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How to Build a Channel Partner Program: 10 Steps

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Channel partner programs are essential for businesses that are ready to grow. The best channel partner programs have become much more than an indirect sales engine, shifting towards sophisticated ecosystems made up of strategic service partners and alliances as well. However, this shift requires more dedicated planning and the need to prove the ROI of your efforts. Ready to learn how to build a channel partner program?  

Keep reading to learn how to build the best channel partner program that empowers you and your partners to grow faster, together.  

👉 Keep reading to learn more about:  

  • What is a channel partner program?
  • Why are channel partner programs important?
  • How to build a channel partner program
  • How to build an automated partner program

What is a channel partner program?  

A channel partner program is a business strategy that companies use to encourage third-party partners, like service partners, resellers, distributors, or ISVs, to sell and service their products.  

These programs leverage the strengths and market presence of an expanded network of partners to extend market reach, drive sales, and support customers more effectively than a company could achieve on its own. Companies often offer support through training, resources, and financial incentives to ensure a mutually successful relationship for both them and their partners.  

Why are channel partner programs important?  

According to McKinsey , channel partner ecosystems are expected to drive about $80 trillion in annual revenue by 2030 – that’s a third of the total global revenue! To capture this revenue, companies are racing to meet a huge shift in customer behaviors and demands.   

The consumers of today anticipate end-to-end, integrated, tailored experiences and expect companies to have a deep understanding of their needs. On top of that, today's B2B customers are highly savvy and want to build on their existing product investments with the right technology, at the right time. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in an increased complexity in buyer journeys where there is an increased focus on customer experience.   

Buying and selling are no longer just transactional. The sales and marketing landscape today requires companies, partners, and customers to move towards win-win scenarios together.   

Today, companies are evolving from traditional partner programs to performing as a partner ecosystem. This means – among other things – more interaction between a business and its partners, as well as a more seamless and integrated partner experience from start to end. In a successful channel partner program, everyone wins.   

🔎 Learn more: We cover the major benefits of channel partners , and how they can help you drive growth, in our full post! 

How to build a channel partner program  

As a channel leader, you probably have goals for how much you want to scale in the coming months and, if your growth targets are large enough, achieving them may seem like a huge challenge. 

But you can build a modern channel partner program that drives (and measures!) ROI for your company. A thriving ecosystem of partners can become a powerful revenue-generating machine for your company. Here's how to build a channel partner program that ignites growth. Throughout, we'll share links to more in-depth resources for you to learn more.  

1. Start with a partner-first ethos  

Companies with the best channel partner programs understand that partners have a wide variety of vendors to work with and choose from. This is why these companies prioritize trust, value, and reciprocity.  

Companies with great partner programs look at how they can create more pathways to revenue for their partners at every stage, such as:  

  • Providing support in the form of marketing and lead generation 
  • Offering additional ongoing service opportunities for your partners for increased revenue 
  • Creating more streamlined deal registration processes  
  • Building partner advisory boards and engagement events to build community  

Trust between an organization and its partners is key to developing strong relationships that will result in mutual benefit. However, this trust takes time to build and requires you to promote transparency and communicate value to partners at every touchpoint.  

2. Create a shared set of goals  

If you don’t set any performance goals or metrics, how will you know whether you and your partners are successful? This is why setting goals and laying out KPIs is something the best channel partner programs do from the outset. You can only create a framework for measuring success once you have defined your goals and objectives.  

This framework not only helps to set clear expectations for your future partners, but also makes it easy to track progress later on. With clearer benchmarks, you can quickly step in and provide additional support – before partners become unengaged .  

Understand the different goals for your different categories of partners as well and align your program with them to create a win-win situation.  

3. Plan your go-to-market strategies and get internal buy-in  

This can be difficult to do, especially because there are different team members who may oversee different parts of the reselling process. It’s vital that you get everyone on the same page internally.  

For example, you may want to OEM one of your products for another company – but as a channel leader, you’ve also got to think about how this might affect your other partners.   

How will doing things this way affect your brand? Will this change the pricing model? Will it make it harder for other partners to sell to their customers? You need to ensure that by signing one deal, you’re not potentially undercutting another partner.  

There’s a lot to think about and, often, what may seem like the fastest route to revenue may not necessarily be the best option in the long run. In the past, it may have been enough to have the channel live purely in sales or marketing, or at times crossing both. However, leaders of the best channel partner programs today recognize that to be successful, they have to cross the entire enterprise.    

A non-siloed channel program structure may be more complex, but it isn’t difficult to accomplish. However, it does require buy-in from all departments involved in the customer cycle. The channel needs to be integrated throughout all these departments, which may include product, finance, and more.    

Although your go-to-market strategies  can (and will) evolve over time, you must consider it with all internal stakeholders early to get the most long-term value from your channel partner program.  

4. Set a foundation for growth  

When your program is small, it’s easy to get away with no documentation or processes. Everyone can just talk to each other and get the information they need to go off and sell. But at a certain point, a company needs infrastructure and automated procedures in order to scale. 

Imagine if you had 3,000 partners and only a thousand of them had contracts. What would happen if the person who brought on the contract-less partners left the company? Would the person taking over know that these partners exist? Are those contract-less partners free to do whatever they wanted with your products?  

The lack of structure makes it additionally difficult to manage partners. And if you don’t have standard processes in place, handling each new issue that arises becomes extremely inefficient because the people affected wouldn’t know what’s expected of them, or who to seek help from. This can affect your compliance and audit processes at a later stage too.  

This is why it’s so important to have automated and documented processes for onboarding and managing your growing partner program. Setting up a process is one thing, putting it down in writing and ensuring your team has access to it is another. It sounds simple – so simple, that this step is often forgotten – but can be difficult to enforce. Starting with a strong foundation makes it easier for you to progress and make further plans for the channel. 

✅ Level up: From partner agreements to onboarding checklists, we've built a library of free templates that program leaders can use for their growing program. Check them out here !  

5. Build with automation in mind  

Building on the previous step, you’re likely selling and servicing your product in different global markets, with different types of partners, who may have very different selling behaviors and practices. Consolidating and managing everything manually is time-consuming and ineffective for a growing channel partner program.  

By automating processes from the very beginning, you free up your channel teams so they can spend their time on higher value work like building relationships, pushing through deals, and recruiting new high-performing partners to your ecosystem.  

🔎 Dig deeper: Channel partner program software can help you find seamless ease and automation. We cover the ten steps to take to ensure you find the right partner lifecycle automation solution for your needs . 

6. Recruit the best partners  

For your partner program to be successful, it’s crucial that you recruit the best partners. One way to do this is by targeting the right segments of prospective partners and communicating to them with the right messaging.  

Find partners by networking at events, using a sourcing agency, and more. Once partners are ready to join, make sure it’s easy for them to apply. The review process is where you can get more sophisticated and carefully select your authorized partners. You can also build in automated criteria to make it easier to screen and select new partners.  

🔎 Explore more: Find the partners that will fuel your go-to-market strategies in our guide on how to find channel partners ! 

7. Communicate clearly and often with partners  

Personalize your communications so that you’re sending the right information to the right people, at the right time. This makes it easy for partners to share that information with their own teams and customers. By regularly communicating with your partners, they'll be more informed and engaged on changes or updates to your program.  

Include the latest marketing/sales enablement materials, product updates, brochures, use case documentation, and more when communicating with partners. The goal here is to ensure partners have everything they need to sell, consolidated in a location they can access quickly.  

Having this structure also means that they can easily scale up whenever they want to – which is also a win for you.  

⭐️ Partner program example: Siemens scales global outreach to partners   "We needed to deliver the right message, to the right partners, at the right time. We started localizing newsletters and immediately saw amazing results. All of them had over 50% and some up to 70% unique open rates."  Learn how Siemens doubled their partner engagement rates with Impartner.   Read the full case study here .  

8. Build transparent and valuable incentive programs  

The best partner programs have transparency built into their processes. One of the most straightforward and important ways to do this is in your incentive structures. Set up partner tier structures , then plainly spell out how they'll reach higher rewards tiers, such as levels of access, benefits, and progress of rewards.  

This ensures that partners are clear on how incentives are distributed, what benefits they can expect to receive, and how they can work towards greater success. This can also help prevent misunderstandings and any ill feelings that may develop in a less transparent program.   

Today's channel manager also understands that there are other channels beyond the traditional, transactional channel, and ensures that their partner program incorporates other non-transactional channels into account, such as service-based contracts and more.  

9. Make it easy for partners to market you  

You may be handling one product or just a few but not your partners. They likely have hundreds of other products to sell and service – with limited time to do so. You must make it simple, easy, and beneficial for them. Your partner portal should easily contain all marketing materials, on-demand. Partner marketing automation tools should be built into your portal as well.  

Market development funds (MDFs) are powerful, but only when used properly. There are equally effective avenues for co-investing – specifically in collaborative innovation.  

Ability to innovate is the top priority for partners when deciding on a provider to work with. Rather than co-investing in the traditional MDFs, successful programs are also channeling funds into innovation development. These efforts generate higher return on investment and can contribute to more successful long-term partnerships. 

Another way to use MDF effectively? Rather than bogging your partners with complex product messaging, you can use paid media for partners to run advertising campaigns on behalf of your partners automatically. With centralized control, all paid ads run with a consistent brand and your partners benefit from hands-free advertising. 

10. Hold regular reviews to empower partners  

Providing consistent reviews periods is an important part of the best channel partner programs – and data is a necessity. Set clear expectations so your team members and partners know what’s expected of them, as well as what you and your executives will bring to the table in return. And do it all so you can prove out the ROI of your partner program efforts.  

Once expectations are set – and if they have been spelled out clearly – you can hold the relevant parties, including yourself, accountable. This could mean ensuring that your team is sending out consistent information and messaging, as well as delivering a positive experience to partners. It also means finding new ways to support underperforming partners.  

Always give partners access to partner analytics and insights that can help them improve their sales and marketing efforts. They can then craft more effective messaging that is relevant and resonates with their audience. You can also use the data to gain a better idea of what’s working and which partner actions are driving revenue – then double down in those areas.  

⭐️  Partner program example: Lookout empowers partners with a go-to platform   "Our partners are our extended salesforce, and our partners’ success is our success. We wanted to provide the best partner experience and have everything in one place for them to navigate." - Dinara Bakirova, Global Head of Channel Operations  Learn how Lookout's emphasis on a partner-first experience helped them rapidly reduce manual work, centralize their partner data, and more.   Read the full case study here .    

How to build an automated partner program  

How to build a channel partner program? It starts with automation and tools that can help you validate the ROI of your growing program.  

If you’re doing everything manually, you’re going to find it extremely challenging to successfully scale your channel. By automating time-consuming manual processes, you reduce the amount of effort and cost required to run your program. Besides helping you do more with less effort and cost, automation can also track and prove ROI on your efforts.  

It goes beyond your team, too. Channel leaders who run successful partner programs know that delivering a great partner experience is essential. To do that, they need a tech solution that provides an optimized experience, with delightful PX and no friction. 

It's possible with Impartner.  

Each day millions of partners in nearly every industry across the globe access Impartner. Why? Because the partner experience matters and leading channel organizations agree. 

Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning channel management software on the market. Our  partner relationship management  (PRM) and  partner marketing automation  (PMA) solutions help companies accelerate revenue and profitability through their indirect sales channels at every partner lifecycle touchpoint. 

From partner training and onboarding to pipeline management, resource sharing, and performance tracking, Impartner handles it all and more with best practices and automation built-in.  

Need to accelerate your partnerships? We’re ready when you are.  

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How to Create a Channel Partner Engagement Plan in 30/60/90 Days

Channel news directly into your inbox.

business plan for channel partner

Channel partner engagement is both essential to – and a reflection of – the strength of your partner relationships.

No partner engagement plan can generate long-term results with a partner that isn’t a fit for your company and its services. make sure you’re targeting best-fit partners upfront., every partnership is different. different partners may require different engagement processes., make sure you’ve got what you need to drive engagement. partner engagement requires that asset- and partner-enablement processes are in place., in the first 30 days, you and your partner will learn about each other – including the value you can deliver your partners via incentives – and set goals., 60 days into your plan, you’ll be educating customers and helping them start to sell your solutions., at the 90-day mark, you’ll be making refinements with partners where needed, starting up your quarterly business reviews (qbrs), and helping your partners go to market with your solutions more extensively., at 12 months and onward, you’re celebrating a successful partnership and keeping the relationship refreshed and renewed through ongoing communication, regular meetings and goal alignment..

It stands to reason that increasing your partner engagement program’s stickiness can help you keep a steady stream of partner revenue flowing. Keeping partners engaged is what long-term channel success is all about, after all. And it’s essential to building those big revenue engines that make the channel such a powerful tool for growth.

In our most recent column detailing partner engagement best practices , we turned to a panel of partner engagement experts and asked them to share some of their best insights for increasing program stickiness. They covered everything from the program challenges to re-engaging inactive partners – all good, actionable advice that can help you get your arms around a complex and challenging subject.

To help put that into a timeline, we asked those same experts to break down a successful engagement program into steps at the following milestones: 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and 12-months-and-onward. Before we dig into those, here are three tips to help you set up your engagement program for success:

TIP #1: Target the Right Channel Partners for Your Company

Steve Braverman

Think of them like buyer personas your marketing team develops for retail customers, but instead of helping you target the right accounts for your services, they help you find the right partners to distribute your services.

Steve Braverman , Founding Partner for EagleTEQ Advisors , stresses the importance of this process. “Be selective about the partners you’re onboarding,” he says.

Rackspace Global Partner Manager Vicki Patten agrees. “Don’t try to boil the ocean and be everyone’s partner,” she says. “Focus on great-fit partners and [technology services brokers] that are truly trying to grow with the solutions that you offer. Build strong relationships with those people who can drive their ecosystems to you.”

TIP #2: Tweak the Engagement Process to Meet the Partners’ Needs

For the most part, our experts identified broad trends that you can apply to most business models. But before we dig into those 30/60/90-day benchmarks, it’s essential to recognize that different partners may require different engagement processes.

“Based on their criteria, you can know how to onboard them,” says EagleTEQ’s Braverman, who has experience in technology services broker agency leadership. Once you “understand a partner’s business,” you can “help them understand your business and explain who their touchpoints will be in your company.”

That criteria may not be their business model but the situation at hand. Jeff Mattan , Vice President of Global Partner Programs at BeyondTrust , noted, for example, that the engagement process may be accelerated if there’s a deal on the table. “This all changes if the reason you got engaged in the first place is because the partner has a deal to work on with you,” he says. “In cases like that, it’s a lot faster on-the-job training exercise engaging with the partner and customer.”

TIP #3: Make it Easy for Partners to Engage

You won’t drive partners to engage with you if you don’t make it easy for them. Like you, they’re stretched thin and seeking efficiency at every turn. Channel enablement is essential to onboarding and foundational for driving partner engagement.

30 Days: Getting Started on Your Channel Partner Engagement Plan

We tend to harp on the importance of making a good first impression with partners, but that’s only because it’s true. The first 30 days represent the first big moment of truth for your channel partners in their experience with your company. It’s no surprise that the experts we interviewed had more to say about those first 30 days than any other timeline benchmarks.

Your engagement plan is part of the total partner experience and should sync with your channel partner enablement framework.

Here are some tips from our panel of partner engagement experts:

Get to Know Your Partner

Partners are like everyone else in our overscheduled world – pressed for time but also feeling like nobody has time for them, either. You can get an edge up over your channel competitors by simply scheduling time to learn about your partners and find out what they expect from the partnership and how you can help them alleviate pain points and grow their businesses.

