How to Train Channel Partners Effectively?

In today’s era of globalization, most organizations dream of enhancing their business around the globe. This is why companies are looking for partners to help them win the world or expand their market reach. Effective channel partner training becomes vital as soon as the first external partner joins your business. It becomes even more critical while their number and share in the organization’s sales are growing. Therefore, organizations are looking to train channel partners to boost the market growth.

In this blog, we will discuss six effective ways to train channel partners and how you can boost their productivity with a channel partner program and use modern technologies to launch and manage it easily.

Benefits of Channel Partner Training

Increased Sales

If your partners know how to promote, convincingly present, and sell your product quickly and effectively, they achieve better results and bring your more revenue in a shorter time. Moreover, you can train channel partners to improve their communication with end customers, which positively impacts the sales process.

Wining, when competiting with vendors

As your partner, sell not only your products but also those of your competitors, as well as goods in other categories. Your partners divide their resources, shelf space, co-marketing activities, and motivating programs for their sales reps between all their suppliers. This means you need to compete with other vendors on this “internal market for the partner’s attention and resources. In addition, If you train your channel partner to sell your product effectively, you help them increase sales and earn more with you.

Customer retention

As you know, it’s far more costly to gain a new customer than to keep an old one. A targeted channel partner program that teaches channel partners to handle moderate customer questions, points out the benefits of features that clients frequently ask, and refers customers to helpful documentation, can lower your churn rate. Also, the more your channel partner knows about your products and business, the more your clients know. This help to retain the customer as they feel more supported by you.

Customer Satisfaction

Channel partner programs provide the best result when engaging with clients. Also, they can make a massive difference to ongoing sales figures, especially when it comes to conversations about customer satisfaction with your product. Also, another benefit of the channel partner program is that if you train channel partners through an effective program, it makes them more confident and feel equipped to resolve customer issues.

Six effective ways to train channel Partners

Identify your Training Needs

The first step to train channel partners is to identify your partner’s requirements. For example, some partners, like vendors or franchisees, might need general training to market your product. Also, sales representatives and distributors may require more training about the product, like how to use the product’s different features. Next, you need to determine how effective channel partner training is and what type to channel partner program would be best to identify frequently encountered problems.

Define your audience and their roles

As your partners are different from the staff in your organization. They have different responsibilities and perform various tasks. Therefore, you need to define departments in partner companies whose performance influences the results of your collaboration, e.g., sales volume, repeat sales, and customer satisfaction rate and suggest a comprehensive training program for them.

Easy-to-remember training topics in bite-size pieces

As mentioned above, channel partners perform different tasks; they only have little to spend on long-duration training programs. So, busy channel partners will appreciate training material presented in small packages. If you want to train your channel partner effectively, consider developing micro-learning or bite-sized training content. It will help to break down training content into smaller, specific topics. At Paradiso, we help our customer to develop personalized content with the help of gamification.

Identify Individuals who need training

Skill gap analysis is another vital step to consider while creating an effective channel partner training program. First, you must know your audience. Even one topic has to be explained differently depending on the knowledge level of the learners taking the course. You can train channel partners by a self-evaluating question: Is it the front-facing sales department you are designing a program for? Is it the technical support team? What about the marketers for a specific channel partner? Each company’s division has its familiarity with a subject and its uses for new information and skills.

Align Partner’s KPI with organizations goals

If you want to train channel partners effectively, then KPIs in vital; without KPIs in place, you will have no desired proof that your training programs are working. Your Crucial Performance Indicators (KPIs) track how the business is faring against specific performance goals. For instance, let’s say you want to enhance customer retention by 30% in your current financial year; your partners should clearly state that this is your desired result from them taking your training course.

Choose the right platform

If you only have a small number of channel partners, workshops and face-to-face training could be a great way to foster friendship and trust among partners. But what if your partners are located across the globe? This is where LMS can make all the difference. Best LMS platform like Paradiso LMS helps to train channel partners and allows them to interact with your training content and assessment in their own time under one roof.

Conclusion

Now you might be clear that channel partner training increases the success of your business’s partners, improves your relationships with those representatives, and supercharges the growth of your business at the same time. This success is possible when you select the right platform. Paradiso LMS is the best platform through which you can create effective channel partner training and achieve success along with your partners.

Please call us at +1 800 513 5902 to speak with one of our specialists, send an email to [email protected], or visit our website at paradisosolutions.com.