Identifying the right partner is quite possibly one of the most important tasks when setting up an indirect channel. Once you know who your partner is and you understand the criteria you have in place, you then need to understand their financial depth, their strengths, their interest in technical sales and even any experience that they have in marketing as well. Your decisions here will determine how successful your channel is for the future.
Corporate Alignment
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Request their Current Portfolio
When you do this, you need to take note if they are going to augment your offering, or if there are any chances for you to cross-sell as a result.
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Products
You also need to find out how many products they are selling, and if they have the resources to try and take on the solution that you have to offer.
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Knowledge
Include solutions of your key messages, your technology, your target customers and more.
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Percentage
Knowing the percentage of your new partner’s customers who actually go on to purchase additional solutions is another crucial data point.
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Customer Base
Does their target customer match your own? Do they have a similar amount of employees?
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Commitment
Think about it, is this partner really committed to you? Do they have the resources required to train on every aspect of your own business solution? Are they willing to do this?
Financial Stability
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Foundation
It’s a good idea to know whether or not your partner’s company was founded privately or whether it was founded publicly. When you have this information, you then start to understand their reputation, and their financial statements.
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Legal Action
Have any clients taken any form of action against the company in the past? What is the track record for the management team right now? How long have that team been with the company?
Sales Success
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Selling and Marketing
It’s imperative that you know whether or not the team has experience in selling products that are similar to your own. You also need to know if they even have a sales team. If they do then find out if it is comprised of an inside and outside team or whether they have an indirect sales channel setup right now.
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Qualifications
Find out if the team themselves are qualified enough to sell your products, or if they have sold products similar to yours in the past. Now’s also a good time to work out if they are going to need any outside training or not.
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Individual Sales
Are their sales based on price alone? Product features? Name recognition?
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Adaptability
If the salespeople are not able to adapt or communicate effectively then this can compromise your relationship. Find out if they are able to take on more of a consultative role and also find out if this fits in with the solution that you have to offer them. If they are able to adapt, then how will this vary depending on their audience, the vertical they have and the size of the business they run?
Have you selected the correct partners? Do you not get the revenue you expected from them? Why not engage ourselves to carry out a discovery session and determine if you have the correct channel to deliver success.