Channel partners, for the most part, are business people. This means that the majority of them will consider the entire package and opt for long-term collaborations with dependable providers over short-term cash incentives.
They grant you access to networks that your own team would normally be unable to access. They can also outperform any other engine in terms of revenue growth. But, like with other good relationships, you must cultivate them to keep them warm and productive, which is no easy task when your competitors entice them with promises of big bonuses and partnership paradise.
Before we get into the specifics of how to engage and educate your channel salespeople, it’s important to grasp the advantages. The benefits mentioned below will make you understand why training and educating your channel partner is important.
The Benefits of Training Channel Partners
Many firms prioritize channel partner training, but it is especially critical for those that work with a variety of channel partners. In the value chain, different channels serve distinct objectives, and each channel member must do the unique duty allocated to them in order to support the broader company goals.
As a result, it’s critical that each channel partner receives essential sales and product training. This type of training not only gives channel partners the abilities they need to fulfill the selling role but also gives them the confidence they need to participate in sales processes.
The ultimate goal of training your ideal partner is to assist both of your business growth, customer success, and develop good partner relationships. The following are the advantages that build up to that last point:
Stronger Network and Improved Communication
Issues with your goods, protocols, or performance goals can be addressed before they turn into full-fledged problems. Communication links are opened as a result of training. This establishes a clear line of communication between your organization and its partners, indicating that you are all in this together. They’ll believe in your collaboration, therefore they’ll be more likely to stick around.
There will be less of a need for your assistance, and the churn rate will be reduced.
When you properly train a partner from the beginning of your partnership, you won’t have to retrain them as things go wrong. They’ll know how to avoid difficulties and deal with them when they occur.
Customer service training for your partners, such as how to answer challenging inquiries and provide quick solutions, can drastically lower the odds of you losing clients. It’s important to remember that acquiring new clients is five times more expensive than keeping existing ones. You can also save money on resources that would otherwise be spent on giving regular help to your partners for such difficulties.
Educating channel partners offers the added benefit of bettering your customers’ education. Customers are more likely to remain loyal when they are aware of your company’s capabilities.
Sales increase
Good customer experience is a vital aspect of the continuing sales process. Educating channel partners on how to improve their customer interactions has a good effect on the sales operation.
Onboarding will be a lot easier
Onboarding new partners into your company network can take a long time. A training partner program formed on previously successful onboarding approaches, on the other hand, can make the process considerably more efficient, especially as operations scale.
Build and Protect your brand
Multiple partners imply that the story surrounding your product is being guided by multiple persons. Training your channel partners ensures that your brand is consistent across all of its speakers.
In today’s world of social media and popularity, a partner’s PR disaster can harm your business by association. Training can help you relax, knowing that your partners are correctly representing your business.
Get feedback
Getting feedback from your colleagues who participate in the training is necessary for determining the effectiveness of the channel partner program. To improve your cooperation, use the data of your polls and the views expressed in comments.
Keys To Remember when training your channel sales partners
Below are the main key points to remember when educating your channel partners.
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Determine Your Expectations And Goals
The foundations of a successful partnership are early communication and clearly defined goals. As a result, your channel partner program must have these characteristics so that everyone is on the same page. Determine your main learning objectives and intended outcomes before beginning to build your online training program. Determine what function partners should play in the overall channel sales channel strategy and how your online training might assist them in meeting their responsibilities.
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Make a List of Achievable Milestones.
Break down your goals into smaller milestones after you’ve identified them. This boosts motivation while also making online training easier to handle. It also allows you to publicly acknowledge your partners’ achievements on a daily basis. You can, for example, recognize or reward their accomplishments once they finish a product knowledge online certificate program.
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Maintain Regular Communication to Ensure That Channel Partners Are Aware Of Their Responsibilities.
In any type of partner connection, consistent communication is essential. You and your partners must be sure to check in and follow up with your vendors, distributors, and/or advisers on a regular basis. These initiatives should start with a detailed discussion of how your partners’ work fits into your overall channel sales strategy goals.
Ensuring that partners are aware of their duties and how they assist to success displays that you value and appreciate their efforts.
Partner Program leaders should keep in touch with partners on a regular basis, discussing both successes and areas for development. Reaching out to partners just when fresh marketing assets are available or when a problem arises is unlikely to generate engagement and may even work against the relationship’s development.
It’s critical to highlight positive activities and partner wins and to make an effort to do so. It is critical to make even tiny efforts to reach out and form ties.
Information overload is a side effect of digital change. Today’s Partners work with anything from five to twenty-five different vendors. It isn’t a leap to say that information overload is the norm. Partners that collaborate with several vendors live and work in a noisy environment.
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Create a Training & Channel Partner Education Funnel
It is vital to provide education to enhance channel partner enablement. After all, you can’t expect partners to shoulder their fair share of the burden if you don’t provide them with the necessary instructional resources and training.
Keep your knowledge sharing brief and to the point. Use microlearning concepts to convey important information through short, engaging encounters. A 7-minute microlearning session is far less scary than a 4-hour classroom training session. Make it simple for sellers to learn in modest increments, and they’ll keep returning for more.
Other Important Key Points To Remember-
Maintain A Regular Routine.
Consistently communicate with the channel. Maintain a consistent update schedule so that people know they’ll see something new every week at the same time. That way, individuals may start incorporating it into their daily routine to maintain high levels of interest.
Enhance The User Experience
Deliver the information in a format that is similar to other apps that modern channel salespeople are used to. The more consumer apps your trainings feel, the more likely people are to accept them as they do their own. Badges, leaderboards, and earning points that may be redeemed for something exciting are all examples of gamification.
To educate and teach your partner, you can use blogs, whitepapers, and electronic materials such as brochures, documents, and e-books.
You can even encourage them to attend trade shows or join an online community, which can serve as both a support system for channel partners and an open discussion platform where partners can engage on a variety of issues.
A Simple and Real-Time Method of Providing Feedback.
In the channel, effective nurturing is a two-way street. Distributors must be able to interact with you as effortlessly and clearly as you do with them. Without the burden or cost of surveys or call centers, a real-time platform that allows continual communication between you and your partners establishes a “closed loop” around opportunity status, lead quality, and needs. Leads are less likely to go through the gaps, and obsolete or unnecessary information isn’t infecting the process.
By allowing a two-way flow of information and feedback in real-time, interacting with channel partners on a single platform makes implementing a lead nurturing campaign simple. Without sending an email, dialing a phone number, or entering onto a site, your product or service remains front and center.
Final Thoughts
It’s simple to keep your sales team on the same page and drive outcomes by using a thoughtful approach to channel training. Simply follow the steps outlined here, and you’ll be well on your way to having more engaged partners and satisfied consumers.