“[In the] first 30 days, I’m just getting to know partners’ businesses and what makes them unique in their own way,” says Tony Burns , Channel Account Manager for Mitel . “Some partners are smaller guys, some are larger, so it’s important to know what their particular goals are.”

Help Partners Get to Know You, Too

Eric Brooker

“[Exactly what we address] depends upon the partners,” says BeyondTrust’s Mattan. “Generally speaking, at 30 days, you want partners registering for the portal, taking training and meeting the sales teams. [All the] standard onboarding activities that allow them to learn about you… while you also learn about them by ongoing interaction.”

Eric Brooker , Vice President of Sales for Bigleaf Networks, also emphasizes learning and looking at partner engagement metrics right away. He says his company’s goals for the first 30 days include “getting them through the initial discovery meeting where we determine if we are a fit, providing them portal access, measuring their portal usage [and] getting them through our certification process.”

Jim Tennant , Head of Channels at Replicant, introduces partners to the product offering and target audience and begins discussions about aligning toward common goals.

Set Goals to Keep Partners Engaged from the Beginning

There’s no single rule for a successful partnership – every relationship is unique. But if there’s such a thing as a universal component to success, it’s aligning and setting goals. If you’ve been following our series of blogs with advice from experts across the channel, you’ll have noticed that goal setting is a hot topic. It cropped up in interviews with engagement experts as well.

Vicki Patten

  Jackie Funk , Director of Channel Marketing at Appgate , says her firm includes sales, sales engineering and marketing alignment in the first 30 days. 

Offer Incentives to Jumpstart Engagement

“Be sure that your programs incentivize partners,” says Mayka Rosales Peterson , Senior Manager, Managing Partner Program for AppSmart . “And offer the support and tools they’ll need to be successful to sell your solutions and products – there’s value in that.”

“On the technology services broker [agency] side,” she adds, “make sure you’re educating partners (campaigns, webinars, etc.). Be the person who can market [to] the partners’ people. Give them the marketing that they need. Many partners struggle with marketing. Being that person to help them with prospecting, lead gen, brand awareness, what have you, is a full partnership.”

60 Days: Drive Momentum Toward Sales Goals

In month two, you’re planning activities to reach your shared goals and beginning to execute against those plans. For all practical purposes, the momentum phase starts now. It’s also a good idea to review your partner’s first 30 days and fill any onboarding gaps they identify. Here’s some advice from our expert panel:

Solidify Your Plans

Now is the time to take what you’ve learned from your partners – and what they’ve learned from you – and put plans in place. “In 60 days, I want to have a solid plan for the activities that will drive activities to enable partners at both the technology services broker [agent] and subagents’ companies,” says Rackspace’s Patten.

Just as with goal setting, listening to your partners and getting buy-in on your plans can help you keep your goals front and center. “Schedule an agreed-upon plan that includes cadence of communication and specific activities that are aligned with each other’s initiatives, goals, milestones of success,” advises Jim Tennant from Replicant.

Jim Tennant

Help Your Partners Begin Selling

Note that Funk included initial execution with her planning. She’s not alone in that. Many firms emphasize sales collaboration and begin the process of joint selling during this window.

“At 60 days, [channel partner] onboarding continues, and I’d want them to graduate to things like jointly talking to customers as they typically aren’t ready to do it themselves,” says BeyondTrust’s Mattan. “This gives vendor sales teams the opportunity to prove it’s a two-way street by having partners sit in on sales calls and demos.”

In some cases, moving to this step requires education and getting your partners to reframe their perspective and approach. “[At] 60 days, I’m educating,” says Mitel’s Burns. “Partners are so smart, but sometimes, you have to show them a different way or change the way partners view things.”

90 Days: Get into a Rhythm for Partner Engagement

In the third month of working with new partners, your partnership should hit its full stride. Sure, there’s still work to do – that will never stop – but at this point, you can start drumbeat meetings, focus on performance, and help your partners help themselves.

Check Progress Against Goals

“In 90 days, we should see the pipeline building and also have the first Quarterly Business Review to check progress against the goals,” says Rackspace’s Patten.

Funk from Appgate also gets QBRs underway at this point, along with building on earlier planning and execution. At the 90-day milestone, she emphasizes:

  • Quarterly planning (goals and tactics to achieve them)
  • Demand generation
  • Field execution
  • Ongoing training and enablement

Jackie Funk

For his part, Mitel’s Burns focuses on being an extension of the partner’s business. “90 days in, I’m really just trying to serve as that extra arm,” he says. “I’m an extra member of their team that they can rely on for little and big things.”

Help Partners Stretch Their Sales Wings

Depending on your business model, you may want your partners to begin taking independent sale steps at this point.

“At 90 days, ideally you want to see them start to approach customers on their own and bring you in as needed instead of relying on you so much,” says BeyondTrust’s Mattan. “I’d also like to see them start to use some of the marketing tools we make available for partner use.”

12 Months: What Comes Next?

Reaching the 12-month mark with an active, engaged partner is a significant milestone. It’s an important anniversary for both companies that’s worth reviewing and celebrating.

Jackie Funk at Appgate says their organization conducts an annual evaluation, which includes reviewing alignment, evaluating wins (to replicate success in all territories) and checking that the sales/marketing engine is running smoothly. This ensures that Appgate is investing in the partners who are helping to drive revenue and pipeline.

At this point, the partner relationship should be running as planned. In other words, they’re likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if there are hiccups. However, they’re still a hot target for your competitors, so don’t rest on your laurels or take the relationship for granted.

Conduct and Continue QBRs

Leading up to this point, you will have developed your partnership, closed business, reviewed metrics and refined your objectives.

“Over 12 months, we should see our first sales closing together and continue the QBRs, and reset goals as is appropriate,” says Rackspace’s Patten.

Replicant’s Tennant also sees driving engagement in long-term partnerships as a matter of consistent communication and realignment. “Conduct QBRs to review and fine-tune [everything you’ve done to date], review pipeline opportunities and [what you’ve learned across the partnership],” he says.

Leverage Data and Deeper Connections to Drive More Sales

Data analytics on such things as portal activity, use of marketing campaigns and other marketing materials, and leaderboards can help to fuel your relationship long term. Both parties have a role to play in that equation.

Mattan of BeyondTrust likes to see partners engaged deeply with his organization at this point. “At 12 months, I’d love the partner to be a regular visitor to the partner portal, running our marketing campaigns, engaging more with our sales teams than our CAMs (channel account managers) and leveraging our sales tools to help their customers and making money from both sales and services,” he says.

Mattan also remains engaged, helping partners benchmark their performance levels and sharing the activities that have proved to move the needle. “On my side, I’d be sharing leaderboards on their various activity levels that drive combined pipeline,” he says.

business plan for channel partner

Laz Gonzalez

Laz Gonzalez is Chief Strategy Officer at Zift Solutions. A prominent industry analyst and thought leader, Gonzalez brings unparalleled channel expertise to Zift and has served as strategic adviser to leading B2B channel programs worldwide.

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3 Steps to a Successful Channel Partner Program

3 Steps to a Successful Channel Partner Program

Channel partnerships are a high impact strategy for growing your company and a good partnership can provide access to new customers and references that bring in business. Follow these action steps to define, refine and secure a channel partnership. Step 1: Determine a channel partnership

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Channel partnerships are a high impact strategy for growing your company and a good partnership can provide access to new customers and references that bring in business.

Follow these action steps to define, refine and secure a channel partnership.

Step 1: Determine a channel partnership strategy

A channel partner distributes goods and services. There are three major types of channel partnership options to distribute your product.

1. You sell through your partner.

Product companies sell their product through a third party storefront. Retailers are partners to products they think will sell with their customers. 

This is the case with AppExchange on Salesforce, the AppStore for Apple or any marketplace. Another classic example is GILT Groupe, who partners with brands like Calvin Klein and Quicksilver, providing distribution by promoting products at discounts. This is a powerful strategy, acting as a source of potential customers as your partner grows.

2. Your partner sells with you.

Here, partners sell your products as an upsell or missing value proposition. Any company that offers your service as a way to expand their offering fits into this category. For example, a car reseller might work with a bank to upsell a car loan, or a software vendor might complement its offering with another partner.

When Microsoft embeds an antivirus demo in its operating system, or when online services like Box bring in security providers to complement their enterprise offer, they are also employing this strategy.

3. Your partner sells for you.

Any partner acting as the promoter or seller of your product falls into this category. This partner is 1) a sales and marketing partner using marketing and sales resources to promote your product to new markets, or 2) a value added reseller, using your service as part of their own service offering. This provides additional value in the operation of that service, instead of simply selling it.

This is the case in any distribution partnership, from your local supermarket, to more traditional distributors. This is also the case in an OEM partnership, like Dell selling computers with Intel processors inside.

This scenario is the most complex because you have to make sure that your partner has an incentive to sell your product.

Step 2: Identify relevant partners and grade them

There are a number of factors to consider to ensure a partnership is relevant and profitable:

  • What market reach do you need? A local partner might be faster to “close” than a national partner, and could be helpful if you are targeting a niche market.
  • Do they complement your product? Determine how each partner might help you reach your goals.

How well does your solution fit the need of the customer? How likely are your partner’s customers to purchase?

Once you have a good sense for each partners potential, score them:

  • “A” partners have the above traits in spades. A deal with these partners is likely to be very impactful.
  • “B” partners have these traits to a lesser degree. These partners might drive less revenue but may be faster.

Step 3: Develop a coherent plan for reaching these companies

Now that you have established criteria for partners, reach out to these companies and establish a connection. Here’s how:  Start with companies that will take a chance with you.

B partners are more accessible than A partners. These partners may have a small, regional customer base but could be fast to work with, and willing to take on new products.

If your partner is selling your product, develop a relationship with their sales team. By doing this, they are more likely to suggest your product.

Develop a compelling value proposition and pitch it to that company. Position your company as a value add to the partner. Does your product help a company drive profits? Your offering should add revenue to your partner’s product line.

Step 4: Drive growth through your partners

Channel partners boost sales, decrease time to market, and provide access to competitive markets. So get started on building channel partnerships today.

Clement Cazalot  ( @clementc ), co-founder & CEO of  docTrackr  –  document control software  for businesses and salespeople – that is distributed through channel partners like Microsoft SharePoint and Box. On Twitter:  @docTrackr .

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How to Develop a Successful Channel Partner Strategy

As technology startups and other emerging businesses grow, they typically start by developing revenue through direct sales, either via product-led initiatives, inside sales, or a combination of several direct-to-buyer strategies. However, there’s almost always a transition point when these organizations must identify and pursue additional routes to the market to achieve their strategic goals. 

These businesses often turn to channel partner sales to accelerate growth, break into new geographies, or reach new market segments. In fact, Forrester found that 76% of companies believe channel partnerships are key to achieving their revenue goals.

However, the success of these partnerships lies in an organization’s ability to recruit the right mix of partners, then nurture and develop those relationships over time. 

A channel partner strategy enables your company to achieve its goals through indirect sales by helping you connect with new partners, measure the success of your existing partnerships, and improve penetration through resellers. 

In this blog, we’ll explore the benefits of partner-led sales and walk you through the process of developing your first channel partner strategy.

What is a Channel Partner Strategy? 

A channel partner strategy is a sales plan that ensures your organization has the right mix of channels, partners, and capabilities to sell your products. Your partner strategy should align with your broader business goals, helping you accelerate growth and support your customers via partners and resellers. 

Each organization’s strategy will differ based on its sales goals, customers, and target markets. Even so, there are several ways to ensure your partner program is effective and profitable. 

Before you start recruiting partners or activating resellers, collaborate with internal stakeholders to: 

  • Identify your customers’ needs depending on size, location, the products they buy, and the type of service they expect to receive.  
  • Determine which types of partners you need to serve your customers and sell your products or solutions. 
  • Outline key objectives for your partner program that relate to your organization’s overall revenue goals.

Why are Channel Partners Valuable During Times of Market Volatility?

Market volatility can significantly stunt growth by increasing customer attrition, investor uncertainty, and pricing competition. To combat these trends, businesses must accelerate revenue through every available avenue — including indirect channel sales. 

Channel partners can be extremely valuable, especially in challenging economic environments. A well-designed partner program is a highly efficient way to increase revenue through resellers. However, these programs do more than simply boost topline sales. 

An effective channel partner strategy boosts revenue, increases brand awareness, and strengthens your presence in new markets or verticals. But to bring your strategy to life, you need the right mix of partners by your side, and the ability to nurture those partners over time. 

How to Create Your Channel Partner Strategy 

Your channel partner strategy should be efficient, scalable, and mutually beneficial. Developing that strategy starts with recruiting the right partners. 

You’ll want to curate an ecosystem of partners that bring diverse capabilities and selling power to your program, so you can strategically target key accounts or reach specific customer segments. 

Unfortunately, many businesses struggle to identify which new partners to recruit and how to maximize the value of their existing channel partners. 

Sales leaders often rely on a combination of historical performance data, feedback from field teams, and third-party sources to inform partnership decisions. 

While all of these insights are important, they’re also somewhat insular. Subjective internal input and low-quality data don’t provide enough context for sales leaders. Plus, it's nearly impossible for organizations that operate this way to accurately identify partners that will add significant value to their business.

Instead of relying on several limited data sources, inform your channel partner strategy with high-quality data that enables long-term planning. It takes time to develop profitable partnerships — successful partner programs are built on multi-quarter and multi-year horizons. 

Beyond taking this multi-year approach to partner development and planning, here are several ways to activate a successful channel partner strategy:

Define the Goals of Your Channel Partner Strategy 

The ROI of your channel sales strategies hinges on the partners that bring them to market. As you identify new partners, consider not just their independent success but also how well they align with your larger sales strategy. 

Before you create a list of potential partners, identify the top priorities of your channel program . You’ll need to determine your partners' role in the value chain and how they’ll support your business objectives. 

Here are some example questions you might use to determine the primary objectives of your strategy: 

  • Do you want to penetrate a specific market alongside established local partners? 
  • Do you want to generate new sales across territories and product lines? 
  • Do you want to find partners that support specialized capabilities or services? 
  • Do you want to optimize your solution stack to increase customer success ? 

While most partner programs include traditional resellers, those aren’t the only types of organizations you can work with to accelerate growth. You’ll likely rely on a combination of partners, depending on the areas of opportunity in your current markets, growth plans, and preferences for white labeling. 

As you define the goals of your channel partner strategy, think about the types of partners you want to recruit , such as:

  • Value-Added Resellers
  • System Integrators
  • Independent Software Vendors
  • Original Equipment Manufacturers 

Check out the glossary below to explore more types of partners and how they support channel sales strategies.

Carefully Curate Your Partner List 

Now, it’s time to start identifying new channel partners by type, capability, region, and other differentiating factors. But with hundreds of thousands of potential partners available, finding the perfect match can feel impossible. 

Rather than choosing partners based on rudimentary research or your field teams’ best guesses, tap into meaningful, high-quality data to identify the best partners for your business . 

Advanced data analytics tools like Coro’s Partner Sonar  analyze real-time data to help you source channel partners across multiple industries and geographies that can support your sales needs as they evolve. Use Partner Sonar to narrow down thousands of options to a short list of your best-fit partners based on custom criteria that align with your business goals.

Nurture and Grow Channel Relationships

Effective recruiting is integral to a successful partner program, but your strategy shouldn’t end when new partners come on board. Channel partnerships are long-term, two-way initiatives. 

Just as your channel partners invest their skill sets and time in learning to sell your products, they want a partner that will support them over the years, both financially and strategically. 

