Implementing a channel sales strategy requires research and planning. To adopt more channels, Sales Leaders and the sales team evaluate. They do so by signing up with which partner and reseller companies match their product and market expertise. The sales engineers work with those channels when a customer engagement starts. Channel SEs may participate in demos and POC. They may also train the resellers to help them present before a qualified prospect.
The following are a few of the aspects to look for while finding “an ideal partner”:
Product relevance- Identifying the right channel
It is important to consider the state of the enterprise, product, and sales process before identifying a channel. Channel SEs can help the sales team to identify the right partner from a technology perspective.
They train the channel sales team on how to sell the product. Channel SEs help them build knowledge about the product. They further enable them to reach new clients and enhance the value of their products or services.
Market Alignment- How a partner aligns with a company’s technology
Technology partnerships offer a great way to obtain access to markets, special skills, physical assets and operational scalability. Channel SEs understands the positioning in the target market. They examine
The partners can align in two different ways:
Technological Alignment
The partner usually focuses on certain technologies where they build technology expertise and sell multiple similar products. This becomes a significant advantage in terms of products positioned in the market and sold to end customers.
Cultural and Business Alignment
The key element of channel success is sharing the same goals. Channel partners should be properly positioned to understand the culture of the end customer and how products are sold. Channel partners should also align with product companies on metrics of success, vision, revenue goals, growth rate, etc. This strengthens the partnership with a win-win situation.
Technical expertise- Does the partner have the technical knowledge to sell the product?
Technology and knowledge are the inception points to enter a new market. Channel SEs identify how much technical knowledge a partner/reseller SE would need to sell the products. It could be a very little knowledge transfer or a great amount. The Reseller SEs should understand a product’s features and benefits from the customer’s point of view, so they can have more engaging conversations that lead to sales. This product knowledge helps them to discuss the product in detail and handle objections in real-time.
There are different types of product knowledge such as :
What are the training requirements: how much work it is to enable a partner?
Channel SEs assess the capabilities of a partner, and then develop training goals and plans that will give the partner the best chance for success in the field. The “perfect” partner criteria vary from company to company, and from geo to geo.
Empower the partners to perform
SEs may assist the channel partners with clear, comprehensive, prospect-ready product features. They can also assist with testimonials, customer examples, competitive comparisons, email templates, call scripts, meeting agendas, and objection-handling cheat sheets. Having these resources makes partners enabled for quick success. They feel more confident in presenting the solutions, and achieving quick wins.
Visibility into Partner run activities
There are two major challenges that channel SEs face working with partners:
1- Getting visibility into partner activities is challenging
2- Multiple ways of partner engagements makes it difficult to standardize the process.
Sales Engineer teams can enable the partners, provide them the visibility and structure for running POCs and other projects with platforms like Success.app. The status tracking feature of Success application excludes the manual updates on a POC. It learns from the POC data and delivers insights and analytics to make informed decisions.
Success can scale the multi-channel businesses and keeps the channel data streamlined and organized. This allows the channel SEs to keep track of customer engagement activities. The POC dashboard provides visibility into critical information across all the POCs.
Success acts as the tool to standardize the POC process across the team and partners. It also helps in growing the channel sales program and collaborating with partner SEs on demos and POCs. It automates manual data entry and follow up processes, so sales engineers can work efficiently.
Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash
If you’re in sales, you’ve probably heard of sales enablement. The term and process are growing in the industry, and for good reason. Sales enablement has a strong success rate when it comes to increasing win rates by equipping sales professionals with the right tools. Companies that put a strategy in place will see positive..
When demos are considered as one of the best ways to sell your product, they can also be a source of stress. There are certain things to make sure the demo goes off without a hitch. A demo that looks and feels professional shows your audience that you take them seriously, and will therefore be..
