4 Best Practices to Manage a Reseller Network

Your business is growing, and everything is good. Until it goes downward. Your customer base might decrease, resulting in lower revenue and ultimately lower profits.

But at some point, growth becomes stagnant, and you are unable to scale your revenue higher. You need more customers to increase your profits.

So where would these new customers come from? How would you increase your profits?

There are many ways you can scale your business higher, but one of them is creating and managing a reseller network.

Now, what is a reseller network? What purpose does it have? How can it help you grow your business?

Let’s find out!!

What is a Reseller Network?

A reseller network is a group of resellers who help you sell products much more quickly by marketing to a broader customer base.

A reseller acts as a third party whom you hired to sell your company’s services or products.

For example, when you go to buy your favorite brand of toothpaste at your local grocery store, you are buying the product from a reseller.

Essentially, the grocery store acts as a reseller for the brand, selling toothpaste on its behalf for a commission.

Why You Should Form a Reseller Network?

Let’s say you have a small business making good revenue, but the growth is stagnating every passing day. You are unable to attract new buyers for your products.

This is where a reseller enters the scene. A reseller can help your product or service reach a new audience quickly.

Here are some advantages of forming a reseller network.

• You will be able to grow your brand recognition.
• You will get access to experienced sales teams with a proven track record.
• Finally, an expanded network of clients through the reseller.

As a result, you will enjoy brand recognition, increase sales, and an expanded client network, and your reseller will enjoy the commission from selling your products. A win-win situation for both parties.

How to Manage the Reseller Network?

Having reseller networks has several benefits. In the end, it will only work in your favor if you find a reliable and trustworthy reseller.

Now that you know the advantage of having a suitable reseller, it’s time to find the ones that align with your brands the most. As a business owner, you might want to work with any reseller. You should, however, be selective about whom you allow to represent your product or service.

Not everyone is a good fit for your company. Hence, proper selection is necessary.

Below, we have listed four criteria to manage the reseller network for your brand.

1. Set proper expectations

You need to set proper expectations with your resellers. This includes quota, deals closed, total sales, revenue, and so on. How much sales percentage will your reseller get after selling your products? Will you provide any bonuses or incentives?

Remember, setting up and running your reseller program takes time and resources. So, don’t waste it on someone who is not worthy of selling your products or services.

By setting proper expectations, you will attract the correct resellers. And the one which is not suitable for your business will automatically back out once they learn you expect results from your partners.

Moreover, this will also affirm that you expect consistent results from your resellers. It is a common trend in reselling, where the resellers perform well early on and slowly the sales decrease over time.

Also, it is worth mentioning what resellers can do and cannot do with your product. Remember, they are representing your brand. You don’t want a reseller to represent your product or brand negatively. Do you?

Setting the right expectations can go a long way in creating a smooth relationship with your reseller network.

2. Roles and Responsibilities

Resellers have their own selling model. Before you begin your reselling partnership, it is important to understand who is responsible for what? How much control will you give to resellers over your service or products? And so on.

Here are some things you can expect from your resellers:

• Help you expand your business through marketing and sales activities
• Must be customer-focused and deliver true value to your customers.
• Must be knowledgeable and keep themselves up-to-date with industry trends.

Here are some things your resellers can expect from you

• Providing quality support and training
• Providing pre-qualified leads

3. Customer’s data and KPI

Knowing about reseller’s past and current customer data and KPI can help you sort out the best suitable resellers for your business.

How many brands have they worked on in the past? Was one of them your direct competitors? How many sales on average do they bring per month? Brands they are working with and so on.

Using this data, you can judge how much activity they can bring to your business.

4. Vertical focused

Suppose, if you are an apparel seller, it would be more beneficial to build a reseller network focused on the apparel vertical instead of others. Why? Because your reseller network will have clients in the same vertical niche, which means more sales.

Suppose, if our resellers sell everything under the sun, they would not be able to focus on one niche. Moreover, they will also have clients from different verticals. This will reduce your chances of getting sales because your products do not match your reseller’s client expectations.

Final Thoughts

The power of the reseller network is a perfect example of a win-win situation. Specifically, when you find the perfect reseller to work with, your business revenue flourishes. With reselling networks, your possibilities are endless.

Resellers can help you quickly scale your business along with expanding your client base. However, if you go through the traditional route of building a reseller network, you will either need to sign up for expensive software or build a system from scratch yourself.

And as a small business, you neither have time nor have the resources to build a tool from scratch. So how about ready-made reseller management tools?

Risor gives you all the tools to build a reseller network from scratch without breaking your bank or going through the hassles of building a website or tools yourself.

Get started within minutes with Risor.