Lead generation is one of the most impactful ways to support your channel partners. Along with sourcing these leads, you should bring your partners in on open deals and involve them in relevant sales opportunities whenever possible. 

As you grow your partner program, track performance and profitability at the partner level. Then, prioritize your time and marketing spend around the partners with the highest revenue potential . 

If you’ve already established some opportunistic channel partnerships, now is the time to integrate those existing relationships into a scalable partner strategy. Review your experiences with existing partners to identify which tactics worked well and which fell flat. 

These insights can inform your future recruiting and partnership management efforts. Rather than starting from scratch, you can iinvest in partners similar to those you've found success with in the past. 

Provide Support and Account Management 

Along with strengthening partnerships at a high level, provide your partners with tactical, day-to-day support so they can sell your products effectively and progress toward your shared goals. 

Here are several ways to enable your partners and keep them aligned: 

  • Establish routine communication and be clear about your priorities and expectations from the start. 
  • Be consistent and coherent in partnership goals , aligning partner incentives with your sales principles. 
  • Invest in sales training for partners so you can pre-identify and solve roadblocks to selling. 
  • Take an active role in each partnership ; don’t wait for problems to arise to get involved in your partners’ business operations.
  • Make it easy for customers to find your partners by promoting their services and sharing their contact information directly on your website. 

As your partner program scales, you might be tempted to roll out multiple incentive programs or introduce a flurry of new ideas to your partners. However, added complexity often slows down growth — and creates friction between you and your partners. 

Instead, take a programmatic approach to your channel partner strategy, and prioritize alignment from day one. Take it one step at a time, and make it easy for your partners to see the value proposition of working with your organization.

Inform Your Channel Partner Strategy With Partner Sonar’s Powerful Data 

Channel partners can be an invaluable resource for revenue growth and expansion, but only if you have the right partners by your side. 

Partner Sonar, Coro’s proprietary channel management and optimization solution, gives you access to a global partner database and consulting-grade analyses that update regularly as the market evolves. Organizations can leverage the insights within Partner Sonar to: 

  • Find new channel partners
  • Develop profitable growth strategies
  • Plan or execute new product launches
  • Assign territories efficiently and effectively

Partner Sonar’s user-friendly interface allows you to find partners across multiple capabilities, plus curated searches that align with your specific needs — whether you want to reach new territories, increase sales, or add new capabilities to your partner ecosystem. 

See how one tech vendor used Partner Sonar to maximize the value of its current partners and identify new partners to sell next-gen products, resulting in a 43% increase in global channel sales. 

Read the Case Study

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Partner Program – The 14 Steps to Build Your Reseller Channel Program [Updated 2024]

Partner Program - 14 steps to build one by Daniel Nilsson

How can a reseller channel partner program help you?

Katrina Razavi, a business development professional, helped a B2B startup increase annual revenue by 1,983% and increase user base by 1,000% within six months…without any upfront costs.

Personally, I have helped a small startup in Sweden acquire 100 of the world’s biggest telecom operators as its customers.

How did we do this?

Yes, you guessed right. We attained success by developing a well-designed Channel Partner Reseller Program.

Channel Partner programs are so powerful that even multi-billion tech companies including Microsoft , VMWare , Oracle , eBay , Mailchimp , Shopify, Citrix and thousands of others use it.

Despite its huge success, creating successful partner programs isn’t a piece of cake. It takes time, effort, and most importantly, strategic planning. I have tried to make it simpler for you by introducing this 14-step process.

A well-designed partner program is the formula to power your sales to Legendary levels.

Like my other blog posts and presentations, this article is also based on my personal experiences and reviews from industry experts. I am sharing my conclusions here so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

What is a Channel Partner Program? 

The definition of a channel partner program is: “A Channel Partner Program is a strategy to motivate and engage channel partners to create more value for customers.”

If you want to understand the definition in detail read my article by clicking here.

The defintion of a channel partner program

Before you start…

Business goals, vision, and executive support.

Before you start developing your own Channel Partner Program, there are a few important factors you need to keep in mind: business goals, vision, and executive support.

Creating a professional reseller channel partner program is a big investment of time, effort, and resources. This is why it is essential that the partner program you want to create is aligned with the company strategy and business goals. This is also why it is essential to have executive support before you kick-off the process.

Business planning partner channel program

Now that you know what you need to take care of before you start, let’s go on to learn how to create your very own professional partner program.

Its creation is not a straight line

The creation of a Partner Program and Channel Sales is not a straight line . It’s a lovely mess that gets more clear and straight the more you study and develop it. If the world or your business changes suddenly, you may have to start over.

creating a partner reseller channel program is not a straight line

Step 1: Define a value proposition

A solid value proposition automatically gives you an edge. It’s the number one thing to define because it will determine whether people will bother learning more about your solution, services, or product.

Defining a value proposition is about letting people know clearly what they will get out of using your product or service. You can use some tools to define customer gains, pain points, and rank what is more important for them. The next step is always to compare your value proposition with that of your competitors, what the market wants, and available alternatives. Once you have this data, you can define a solid base value proposition.

Personally I use Strategyzer's Value Proposition Canvas. It is a great tool to think deeply about customer jobs, gains they want and pains they have. When we understand the customer in detail we can better describe the value we provide in a way that the customer finds interesting.

If you want to learn more about value proposition design, check out my article titled How to Create a Strong Value Proposition for B2B . I also recommend that you read How to create customer profiles / buyer personas for B2B Sales and How I Broke the Code for Advanced Value Proposition Creation Design .

When you and your prospect customers understand the value proposition clearly, it will be much easier for your channel partners to pitch your product or service to people.

Create a Value proposition for your reseller channel partner program

Step 2: Create a customer-centric sales process

Customers now know about your solution. So now what? There’s still so much to do.

You need to understand the entire buyer journey for the customer and design a sales process. What steps are involved in the sales process? How many steps are there? What needs to be done at each stage of the sales process? All these questions need to be answered in detail.

But when you create the sales process, it is important that it is from the customer's perspective. It should be customer-centric.

Read my article How to Design a Sales Process for B2B Sales that explains how you can create a better sales process and improve your sales result.

customer-centric sales process reseller partner channel programs

Step 3: Benchmark competitors

Ever heard of the phrase, “Keep your friends close, and enemies closer”? You must apply it to yourself. Essentially, you need to understand what your competitors are doing.

Try to get a deeper understanding of your competitors' partner programs. What is their target audience? How have they organized it? What benefits are they offering customers? What kind of relationships are they developing with their channel partners? How well is their channel program turning out? What is their structure for channel sales and channel partners?

This data will give you a lot of insights before you even begin offering your partner program and developing your channel sales. You will know what is working and what is not.

Understand your competitors when you create a channel partner program

Download 'Build a Partner Reseller Program' as a beautiful presentation

I have created a beautiful presentation you can use at meetings and share with colleagues. It is free to download.

Step 4: Define the type of partners

The success of a partnership and channel sales lies in the value each party gets out of it. So your channel partnership largely depends on what value you are building for your customers.

define type of channel partners and how channel sales should be done

For that, you need to identify and define the type of partners that may be relevant to your business and choose the best among them.

Do remember that a partner is any company or organization that can help you deliver more value to your customers.

Here are a few examples of channel partner types who might be relevant for your business:

  • Value-added Resellers (VAR): A company that resells software, hardware, and/or networking products and provides value beyond order fulfilment.
  • Managed service providers (MSP): A company that remotely manages a customer’s IT infrastructure and/or end-user systems, typically on a proactive basis and under a subscription model.
  • Consultants : An experienced individual who is trained to analyze and advise a client in order to help the client make the best possible choices.
  • System Integrators (SI): An individual or business that builds computing systems for clients by combining hardware and software products from multiple vendors.
  • Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM): A broad term whose meaning has evolved over time. In the past, OEM referred to the company that originally built a given product, which was then sold to other companies to rebrand and resell. Over time, however, the term is more frequently used to describe those companies in the business of rebranding a manufacturer’s products and selling them to end customers.
  • Independent Software Vendors (ISV): Makes and sells software products that run on one or more computer hardware or operating system platforms.
  • Distributors: A distributor is an intermediary entity between the producer of a product and another entity in the distribution channel or supply chains, such as a retailer, a value-added reseller (VAR) or a system integrator (SI).
  • Agencies : This could be design agencies, marketing agencies etc. They are good channel partners for platform providers of web hosting, web sites and e-commerce sites.

Step 5: Success factors

You now understand the kind of sales process you must design and what type of channel partners will be the most suitable for your business. It is now important for you to understand what are the critical success factors that will enable your channel partners to close deals.

What are these critical factors? Is it a proof of concept? Good support? Pricing structure? Or efficient project management?

Make sure to list all success factors and then rank them in order of importance. Create a plan for each success factor. For example: If proof of concept is important, you must create a plan for how you will provide this to your channel partners. You will need to create instructions and processes and will also have to educate and train your partners on the subject.

In short, you need to create a framework that will ensure your channel partners understand what you have defined as critical success factors and are equipped to achieve them.

Step 6: Define motivational drivers

Everything looks good. You have the right value proposition, sales process, channel partners and have defined critical success factors. But what will drive your channel partners to act on these success factors?

This is probably one of the most creative parts of all the 14 steps. Here, you need to think out of the box. Define what elements can motivate your channel partners and determine what actions you will need to take to help your channel partners become better at delivering key success factors.

Let’s say you have determined that 'proof of concept' is your key success factor. You will then need to educate and motivate your channel partners to convincingly demonstrate the proof of concept to customers. You could also show them how they can reap huge benefits if they do so.

From my experience, there are several motivators for channel partners. Below I list the six most important ones. For my complete list of motivators, do read my story: Channel Partner Programs & Channel Sales: 4 critical elements of success.

  • Money:  Many people think this is the primary motivator for channel partners. While this is a common motivator – after all, which company doesn’t want to make money – it is just one of many. You need to make sure that the effort your partner puts in corresponds to the revenue you offer them.
  • Happy customers : When your customers are happy with your product or solution, they are likely to become repeat customers or recommend it to others. This is a great motivating factor for your channel partner (and you).
  • Education programs : We all like it when people invest in us – be it in terms of money or resources. Many businesses develop really useful education programs for their partners, which act as great motivators. But do remember, developing good education programs requires a considerable investment of resources. So if you are taking the trouble to design these programs, make sure they are really good.
  • Amazing sales tools : Giving your partners high quality sales tools of the kind you would give your own internal team is a sure shot way to motivate them because very few channel sales and partner programs offer great tools.
  • Leads : Often, businesses get leads that they pass on to their channel partners. This acts as a great motivating factor too.
  • Certifications : A badly implemented or maintained product or solution is terrible for the business – both for you and your partner. This is why you must ensure that your partner understands your product in and out and has the ability to problem-solve when required. Several businesses motivate their partners by offering them hardware and software certifications. Partners see this as proof that you are invested in their growth. Additionally, customers tend to trust partners who are ‘certified’ by the company (think Apple and Microsoft partners). This is a win-win for you and your partners.

There can be other secondary drivers as well. For example, pushed sales process focusing on extensive follow-up, lead nurturing, and closing deals. Or inspiration by delivering consistent marketing content focusing on inspiring partners.

Step 7: Define the Motivation & Engagement programmatic elements

Motivation & Engagement elements refer to the effort and values you will deliver to channel partners to help them become successful. It also encompasses how you choose to deliver it.

The purpose of constructing Motivation & Engagement elements is also to create a culture of partnership and understanding. It signals that you care about your channel partners and their success.

Define programmatic elements reseller channel partner program

Here are a few examples of Motivation & Engagement elements.

1) Education platform

If you’re into inbound marketing, you are likely to have heard of HubSpot , a developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing, sales and customer service. HubSpot has implemented this strategy perfectly.

You can create an education platform that delivers education and knowledge to your channel partners in the form of text, video, papers, and certifications. Some businesses require their channel partners to complete partner certification to certify their knowledge level. Such certifications may also be important for partners to reach the next level in partnership hierarchy.

Having an education platform for channel partners is great for business because it ensures that your partners are as good as you are in selling your product or solution. When your partners reach out to leads, they will project a good image of your brand and your customers will experience a professionally-delivered sales process.

2) Development forum

For integration partners, it is important to have full access to a technology platform to create new solutions, improve, and manage current solutions. The development forum consists of manuals, APIs, technical documentation, support, and a forum where issues can be discussed in the open. Shopify is an example of a company that does this well. It has great resources for its tech partners.

3) Lead generation platform

The idea here is to distribute the leads generated among the channel partners.

Sometimes, small deals are better handled by channel partners that have efficient sales processes to handle small deals. At other times, some other channel partners may be better placed to deliver value to certain potential customers, increasing the likelihood of them closing the deal.

A lead generation platform allows you to manage all this without you having to put in much effort.

4) Support platforms for channel partners

Channel partners need to have full access to support manuals, instructions, videos, forums, etc. Customer support is identified as a key factor for success. It is important that the customer experiences excellent support during the proof of concept phase and after-sales phase to make sure that deals are not lost.

Up Strategy Lab & Daniel Nilsson

Step 8: Define responsibilities and expectations

You and your partners are a team. Now it is time to decide who is responsible for what. Focus on customer experience and define all activities and categorize them. The idea is to define roles clearly so everyone is on the same page and understands what part they will be playing in the sales process.

Define responsibilities between channel partner and you

The first step is to define activities that need to be done. Try to make all these activities granular enough so they can all be assigned to either you or the partner.  Also, make sure that you define expectations. What do you expect from channel partners and what can they expect from you?

Now when everything is clear, you can assign responsibilities to your channel partners as well as your own team.

Here are a few things that your partners can expect from you.

  • Deliver pre-qualified leads
  • Deliver professional & knowledgeable support during pre- and post-sales process.
  • Deliver education programs that help the partner to understand the possibilities.
  • Provide a certification program .
  • Provide a best of breed solutions .
  • Create events & programs that help partners to connect and start to build better solutions that provide more value for customers.

And here are a few things that you may expect from your partners.

  • Channel partners will help you grow your business through sales and marketing activities.
  • They must focus on the customer and deliver excellent solutions that deliver true value to the customer.
  • They must be knowledgeable and constantly evolve with the market.
  • They must attend events and connect with other partners with the intention to build improved and new solutions.

Step 9: Define a framework

Imagine how you categorize your friends – some are close, some are casual, then there are those whom you meet occasionally. Defining a framework is like that. It is about organizing your partner relationships.

Partner framework for SMB

If you are small or medium business and are  about to create your first partner program, I strongly suggest you do not create official levels such as "bronze", "silver" and "gold" channel partners. This is because: 1. It's complicated to create and manage. 2. It costs time, money and resources. 3. It is complicated to explain. 4. For some SMBs, I have seen it creates sales issues.

Even if you have the capacity and resources to create such a complex framework, sometimes your channel partners may not have the internal resources to handle the various differentiations that being a "bronze", "silver" or "gold" partner entails. So just don't.

What you should do instead is to have an internal understanding about: 1. Who is your ideal partner 2. How do you understand and measure if your partner is performing.

This will help you to determine what channel partners you should focus on.

Partner framework for large organizations

Larger organizations have the resources and time to create a more complex partner framework. They can organise the framework in many different ways. It all depends on what works for them.

A good way to start is by defining partner program levels such as “bronze”, “silver” and “gold”. This framework helps organisations identify which partners are more involved in the partner program. These partners can then be given incentives. Some software companies, for instance, give their “gold”partners a lot of free software as a return on their investment in the partner program.

The different partner levels also work as motivation. By joining the education program and getting certified, the channel partner can achieve higher partner status and consequently, get more benefits.

