4 Fundamental Elements to Grab your Channel Partners’ Attention

Time is on the run. And also, it has set everyone running. Every little time that you find is consumed to connect, engage, read blogs, articles and books, take a survey, listen to a podcast, view YouTube video, talks or attend a webinar. It not only keeps you and your channel partner engaged, but also overwhelms you both.

So, how would you attract your channel partners to spend some quality time to enhance your partnerships? Trust, communication or programs, which one would work best?

Trust

Like any relationship, ‘Trust’ is the key basis of every personal or professional connection. This further helps when the changing economy and spends bring in sudden storm of events. ‘Every human being wants to trust those in close interaction and wishes the same in reciprocation’ – as stated by behavioral scientist.

Upon sharing work history, you need to establish trust on your partners that they will sell your products in good faith and at a fair price, ensuring that the end-user has a quality experience. The channel partner in turn, needs to trust that any information they share with you will not be used by you to go directly to the end-user and cut them out of the mix.

Trust is earned and then preserved. Make yourself to be a trust-worthy partner by being highly professional, completely ethical and respectful of your partners’ situations.

Communication

Make certain to keep any form of communication open, two way and transparent. It is honesty and frequency that helps to inaugurate a good communication culture. If you have a channel web portal, hire someone to keep it updated on par with company standards by uploading new and fresh content continuously that has actionable meaning for your partners. Then push that content out to your partners. Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they will come.

When it comes to communicating with channel partners, silence is not golden. It is up to you in keeping communication positive, ongoing, relevant and usable.

Programs

Your partner’s expectation from you to support them with innovative, fresh and current programs to upkeep their sales and marketing efforts is a given. In today’s competitive global environment, a ‘one-size fits all’ program strategy is unlikely to work anymore. Insist on applying idiosyncratic fit methodology to your program strategy by providing programs that are flexible, so your partners can customize them to their specific needs.

Plug and play programs are no longer valid. You need to give your partners lots of leeway to pick what works, discard what doesn’t. Provide a fluid array of choices to match their individual needs.

Keep it real

It is very noisy and fluctuating in every marketplace. But by establishing trust, communicating assertively and providing flexible programs, you can inherit, and more importantly, maintain your channel partners’ attention.