Article
The Journey to Building a Successful Partner Program for ...
insightpartners.com
Quoted on this wiki
Every place a page here uses this source, in the order the words come in it.
Train the trainer program: For higher tiered partners, implementing a 1:1, high touch train the trainer program is a great to enable large teams efficiently. Assign a technical and sales resource to go onsite and train assigned stakeholders at the partner organization so that they operate as the “go-to” in-house expert for all questions when it comes to your product. These onsite trainers can hold their own in-office trainings for new employees or refreshers when new products are released. These people are your go-to and they should be held accountable for verifying that their organizations are properly enabled on your product. “Building peer-to-peer community forums/discussion rooms through common platforms, like Slack, is another way to generate community.” Sales Enablement
Sales Enablement “Partner sales enablement should originate by asking yourself the question “why would a partner want to invest in building a business with me?”” Scenario based selling: It’s not just about understanding the product and how to pitch key buyer personas, think about the use cases and selling cycles your partners go through and how plugging your product in makes their process easier and stronger. Where relevant, consider how this differs by industry as well.
Onboarding “In addition to ensuring you have joint target business plans defined, a regular check-in cadence, and the appropriate introductions underway, you must put both sales and technical enablement goals in place.” Systems and Infrastructure
Onboarding “Having the appropriate sales and technical enablement in place when onboarding a partner is key.” Systems and Infrastructure
When getting started, I would not recommend investing in loads of expensive technology. You should adopt a crawl, walk, run mentality for building out the systems and infrastructure for your partner enablement program. It’s okay to begin with manual tracking and even spreadsheets/shared folders to test and iterate on what is most effective. Keep in mind, in order to build the most effective program possible across your various partner types and personas, you must have the appropriate feedback loop in place. Some key areas systems/infrastructure areas to consider as you build out your program below. “Partner portal: A portal is a great way to centralize your enablement resources and information for easy access, tracking, and version control.” LMS: A Learning Management System (LMS) is a great way to build out structured enablement tracks. Chances are you can leverage the same LMS you are using for your internal enablement for partners (at least to start). Ensure you have a system in place for pulling the data so that you can track status by partner organization.
Partner Enablement is one of those functions that often doesn’t get the love it demands and deserves. Enabling your partners on how to sell and implement your products is of upmost importance. Think about it. If you are skimping on enablement, your partners may never feel confident recommending your product, let alone recognizing the right use cases for selling it. It all starts with looking at where your partner segments are in their enablement journeys and creating a cohesive strategy that helps them understand why they should be recommending your product (make this is a no-brainer for them), what they should be recommending when, and how to ultimately sell and implement it effectively. “To do partner enablement correctly, you need to start from scratch (sure, you can leverage product content and layer in the partner lens).” Onboarding
Partner Enablement is one of those functions that often doesn’t get the love it demands and deserves. Enabling your partners on how to sell and implement your products is of upmost importance. Think about it. If you are skimping on enablement, your partners may never feel confident recommending your product, let alone recognizing the right use cases for selling it. It all starts with looking at where your partner segments are in their enablement journeys and creating a cohesive strategy that helps them understand why they should be recommending your product (make this is a no-brainer for them), what they should be recommending when, and how to ultimately sell and implement it effectively. “In reality, when you dig deeper, these programs are often taking what the direct sales enablement teams have built for training and doing a quick “find and replace all” with “partner.”” Onboarding
Step 4: Enable “It all starts with looking at where your partner segments are in their enablement journeys and creating a cohesive strategy that helps them understand why they should be recommending your product (make this is a no-brainer for them), what they should be recommending when, and how to ultimately sell and implement it effectively.” I often hear about partner enablement programs and how robust they are. In reality, when you dig deeper, these programs are often taking what the direct sales enablement teams have built for training and doing a quick “find and replace all” with “partner.” This is not the right way to build a successful program. Because a partner enablement manager is generally not the first hire when testing and building out an indirect revenue stream, the thought is that carving out a snippet of the sales enablement team’s time will suffice. This is just not true. To do partner enablement correctly, you need to start from scratch (sure, you can leverage product content and layer in the partner lens). But, when it boils down to it, partners go to market differently, care about different things, and are starting from a very different place in the learning curve when it comes to getting smart on your product. The absence of a holistic and proactive methodology to enabling your partners (keep in mind, this is an ongoing effort) hinders your ability to scale and achieve indirect sales targets. Read on for the key areas every successful partner enablement program should consider.
Partner Enablement is one of those functions that often doesn’t get the love it demands and deserves. Enabling your partners on how to sell and implement your products is of upmost importance. Think about it. If you are skimping on enablement, your partners may never feel confident recommending your product, let alone recognizing the right use cases for selling it. It all starts with looking at where your partner segments are in their enablement journeys and creating a cohesive strategy that helps them understand why they should be recommending your product (make this is a no-brainer for them), what they should be recommending when, and how to ultimately sell and implement it effectively. “In reality, when you dig deeper, these programs are often taking what the direct sales enablement teams have built for training and doing a quick “find and replace all” with “partner.”” Onboarding
Partner Enablement is one of those functions that often doesn’t get the love it demands and deserves. Enabling your partners on how to sell and implement your products is of upmost importance. Think about it. If you are skimping on enablement, your partners may never feel confident recommending your product, let alone recognizing the right use cases for selling it. It all starts with looking at where your partner segments are in their enablement journeys and creating a cohesive strategy that helps them understand why they should be recommending your product (make this is a no-brainer for them), what they should be recommending when, and how to ultimately sell and implement it effectively. “This is not the right way to build a successful program.” Onboarding
Partner Enablement is one of those functions that often doesn’t get the love it demands and deserves. Enabling your partners on how to sell and implement your products is of upmost importance. Think about it. If you are skimping on enablement, your partners may never feel confident recommending your product, let alone recognizing the right use cases for selling it. It all starts with looking at where your partner segments are in their enablement journeys and creating a cohesive strategy that helps them understand why they should be recommending your product (make this is a no-brainer for them), what they should be recommending when, and how to ultimately sell and implement it effectively. “Because a partner enablement manager is generally not the first hire when testing and building out an indirect revenue stream, the thought is that carving out a snippet of the sales enablement team’s time will suffice.” Onboarding
Partner Enablement is one of those functions that often doesn’t get the love it demands and deserves. Enabling your partners on how to sell and implement your products is of upmost importance. Think about it. If you are skimping on enablement, your partners may never feel confident recommending your product, let alone recognizing the right use cases for selling it. It all starts with looking at where your partner segments are in their enablement journeys and creating a cohesive strategy that helps them understand why they should be recommending your product (make this is a no-brainer for them), what they should be recommending when, and how to ultimately sell and implement it effectively. “This is just not true.” Onboarding