Here are a few examples of channel partner programs from Evolve, Accelerys, HP, and Cryptzone.

Example channel partner program 1

Step 10: Build internal capacities and systems

Now that you have everything strategized and planned for your reseller channel partner program, it is time to make it a reality. Start by creating a list of all those tasks and infrastructure you need in order to build and start executing your partner program.

Create all marketing materials ready including sales presentations, brochures, videos, and educational material. Also, implement IT systems that will give technical support to your partner program. This step is essential because it will help you in the long run when your partner list grows.

Here is a list of needs you might have in each aspect of your partner program.

1) About the program–general documentation

  • Partner Program Operation Plan – Resources, time, organization chart, systems, sales.
  • Legal agreements.
  • Internal PowerPoint explaining the program.
  • Account manager expectations on partners.
  • Internal manual for the partner program.
  • Information on how a channel partner can get pre-sales help and support.
  • Information on how to manage leads and what is expected by channel partners.
  • Partner selection matrix.
  • Partner program roadmap presentation.
  • Co-op fund structure.

2) Marketing

  • Sales presentations that partners can use to sell your solution. If you want to learn how to create a sales presentation for channel partners click here.
  • External sales PowerPoint to explain the program.
  • Partner certificate.
  • Training certificate.
  • A two-page brochure explaining the partner program.
  • Webpage where the partner program is explained and marketed.
  • All marketing material that will enable partners to sell the solutions.
  • Write specifications, select and implement IT-system for a partner portal were partners. can log in to get access to all material.

3) Education platform

  • Create a specification for an IT-system that can host the education platform.
  • Select IT-system and implement it.
  • Establish training and certification curricula.
  • Produce training material in the form of videos, presentations and text.
  • Create tests so partners can certify their knowledge level.

4) Development forum

  • Write specifications, select and implement a development forum in the partner portal.
  • Make APIs available in the forum.
  • Add manuals and instructions in the forum for how to use the API.
  • Add examples of how to use the API in the forum.
  • Add "Get Started" videos to the forum.

really good solutions partner channel programs

Apart from this, as mentioned earlier, you may need IT-systems to manage your channel partners. The best way, however, to do this is to integrate it into your current CRM system. And the best solution for this would be Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM .

For IT-systems to enable education management, I would recommend that you use Citrix GoToTraining or Learnster . There are other good solutions as well such as Mindflash , Articulate , and Coursio . For support systems, you could explore Front , Intercom and Salesforce .

Motivation in partner program

Step 11: Define how to measure success

Whenever you have objectives, it is important to define the parameters that will decide whether you have achieved your objectives or not. Define the parameters of KPI (Key Performance Indicators) to measure your success.

Make sure what you define as KPIs are from the perspective of the success factors you had defined for your channel partners. Once you have decided what they are, make sure your IT support system calculates KPIs automatically.

Step 12: Develop a marketing strategy

This marketing strategy is for your partners. Use the SOSTAC model for this. You can find its template here . It is clear and easy to follow.

SOSTAC model Partner Program Daniel Nilsson

Create a clear target audience because that’s one of the most important things your channel partners need to understand. Use frameworks like RACE (Reach, Act, Convert, and Engage), 5S (Sell, Speak, Serve, Save, and Sizzle), and 7P (Product, People, Place, Price, and Promotion).

Step 13: Create a partner selection strategy

You should have a clear idea about who your target audience is for partners, just as you are clear about who you want as your customers. If you are not clear about this, you will waste time, money and effort on partners who cannot bring value to you or to your customers.

Each new relationship is an investment and it is important that you define characteristics or attributes of the ideal channel partner required to address a particular market segment. This will help you to decide what channel partners you would like to invest in and build a deeper relationship with. Define how many partners you should recruit and set a target.

You can do this easily by downloading my free channel partner selection matrix .

Partner channel program organization

Step 14: Build a focused channel partner organization

Beyond systems, there is the human element to building a successful partner program. It is important that the structure of any partner organization is rooted in the philosophy that members of the partner team remain connected to many different internal organizations in order to deliver desired results.

Building, maintaining and growing a healthy channel ecosystem requires input from all parts of an organization.

Up Strategy Lab & Daniel Nilsson

9 success factors for your reseller channel partner program

  • Remember to keep the customer front and center: Every investment you make should, in the end, benefit the customer.
  • Match your solution to the proper channel: This includes all your marketing material and information.
  • Communicate often: Make sure that channel partners have all the information they need to become successful.
  • Monitor and measure the program: There is always room for improvements.
  • Resist making frequent changes: It takes at least 90 days after a contract is signed before you can expect to see any sales at all. Don’t change your program too often. Instead, focus on your program elements and how to deliver them even better.
  • Be clear about what the channel partner should do: Make sure that your expectations are clear and that they are aligned with your partner's business model.
  • Support channel partners before, during and after the sale: You can do this with technical and sales assistance to help them grow their business.
  • Monitor your competitors: Your competitors will often be pitching to the same customers. So make sure you keep your partners educated & informed about anything your competitors may say about your product or solution and train them to rebut it.
  • Launch and work with a partner council: This council will represent a cross-section of your channel partners and will help you to keep a finger on the pulse of your channel’s satisfaction levels.

6 potential failure points

  • Once you have created your program you stop improving it: A successful partner program demands constant engagement and improvements.
  • Lack of clarity: Make sure that you have truly defined what you want your channel partners to do, and that they are motivated enough to do it.
  • Geographic diversity: Beyond the obvious differences between mature and emerging markets, there lie governmental, financial and cultural differences. Consider these when designing a first-time channel program.
  • Investment in systems and resources: Without the appropriate allocation of resources, even the best program can’t come to life. While you can outsource some parts of the program, internal resources are still required.
  • Diverse channel ecosystem: Each channel partner type has unique requirements, expectations, and perspectives. Be flexible with systems, programs & sales initiatives to maximize investments across a greater partner base.
  • You have not signed up the right channel partners: The partner you have signed up fails because there is a mismatch between expectations and the partner's business model.

Example of how I built a hugely successful channel partner program

Read my article - How I built a hugely successful channel partner program and you can too (In-depth) . It's a concrete example of how I built a partner program from scratch in 2015. The partner program was so successful that over three-and-a-half years, we recruited over 30 partners from all over the world who were instrumental in signing on over 100 of the world's biggest mobile operators as customers.

Here are some free tools on my website that will make the process of creating a partner program easier.

  • Channel partner selection matrix
  • Example sales process
  • Partner program elements
  • How to create an amazing sales presentation for channel partners

Creating a partner program is not a journey from A to Z. It is a continuous process. You must update your program from time-to-time so that it is in tune with market trends. The essence, however, lies in all the 14 steps that we have discussed. Keep coming back to each of them periodically and I am sure you will never be lost.

More reading

I constantly add articles and new insights. You have all my articles about channel partner programs collected here, and below you have some recommended reading.

  • Channel Partner Programs & Channel Sales: 4 critical elements of success

Sales presentations can make or break your channel partner program: An expert’s guide on how to get it right

What is a channel partner program, how i built a hugely successful partner program and you can too (in-depth).

So, there you have it…14 steps to create a professional channel partner program. Please remember, an amazing partner program doesn't stop after these 14 steps. You need to continue to improve and innovate your channel program every quarter. The market, your competitors, your offering, and partners continuously innovate, and you need to make sure you keep up.

Presentation Reseller Channel Partner Program

I have created a presentation that you can use for your internal discussions about partner programs. Add your email in the box below and I will send it to you.

business plan for channel partner

Similar Posts

How to create an effective sales presentation.

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Please check out Up Strategy Lab, my company where we deliver real strategies to scale businesses. We are based in Gothenburg, Sweden. If you happen to be in the area, do send me an email, and we can arrange to meet  for a coffee. I look forward to hearing from you. All the best Daniel

Building a Partner Program: Channel Partner Go-To-Marketing (GTM) Guide

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business plan for channel partner

Introduction

This is part two of our series on building a successful, engaged partner program. find part one here..

You’ve built the foundation for a strong partner program – you have executive buy-in, you’ve created your standard operating procedures and you’re starting to bring in partners. What’s the next phase?

To really leverage the investments you’ve made in launching your channel sales program, the natural next step is to develop a go-to-market (GTM) strategy. This is the best way to fully experience the advantages of successful partnerships with increased revenue, expanded reach and boosted credibility.

Whether you’re working with partners for the first time with a newly-launched program or looking to improve your channel strategy to better align with overall company goals, there are many parts to this next big step. We break it down from figuring out partner types and tiers, to creating the right content and assets, to setting up a competitive commission structure.

Planning: Building a Go-To-Market Strategy

As you optimize your channel partner strategy to support business goals of increased revenue or expanded reach, it’s important that the partner side of the equation is front and center., partnerships can play a powerful role in supporting overall company objectives by helping set your organization apart with deep integrations, value-added services and increased brand awareness., what is a go-to-market strategy.

A go-to-market strategy is a plan to engage with customers, gain competitive advantages and coordinate messaging as you launch a new product or service, or enter a new market. Partnerships can play a hugely beneficial role with all these goals.

Align your partner strategy with clear business objectives. For example:

What product are you selling and what key differentiators set it apart from your competition?

Who is your target market and what are their pain points?

How can partners help you break into a new market, either geographically or vertically?

How will you reach your target customers?

A partner-focused GTM strategy can be an incredibly effective way to indirectly promote your channel partner program and help set you apart from other vendors as an organization worth partnering with, ultimately helping with both partner recruitment and retention.

Set realistic partnership goals

As you think about goals, increased revenue will certainly be on that list in some form or another. But revenue shouldn’t be the only metric to measure the partner program success .

Consider the big picture of where your organization is heading and the wider company goals. Let’s say, for example, that you are trying to break into a new vertical like government contracts or healthcare. Or if you are looking to expand into a new geographic area with language or cultural differences. Or you need to establish credibility with a certain customer base.

In any of these cases, strong partnerships can help achieve these goals over the long term by adding value, increasing your brand recognition and reputation and helping you scale in new markets.

While deals registered and sales closed are the ultimate indicator of success, don’t lose sight of leading performance indicators like engaged partners and customer satisfaction.

Identify your ideal partner

Building success with channel programs starts with having the right partners. And that means identifying ideal partners.

Start by listing out the must-haves and the nice-to-haves. Essentially, these are the characteristics an organization must have to fit your baseline criteria to be considered as a partner and those that would be an added benefit. That could be anything from the size or maturity of the organization, the geographic or vertical markets they sell to, or the extra value they can add.

One way to start thinking about what makes an ideal partner for your organization is by taking stock of what currently works. Even if you’re just now launching a formalized partner program, consider the unofficial partners you may have collaborated with previously. What kinds of partners in this ecosystem have been successful?

For example, you may have seen great returns from partners who actively co-market with you. Those that waited on you for leads, rather than generating their own, may not have been as good a fit.

The ideal partner profile often consists of some basic specific requirements like:

A key part of identifying the right partners is considering what verticals and geographies they work in. Ideally, your partners will help you fill in any market gaps you may face.

Working with partners in countries where you don’t have your own sales presence, for example, is hugely beneficial in helping you go-to-market. Their deeper understanding of the language and culture is crucial for breaking down communication barriers with prospects. Furthermore, a partner that built up trust with that region’s customers will lend credibility to your organization.

Likewise, partnering with an organization well-versed in industries that are new to you is invaluable. Not only can you leverage the connections and relationships that your partner has, but you’ll gain key insights into the nuances of the industry – unique requirements to be successful, for instance, or even new ideas for in-demand feature additions.

Once you have your list of must-haves and nice-to-haves, it’s important to also think of red flags or criteria that means an organization would not be a good fit for your channel sales program. These are often the opposite traits of your ideal partner profile – they sell to the wrong markets, their financials aren’t in order, or your overarching business goals aren’t aligned.

Of course, sometimes the best partners on paper aren’t the best fit in practice. An organization may have strong ties to a market you hope to break into, but if they aren’t upholding your company’s brand name and values – that relationship won’t work.

They may have a stellar reputation, but if they don’t have their own client relationships or way to secure their own leads – that may not work with what you are looking for from a partnership.

The best partners [for us] are specialized in their verticals or geos, they bring in steady deals such that we can forecast the pipeline from them, and they promptly respond to and take care of the leads that we send to them."
– Nikunj Sanghvi,
   VP of Alliances and Business Development at Caspio

Growing: Getting GTM Partners

You’ve identified your ideal partners and how they fit into your overall go-to-market strategy, but how do you grow your partner program and recruit those potential partners?

Start by figuring out what partner types you need, what partner tiers you will build and how you will support those partners for long-term growth.

Partner types and tiers

Deciding how to categorize your partners based on their activities, engagement, or performance is an important part of setting up a successful GTM strategy. Having partner types and tiers firmly established then informs other parts of your partnership, including expectations and commission structures.

Consider the types of partners you’re currently working with and if there are any gaps that could be filled.

The types of channel partnerships could include any of the following examples:

These partner types will be part of the equation when you’re thinking about tiering and setting up a commission structure.

Partner tiers are a way of ranking partners by what they do and the results they generate. Top tier partners, as the name suggests, are those that drive the most revenue and so receive the greatest benefits.

The way to structure your partner tiers will depend on your organization, partner types and compensation parameters. But typically it’s a sliding scale based on the partner requirements (training or certifications, for example), benchmarks, and corresponding reward system.

Some examples of popular ways to tier partners include:

  • Member, Partner, and Premier Partner
  • Registered Partners, Silver Partners, Gold Partners, and Platinum Partners
  • Partner, Elite Partner, Elite Plus Partner

The starting tier, for example, may simply require a partner to complete the required registration paperwork and complete a few onboarding modules. In return, they would receive a set percentage of the sale as commission – say, 5 percent.

A higher level tier, on the other hand, could require the partner to maintain specific certifications or accreditations related to your product, have a minimum sales goal, or co-host marketing events. As compensation, they might receive a higher commission – say 10 percent – as well as additional rewards like market development funds or increased visibility in your partner directory.

Thoughtful tiers that tap into how your partners want to participate and how they want to be rewarded are a useful way to incentivize partners and hold them accountable, while also allowing you to scale your channel ecosystem more easily.

business plan for channel partner

Recruiting and onboarding partners

Identifying ideal partners and how they can help you fill market gaps is part of the equation but, at the end of the day, a partnership is a two-way relationship. It’s equally important to consider how you might be an ideal partner to them and what makes your program compelling.

The value you provide is an important part of your recruitment messaging . What makes you stand out from other vendors? What’s your commission structure or compensation packages? What other perks or opportunities do you offer?

Successful partner recruitment isn’t just about the incentives you offer, although that often is part of the attraction. It’s also about how you can support and enable your partners in their growth – through robust back-end infrastructure, sales enablement, demand generation, business development, or other features.

Make sure you understand your partners’ individual goals and motivations and – crucially – how partnering with your organization helps them achieve objectives.

Recruitment is just one step in a multi-step engagement process, and it’s not the ultimate measure of success. Enablement and retention after that initial entry point are equally important. And a big part of that is supporting your partners and setting them up to progress, starting from the onboarding phase .

Understand why they’re coming to you, provide accessible and easy-to-digest training, and start rewarding them from the get-go for being a part of your community.

business plan for channel partner

Supporting: Creating the Right Content and Assets

Content is king, and not just for your prospects.

Whether you’re onboarding a new partner or arming them with marketing collateral, the right content and assets are foundational to setting your partners up for success.

Each piece should have a clear purpose and be part of a larger channel content strategy in order to tease out its full value. And, of course, keep materials timely and updated to remain relevant and value-rich.

What kind of content do you need?

