Direct sales or an indirect sales strategy? This is a question your emerging growth company has been considering, and you have chosen the indirect 
sales approach. This means you are currently using, or will soon use, channel partners to sell your products and services in the market. For this strategy to work, it is essential to align your company’s goals with those of your channel partners.
For instance, let’s take a quick look at car makers and their independent dealers. In the current competitive market, dealers earn little revenue from selling new cars; instead, their main profits come from the service aspect of their business. On the flip side, manufacturers do not gain from the service side and are mainly focused on sales. It becomes clear that if your relationship with channel partners has misaligned goals and objectives, your channel sales strategy won’t succeed.
There are some best practices that should be followed when implementing or optimizing a channel partner strategy. All successful channel partner relationships have two things in common: there is a high level of engagement between the parties and the relationship is very collaborative. Your channel partners, due to their independent nature, are free to sell products and services from many companies, some of which may even be direct competitors. In order to be successful in capturing a disproportionate amount of channel partners’ selling efforts, you must find ways to engage them frequently and effectively (this is referred to as capturing their “mindshare’). Engagement equates to attachment and business alignment, which equates to more sales.
As the person responsible for your company’s channel partner strategy, you have spent a great deal of time researching and targeting the various market segments that you want to sell into. Furthermore, you have done your homework and have developed an extensive list of potential channel partners that you believe are well positioned in your targeted market areas and appear to have a proven track record of strong sales results. But what can you do to ensure that once you “sign up” a channel partner, you are doing everything you can to drive high levels of engagement and collaboration?
Numerous phone calls and emails are not an effective strategy. Deploying a customer relationship management (CRM) is not the answer either. A framework for successful engagement is based on the following core elements:
- Marketing & communication – the sales teams at the various channel partners need to have readily accessible marcom materials that they can use when selling and communicating with the end customers. These materials need to be co-branded for your company as well as each individual channel partner.
- Training and certification – your channel partners need access to on-demand training and certification courses to quickly ramp-up new employees, keep existing sales people up-to-date on the current product and service offerings as well as any new product launches. There needs to be visibility into this training environment by both your company and the channel partners’ management teams so the sales people can be monitored for compliance and held accountable.
- Performance Management – providing a tool for your partners to track and monitor performance across their organization is critical to providing visibility into their success drivers.
- Collaboration Tools – tools that allow the people on the front lines (channel partners’ sales teams) to have real time access to your product managers, fellow sales people and other channel partners. This connection is important so they can ask questions, share successes, and feel part of a supportive community.
You need a robust solution that will help manage all these critical elements. To successfully master the art of indirect selling you will need to consider implementing a partner relationship management (PRM) solution. A PRM system is a partner portal through which your channel partners are able to access all of the resources they need to sell and service your products. If you follow best practices and implement a robust PRM solution, you will maintain high levels of engagement and collaboration with your channel partners resulting in mutually beneficial relationships.
LogicBay’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Technology is rich with best practice workflows making it easier for organizations to do business with channel partner re-sellers. The result: More engagement and Mindshare. Greater Efficiency and Cost Savings. Alignment with Channel Partners. And, Performance Improvement for the Entire Sales Enterprise.
 | Download this premium white paper to learn Channel Management Best Practices – Make it easy for dealers to do business with you, Heighten dealer engagement, Gain mindshare and maximize financial returns. Learn about LogicBay’s 4Core Best Practice Framework including methods for more effectively training and monitoring dealer employee certifications. |
 | Link to LogicBay’s Library of Partner Relationship Management White Papers. These white papers provide best practice ideas on a Channel Readiness and Performance Improvement strategies. Topics include subjects such as: Effectively launching a LMS for the Channel, Applying Lean Principles to Channel Management, Channel Life-cycle Management, Partner Portal Technology Unification, and much more. |
 | Link to LogicBay’s Library of Client Case Studies. Learn how LogicBay’s PRM Solutions and Technology have created significant performance gains for clients such as Caterpillar, HP, Daimler Trucks and Outdoor Living Brands. |