7 Ps of Successful Partner Relationship Management
If you are selling through the channel and wondering how to do more with less and how to drive better performance through partner relationship management, then you are not alone. All of us who have lived and thrived in the channel have had to face this fundamental question, and we continue to face it today across the many clients we serve globally. As I step back and look at the core success factors that drive a high-performing channel, I find I can group those factors into seven categories. That\u2019s what we will explore here today.\n\n \tProduct \u2013 If you are selling through the channel and partners, the fundamental reason for that business model is that you have a product or a service that you want to distribute to a broader audience. However, for a group of businesses\u2014your partners\u2014to successfully distribute that product or service, your offering must be unique and stand out.While there are doubtless a lot of me-too products/services that get distributed via channel networks, those relationship are not sustainable and they will eventually negatively impact the financial performances of all involved parties. Therefore, the first most important success factor for partner relationship management is a uniquely positioned product or service that can enable another organization to build a business around it.\n \tProfitability \u2013 Beyond having a unique reason for engagement from an offering perspective, the next most important success factor for partner relationship management is having a truly strong business proposition that defines how the partner organization will make money. It is easy to launch a purely transactional product in the channel, especially in a new market segment; however, those relationships with partners really don\u2019t scale or sustain over time, because at the end of the day it doesn\u2019t drive the partner\u2019s bottom line. This is where a vendor clearly needs to understand how the product or service by itself\u2014or in combination with other offerings\u2014can actually create more profitable opportunities for the partner organizations.\n \tPlacement \u2013 Once an organization has introduced a unique offering into the marketplace and created a strong profitable partnership position for its channel, the next focus for successful partner relationship management is to determine how the product or service should be distributed. This varies greatly based on the type of channel. In the case of consumer products and services, this is typically done by territories. That\u2019s why, when you think about franchises, you don\u2019t see two franchises opening up shop next to each other. You typically have to go 5 to 10 miles to find the same franchise, because the vendor carves out the market space.However, in the case of certain business products that are sold through resellers or agents or the like, overdistribution can be a problem. This means multiple partners may be trying to sell to the same business. This creates an unhealthy foundation for partner relationship management. Yes, a certain level of competition is good. But overdistribution can lead to both end customer dissatisfaction and highly frustrated business partners who eventually stop selling a vendor\u2019s products or services.\n \tPrograms \u2013 Once the foundation has been built to create a successful partner relationship management framework by launching the right product, creating a profitable framework and having appropriate placement, the next big success factor is the programs that a vendor rolls out. These programs need to cover areas like marketing, sales, training, and product and service promotions. These programs are incredibly important for nurturing the vendor-partner relationship, and for helping partners successfully market, sell and serve the end customer base that they\u2019ve build their business on.Without the right programs, beyond the first few months of the honeymoon, most of these vendor-partner relationships quickly die on the vine. In today\u2019s hypercompetitive market,