The ideal content depends on your audience and your strategic GTM goals. The best way to think about it, however, is through the lens of what would be most useful for your partners – what they can take, learn from, brand for themselves and use to accomplish their objectives.

Along similar lines, make sure that you have content that supports partners at all stages of their journey with you.

The good news is that you likely don’t need to start from scratch as much as you might think. Much of what you have already developed for your internal sales department will be helpful for partners.

For one, your partners are an extension of your sales team and so will benefit from some of the same types of collateral and enablement. Secondly, this helps create consistency in your sales voice and tone. Partners are representing your organization and so it’s key that they understand not just your product, but also your brand. You may need to tweak the material slightly, however, if it is too granular.

That said, you will need to develop some new content partner-specific material – like technical content about how the partner program works, for instance, or contact lists.

Content management tips

Creating the right content is one thing, but organizing it all into an easily accessible form for partners is another question.

The first step to managing your content effectively is to have a single location to store and share the material with partners.

One of the benefits of using a PRM system to house your content over other types of content management software is the flexibility it provides. Not only can you share assets, but you can also collaborate on co-marketing campaigns with partners and make it easy for them to co-brand materials themselves.

It’s equally important to make sure that your content is tailored to your partners’ needs. Even similar partner types, in similar tiers, aren’t monolithic. Two mid-tier value-added resellers, for example, might be selling to different verticals or struggling to close deals for various reasons, or simply need additional support at different stages of the buyer’s journey.

Part of creating tailored content is making sure that your partners can easily access it. A content library tool in your PRM should let you automate who can access what to make sure the right content is reaching the right audiences.

And, as with any marketing or sales strategy, knowing what’s working and what needs tweaking is key to success. With PRM software you can track engagement with your content to see what’s resonating and what’s not. Measuring your channel content’s effectiveness – by looking at metrics like content clicks, the number of co-branded materials created or engagement – is just as important as creating the right content pieces.

People tend to look for the magic solution or the blueprint. There’s a reason why so many partnerships fail – because there is no blueprint to copy. They are all unique.
Start with a partner strategy and make sure you’re not making the mistake of just repeating what other people do and then being surprised that it doesn’t work for you.
– Martin Scholz,
   Co-Founder of PartnerXperience

Engaging: Activating and Motivating Partners

Once you’ve made the investment of recruiting the right partners and setting them up for success, it’s important to continue finding ways to activate and motivate them.

These kinds of efforts require a feedback loop from partners to make sure that they continue to feel engaged – it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it strategy.

Engagement and touchpoints for partner activation

What does an activated partner look like? It’s not the same as enlisted or onboarded – it goes much deeper than that.

Actions that indicate activation might include:

You see why activation is worth the effort. The payoff can be huge. But getting there takes time and effort.

The best tactics to increase channel partner activation are many of the same ones you may be thinking about to increase overall engagement in your partner program, like:

  • Managing expectations from the beginning
  • Providing opportunities for growth, in addition to compensation
  • Offering ongoing support and training
  • Winning together with co-branding and co-marketing campaigns
  • Creating an engaged community of partners

Ultimately, though, figuring out how to motivate and engage partners on an individual level – knowing what makes them tick – is foundational to successful activation.

A faux pas that a lot of partner programs do is they go ‘Here’s my rudimentary structure of rates and tiers’ and they launch into the market.
But they haven’t interviewed any of their key partners ahead of that to ask ‘Does that interest you? Does this excite you?’ And then they wonder why no one is pushing deals their way.
– Daniel Lancioni,
  Senior Director of Partner Success at Reveal

Commission structures and incentives

Without a doubt, incentives motivate partners and drive sales. Deciding what incentives to offer and setting up the right commission structure can be a bit more tricky, though.

In broad strokes, incentives can depend on the partner type and tier, the effort and investment they are putting into the sale, and the method of revenue generation.

A partner that is helping close deals is different from one that is acting as a referral. Resellers, for example, typically receive a commission of a set percentage for opening doors and making introductions. A technology partner with a deep integration that took more upfront investment from both parties, on the other hand, will likely have larger expectations about compensation for their efforts.

Of course, there may be times when your sales pipeline is slowing down and ramping up incentives quickly can reverse that. In those cases, you may decide to offer more competitive compensation for a set period of time as additional motivation.

Common types of incentives and commissions are:

One of the most important aspects of setting an effective commission structure and incentives are simply communicating with your partners. What is it that they want? What motivates them and why did they choose to partner with you?

Of course, there are constraints in terms of what you can offer a partner just based on the margins set by the business. But in many cases, there are ways to offer more tailored incentives that motivate individual sales reps or partner organizations that aren’t just more money.

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6 Key Tools for a Fully-Enabled Channel Partner

business plan for channel partner

Partners are third-party businesses that are authorized to resell your products and services. That description is a long way from the ideal partner (reseller) profile. The ideal partner organization is one that is motivated, trained, invested, capable and incented to grow your business. These enabled partners identify themselves as a primary business agent for your brand focused on selling, implementing, and servicing your products and services in their local market. The path to get all of your partners to this ideal level is through effective enablement.

Unfortunately, investment allocation in enablement tools and services is typically not a democratic process. The top 20 percent (Pareto) of most channel partner networks get 80 percent of the enablement investment because they have historically generated 80 percent of the revenue. It is important to continue to enable these top partners, but even greater growth potential exists by enabling other tiers within your partner network. Increasing investment levels in second and third tier partners can generate an even greater return on investment by activating entirely new classes of partners.

Once you have decided to make the investment, enabling in an empathetic and supportive way is the best approach to gain your partner’s trust and commitment to your brand. A great place to start is demonstrating your understanding of their business and their needs. Organize your enablement investment around the things that matter most to your partners.

What Your Channel Partners Really Want:

  • Path-to-Profitability Tools: Tools to help figure out exactly how to make money, and how much money they can make with your brand
  • Training Tools for Success : Real-time training tools that they can use actively while they are selling, servicing and marketing
  • Demand Generation Tools: Enablement tools and support to build and execute ROI-driven marketing campaigns
  • Tools for Helping Progress Deals: Tools and support to help close more deals
  • Access to MDF with ROI Tools: Access to MDF / Coop funds and ROI tools to help execute more successful and profitable demand generation activities
  • Access to Incentives with ROI Tools: Programs that will reward the extra sales efforts and also generate better ROI for the vendor and the partner

Each of these partner needs are matched with specific tools that you can make available to your channel network. This table defines the enabling tool category that aligns with each partner need along with the result and measurable outcomes you can achieve.

  • Path-to-Profitability Tools: One of the biggest concerns for your partners is their ability to sell and service your products profitably.
  • Problem Definition: Partners have had varied experiences with the different products they sell and service. Some have been more profitable than others to sell and deliver, and they approach every product or service they may invest in with a level of skepticism on how they’ll make a return on their investment.
  • Solution Description: They are looking for an ability to “prove it to themselves” that they can actually build a profitable business with your brand. They are looking to build their own custom forecast including modelling pricing, labor costs, labor hours, margin levels, and marketing and other investment levels. They are looking for the ability to create a custom profitability forecast in minutes to convince themselves that your brand is a good investment.
  • Enabling Tools (Partner Growth Modelling Tools) : This is a web-based tool where partners can create their own custom business plan and P&L in 10 minutes . This includes a growth plan by products, goals and strategies, pricing & margins, staffing levels, and marketing investments – all in 10 minutes. This creates a customized profit & loss statement, monthly for 3 years including detailed goals, strategies and summary. This plan is also updated with actual year-to-date sales at any time to do QBR’s (quarterly business reviews) for effective performance management with the partner. All of this data can be integrated directly into the vendor CRM system.

2. Training Tools for Success: Your partners are looking for real-time training and enablement tools that they can use while they are planning, marketing, selling, and servicing.

  • Problem Definition: The old adage applies where 80 percent of the new knowledge from a training class is forgotten the minute the participant steps out of the classroom. Traditional training is very difficult to turn into real-time work habits because it is disconnected from the doing of the work. Traditional training requires that participants use more mental energy to internalize the new facts and make it part of their regular work routine.
  • Solution Description: The best solution is to move the training into the doing of the regular work. Instead of training, offer your partners work-flow tools to guide them through business planning, marketing planning, incentive planning, and more effective selling. This will take much less time for partners and without realizing it, they’ll perform like highly trained and effective planners, marketers, sellers, and performance managers.
  • Enabling Tools (Work-flow Tools to be Used While Doing the Work): Ten minute web-enabled tools that are designed around the doing of the work will achieve two goals simultaneously. They’ll help your partners build well-defined growth plans, ROI-driven marketing programs, ROI-based proposals, and more profitable incentive programs while also training partner executives on how to do these activities more effectively.

3. Demand Generation Tools: There are many demand generation tools and services available, but few that show the partner how to budget, forecast outcomes and calculate ROI.

  • Problem Definition: There are many lead, opportunity and appointment generation tools and services available to partner marketing executives, but very few that help forecast leads, revenue, and ROI outcomes. The key need for partners is the ability to plan a mix of marketing activities, forecast the number and quality of sales leads that will be generated, and the estimated revenue conversion of these opportunities. The partner will then be in a position to evaluate the overall anticipated ROI from this investment in a range of marketing activities.
  • Solution Description: The best solution is to provide partners with a planning and ROI calculator independent from the individual marketing services to help calculate the budget and outcomes. These 10 minute tools allow partners to select the tactics they’d like to use, select the level of activity (e.g., list size, # of participants, etc.) and automatically calculate a forecast for the number and quality of leads, opportunities, and potential revenue that could be generated. This provides the partner with a plan for tactics, required marketing investment levels and a revenue forecast to make the business case for investment.
  • Enabling Tools (Marketing Budgeting, Forecasting, and ROI Tools): These tools provide the partner marketer a planning and simulation tool that creates an ROI-based plan with business outcomes in 10 minutes. The partner selects tactics, levels and goals and it automatically generates a customized plan complete with a lead, revenue, and ROI forecast. It also allows the partner to instantly simulate different marketing tactic mixes and budget levels to help model the ideal plan for their business.

4. Tools for Helping Progress Deals :The most difficult parts of any business-to-business sales process are the later steps. Partner sales reps need help to push deals with interested and open prospects through to close.

  • Problem Definition : Partner sales representatives have many products to sell, and it is very difficult to become and stay expert in each. Partner sales executives need the ability to deliver consultative selling to close more deals. This includes defining the needs of their prospective customers, matching products to these prospect needs, and calculation of the ROI and other impacts for buying. This needs to be done almost instantly in the critical final stages of the prospect buying process.
  • Solution Description : The ideal tool guides the partner sales rep through a selling process with the target customer in real time. The tool helps define the prospect’s needs, current products & services deployed, and plans for the future and creates a customized proposal for the prospect. This proposal includes product specifications, costs, business impacts, and an ROI calculated instantly.
  • Enabling Tools (Business Case Selling Tools) : Tools like this are best if they can be completed by the sales rep in 10 minutes or less with the prospect. This type of tool can turn a relatively junior sales rep with minimal training into a highly competent consultative seller. They help solve one of the toughest challenges in the sales process and are relatively easy to implement and train the sales team .

5. Access to MDF with ROI Tools: Forecasting and measuring the ROI on MDF (Market Development Funds) is one of the most challenging tasks for channel executives because resulting revenue is often delayed 1-3 quarters.

  • Problem Definition: MDF is very difficult to measure ROI because most funded programs are designed to generate sales leads or new sales opportunities, but not close new deals immediately. The actual closed deals and revenue most often come one or more quarters after the program has run. Channel executives need to measure the return on MDF investment by the direct impacts generated (e.g., number of sales leads, number of sales opportunities, number of appointments, etc.). The derived / delayed impacts (e.g., closed deals, revenue, & ROI) are more challenging to link back to the MDF spent in previous quarters.
  • Solution Description: The ideal solution provides your partners with tools to help them make the business case for investment in demand generation / MDF-funded programs. This should include the ability to set goals, select and budget tactic levels, and calculate a forecast and ROI. Enablement tools can help partners do this in 10 minutes. This will provide partners the expertise and discipline of accurately, consistently, and realistically forecasting the outcomes from their MDF investments.
  • Enabling Tools (Forecasting and Budget Calculator Tools): Workflow marketing, budgeting, and forecasting tools guide partners through a scientific and reliable budgeting and forecasting process in as little as 10 minutes. Partners select goals, choose from a set of appropriate tactics, add their list size, and configure the tactics for their campaign. The tool automatically calculates a budget, lead and revenue forecast and ROI from this campaign. This will improve the quality level of all partner-generated marketing campaign impact forecasts. It also makes it easier to track performance-to-plan in the current quarter along with MDF ROI on sales generated 1-4 quarters later.

6. Access to Incentives with ROI Tools: Partners love incentive programs that can motivate their team to hit selective targets, but the ROI is only optimized when partner’s goals align with vendor’s goals.

  • Problem Definition: Vendors typically create incentives to help drive certain behaviors or push certain products or services during selected quarters. They work well when the vendor’s goals are closely aligned with partner / resellers goals during that period. But if partner’s goals are different during this period, vendors are either paying for volume they would have received anyway or fail to maximize the return on incentive program investment.
  • Solution Description: The ideal situation it to provide incentive opportunities and have partners make the business case for gaining access to these incentive programs. Partners should set specific, time-bound goals for what they’ll achieve with these incentive programs which must be reviewed and approved before they gain access to these programs. Partner team members are then rewarded by both individual performance levels and for achieving the goals they committed to prior to the program started.
  • Enabling Tools (Incentive Program Planning, Forecasting, and Performance Management Tools): Partner incentive planning and forecasting tools make it easy for partners to plan how they can use them to motivate their team and estimate the impact they can have on revenues. A workflow process helps partners select the incentive program, configure the incentive levels, set quantifiable goals, and forecast program outcomes and ROI in 10 minutes. This planning and forecasting report serves as a business case justification for investment in a partner’s incentive program. It can also be used to measure performance-to-incentive plans in current and following quarters.

Enablement tools can turn a good partner into a high performance partner by streamlining many manual tasks and improving planning and forecasting steps. Some key success criteria for these enablement tools are as follows:

  • Complete in 10 minutes by the partner
  • Provide immediate output to the partner
  • Are easy to use with minimal or no training
  • Are fully integrated with the vendor CRM
  • Have the ability to measure performance-to-plan following the activity

Enabling your partners effectively with real-time tools may be one of the highest ROI activities you can invest in to drive more revenue through your partner channel.

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Top 10 Channel Partner Strategy Plan Templates to Optimize Your Distributor Network [Free PDF Attached]

Top 10 Channel Partner Strategy Plan Templates to Optimize Your Distributor Network [Free PDF Attached]

Nawsheen Muzamil

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Nowadays, affiliate marketing is becoming a side-hustle for many internet sensations. It is quite understandable that these influencers amass their commission out of the sales. But how does it benefit the manufacturer, seller, or the businessperson who willfully spend in this direction? 

The answer to this question lies in the enthusiasm that persuades a business owner to build a distribution channel network! But what is a distribution channel network, and why should a business owner invest in it?

Imagine you are a kitchenware manufacturer, and you want to create a flourishing business. But, how will you do that? You can start with advertising yourself and then look for distribution channels (online or offline) to help people purchase your products. These channels act as the contact points for your actual customers to buy your products and services. Thus, strategizing a strong channel partner community holds utmost importance. 

