Enhancing your Channel Partners Performance

In the movie adaptation of comic book legend Frank Miller's 300, King Leonidas along with his 300 soldiers where able to fight the thousands of foreign invaders. This is because of the exceptional fighting skills of the 300 Spartan soldiers and the great leadership of King Leonidas. It is true that there is strength in numbers; however, this can be achieved only if there is proper supervision and leadership. In the business industry, production companies have a number of resellers and distributors but the more partners they have, the harder it is to monitor and manage them. Some of them are inactive and have become liabilities to the company, which is why Channel Management is required.

Training and Probation Period
Since companies have a multitude or global number of partners it is hard to monitor and determine which of them are assets or liabilities. Inactive ones which do not contribute to the company's growth and revenue should be put under observation and evaluation. But first things first it is essential to determine which of them are assets to the company and which of them can be developed or improved. As a Channel Manager you should study and asses the track record of your reselling units. So the company already recruited some of the inactive ones, which is not a problem, all you have to do is to sort them out.

If a partner made a deal here and there but within their 12 month record, nothing really is happening maybe it is time to straighten things out. Set up a probation program or renewal certification. Clear this out to them, that if they are not able to comply with this program within the time frame given, their partnership will not be renewed. This is to let them know that the company wants to see if they are worth investing their money for and to ensure the company that they are still engaged.

Incentive programs
Workers are similar to machines. Machines run on fuel and the better the kind of fuel you put on them, the better they function. This goes for workers too. Better compensation motivates them to give their best at work. Resellers work on commission basis which is why their participation in indirect sales is voluntary. It depends on them on how much effort will they put on their performance. Motivating them through incentive programs will help them improve. You should consider this question first before devising an incentive program. "What in it for them?"

Incentive programs will only work if inducement is what the company's reseller needs. Carefully choose a reward the indirect selling team will value. Experimenting and mixing reward and point based programs could be the recipe for motivating and enhancing your resellers and distributors. Another thing about this strategy is to know when it's enough. Over stacking of promotions and commission programs targeting the same partners is not a good idea.

The success in maximizing and unleashing the potential of a company's indirect sales is through Channel Management. If each these channels are properly managed and it is supported by the company, the positive results could be very significant in terms of revenue.