Channel Partner Sales: Top 5 Ways to Enable Channel Sales

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Operatix

Channel Partner Sales: Top 5 Ways to Enable Channel Sales

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Reading Time: 4 minutes

Channel Partner Sales: Top 5 Ways to Enable Channel Sales

Lead Generation for B2B Software Companies

Operatix

Implementing channel partner sales can help you reach new customers and, in turn, grow your business – when done correctly, of course.  If your model is not set up effectively, however, you’re unlikely to reap the many rewards this opportunity offers. 


So, what are the so-called ‘right conditions’, and what are some pitfalls to avoid when implementing channel partner sales? Follow our guide to successfully enable channel sales, as well as understand how it can benefit your business. 



What is channel partner sales?

Channel partner sales

In short, channel sales is a selling strategy that utilizes third-party companies to sell your products, subscriptions, and services to new markets. This includes distributors, referral partners, fulfilment partners, and strategic partners, amongst others. 


There are a number of benefits to introducing channel partner sales, allowing you to take advantage of your chosen partner’s reputation and experience. This, in turn, will help you break into the markets and increase brand awareness


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What can go wrong with channel partner sales?


You’ve just got the ball rolling with your channel partner sales and are now collaborating with a third party! They’ve completed all the necessary paperwork, passed the required training courses, and are now considered ‘experts’. Two months later, they haven’t sold a single subscription or license. So, what is the problem? They are highly trained and competent. They are listed prominently on your website as a top-tier partner, able to sell, install, and support your solutions. They are selling a lot of other technology that is complementary, so why haven’t they sold anything of yours?


Vendors often assume that because a channel partner has gone through the onboarding process, they will automatically become a successful, profitable member of their program. Unfortunately, this is not usually the case, and the partnership eventually withers on the vine, never producing results. 


To understand why this happens all too often, you need to understand your chosen channel partner — and more specifically, their sales reps. Sales reps are going to sell what they know, what they are familiar with, what they’ve sold to customers in the past. Adding new products or services to their existing portfolio is a form of change. Change is difficult. Change is scary. Change is what you need to help them overcome.


The sales rep doesn’t want to sell or recommend anything that could potentially damage their relationship with the customer. As the vendor, it is in your best interest to help the sales rep overcome these barriers. 


In doing so, you will be building your own relationship of trust with the channel partner sales rep. They will begin to understand your product, your processes, and how your products interact with what their customer is already using. They will become comfortable with your product, your processes, and your team. This is how you begin to enable channel sales and ensure it’s worth your investment.


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Top Tips to Successfully Enable Channel Sales


Building a relationship of trust between a vendor and a new sales channel partner can be a daunting task. However, once those relationships have been built, you will see growth from your partners and be able to successfully enable channel sales. Here are our tips to successfully enable channel sales and solidify that relationship:


  1. Get to know the channel partner sales team. Lunch-and-Learn activities are a great way for you to meet and interact with members of your partner’s sales team. They will gain a better understanding of your company, personnel, and corporate culture. You will gain an understanding of who they are, their strengths, and the customer relationships they have nurtured.
  2. Set ground rules upfront. Do you have a list of customers that your internal sales team is targeting directly? Letting the partner know upfront will prevent any misunderstandings down the road. The partner reps will be more likely to trust your organization with their own customers if they know your sales team will not be poaching from them.
  3. Understand the compensation structure of the channel partner sales team. Once you have an understanding of how the partner sales reps are compensated for the deals they close, you can better tailor and enable channel sales incentives to gain mindshare and attention to your products and services. Remember, the partner sales reps are working with many different vendors!
  4. Proactively bring leads and opportunities to the partner sales reps. Before they have the necessary understanding of your products and processes, channel partner sales reps will need some hand-holding with a few sales opportunities. This ‘care and feeding’ of the new partner will show them what it’s like to sell your products, and that there is money to be made by working with your organization.
  5. Bring the partner reps into the sales cycle early. Waiting until the deal is nearly won before you involve the partner doesn’t really teach them the ‘in’s and out’s’ of selling your products. Don’t just give them a fish, teach them how to fish!



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The channel management team at Operatix has a wealth of experience in developing and managing global channels for clients in the tech sector. Working with Executive teams and sales teams in organizations throughout North America and Europe, our team enables channel sales teams to accelerate success. Get in touch today to find out more about how we can help grow your business.

