Channel partners – be it franchisees, resellers, distributors, or even social media influencers – can play a major role in a company’s sales process.
However, unlike marketing and sales teams, channel partners rarely receive the same level of employee training and enablement as other in-house departments.
Channel partner enablement programs can bring many benefits to an organization, making them valuable assets in terms of increased revenue, brand advocacy, or extension into new markets.
In this guide, you’ll learn the basics of channel partner enablement: what it is, and how it works, and how to build a robust partner enablement program that’s able to deliver results.
What is partner enablement?
Partner enablement is a process that supports channel partners with all the necessary tools, resources, and know-how to better sell your products and services as a representation of your organization.
Also known as channel enablement, channel management, or simply partner training, this process goes beyond just providing basic information about your products and services to partners and hoping for the best.
Channel enablement works to align and incorporate partners into the company’s sales and marketing strategies.
It empowers the entire partner network with the right enablement tools, training sessions, and incentives to increase revenue, partner loyalty, and retention.
What does partner enablement include?
Training sits as the foundation of any successful channel partner enablement strategy and should make up the bulk of a partner enablement lifecycle.
The most important types of training, capable of addressing partner needs in this relationship, include the following:
- Product and service training: Every partner needs sufficient product and service knowledge to conduct their business effectively.
They need to know everything about what you sell, how it works, and what the limitations are so they can impart that information to potential customers and increase their chances of making a sale. - Marketing and sales training: Simply knowing the product’s specs won’t always boost partner sales. You also need to provide partners with corporate sales training in order to make them effective.
- Product updates education: As you add more features and adapt your product to evolving market trends, you need to keep your partners in the loop. You can hold regular product-update training programs or annual refresher training sessions to keep your partners in top shape.
You can also offer quizzes and assessments and issue custom certifications as proof of their knowledge of your product. - Tools usage training: Whether it’s communication tools, partner relationship management (PRM) systems, marketing and sales enablement tools, partner portals, or learning management systems (LMSs), they all have a learning curve.
Let’s now take a look at what steps go into designing a successful partner enablement strategy.
5 Step Channel Partner Enablement Strategy
- Set goals
- Start creating content
- Establish a partner onboarding process
- Gather insights and partner feedback
- Refine and optimize your strategy
Step #1: Set your goals
An initial assessment of your partners’ needs is often required as it sets the tone and provides a strategy roadmap.
Companies need to do their due diligence and consider as many aspects of their partnership as possible.
For example, they must consider what their partners need to be successful. This can include the type of training, tools, relevant content, or additional resources.
Second, they need to set relevant metrics to monitor, analyze, and measure success.
Business key performance indicators (KPIs) include things like partner revenue growth, referrals, increased retention, or lower customer churn.
Training metrics focus more on active learners, course completions, content consumption, partner retention rates, and more.
Business and partner training goals should follow the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound). This type of goal roadmap ensures efficiency and a clear direction.
Make sure to inform the members of your partner network about these goals so they can adhere to them. Transparency is key!
A partner enablement LMS like Docebo is also essential, as it helps partner success managers keep track of learner progress, generate content, optimize administration, issue certifications, gather feedback, and more.
Step #2: Start creating content
Partner content is a lot like sales enablement content in many ways. It generally comes in two forms; internal and external.
Internal content, as its name suggests, is for partners to use for themselves and includes things like battle cards, sales playbooks, best practices, online training courses, or FAQ sections.
External content is what partners will use when interacting with a potential customer or what clients can consume on their own. Infographics, how-to videos, tutorials, and on-demand learning content are a few examples.
While you can use some of your sales enablement content in your partner enablement strategy, not everything translates equally well.
By and large, short snippets of factual information known as learning pills tend to perform better in these scenarios. They’re short, visually engaging, and get straight to the point.
With Docebo’s AI-powered Shape content-authoring tool, you can turn internal and external knowledge sources like case studies, white papers, blog posts, and PowerPoint presentations into engaging learning pills in multiple formats and languages, and in only a couple of minutes.
Step #3: Set up your partner onboarding process
As your business ecosystem expands and you bring new partners into your network, you’ll also need to have an effective partner onboarding process in place.
Personalized learning experiences with interactive elements and gamification features tend to work wonders when it comes to learner engagement and knowledge retention.
Docebo Learn LMS allows you to seamlessly onboard new and existing partners.
You can design and personalize learning paths, use quizzes and assessments throughout the onboarding process, and sprinkle in gamification features like badges and leaderboards to drive engagement.
Adding certifications into the mix ensures consistent brand representation and market credibility, and they can also work as incentives for partners.
Docebo’s mobile app also facilitates learning on the go. It enables partners when dealing directly with customers by putting relevant information at their fingertips.
Step #4: Gather insights and partner feedback
As we’ve established in step one, you need to track relevant metrics and KPIs to ensure that everything is running smoothly.
This process also highlights the effectiveness and impact of your training programs on the organization’s bottom line.
A tool like Docebo Learn Data digs deep into partner training and enablement programs and extracts all relevant data to analyze and provide actionable insights.
Docebo’s Learning Impact tool generates easy-to-read customized reports based on this information. It also allows you to generate and deploy surveys throughout the training courses to get further partner feedback.
Step #5: Update your strategy
These aforementioned actionable insights should point to areas in your strategy that are working and other areas that may include possible bottlenecks.
You need to use this information to constantly update and optimize your strategy based on this data and other emerging trends.
This way, you’ll always be able to provide the best training to your partners and allow them to become valuable assets of your organization.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Why is partner enablement important?
- What are the pillars of partner enablement?
- What is the goal of partner enablement?
- What is a partner success manager’s role in partner enablement?
Why is partner enablement important?
According to Forrester, three-quarters of all trade happens indirectly through partners and resellers, and based on CGS Inc. findings, 64 percent of organizations say that channel partners contribute to their annual revenue.
Similar to how a well-designed sales enablement plan can empower salespeople to boost their sales numbers, increase deal sizes and win rates, and improve customer satisfaction, partners can also increase their sales while still maintaining the brand’s standards.
Efficient partner training programs can equip resellers with the right product knowledge to even lower the company’s partner-support costs.
Channel partners won’t need your support team’s help as often, freeing up your resources.
Since channel partners sell your products and services to end customers, they often act as the face of your brand and will be associated directly with your business.
By offering a strong partnership, incentives, and a value proposition, companies can turn partners into brand advocates, devoting more of their time, energy, and resources to your products and services.
If all goes well and the partner enablement strategy is a success, you’ll also stand a better chance of improving customer satisfaction and retention.
That being said, what are the basic building blocks of an effective partner enablement program?
What are the pillars of partner enablement?
The four pillars of partner enablement are:
- Partner onboarding: Essential for getting partners up and running with your tools, mission, and best practices.
- Partner portal: Essential for giving partners access to all relevant content and resources to do their jobs efficiently.
- Sales training: Essential in any partner’s tool kit as representatives of your brand and its product.
- Partner enablement content: Essential in training and enabling partners when dealing with customers.
What is the goal of partner enablement?
The goal is to create a mutually beneficial relationship between partners and the company, in which both stand to achieve their respective goals.
What is a partner success manager’s role in partner enablement?
Partner success managers ensure that partners receive all the tools, training, and resources necessary to succeed and drive revenue growth for both parties involved.