you have a plan. You also need to know your ideal partner and you need to strategize how you intend on attracting them. You have to use the right technology and you also need to manage your recruitment process. Automation during the whole onboarding process will give your partners a seamless transition and it will also help you to promote your overall visibility to the highest amount
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