How To Create More Partner Value and Grow Long Term Channel Sales

It's not uncommon when trying to figure out how to grow channel sales to focus on why partners are underperforming versus addressing how to create more partner value. Firms that focus on the long term view and truly look to help their channel partners grow, will be rewarded versus those that think they just need to "fix" what their partners are doing wrong. Take a step back and ask yourself: Is our partner program designed to create partner value? Or just sell more stuff this quarter? Selling more stuff this quarter is good, but your partner program will perform much better if it addresses both questions. 

So what are some levers to pull to create more partner value?

1. Net Margin: OK, so this is the easy one to identify and it's critically important, but it's not the only item. This is just the ante to play the game and it needs to be right, otherwise you won't get the opportunity to address some of the other items. 
2. Growth Opportunities: Identifying growth opportunities is good and helpful, but you really need to be enabling your partners for new growth areas. It's one thing to say "cloud" or "big data" are going to be big; it's another to truly help your partners build solutions and practices in high growth areas. 
3. Expense Reduction: Providing high value add services that truly reduce costs for your partners and minimizing operational costs just to participate in your program can be good opportunities to create partner value.
4. Skill Development: Readily accessible, low cost education and skill development programs provide high value to your partners. Don't limit this to formal education programs either. Simple, easy access skill development tools can have greater value. This should encompass sales, marketing, and technical support.
5. Marketing Support: Lead generation is a challenge for everyone. Easy to execute campaigns with high quality content combined with insight on segmentation and customer profiles can provide great value to your partners.
6. Sales Support: You can certainly take the view here that partners should operate independently and be able to sell the product. That said, the firms I see with strong sales support to really help partners close deals and address objections win in the long term. 

So there are a half dozen areas you're able to address to improve your partner value and increase your channel sales. There are many more potential ways to create partner value. Companies that find ways to innovate and create differentiated partner value definitely win the channel competition in the long term. 

Are you asking yourself the harder questions about creating partner value? Or are you just looking for a short term fix? 

If you would like to discuss approaches to create more parter value and grow your indirect channel business, please comment below or contact Steve Perry directly at slperry@pereion.com.

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