Here are some tips for you to create a robust channel partner strategy plan:

  • Look for viable channel partners — the influential ones or in direct contact with your target audience.
  • Work on strengthening your channel partner relationships. Reimbursement and amiability work wonders in this direction.
  • Offer technical support wherever needed. Conduct training and share product manuals to focus your marketing efforts.
  • If your multiple channel partners are working simultaneously, help them coordinate to avoid wastage of efforts, resources, and time. Unitedly, you can influence your customers and win over their trust.

If this discussion entices your need to create a foolproof channel partner strategy plan, here are our best set of templates to call your team to attention! These designs are crafted by industry professionals and can be customized by modifying the font, text, or color. Therefore, let’s dive right into them! 

Template 1: Channel Program Success Framework Strategy

Create a comprehensive channel partner strategy plan with this PPT template deck. Highlight your success factors and build an alignment to create a bullseye corporate strategy with this PPT presentation. Identify the channel program development and management support structures and sit with your team to deliver technical support at various stages in a channel program. Devise a full-fledged strategy with this 12-slide PPT deck, and make use of its infographics and charts to the fullest! 

Channel Program Success Framework Resource Corporate Strategy PPT template

Download this template

Template 2: Channel Engagement Strategy Presentation

Use this PPT deck to assess the channel engagement for your business. Address the existing engagement management framework to understand the marketing crossovers. Revise the channel management strategies, revisit the budget expenses in light of the outcomes, and devise an optimal channel partner strategy plan with this 9-slide PPT presentation.

Channel Engagement Strategy Resources Marketing Structure Management Framework Solution PPT template

Template 3: Channel Partner Market Scan Development PPT

Use this template to address your channel network and explore new market partners. Invest your efforts in creating ideal engagement strategies and evaluating value proposition channel profiles to find the ones compatible with your brand. Use the series of charts given in this design to dwell on your marketing channels, deduce the ideal number of customer touchpoints, and create the best yielding revenue sheet for a flourishing business.

Channel Partner Market Scan And Broadlist Development Partner Central PowerPoint template

Template 4: Channel Strategy Marketing and Distribution  

Here is a 61-slide complete deck to create a full-fledged channel partner strategy plan for your marketing and distribution activities. Use this presentation to analyze your market space parameters governing the choice of ideal channel partners, then devise means to attract the right partners in expanding your brand. Compile a full-fledged report with these richly infused channel strategy templates.

Channel Strategy Marketing And Distribution PowerPoint Presentation Slides

Template 5: Effective Channel Partner Program Elements

Here is a tactical template to perfect your channel partnership. Know the key to nurturing your channel partners and strengthening the distribution channel. This PPT template highlights the major elements of building a sound channel partner program, such as giving incentives discounts, offering technical training, sanctifying the partnership contracts, etc. Like any other product available with us, you can add your brand and market-specific elements as this slide are entirely editable and easy to work with. So, download it now and start creating effective channel partner strategies.

Major Elements Of Channel Partner Program PPT design

Template 6: Channel Partner Strategy Plan-5 Year Roadmap

This is a single slide template to create a five-year roadmap of the multiple phases of a channel partner strategy plan. Discuss the setup, alignment, outreach, enablement, and ramping with this path infographic. Assign objectives to those five years that need to be achieved in a step-by-step way by optimizing your distributor network.

Multiple Phases Of Channel Partner Strategy Plan Five Years Roadmap PPT template

Template 7: Channel Partner Enablement Strategy Plan 

With this PPT layout, focus on creating a channel partner enablement strategy plan to define your partnering goals, identify the target market, find the right prospective distributor channel and compatible partner. Finally, work on creating a result-oriented, realizable contract that allows the channel partners to coordinate with each other and you as well.

Channel Partner Enablement Strategy Plan Five Years Roadmap PPT template

Template 8: Channel Partner Transformation Strategy Plan

Here is another five-year roadmap to create a channel partner transformation strategy for your brand. Use this template to increase your brand awareness, distribution, and growth. Use this design to assign annual themes focused on validating the project prospects, identifying the market allure, determining the partner capabilities, shortlisting time, and aligning the marketing goals with your channel partners. 

Channel Partner Transformation Strategy Plan Five Years Roadmap PPT template

Template 9: Channel Sales Marketing and Strategy Plan

Acquiring channel partners is as important as maintaining them. Highlight the importance of licensing, funding, and equipping your channel partners with the proper product knowledge using this stunning template. Create a definitive channel sales marketing and strategy plan by identifying the core seven steps given in this design. Besides, use this presentation to create an optimal retail and e-commerce plan, equipping your partners with the products and correct information, granting and renewing licensing rights under viable contracts. So, download it to build long-lasting partnerships.

Channel Sales Marketing And Strategy Plan Including Licensing PPT template

Template 10: Distribution Channel Strategy PPT

This template offers a visual representation of your distribution channel. You can use this design to categorize your distribution network as a direct, one-tier partner, or multiple-tier partner, depending on your budget and market requirements. Besides, identify your best fit combination and create a subsequent visual sketch of your strategy with this template.

Distribution Channels Strategy PPT layout Inspiration

Determine your ideal distribution networks and deploy these templates to create a brand-specific channel partner strategy plan. Direct your team’s attention towards improving partnerships by looking for more viable channel partners and thus expanding the business to new geographical areas.

P.S : If you want to prepare a meticulous fintech pitch deck, explore this handy guide replete with well-designed templates.

Download the free Channel Partner Strategy Plan Templates PDF .

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The Essential Guide to Partner Planning

Build your partner planning framework.

Partner planning aims to have the right quantity of products in the right places at the right times to satisfy customer demand in an efficient, cost-effective manner. While the concept seems elementary on the surface, the complexity arises once you dig deeper. A channel leader must review their partner plan to ensure the strategy aligns with the company’s desired business outcomes.

Through years of experience and a rigorous approach, our team of channel experts at Spur Reply have identified five essential steps to guide partner planning.

Step #1: Understand the present strengths and weaknesses of current efforts

Step #2: know your growth levers, step #3 define the required ecosystem need, step #4 evaluate partner performance, step #5 create partner-level action plans.

Developing an understanding and maintaining a line of sight into the strengths and weaknesses of your channel strategy is integral to driving revenue acceleration through the partner channel. It is essential to review, analyze, and benchmark your teams’ and programs’ performance regularly and can be done using a model that examines 18 points of execution across six primary areas:

  • Are you set up to reach your strategic objectives?

Capacity planning: Do your existing partners deliver enough sales velocity to hit your targets?

Joint business planning : Are you ensuring your partners are aligned to the right goals?

Partner scoring : Do you know who the right partners are?

  • Have you created a model that will continually grow your base?

Partner business proposition : Is everyone aligned on the compelling reason you beat the competition?

Partner onboarding : Are you maximizing partner activations throughout your recruitment efforts?

Partner recruitment : Do you understand and act on the profile of your best possible candidates?

  • How good are your partners at selling your goods and services?

Campaign development : Do you know which partners are effective marketers of your solutions?

Go-to-market playbook : How aligned are your partners and field sellers to deliver unified joint sales?

Partner enablement : Are you arming your partners with the tools that help them with customers?

  • Are your costs-to-serve too high for you and your partners?

Channel incentives : Is your contra-revenue program driving value?

Deal registration : Does your program incentivize sales behavior or simply transfer margin?

Partner investment framework : Are you getting sufficient return on your other investments?

  • Do your programs keep partners loyal?

Cloud revenues structure : Have you made the same shift to the cloud as you expect from partners?

IP development : Do partners see you supporting their future IP development?

Partner program : Does your program deliver enough value to partners?

  • Do you execute most effectively and efficiently?

Partner co-selling model : Are you partner managers what’s expected?

Performance dashboard : Do you hold all stakeholders accountable to the same metrics?

Pipeline management : How central is managing a specific partner pipeline for your partner field sales?

Use these questions as a guide to review the performance of your channel programs. You should be able to classify the health of your channel processes as one of the following:

  • Unstructured (few formal processes in place)
  • Ad Hoc (processes defined as guidelines with limited adherence)
  • Advanced (multiple scenario-based processes in place)
  • Robust (automated processes adjust based on defined parameters)
  • Structured (formal process with disciplined adherence)

Formally benchmarking your programs and processes will then allow you to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your channel programs.

6 disciplines_CTA

Another critical element of partner planning is the ability to diagnose channel performance against a vendor’s strategic product focus and growth model. Spur Reply has developed the Growth Profile TM Strategic Model to help map product priorities to sales and partner performance in a quantifiable manner. The model is composed of 4 quadrants to classify which products are in each stage of the growth cycle:

Incubate - Break into new markets and technology by concentrating on research and development efforts with a new or existing channel or direct resources.

Optimize – Maintain sales with programmatic reductions by redirecting resources from low-performing elements to higher-performing elements to increase efficiency and effectiveness.

Perform – Maximize sales and current revenue flow with existing partners and direct sales resources.

Transform – Strengthen to scale or achieve performance leadership by recruiting new partners or adding additional direct sales resources.

Having a clear understanding of your growth profile is essential, as it quickly helps you determine the right strategic balance to recruit, grow, develop, or prune your direct and partner sales base.

Managing your partnership community to ensure it contains the right mix of partners is vital to sound channel management. Partner managers need to have both a full understanding of the company’s partner community and how to optimize the community’s performance — using five simple levers.

  • Contribution : What is the sales velocity of each partner? Sales velocity refers to how quickly the company converts leads to sales and the value of each of those closed deals over a set period. Almost everyone measures sales velocity, and you likely have data to calculate the rate for each partner.
  • Consumption : How effective is the partner at driving customer adoption and usage? If contribution represents revenue, then consumption is the increase in the average customer’s lifetime value through affiliation with the product or service.
  • Coverage : What markets does the partner cover? Your ecosystem capacity is influenced by the mix of partner types and the number of partners in each segment, as well as partner attributes such as customer served, business models, and solutions offered.
  • Capability : How aligned with strategic products is the partner? Capability is a combination of the partner’s knowledge and its effectiveness at bringing it to bear with targeted customers. Every revenue dollar is not equal when it comes to building a growth engine, and a partner’s capability is critical.
  • Commitment : How steady and certain are the partner’s results? Most partners work with multiple vendors, so loyalty is a crucial determinant of channel revenue. A partner’s commitment will affect how it contributes to your growth curve.

Planning should inform channel management activities such as data-driven models for recruitment and development, balancing engagements based on strategy and performance requirements, and testing partner business propositions across segments.

In the evolving channel space, leaders have limited resources to influence partners and meet business objectives, and a standard partner scoring system can boost partner value and returns. Partner scoring can reveal the strengths and weaknesses of each partner, revealing opportunities for potential incentives, management, and scaling strategies.

We believe that partner scoring should be more than a forecasting tool. The framework can help increase sales, improve ROI, and re-direct partner behaviors to high-value actions. Spur Reply uses a three-step approach for calculating a Partner Evaluated Revenue Capacity (PERC) score, considering both current performance and potential for growth.

  • Use the 5Cs to rank each partner. The 5Cs are Contribution, Consumption, Capability, Coverage, Commitment. For each, set weights based on your channel strategy and intricacies of your partner ecosystem.
  • Rate each partner into peer-levels using a simple five-star rating. Partners that score well in the 5Cs are 5-star partners and the scale should adjust down from there.
  • Calculate a final PERC score across the star grouping of partners in order to assess whether a partner is performing above, at, or below average for similarly sized partners.

The PERC score allows you to create an action plan for partners and even extend the model to get more value. You can evolve from the core model and customize your PERC score, create better dashboards, compare like partners, simplify research, and strengthen capacity planning.

The final element of effective channel planning is partner business planning, which improves your ability to set goals, manage commitments, and drive partner performance against benchmarks.

We recommend you track partners and build out your channel management strategy in five key areas:

Business Model – The design of a partner’s business

Industry Importance – The partner’s focus area

Product Focus – The products the partner highlights and emphasizes

Program Membership – Partner program membership and status

Vendor Alignment – The vendors your partner is working with

By developing a firm understanding of these five aspects and leveraging data-driven insights to adjust strategies accordingly, companies can optimize their channel management strategy and accelerate revenue.

While each element of an effective channel plan is individually important, none are successful in silos. The elements of a high functioning channel plan are interrelated as they inform and influence one another.

Set the right goals

When contemplating a successful partner channel, the more partners the better, right? The more partners you have re-selling, the more revenue you and your company will enjoy.

Why more doesn’t always equal better

When it comes to your partner strategy, more is not necessarily better. At a certain point, the right kind of partner becomes more critical to the success of your channel than the quantity of partners.

Learn how to get a better, more measurable return from your partners with our  whitepaper on successful channel management 

Spur Reply recently worked on a project at a large software independent software vendor (ISV) that develops ERP and CRM solutions. The company wanted to adjust and refine its channel strategy, which was large, and through data analysis, it was clear that some trimming was necessary for two reasons: an unbalanced partner community and too many partners overall.

Creating balance in your partnership community

The right mix of large and small partners is an essential for a well-balanced channel program. Too many times, a customer would be best served by the right partner, but with a channel that is oversaturated with them, the perfect match doesn’t happen. Capacity planning and economic modeling can help you look beyond just the sticker price on a partner relationship.

Efficiently supporting your partners

Every partner, regardless of size, quality, or ambition, needs support. Whether it’s incident response, training, or marketing, partners management requires budget, and partners not driving revenue can easily eat up your support allocations. Plus, if your channel is oversaturated, you can end up with too many partners chasing a limited number of customers. Avoid having so many partners that it limits your return.

Benchmark your channel efforts against your direct sales

Both direct and indirect sales are essential elements of your go-to-market effort. Channel leaders must never forget the most important reason for an indirect sales motion is scale. You have partners because they help you win customers, drive sales, and enter markets where you wouldn’t otherwise have the presence or meet the cost structure.

In an age where new products are hitting the marketplace at an unprecedented rate, companies are tasked with the challenge of developing strategies to find the right partners to sell the right products at the right time. You can optimize channel revenue and profitability with a robust understanding of the stage of your product in the growth cycle.

However, before you can develop a channel strategy based on your product growth profile, you’ll need to understand the elements of the growth cycle and how each one influences channel decision making.

What is Product Growth Mapping?

Spur Reply has developed a proven system for product growth mapping called the Growth Profile Strategic Model. The model is built upon the idea that products fall into one of four quadrants: Incubate, Optimize, Perform, and Transform. The model helps you map your product priorities to your sales and partner performance in a quantifiable manner and optimize profitability for each product.

The axes of the graph you’ll create are labeled “Percentage of Total Revenue” (Y-Axis) and “Percentage Growth” (X-Axis). The elements of the graph and their descriptions are displayed on the grid in the following order:

Incubate – Break into new markets and technology by focusing on research and development efforts with a new or existing channel or direct resources (bottom left quadrant).

Optimize – Maintain sales with programmatic reductions by redirecting resources from low-performing elements to higher-performing elements to increase efficiency and effectiveness (bottom left quadrant).

Perform – Maximize sales and current revenue flow with existing partners and direct sales resources (top left quadrant).

Transform – Strengthen to scale or achieve performance leadership by recruiting new partners or adding additional direct sales resources (top right quadrant).

Thresholds to determine when products move from one quadrant to another are set based on company size, product offerings in the market, and the amount of revenue each product drives. A company with one great product bringing in most of the revenue may set their percentage of revenue threshold at 5% so that it will include more than one product. On the contrary, a company with several extensive offerings may set their threshold for this axis at 10% or 15%.

For this example, let’s say for a company the percentage of revenue threshold is 10%, and the percentage growth threshold is 5%. A product in the incubate phase is growing at a steady rate but does not yet make up more than 10% of the company’s total revenue. Products in the transform quadrant are those that drive more than 10 percent of the company’s revenue and are experiencing growth higher than the threshold of 5%. Performing products are typically great products already at scale, accounting for greater than 10 percent of total revenue, but the growth has plateaued and is below the 5% threshold. Products in the optimize quadrant are being phased out because they are not growing enough and make up less than 10% of revenue.

