A balanced approach that builds relationships with large, mid-sized, and smaller targeted partners is the best way to optimise channel growth and profitability.
Finding the “diamond-in-the-rough” smaller and mid-sized partners that are a strong fit with your brand and growth strategy is much harder work, but well worth the effort.
A more rigorous evaluation process to identify the businesses that a vendor should invest in will result in a higher percentage of revenue contributing partners.
Key metrics to determine which partners to invest in…
What should the partner’s response be to a vendor’s screening questions?
Partners that want to build a deeper and trust-based relationship with their vendors should approach them genuinely and earnestly.
Partners that grow faster and are more profitable are those that actively reach out to their CAMs for support and work to find a win-win strategy with their suppliers.
Partners should work with their vendors on the following tasks…
Successful collaborations between vendors and partners start with an understanding of each other’s priorities and needs.
Asking the right questions and honestly participating in a dialogue to find common ground will result in a stronger and longer lasting relationship.
But the use of tools to help facilitate this process will dramatically improve your ability to replicate this process across your entire channel team. Consider use of the following cloud-based tools to help facilitate trust and commitment building with your partners.
- Partner Performance Scorecard - One-page summary of performance to plan, pipeline to target, and program performance
- Partner Capabilities Scorecard - A questionnaire-based scorecard for delivering 1-100 scores on key success metrics for your partners including improvement action planning and rollup reporting
- Account Planning - CAM / partner sales account planning to target cross-sell opportunities
- Partner Business Plan / Profit Forecast - A guided workflow for creating a 36-month business plan P&L
- Quarterly Partner Marketing Plan Builder - A guided workflow to create activities, tactics, budget, lead waterfall forecast revenue and ROI estimated in five minutes
- Quarterly Business Review (QBR) Builder - A 5-minute automated QBR PPT builder created / edited by CAM
Good luck building strong and long-term relationships with your partners based on honest exchanges of needs and commitments.
By Gary Morris (founder and CEO of Successful Channels); Tim Lowe (President of Partner Perspectives) and David O’Brien (EVP of Partner Perspectives).