About Operatix

Operatix is a Sales Acceleration company specialized in supporting B2B Software vendors to identify new revenue streams, increase qualified sales pipeline, and accelerate channel development across Europe and North America. Operatix has a wealth of experience in working with the biggest tech players worldwide as well as a multitude of emerging software vendors.

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Channel Transformation

Digital transformation is changing how companies buy and use business solutions, making vendors re-assess the capabilities of their channel ecosystem. With channel dynamics in constant flux, vendors need to be ready to cut ties with partners that don’t share their vision or have connections with the right B2B buyers.

 

Operatix has supported numerous vendors in their path to Channel transformation by assessing current partners and recruiting new partners that are more aligned with their new channel strategy. Once the right partners have been identified, Operatix built scalable outbound sales development programs that accelerated their routes to market.

Inbound Response Management

In a competitive industry like technology every lead counts. Operatix can help you maximize conversion from MQL to SQL and from lead to pipeline, increasing both your revenue and ROI on marketing activities.

Account Identification

Identifying the accounts that are more likely to buy from you is part of our expertise. We will research the market, identify verticals and industries that can benefit from your solution and set up qualified sales engagements for your teams to kick-off the sales process. 

Cold Prospecting

Our team will identify new sales opportunities within the strategic accounts that you haven’t been successful in penetrating through your sales & marketing efforts. By applying the ‘Challenger Sale’ methodology we use a tailored, multitouch approach to connect with prospects, generating qualified sales engagements for your team and ultimately increasing your pipeline.

Outbound Sales Development

Using a proactive outbound sales approach has been proven to be one of the most effective methods to engage with prospective customers. By applying the ‘Challenger Sale’ methodology we use a tailored, human approach to getting in touch with prospects to increase your qualified sales engagements and ultimately generate more pipeline.

Outbound Sales Development

Using a proactive outbound sales approach has been proven to be one of the most effective methods to engage with prospective customers. By applying the ‘Challenger Sale’ methodology we use a tailored, human approach to getting in touch with prospects to increase your qualified sales engagements and ultimately generate more pipeline.

Partner Concierge Service

Our Partner Concierge Service helps vendors accelerate their channel programs, by engaging and nurturing channel partners and supporting them to get to revenue quicker.

Demand Generation

Whether you need to implement a demand generation strategy or get more results out of your existing demand gen engine, Operatix can work alongside your marketing team to yield better results out of your demand generation programs.

Account-based Marketing

An Account-based Marketing strategy is only as successful as the revenue it generates. At Operatix we will support your 1:1, 1:few or 1:many approach to get your team in front of decision makers in the accounts that matter the most to you. 

Lead Qualification

If your marketing leads aren’t converting, it might be a lead qualification issue. Operatix can help sieve through leads that need further qualification, so they are ready for an AE or sales team member to engage with.

Account-based Selling

At Operatix we will support your 1:1, 1:few or 1:many approach to get your team in front of decision makers in the accounts that matter the most to you. 

Pipeline Generation

Generating Pipeline for our clients is our key-objective. And we do that by using a multi-touch, multi-channel approach to generate qualified sales engagements for our customers’ sales teams.   

Account Intelligence / Deep Dive

Understanding buying centres, hierarchies and relevant personas in strategic accounts is a fundamental step to increase conversion rates. By leveraging account intelligence in a sales conversation your team can tailor their message and provide value to their prospective customer. But sales & marketing teams often struggle to dedicate time and resources to do the deep research and this is where Operatix can help.

DMID – Decision Maker Identification

Finding quality data is an on-going challenge for B2B Tech vendors. The accuracy of data platforms is questionable and that is why Operatix developed a manual process to identify & verify contact details for decision makers within strategic target accounts.

Playbook design

Operatix can develop Sales Playbooks that enable teams to sell more effectively. Your Playbook will be fundamental to get your messaging right, accurately position your solution against competitors, and adapt the communication of your value proposition to different buyer personas.

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Sales Playbook Development

Operatix can develop Sales Playbooks that enable teams to sell more effectively. Your Playbook will be fundamental to implementing the correct messaging, accurately position your solution against competitors, and adapting the communication of your value proposition to different buyer personas.

Lead Qualification

If your leads aren’t converting, it might be a lead qualification issue. Operatix can help filter through leads that need further qualification, ensuring that they’re ready for an AE or sales team member to engage with and progress through the funnel. 

