Best Practices for Setting Goals for Channel Partners in the New Year!
2019 has barely begun, yet many technology manufacturers are already planning their performance and development goals for the year. Planning your performance goals early in the year allows you to align your partner programs with meeting business objectives while still remaining flexible enough to welcome new partners. To plan properly and ensure you’re creating the optimal programs, we recommend examining your current goals for channel partners and evaluate the areas in which your current programs did not help your partners attain their objective, and then make the necessary improvements.
In their annual State of Partnering report, PartnerPath asks partners to anonymously share their top complaints about vendor programs. According to their reports, the answers are, unfortunately, very similar year to year. Studying your channel partners’ objections can help you learn, grow, and expand as well as assist you in setting goals for channel partners.
According to the 2018 State of Partnering survey, the top 3 complaints channel partners had about their vendors were:
- Not understanding the partner business model
- Too little relationship
- Conflict and competition
The 2018 State of Partnering Survey collected information from 220 channel partners and 114 vendors.
Not Understanding the Channel Partner’s Business Model
One size does not fit all, it never has, so why should your goals for channel partners. As technologies evolve and business models change, there are always a few that resist or are slower to catch up with the changes. Therefore, your goals for channel partners should always reflect your partners’ specific business model.
Your partner relationship management (PRM) system should provide your organization with in-depth information on each of your channel partners’ business model. When setting goals for your partner programs, it would be beneficial to your partners based on:
- What they sell
- Region
- Capabilities
- Limitations
- Revenue
A few concerns in this category:
- “not understanding what we do and what makes us so good at what we do”
- “underestimating our commitment to services”
- “assuming they know more about our customer base than we do”
- “not understanding our business”
- “lack of understanding of our company direction”
- “assuming we will replace a current client’s install base with a new vendor’s product”
Too Little Relationship
Making empty promises has never worked in any type of relationship. So, don’t over-promise and under-deliver.
When setting goals for make sure you pay attention to your channel partners’ needs. If possible, provide support to help your partners drive sales even in the areas you have not made any promises. After all, their success – selling more of your products – is directly related to your business growth.
Although very helpful, training webinars need to go a lot further after the session is over. Staying in touch to answer questions and guiding partners through the objectives of a webinar have shown to produce better results.
Also, focusing only on top performers hinders you as a vendor from growing your entire channel.
Finally, understand how to embrace and be involved in a partner program. Your continuous efforts to improve your partner programs to make the programs worthwhile, will result in not only engaged partners, but also partners who embrace and understand your programs.
A few concerns in this category:
- “miscommunication”
- “deliver what you say you will”
- “hard sell”
- “no transparency”
- “expecting quick sales before on-boarding is complete”
Conflict and Competition
Well-defined and descriptive goals ensure that there is no room for interpretation. Making programs that are too unique and complicated to measure can bring about tension and disputes.
And then there are conflicts between your direct team and channel partners. In order to avoid such conflicts, create collaborative programs to ensure that your sales team and channel partners are working together toward a common goal.
In addition, consider the use of programs such as Deal Registration that are designed to increase pipeline visibility, instill partner loyalty, and dramatically reduce conflict in the channel.
A few concerns in this category:
- “direct sales effort clashes with our company interest”
- “not empowering us to be successful with the regional sales/SE teams”
- “allowing too many partners into the program”
- “going direct despite partner model”