5 Steps to a More Effective Channel Partner Relationship

Barton Goldenberg, Founder and President, ISM Inc.

Working with a channel sales partner is a unique relationship that warrants a special approach to managing. The following are a few ways to stand out from the crowd, build your relationship, and sell more effectively with channel partners.

Take the time.

A great sales rep will understand the importance of co-selling with partners and invest their time and resources appropriately. Think about it: maybe the distributor partner has 50 sales reps. If you can motivate even a fraction of them, there’s a greater likelihood of selling much more. Your success is dependent on them, and it can only happen if you take the time and invest in the relationship.

Promote together.

It’s very important to work tightly with partners on promotional activities. In doing so, you’ll play an active role in helping to generate leads. This will also help the partner sales reps see how you sell because you know your product or service intimately. And the best part is you can actively play a role to directly hand over new leads to the partner reps.

Get social.

When a sales rep is active in a social media community, there’s an amazing amount to learn by listening. It’s a very good place to learn what, where, and how you should be selling. A sales rep’s time spent on social media communities, particularly the private communities that companies have where they invite their customers, is a tremendous way to sell more effectively through partners.

Create a best practices community.

Following on with social media, there is also the opportunity to create shared experiences and communities. This can take the form of invitation-only pages for all vendors, partners, companies, and customers to all come together and share best practices. For example, in a B2B social media community, members can find applicable success stories from other distributors, partners, and customers and also ask each other questions. As a bonus, if you have a community of best practices, it’s potentially worldwide and always open 24 hours a day.

To read the complete article, “5 Steps to a More Effective Channel Partner Relationship” visit Quotable.com. And, to hear more from Barton Goldenberg on The Secrets to Successful Channel Sales Management, check out this episode of the Quotable Podcast.