Partner Portal / Marketing Concierge Service

Vendors often spend thousands of dollars building multifunctional Partner Portals to help channel partners educate their teams, manage opportunities, and create marketing programs. Still, these portals are often underutilized due to lack of bandwidth and capacity from vendors to offer support in enabling their partner community. Operatix, through their Partner Development team, can support your partners to make the best use out of your partner portal, managing the relationship with your partners and helping them set up co-marketing campaigns to drive more revenue for both businesses. 

Marketing & Sales Alignment

The sales development function is often seen as the “glue” that brings sales & marketing teams together. By working as an extension of your teams, Operatix will be your predictable source of pipeline, sales & revenue.

Optimization of MDF

Market Development Funds are an important component of any channel ecosystem, though vendors believe they are not maximizing the return on investment they should be getting from their MDF programs. At Operatix, we build scalable outbound sales development programs that will give you the visibility of return over the invested spend and will provide clear value for your channel partners.

Increase Partner Productivity

The 80/20 rule is still very applicable to the channel, which means that investing in partner productivity should be a priority for vendors looking to grow their businesses. Operatix can increase partner productivity and shorten sales cycles, by identifying ready to engage sales opportunities for your most valued channel partners.

Virtual Channel Account managers

Our VCAM team is responsible for building, maintaining, and managing sound relationships with current and prospective channel partners. They can get involved in opening up new sales conversations as well as closing small businesses up to $ 10k.

Tier 1 & Tier 2 Activation

Whether your business decided for a Tier 1 or Tier 2 distribution model, Operatix can help your channel partners get to revenue quicker. By providing qualified sales engagements to your channel partners we can accelerate your route to market with tangible and easily measurable results.

Solution Selling Training

Far too often vendors insist on enabling their channel partners to talk about features and technical details of their solutions. Customers don’t buy features; they buy the benefits your solution can bring. Operatix will work with your partner community to train them in articulating your message from a high-level business perspective, enabling them to talk to prospects about the value your solution can bring to their company from a board-level perspective.

Channel Enablement

Enabling your channel partners have measurable wins for your business when done right. Operatix has a proven track record in enabling channel partners from a sales & marketing perspective, providing them the knowledge and tools to successfully pitch your solution and sell the value & benefits of it. 

Partner Recruitment

Recruiting the right Channel Partners is the first step for a successful channel program. Operatix has helped over 350 B2B Software vendors recruit suitable channel partners across EMEA and North America, supporting them to scale and expand their presence in different geographies and verticals. 

Risk/Reward Business Model

To truly work as an extension of our client’s sales & marketing teams, we have also adapted our business models to show how our clients operate, and how their success is measured. With our risk/reward business model your investment is proportional to the results our team delivers.

Sales Qualified Leads

On average, 52.5% of the sales engagements set up by our team progress into a next step in the sale process. That means that 5 out of 10 meetings will progress either into a POC, a Demo or a pipeline opportunity.

Geographical Scale

Trading in different geographical markets not only requires a knowledge of the native language, local rules & policies, but a deeper understanding of the local culture and habits. We have the ability to deliver campaigns in multiple countries with flexible resource allocation. This is through our team of international speakers, who have the ability to sell in 17 different languages across the globe.

Increase Revenue & Decrease Cost

Building an internal sales development team comes with many additional costs and challenges that aren’t always taken into account: recruiting resources, training and enabling them etc. You also need to take into account the need for having the data and tools to make them successful, which in turn requires time, capital and effort. By outsourcing your sales development to Operatix you will see your revenue increasing, while decreasing costs and business risk.

Predictable Pipeline Generation

On average, our clients see a 26X ROI on the programs we deliver. By understanding your revenue targets and sales pipeline gap, we will work on a sales & marketing plan that will deliver tangible results.

Vertical Growth

Entering new industries or launching new product lines? Operatix can accelerate your growth by supporting your go-to-market strategy, and getting your sales teams in front of decision makers in key target accounts.

Reduce Headcount

By outsourcing your sales development and partner programs to Operatix; we reduce headcount and the challenges that come with managing people, technologies, and processes. We take care of your sales development, so you can focus on what matters the most: growing your business.

Revenue Acceleration

Operatix helps your business get to revenue quicker. By providing qualified sales engagements for your direct sales team (to kick-off new sales cycles), or by accelerating the growth of your channel partners, our focus remains on delivering tangible results for your business. 

Persona-based Selling

Operatix team will design specifically tailored messages to influence the different levels of decision makers in the sales process, tailoring the communication according to each job function. Our focus is to sell the value of your solution from a business perspective, not its features.    

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