How to Formalize Your Channel Program: A Step-by-Step Guide

Building an effective channel program is critical for companies looking to scale revenue faster, reduce customer acquisition costs, and expand their reach and impact. While many organizations start out with an informal channel strategy, transitioning to a more structured and strategic approach can help drive more productivity and profitability from channel partners.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk through the eight essential steps to formalize your channel program.

 

#1: Assess and Plan Your Channel Program

The first step is to assess your current channel program to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. This involves:

• Defining your ideal partner profile based on your top performers. Look at factors like partner type, size, location, vertical expertise, selling style, etc.
• Discovering promising subsegments within your channel by analyzing additional data like product mix, competencies, and staff makeup.
• Considering an ecosystem view of your channel that looks beyond just transactional resellers to encompass influencers, services partners, and more.
• Evaluating your program’s current maturity across factors like people, process, technology, and partner lifecycle management. Compare to best practices to identify gaps.
• Determining your vision for the program and how to get to the next level. Set goals focused on recruiting, enabling, and incentivizing the right partners.

Taking a data-driven approach helps you understand what’s working and what enhancements are needed as you formalize processes.

#2: Design and Build a Strong Foundation

With a plan in place, you need the right foundations to support consistent program execution and scaling. This requires:

• Mapping out your ideal partner journeys to define the processes that support each lifecycle stage. Document key activities, communications, and metrics.
• Deploying technology like PRM, channel marketing automation, and incentives management platforms to automate processes where possible. Start small if needed.
• Structuring your team with channel expertise. This may involve new hires or cross-training to support roles like recruiting, onboarding, account management, and marketing.
• Gaining executive sponsorship to demonstrate commitment and establish an escalation path for partners.

Robust process documentation, technology, and staffing ensure you can manage your channel strategically versus ad hoc.

#3: Target and Recruit the Right Partners

Now focus that foundation on bringing in your ideal partners. Effective recruitment entails:

• Identifying prospects that closely match your ideal partner profiles and subsegments for a higher chance of success.
• Communicating your value proposition focused on the partner benefits of joining your ecosystem and go-to-market team.
• Using targeted outreach like ABM, referrals from existing partners, and list builds that indicate partner potential. Avoid unsegmented marketing blasts.
• Highlighting the ease of doing business with your company and ability to support customers to attract the best partners.

Recruiting the right partners contributes to higher revenue, lower costs, and a better experience for both partners and customers.

#4: Onboard and Activate to Jumpstart Sales

Signing partners is just the starting point. Comprehensive onboarding helps new recruits quickly ramp up through:

• Introductions to key staff that demonstrate commitment across functions like sales, marketing, and support.
• Information exchange about strengths, target segments, processes, infrastructure, and more to set up success.
• Co-planning of onboarding milestones, business objectives, and metrics for the partnership to drive alignment.
• Initial training, marketing, and first sales opportunities to build knowledge, capabilities, and momentum.
• Recognition and rewards for completed onboarding tasks and early wins to reinforce the partnership.

Structured onboarding brings new partners to productivity faster by linking goals, enablement, and activations.

#5: Train and Enable Partners to Sell Your Solutions

Your partners are experienced sellers, but they need continuous training and enablement to become experts on your evolving products and go-to-market strategies. Help partners sell successfully through:

• Self-paced online courses, live training sessions, and certification tracks accessed through a learning management system.
• Providing a content portal, co-branded collateral, channel marketing automation tools, and funds for demand generation.
• Incentives to complete training milestones that increase product knowledge and expertise. This can boost partner sales.
• Joint selling and consistent engagement from your sales team to reinforce capabilities.

Enablement resources and incentives give partners the skills, tools, and confidence to act as an extension of your sales organization.

#6: Engage and Motivate Partners to Boost Performance

To win partner mindshare amid competing priorities, you need consistent engagement and motivation through:

• Ongoing communications like newsletters, check-ins, QBRs, and informal outreach to demonstrate commitment.
• Behavior-based incentive programs focused on activities proven to drive revenue, such as registering opportunities, generating leads, securing renewals, and more.
• Branded experiences, gamification, and recognition makes partners feel valued members of your ecosystem.
• Monitoring partner satisfaction and taking action to improve ease of doing business.

