Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 0 You are the sales and marketing leader for your emerging growth company, responsible for your company’s top line. You and your boss, the CEO, have made the decision to use outside sales partners to accomplish the ambitious sales targets. As the person responsible for channel management, you have found the perfect sales channel partner organization. Now, how do you make them productive? The initial phase of this process is called onboarding. According to Wikipedia onboarding “refers to the mechanism through which new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and behaviors to become effective organizational members and insiders. Tactics used include formal meetings, lectures, videos, printed materials or computer-based orientations to introduce newcomers to their new jobs and organizations. These techniques lead to positive outcomes for new employees such as higher job satisfaction, better job performance, greater organizational commitment and reduction in stress and intent to quit.” You have a very short honeymoon period with your new channel partner to help make them effective advocates for your product/service. Failure will result in missed revenue targets and the pressure will make you feel like you have been water boarded. To make the onboarding process successful, you focus on two most areas: business process and product selling. Business process includes everything a partner would want to know in terms of how they work with your organization, including: How are leads managed and distributed? How are orders handled? What type of service levels exist? How is reporting handled? How are commissions paid? How do the two organizations communicate? In other words, effective business process onboarding clearly articulates how the sales and marketing functions of your company and your channel partner’s sales and marketing systems connect, interact and communicate. Product selling onboarding provides the roadmap to your channel partner for solution selling. This roadmap answers the following questions for channel partner: What problem does the product or service address for a potential customer? What is the buying process like? What sales tools already exist? Who are the buyers at the target companies? How does your product/service compare to the competition and how is your product/service positioned in the market place vis-à-vis the competition? You have your business process clearly mapped out and you feel confident that you have the sales and marketing story and associated materials pulled together. Now you need a system that will enable you to educate, support and collaborate with your channel partner – you need a channel partner management system. A robust system that allows you to effectively collaborate with your channel partners to support, develop and manage their distribution channels to increase sales, improve margins, lower service and warranty costs and increase customer satisfaction. To learn more about onboarding and channel readiness, click here to download a white paper. LogicBay’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Technology is rich with best practice workflows making it easier for organizations to do business with channel partner re-sellers. The result: More engagement and Mindshare. Greater Efficiency and Cost Savings. Alignment with Channel Partners. And, Performance Improvement for the Entire Sales Enterprise. Download this premium white paper to learn Channel Management Best Practices – Make it easy for dealers to do business with you, Heighten dealer engagement, Gain mindshare and maximize financial returns. Learn about LogicBay’s 4Core Best Practice Framework including methods for more effectively training and monitoring dealer employee certifications. Link to LogicBay’s Library of Partner Relationship Management White Papers. These white papers provide best practice ideas on a Channel Readiness and Performance Improvement strategies. Topics include subjects such as: Effectively launching a LMS for the Channel, Applying Lean Principles to Channel Management, Channel Life-cycle Management, Partner Portal Technology Unification, and much more. Link to LogicBay’s Library of Client Case Studies. Learn how LogicBay’s PRM Solutions and Technology have created significant performance gains for clients such as Caterpillar, HP, Daimler Trucks and Outdoor Living Brands. Tags: Emerging Markets, Channel Partner Recruiting Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article was written for Business 2 Community by Kane Pepi.Learn how to publish your content on B2C Author: Kane Pepi Kane Pepi is an experienced financial and cryptocurrency writer with over 2,000+ published articles, guides, and market insights in the public domain. Expert niche subjects include asset valuation and analysis, portfolio management, and the prevention of financial crime. Kane is particularly skilled in explaining complex financial topics in a user-friendly … View full profile ›More by this author:VoIP Basics: Everything Beginners Should Know!Bitcoin Investment, Trading & Mining: The Ultimate Guide for BeginnersIs This a Better Way to Set Your 2020 Goals and Resolutions?