Now that you have a good grasp of the model, we can look at how this influences the channel strategy for each product.

Why is Product Growth Mapping important?

Having a clear understanding of your growth profile is essential. It quickly helps you determine how to recruit, grow, develop, or prune your direct and partner sales base and invest in each product in the most efficient manner.

An important piece of context is that growing sales through partners means you need to use one or more of these strategies:

Convince current partners selling a different product begin selling a new product

Leverage current partners sell more of that same product

Recruit entirely new partners who have never worked with you begin selling a new product

Every partner growth strategy uses these three significant engines, so keep them in mind as you choose partners to sell your products.

How Product Growth Mapping affects partner choice

Within each quadrant — and the corresponding growth cycle phase — there are typical partners that sell products in each.

Starting in the incubate stage, the chances of recruiting new partners to sell relatively new products is slim to none. You don’t know them, they don’t know you, and chances are they aren’t overly familiar with the product. Instead, you will likely leverage partners you have worked with before and who you have an existing relationship. These partners often have a low-risk profile and have experience selling innovative products in an unproven marketplace.

In the transform quadrant, we see a completely different story. Now we rely on all three partner growth engines to sell a product. Current partners start to sell more of what they traditionally sold. Other partners are willing and excited sell a new product, and new companies from an entirely different space or an adjacent space view this as an attractive opportunity and jump in to sell the new product.

In the perform stage the product has reached maturation, and very few new partners are coming on because the market is already developed. The only exception is if the partner is a laggard in the marketplace, and this is the strategy they have adopted for this product. The focus here is to keep current partners selling, if possible, to stave off a deceleration of sales.

Once a product reaches the optimize quadrant, the strategy is to figure out how to pull back investment and roll partners off that product.

Also, channel managers need an investment model for each phase of the growth cycle. Most funds dedicated to product marketing should be focused on products in the incubate stage, even though they are bringing in little or no revenue as they ramp up. This money can be spent incenting partners or developing a joint venture to decrease the risk of selling a new, unproven product.

As you move through the model to transform and perform, you spend less money in each stage to fuel product growth because the products mature and gain traction in the market. As the product reaches the optimize quadrant, you want to invest as little as possible to keep the product afloat and devote resources toward the end of life milestones and rolling partners off that product. Having a consistent mathematical model that drives the investment strategy for the growth cycle is equally as important as having a sound partner engagement strategy in place.

Common mistakes to avoid

When developing investment and partner engagement strategies for different stages of the growth model, we often see two significant mistakes: selling a product before it’s ready to move from perform to optimize stage and developing an investment model based on the traditional cost-of-sale model.

The first mistake is incenting partners to sell a new product before a product is ready to move from the perform stage to the optimize stage. We often see new products cannibalize old ones, and sales of the old product are cut short because partners begin to focus all of their attention selling a new and exciting product. A vendor must be careful with their launch and incentive strategies to avoid this partner behavior.

The second major mistake we see is companies developing an investment model based on a traditional cost-of-sale model. Companies will spend their product marketing budget in the wrong quadrant, most often the perform quadrant, because it drives the most revenue. Instead, devote this budget towards a product in the incubate quadrant — even though the current revenue is low.

With technology changing so rapidly today, having a great product simply isn’t enough. You also need go-to-market efficiency and data-driven tools for managing partners and channel sales. Whether you are doing annual business planning or trying to determine your best partner strategy, knowing your growth profile is essential. You can quickly and efficiently assess which products are in the growth cycle and determine the right strategic balance to recruit, grow, develop, or prune your direct and partner sales base.

Roll it out to partners

Every business wants to accelerate its revenue, yet it’s a tough goal to reliably accomplish. Combining product advantage with go-to-market efficacy is the key to consistently achieving revenue acceleration.

You have a great product or solution but, in a market saturated with competition, you need an effective go-to-market and business plans to meet your goals.

How do you make planning valuable for both you and your partners?

The best partner business plans are mutually beneficial, helping both you and your partners to grow faster than your organic growth paths. To make sure the plans will deliver accelerated results, you’ll need to take a critical look at six areas of your business and answer the following questions:

  • Partner Selection : Which partners will help me grow faster?
  • Capacity Planning : Can I grow better through existing or new partners?
  • Performance Measures : How can I confidently measure partner performance?
  • Incentive Impact : Are my incentives rewarding or reflecting partner behavior?
  • PAM/CDM Productivity : How can I drive more revenue, and higher partner satisfaction, with my field resources?
  • Program Effectiveness : Do my programs make a difference with the right level of return?

Now that you have identified the necessary elements, it’s time to structure those them into a practical, adjustable plan. At Spur Reply, planning is a four-step process: assess, learn, plan, document.

Assess > Learn > Plan > Document

First, you need to set your goals and select your growth partners. It will require you to assess and analyze your partners’ growth profile. Specifically, you need to look at the difference between their organic growth and your desired growth for them. How can you get your partner’s growth up to a level that will reach or surpass your revenue goals?

Once you have your goals and growth partners set, you need to understand performance drivers and growth areas. Leverage the work you have already done for capacity planning and partner scoring to learn what you need from partners.

After you determine your most valuable partners, you can finally set up your plan . In this step, you will define business outcomes and partner commitment. A good business plan sets the right expectations by covering off on what the partner and vendor commit to across several components:

Partner Commitments

  • Outcomes – What are the business results you both seek?
  • Actions – What are the specific steps the partner will take to accomplish the desired outcomes?
  • Pro Tip – We recommend not micromanaging the partner. Agree to business outcomes, allow partners to deviate as needed, and hold them accountable to their results and agreement.

Vendor Commitments

  • Resources – Which staff, programs, and other tools will you provide to the partner?
  • Investments – What incentives are you willing to offer partners with the right performance?
  • Pro Tip – We recommend paying MDF slightly before partner actions to help drive capability and efficiency.

Now that you have your plan, you’ll need to document it and both of your commitments correctly, which involves sharing the plan and driving performance accountability. By sharing the business plan in this way allows all stakeholders to review the plans (the partner, the partner’s account manager, and whoever has corporate responsibility for outcomes).

As you go through the planning and documentation process, leverage the opportunity to make sure you understand your partners.

First, use your partner business plan to develop profiles for your partners by collecting information that allows you to benchmark future performance. Then, make sure you have set up a timeframe with performance milestones, specific outcomes, and investments based on rewarding performance against commitments and completion criteria.

With your partner planning process set up and documented, make sure to track your performance against the 5Cs in your Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs). Whether under, at, or exceeding goals, determine if you need to adjust the plan, reset the goals, or reallocate the investments.

No matter how developed your channel partner ecosystem, creating robust partner business plans will improve the go-to-market efficacy and revenue acceleration of your product.

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Create a Channel Partner Business Plan in 10 Easy Steps

Welcome to this step-by-step guide on how to create a channel partner business plan . As your business grows, effective partnerships become increasingly important. Developing a strategy to create and nurture your channel partner program is essential. A thoughtful and effective channel partner business plan creates a foundation for profitable partnerships and drives growth. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the ten steps to create a successful plan and drive revenue and growth through partnerships.

channel partner business plan

Starting from the basics of understanding the importance of your partner program strategy , we’ll cover everything from defining objectives and assessing your current channel partner program. We’ll also help you craft a partner enablement program , establish a partner incentive structure , and more. By following these steps, you can create a strategy that aligns with your business goals and maximizes the potential for success.

Understand the Importance of a Channel Partner Business Plan

Before jumping into creating your channel partner business plan , it is crucial to understand the significance of a well-designed plan. By crafting a thoughtful business plan, you can set your partnership up for success from the start.

A channel partner business plan is as crucial as your partner program strategy . It outlines your objectives, defines the roles of various parties, and highlights potential pain points you may encounter as you work together.

A comprehensive business plan aligns your partnership goals with your overall business objectives, ensures compliance with your business policies, and helps clarify communication channels, among other benefits.

Furthermore, a well-designed channel partner business plan helps track progress, monitor success, and optimize performance. A robust plan can also help you identify areas where you need to modify and improve your partner program strategy .

The image below highlights the benefits of having a channel partner business plan:

Benefits of a Channel Partner Business Plan

Define your channel partnership objectives.

Creating a successful channel partner business plan starts with defining clear objectives that align with your partner relationship management strategy. Your objectives should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound , or SMART. Here are some steps to get you started:

  • Identify your desired outcomes: What do you want to achieve through your channel partner program?
  • Assess your current position: What resources do you have that can help you achieve your goals?
  • Make your goals SMART: Ensure that each objective is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
  • Align your goals with your partner relationship management strategy: Your objectives should complement your overall partner management strategy.

By setting clear and concise objectives, you can effectively measure progress and ensure that your channel partner business plan stays on track.

Assess Your Current Channel Partner Program

Before creating a successful channel partner business plan, it’s essential to assess the effectiveness of your current program. This step assists in identifying areas that require improvement and helps create a partner marketing plan that aligns with your business goals. Take the following steps to evaluate your channel partner program:

  • Track sales data and channel partner metrics to evaluate performance and identify trends
  • Review partner feedback and communicate to better understand their needs and challenges
  • Assess your competitors’ channel partner programs and benchmark their performance against yours

It’s critical to keep a comprehensive partner marketing plan in mind while assessing your current channel partner program. Analyze how partners currently promote your products or services and pinpoint which assets are most useful in their marketing efforts. Doing so will help you to create a partner marketing plan that benefits both you and your partners.

Using this information, you can identify areas of improvement and develop an effective partner marketing plan that aligns with your channel partner business plan.

Identify Potential Channel Partners

Now that you’ve defined your objectives and assessed your current channel partner program, it’s time to identify potential partners. This is a critical step in creating a successful channel partner business plan and establishing a strong foundation for partnership growth.

Partner relationship management is essential in identifying and approaching potential channel partners . Begin by evaluating your current relationships and identifying any overlaps or gaps in your current partner network. Next, create a profile of your ideal partner based on factors such as industry expertise, target audience, and marketing and sales capabilities.

Use online research and industry events to identify potential partners. Engage with them on social media platforms, read their blogs, and explore their website to determine whether they align with your business goals and values. Be sure to also consider what value you bring to the partnership, and have a clear idea of what you’re looking for in a partner.

Develop a Partner Enablement Program

Are your partners equipped with the right tools and resources to succeed? A partner enablement program is designed to provide your partners with the necessary knowledge and skills to promote your products and services effectively.

Your partner enablement program should align with your channel partner business plan and include a variety of training modules, including product training, sales training, and marketing training. Customizable materials, such as sales presentations, battle cards, and case studies, should also be available to partners.

To create an effective partner enablement program, follow these steps:

  • Identify your partner’s needs and objectives
  • Create relevant training materials and make them easily accessible
  • Select a Learning Management System (LMS) to host your training modules
  • Measure the success of your training program and adjust as needed

Partner enablement is crucial for the success of your partnership program, as it helps to build trust and foster a mutually beneficial relationship. Don’t forget to regularly update and adjust your program to ensure it remains relevant and valuable to your partners.

Establish a Partner Incentive Structure

If you want to motivate your channel partners to perform at their best, offering an incentive program is a great strategy. However, a poorly structured incentive program can do more harm than good. Your partner incentive strategy should align with your channel partner business plan and be tailored to fit the needs of your partners. Here are some best practices for establishing a partner incentive structure :

  • Start by defining what success looks like. Which key performance indicators (KPIs) will you use to measure your partners’ effectiveness?
  • Select incentives that align with your partners’ motivations. Think beyond monetary rewards and consider other benefits that matter to your partners, like access to exclusive training or marketing resources.
  • Don’t rely on a one-size-fits-all strategy. Develop different incentives for different partner tiers or segments, based on their unique needs and goals.
  • Communicate your incentive structure clearly and regularly to your partners. Ensure they understand what they can earn and the actions they must take to get there.
  • Regularly review your partner incentive program and make changes as needed. Pay attention to which incentives are working and which ones are not, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

By implementing a well-structured partner incentive program, you can encourage your partners to go above and beyond, drive sales, and move your channel partner business plan forward.

partner incentive structure

Craft a Channel Sales Strategy

Now that you have identified potential channel partners, it’s time to develop a channel sales strategy that aligns with your overall business goals. Your channel sales strategy should focus on driving revenue and growth from your partnerships.

Start by setting realistic revenue targets for your channel partners. This will help you measure your success and identify areas for improvement. Next, you’ll need to determine your pricing strategy and decide on any discounts or promotions you’ll offer to incentivize sales.

Another key component of your channel sales strategy is your go-to-market approach. This involves deciding on your marketing tactics, such as email marketing, social media advertising, or content marketing, to promote your products and services to customers through your channel partners.

Remember to also establish clear communication guidelines with your channel partners to ensure they have the product knowledge and support they need to effectively sell your offerings.

By crafting a well-planned channel sales strategy, you can maximize revenue opportunities from your channel partners and foster strong, profitable partnerships.

Create a Partner Marketing Plan

Partner marketing is a critical component of your channel partner business plan as it helps promote collaboration and increases customer engagement. By developing a partner marketing plan, you can create a strategy that aligns with your overall business objectives and helps you achieve optimal results.

The first step in creating a partner marketing plan is to identify your target audience. This involves analyzing your ideal customer profile and defining the key characteristics of your target market. Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience, you can develop marketing messages that resonate with them.

Next, you need to identify the right marketing channels to reach your audience. This involves selecting the appropriate mix of tactics such as content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing. By choosing the right channels, you can maximize your reach and increase your chances of success.

Creating valuable content is another crucial aspect of any partner marketing plan. Your content should educate your target audience about your products or services while addressing their pain points. This will help build trust with your partners and increase the likelihood of them promoting your products to their customers.

To be effective, your partner marketing plan should also include a clear call-to-action. This could be a special offer, a free trial, or a demo of your product. By providing a clear call-to-action, you can drive conversions and measure the success of your marketing efforts.

Finally, it’s important to measure the success of your partner marketing plan. By tracking your key performance indicators (KPIs), you can see what’s working and what’s not. Make sure to regularly review your KPIs and adjust your strategies as needed to continue driving growth and success.

Implement Partner Relationship Management

Effective partner relationship management is crucial for nurturing strong partnerships and ensuring long-term success. Once you have established your channel partner program, it is crucial to focus on building and maintaining positive relationships with your partners. Partner Relationship Management (PRM) helps you seamlessly manage channel partner interactions and improve communication with your partners, allowing you to collaborate on joint business planning, performance management, and sales opportunities.

A successful PRM strategy involves creating shared goals, developing clear communication channels, and fostering a culture of trust and transparency between your organization and your partners. Here are some best practices for implementing effective Partner Relationship Management:

  • Set up regular check-ins with your partners to ensure open communication and build rapport.
  • Provide your partners with the necessary training and resources to ensure they have the knowledge and tools to succeed.
  • Create a clear sales and marketing plan that outlines expectations and goals.
  • Develop joint business plans that align with your partner’s needs and goals.
  • Establish a structured performance management program that includes regular performance evaluations and incentives to encourage partner success.