Thoughtful engagement and motivation activate partners, generate greater loyalty, and increase sales activity.

#7: Retain and Reward Partners to Improve Profitability

After investing in your channel, retention is critical for maximizing partner lifetime value. Retain and reward partners through:

• Monitoring partner and customer satisfaction and enhancing experiences to reduce churn.
• Offering incentives like higher status, discounts, and premier support to partners that invest in your relationship.
• Recognizing sustained excellence through awards, trips, events, and more.
• Creating tiers and segments that provide rewards based on factors beyond just sales volume.

Strategic retention and loyalty initiatives help maintain high-performing partners, reduce recruitment costs, and protect revenue streams.

#8: Measure and Evaluate Results

A formalized program requires monitoring KPIs across all lifecycle stages to identify what’s working well and what needs refinement. Be data-driven by:

• Establishing benchmark metrics and cadences for reviewing reports. Look beyond just sales data.
• Leveraging dashboards and analytics to slice and dice performance by partner, product, behavior, and more.
• Discussing results collaboratively in QBRs and realigning based on insights.
• Optimizing elements like incentives, enablement, communications, and experiences based on data.

The right KPIs and analysis enable fact-based program enhancements that streamline operations and increase channel contribution.

 

Formalizing Your Channel for Growth and Profitability

 

Transitioning from ad hoc origins to a scalable and optimized channel program takes work. But the payoff can be game-changing in terms of revenue growth, cost efficiency, risk reduction, and competitive differentiation through your indirect channels.

While this guide provides an overview of best practices across the partner lifecycle, executing successfully requires focus. Build momentum by starting with foundational elements like your ideal partner profile, process documentation, and technology infrastructure. Then implement changes iteratively while sustaining day-to-day partnerships.

And don’t go it alone—work with experts who can objectively assess your channel, make data-driven recommendations, and help implement impactful changes for the long term.

With the right partners, program foundations, and continuous improvement, you can build an indirect channel that drives measurable results and maintains alignment as your business evolves. Use this guide as your roadmap to long-term channel success.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Q: What is the first step in formalizing a channel program?

A: The first step is to assess and plan your channel program. This involves defining your ideal partner profile, discovering promising subsegments, evaluating program maturity, and setting goals.

 

Q: What are some key components of building a strong foundation for a channel program?

A: Building a strong foundation involves mapping out partner journeys, deploying technology, structuring the team with channel expertise, and gaining executive sponsorship.

 

Q: How can I effectively recruit the right partners for my channel program?

A: To recruit the right partners, you should identify prospects that match your ideal partner profile, communicate your value proposition, use targeted outreach strategies, and highlight the benefits of partnering with your company.

 

Q: What is the importance of onboarding and activating new partners?

A: Onboarding and activating new partners is crucial for jumpstarting sales. It involves introducing them to key staff, exchanging information, co-planning milestones, providing training, and recognizing early wins.

 

Q: How can I train and enable partners to effectively sell my solutions?

A: You can train and enable partners by offering self-paced online courses, providing enablement resources and tools, offering incentives for completing training milestones, and engaging with your sales team for joint selling efforts.

 

Q: How can I engage and motivate partners to boost their performance?

A: Engaging and motivating partners can be done through ongoing communications, behavior-based incentive programs, branded experiences, and monitoring partner satisfaction to improve ease of doing business.

 

Q: How can I retain and reward partners to improve profitability?

A: Retaining and rewarding partners involves monitoring partner and customer satisfaction, offering incentives and rewards for investing in the relationship, recognizing sustained excellence, and creating tiers and segments for additional benefits.

 

Q: What is the importance of measuring and evaluating results in a channel program?

A: Measuring and evaluating results helps identify what’s working well and what needs refinement. It allows for data-driven optimizations of elements like incentives, enablement, communications, and experiences.