For information on how to review your current partners, contact us today at newsletter@tenegopartnering.com

In building your company and growing your company’s revenues you have built up a number of partners to work with you as referral, agent, reseller or OEM / White Label partners. You may have spent a great amount of time defining your partner programme, documentation, training materials and getting the partners up to speed.

After all this, you may find that today only a small number of partners are actually producing sales for your company. Your Partner Programme has not produced what you expected. So now, the 20 partners you have in your company are not producing as they could, for various reasons.

With the experience you now have in both selling direct and through partners, how do you determine what really works for your business and replicate this to accelerate your sales revenues?

Why are your current Partners not working?
1) They don’t have the correct focus on your target customer
2) They don’t have the resources to respond to opportunities for your company
3) They don’t have the capabilities to generate opportunities or sell your type of product
4) They don’t see sufficient or fast enough financial return to invest time in selling your product
5) The ‘difficult’ market is not buying your type of product today
6) You don’t have sufficient or adequate materials to help the sale
7) You don’t provide sufficient support in assisting the partner in the sales process; “it’s their job”
Your partner commission structure is not incentifying the partner or their sales people
9) Your management of the partner is either too hands-off, passive or too pushy and the relationship is not good
10) You don’t have a commitment to the partner as you don’t believe you will get the return
11) and many more

Of the many reasons, which are valid and what actions might rectify them?

What if many of your current partners were the right type of partners, and with a few changes in how you manage them, will produce sales. In understanding the capabilities needed to sell your product and the other characteristics needed to make a good partner, then how well do your current partners fit with what is needed.

With Tenego’s Partner Programme Review We have helped clients turnaround flagging partnerships and helped boost sales to make good partners better - read more here.

For information on how to review your current partners, contact us today at newsletter@tenegopartnering.com

For advice on how your business can benefit from partnering, contact us today at newsletter@tenegopartnering.com

There are many great partnering stories and why they worked but there are many more that didn’t work. So why do partnerships fail even when so many things were right from the start?

Some recent comments about ailing partnership activities and why with a little more thought and effort they could have really worked:

1) “We signed the partner and then nothing happened”
We should celebrate the signing of a partner agreement as it is a key milestone but is it not success in itself. If you hired a sales person, do you just leave them to their own and expect results?
You need to help the partner get up to speed on customer selection, how to sell the product and gain confidence in selling your products and making money. Good Partner Induction and Partner Management structures can really help.

2) “You want us to help develop the market! That’s the Partners job”
If your partner sells more, then you sell more. If the partner is not very good in every part of the sales process, then it may be worth your while helping them build this capability.
There is no single formula that states that every partner has all the capabilities needed, they will have strengths and weaknesses too. It’s you’re job to sell the product, so help your partners where they’re weak or where it generates more business, but they do need to work too.

3) “We got one deal and then it was all about the difficult market”
One customer in a foreign market can be a great drain, if it costs to much to service that customer. Too often companies jump at signing a deal with a partner without any question on whether they really have the capability to sell your product.
With the effort you need to go through to win a deal alongside a partner in a far-off market, then for them to just stop at ONE deal, you have lost money here. BE SURE that they can bring much more than one deal.

4) “A key person in the company left and the relationship just died”
When the partner relationship is with only one person, then you do run this risk. Maintain multiple contacts at different levels within the partner company. Establishing numerous contacts from CEO, Head of Sales, Sales People, Pre-Sales, Marketing, Professional Services and Support maintain links from your company to your partners.
How you merge your business process with the partner’s is by your activities becoming part of theirs to help them sell and deliver your product successfully.

5) “Partnering doesn’t work for our business – We need to sell it ourselves”
There are many aspects to sales and even with complex solutions Partners can help. In your company’s sales process, the early stages of the sales process is all about the end-customers business and less about the technology.
If you look at the challenge as filling capabilities at different stages of your business process in your target, then you will find where partners can help.

For advice on how your business can benefit from partnering, contact us today at newsletter@tenegopartnering.com