Remember, strong partnerships are built on trust, communication, and collaboration. By implementing effective PRM strategies, you can foster long-lasting relationships with your partners, improve your channel’s performance, and ultimately drive growth for your business.

partner relationship management

Drive Channel Growth and Measure Success

A well-executed channel partner business plan is key to unlocking growth and achieving success. To ensure that your efforts yield positive results, it is essential to measure your progress and refine your channel growth strategy . Here are some steps to consider:

  • Set specific, measurable goals for your channel partnership program
  • Track performance metrics such as revenue generated, lead conversion rates, and customer satisfaction
  • Analyze the data to identify areas for improvement and adjust your strategy accordingly
  • Continuously communicate and collaborate with your channel partners to stay aligned on goals and objectives

Remember, driving channel growth is an ongoing process that requires dedication and attention to detail. With a focus on data-driven decision making and collaboration, your channel partner business plan can help you achieve sustained success.

Congratulations on completing your channel partner business plan! By following these 10 easy steps and implementing best practices, you are well on your way to forging profitable partnerships and driving growth through your channel partner program.

Remember that your channel partner business plan is not a one-time task, but an ongoing process that needs evaluation and tweaking as needed. Continuously assess your performance, measure success, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Utilize the insights gained in this article to create a strong foundation for your channel partner program and develop meaningful partnerships that yield results. By crafting a comprehensive channel partner business plan, you’re empowering yourself to achieve success and drive sustainable growth.

Thank you for reading this article and good luck on your journey to elevate your channel partner program to new heights!

Table of Contents

Partner Business Plans in 2024: Why are They so Important?

A Partner Business Plan in 2024: Why is it so important?

Introduction

Business plans serve as a foundational framework that aligns the operational strategy of your partner firms with the overarching goals and expectations of your company. Tailored for each partner, these business plans outline specific sales, marketing, and training objectives that are designed to be in perfect sync with your organization's aspirations. These plans are indispensable tools for effectively overseeing your network, enabling you to evaluate and measure performance continually and, as needed, take strategic actions to bolster your partners on their path to success.

By collaboratively constructing business plans in conjunction with each partner, you foster a sense of cohesion within your indirect sales ecosystem. This shared roadmap ensures that all partners are working in synergy, collectively pursuing the identified actions necessary for accomplishing mutual success, further strengthening the strategic alignment between your firm and its partner network.

Develop Partner Bussiness Plan: Two Key Steps to Consider

1. know your partners well.

A thorough understanding of your partner network is a fundamental prerequisite for the successful development of partner business planning. Within your indirect sales ecosystem, business providers, integrators, value-added resellers (VARs), IT service companies, and resellers each operate within distinct logic and economic models. Acquiring deep insights into the nuances of each partner type is crucial for crafting business plans that align with both your partner's strategic objectives and your company's overarching goals.

Isabelle Castellanet, the founder of IXC, a firm specializing in Partners and Growth, emphasizes the importance of recognizing the diverse expectations and requirements of partners based on their typology. She notes, "Depending on the typology of its network, it is important to see that the partners do not expect the same information. A wholesaler, for example, does not require the same information and tools as a VAR, an integrator, or even a third-party publisher who prescribes or resells for you."

Recognizing these key elements in partner business planning ensures that your efforts are tailored to cater to the specific needs and expectations of each partner category, ultimately fostering a more productive and mutually beneficial collaboration.

2. Have a Well-Defined Global Business Objective

Creating a robust business plan in collaboration with your partner necessitates a well-defined and quantifiable overarching business objective. This objective must be crystal clear and expressed in measurable terms. For instance, it could be aimed at achieving specific milestones, such as:

  • Capturing more than 20% of the market share in France for your product;
  • Reaching an annual turnover target of "X" amount or;
  • Expanding your operations to attain 5% of the turnover in a new country.

This overarching business objective serves as the cornerstone upon which you will construct the business plans tailored for each of your partners. The core concept is to apportion individual objectives to your partners that harmonize with your global strategy. Consequently, each partner's unique business plan becomes an instrumental component contributing to the fulfillment of your company's overarching business objective. This strategic alignment ensures that the combined efforts of your partner network work in unison to advance your business toward its ultimate goals.

business plan for channel partner

Establishing a Partner Business Plan: The Objectives

Setting objectives within your partner's business plan is essential, engaging, and decisive for the success of the partnership. Aligned with the main objective of your business, these objectives, whether quantitative or qualitative, must be measurable and, therefore, quantified.

Set Quantitative Targets

Based on a careful analysis of historical sales performance, specific criteria such as outcomes, geographical location, and seniority within the partner network, distinct objectives will be strategically allocated to each partner. These objectives encompass a variety of key areas that guide their contributions to the partnership:

  • Business Objectives on Sales Volume and Turnover: Partners will be tasked with well-defined business goals related to sales volume and revenue generation. These objectives may be tailored to the partner's track record, the market potential in their location, and their historical sales figures. This approach ensures that targets are realistic and achievable, motivating partners to excel in their specific market segments.
  • Marketing Objectives through Event and Webinar Organization: In addition to sales targets, partners will also be entrusted with marketing objectives, which often involve organizing events and webinars. These events serve as crucial touchpoints for engaging potential customers and driving brand awareness. The specific objectives may vary depending on the partner's strengths and past performance, encouraging them to leverage their marketing expertise to enhance the partnership's overall success.

By customizing these objectives based on partner history and characteristics, the partnership becomes more adaptable and efficient, with each partner playing a unique role in contributing to the collective success of the collaboration. This tailored approach maximizes the potential for growth and achievement within the network.

Set Qualitative Objectives

Incorporating qualitative objectives into your business plan imparts a heightened level of professionalism to your partner network. This is especially pivotal when embarking on new indirect sales partnerships. Training sessions play a central role in this process, serving as a crucial avenue for partners to equip their sales teams with comprehensive knowledge about your brand. These sessions not only elevate your partners' understanding of your products but also empower them to embrace and disseminate your vision over the short, medium, and long-term horizons. This alignment ensures that they are seamlessly integrated into your strategic framework. As an illustrative example, you may set a target, such as achieving a certification for a specific number of "X" sales, within your business plan.

To ensure the optimal monitoring of your business plan and to gauge the progress of your partners, it is imperative to implement KPIs. These quantifiable benchmarks enable you to assess the attainment of objectives, offering valuable insights into areas where potential refinements or additional support may be necessary. By embracing KPIs, you introduce a structured, data-driven approach that ensures the partnership remains on a well-tracked trajectory toward realizing the objectives outlined in your business plan.

Have Regular Monitoring

In pursuit of ongoing refinement and shared operational efficiency, it's essential that these objectives are periodically defined and subject to regular monitoring. Constructing a business plan without a system for ongoing objective assessment is a critical oversight, as it can become too late to take corrective action should your partner deviate from their established objectives. To ensure the long-term success of your collaborative efforts, it's highly advisable to assess and potentially adjust objectives on a monthly basis, accounting for variances such as weaker performance in a specific month, such as August.

KPIs play a pivotal role in facilitating the monitoring and analysis of your partners, allowing you to identify both their strengths and areas that may require improvement. With a monthly review and a systematic reporting mechanism, you gain the capability to:

  • Set Realistic Objectives : By closely aligning objectives with the current conditions on the ground, you ensure that they remain practical and attainable in the context of evolving market dynamics.
  • Monitor Implementation and Achievement : Regular tracking using KPIs enables you to gauge how well partners are executing planned actions and progressing towards the predefined objectives, offering insights into areas that might need attention.
  • Provide Support : Armed with this detailed data, you are better equipped to initiate timely and targeted actions that can help partners overcome challenges and, in turn, assist them in reaching their objectives. This proactive approach ensures that your partnership remains adaptive and robust, fostering sustained success in a dynamic business landscape.

The Essential Tool to Build a Business Plan and Manage it

In the endeavor to establish a comprehensive business plan and ensure its effective management with full transparency into your partner's activities, a PRM, or Partner Relationship Management system, emerges as the quintessential tool. Going beyond the capabilities of conventional management software, a PRM empowers you to systematically structure your indirect sales processes and engage with your partner ecosystem in real time, irrespective of the hour or location.

When crafting business plans for your partners within a proficient PRM platform, you can expect to benefit in several key ways:

  • Tailored Business Plans : A robust PRM system should facilitate the seamless definition of unique business plans for each partner, accommodating their specific objectives, strengths, and market dynamics. This tailored approach ensures that each partner's plan is finely tuned to optimize success.
  • Real-Time Progress Tracking : The PRM offers the invaluable advantage of real-time progress tracking for the objectives set within these business plans. It allows you to stay updated on your partner's performance, offering insights into their achievements and areas that might require attention or support.
  • KPI Integration : Effective PRM systems seamlessly integrate KPIs into the platform, providing you with a set of critical metrics that pinpoint what is vital for the success of your partner's business plan. These KPIs offer the ability to focus on the most significant aspects of your partnership, enabling data-driven decision-making and strategic adjustments as needed.

By leveraging a PRM , your business can optimize its partnership management, ensuring that business plans are not only efficiently established but also actively tracked and adjusted as necessary, fostering the mutual success of both your company and your partner network.

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Sophos Expands Commitment to the Channel with New Dedicated Partner Care Offering

Partner Care Delivers 24×7 Administrative and Operational Support to Boost Channel Partner Profitability.

OXFORD, U.K. – Sophos , a global leader in innovating and delivering cybersecurity as a service, is expanding its commitment to the channel with the addition of Partner Care, a new offering in its global partner program that features a dedicated, 24×7 team of Sophos experts who handle non-sales related questions and operational support. The offering is designed to speed up response times for Sophos partners and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) needing assistance with administrative and operational tasks, freeing them up to focus on selling and securing their customers with Sophos’ portfolio of innovative managed services and endpoint, network, email, and cloud security solutions.

“Based on our decades of experience successfully supporting partners who sell to mid-market and small business organizations, we know that administrative and operational issues take away valuable time needed to build customers relationships, pursue prospects and close new business deals,” said Kendra Krause, senior vice president of global channels and small business sales at Sophos. “Partner Care reinforces Sophos’ longstanding strategy to be ‘channel-best,’ which is our commitment to provide partners with optimal, conflict-free revenue and profitability opportunities, curated training and support, and advanced security solutions that defend customers from data breaches, ransomware and other debilitating cyberattacks.”

Sophos Partner Care offers a single point of contact for quoting, navigating the partner portal, addressing licensing queries, Not For Resale (NFR) requests, and more. With this high level of service, partners working with small and mid-market organizations can better boost their productivity and increase profitability.

“Being busy with administration can consume a lot of time and cost, so the idea that Sophos now has a focused Partner Care program and dedicated team to handle it is unbelievably beneficial,” said Richard Wenger, account executive, Point Broadband LLC, a Sophos channel partner based in Alabama. “We are looking forward to the training and enablement of the ‘tool,’ so we can start executing right away. Every bit of time away from the sales cycle is time away from building relationships and being trusted advisors to our customers. This Sophos Partner Care program is essential to my business.”

In addition to Partner Care, Sophos is offering several enhancements to its global partner program, including an additional 5% reward on top of a deal registration discount for partners selling Sophos Managed Detection and Response (MDR)1. This expires March 31, 2024.

To help further partners and MSPs with their awareness of critical industry issues, Sophos provides real time and historical threat intelligence from its Sophos X-Ops unit, a cross-functional team of more than 500 Sophos cybersecurity experts worldwide. Sophos X-Ops’ intelligence helps partners and MSPs confidently address customers’ questions and concerns about the latest ransomware, vulnerabilities and attacks circulating in the news. For example, Sophos recently wrote about the return of Qakbot, after law enforcement disrupted the botnet’s infrastructure in August 2023. With Sophos’ visibility into this attack and others, partners and MSPs can be on alert for suspicious behaviors and put customers’ minds at ease because Sophos products and services have updated detections.

To help streamline varying technologies within customers’ environments, Sophos also recently added a Veeam integration to its Sophos MDR and XDR solutions.

The Sophos Partner Care and additional partner enhancements are immediately available exclusively through the Sophos Global Partner Program.

About Sophos

Sophos is a worldwide leader and innovator of advanced cybersecurity solutions, including Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and incident response services and a broad portfolio of endpoint, network, email, and cloud security technologies that help organizations defeat cyberattacks. As one of the largest pure-play cybersecurity providers, Sophos defends more than 500,000 organizations and more than 100 million users globally from active adversaries, ransomware, phishing, malware, and more. Sophos’ services and products connect through its cloud-based Sophos Central management console and are powered by Sophos X-Ops, the company’s cross-domain threat intelligence unit. Sophos X-Ops intelligence optimizes the entire Sophos Adaptive Cybersecurity Ecosystem, which includes a centralized data lake that leverages a rich set of open APIs available to customers, partners, developers, and other cybersecurity and information technology vendors. Sophos provides cybersecurity-as-a-service to organizations needing fully-managed, turnkey security solutions. Customers can also manage their cybersecurity directly with Sophos’ security operations platform or use a hybrid approach by supplementing their in-house teams with Sophos’ services, including threat hunting and remediation. Sophos sells through reseller partners and managed service providers (MSPs) worldwide. Sophos is headquartered in Oxford, U.K. More information is available at www.sophos.com

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    Introduction This is Part Two of our series on building a successful, engaged partner program. Find Part One here. You've built the foundation for a strong partner program - you have executive buy-in, you've created your standard operating procedures and you're starting to bring in partners. What's the next phase?

  16. How to Plan, Manage, and Measure Strong Channel Business Partnerships

    Partnership business planning should be designed to share as many new growth opportunities and ideas as possible. Producers need to bring new market, services, and opportunities to their partners so they can extend ideas further for achieving new growth. Take advantage of your network of strong partnerships to build more opportunities to grow ...

  17. 6 Key Tools for a Fully-Enabled Channel Partner

    What Your Channel Partners Really Want: Path-to-Profitability Tools: Tools to help figure out exactly how to make money, ... This is a web-based tool where partners can create their own custom business plan and P&L in 10 minutes. This includes a growth plan by products, goals and strategies, pricing & margins, staffing levels, and marketing ...

  18. Top 10 Channel Partner Strategy Plan Templates to Optimize Your

    Here are some tips for you to create a robust channel partner strategy plan: Look for viable channel partners — the influential ones or in direct contact with your target audience. Work on strengthening your channel partner relationships. Reimbursement and amiability work wonders in this direction. Offer technical support wherever needed.

  19. The Essential Guide to Partner Planning

    The final element of effective channel planning is partner business planning, which improves your ability to set goals, manage commitments, and drive partner performance against benchmarks. We recommend you track partners and build out your channel management strategy in five key areas: Business Model - The design of a partner's business

  20. Create a Channel Partner Business Plan in 10 Easy Steps

    Define Your Channel Partnership Objectives. Creating a successful channel partner business plan starts with defining clear objectives that align with your partner relationship management strategy. Your objectives should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound, or SMART.Here are some steps to get you started:

  21. Joint Business Planning

    From within the joint business plan, manage all program requirements developed jointly with your partners and check both you and your partner's progress against the plan. ... Our blog features expert insights and best practices on channel management, partner portals and PRM software, reseller sales and marketing, and more. Check out our ...

  22. A Partner Business Plan in 2024: Why is it so important?

    Develop Partner Bussiness Plan: Two Key Steps to Consider. 1. Know Your Partners Well. A thorough understanding of your partner network is a fundamental prerequisite for the successful development of partner business planning. Within your indirect sales ecosystem, business providers, integrators, value-added resellers (VARs), IT service ...

  23. Sophos Expands Commitment to the Channel with New Dedicated Partner

    OXFORD, U.K. - Sophos, a global leader in innovating and delivering cybersecurity as a service, is expanding its commitment to the channel with the addition of Partner Care, a new offering in its global partner program that features a dedicated, 24×7 team of Sophos experts who handle non-sales related questions and operational support.The offering is designed to speed up response times for ...