Ways to Improve Channel Partner Sales Productivity

1. Onboard new partners.

2. Enable partner sales teams.
3. Avoid channel conflict through deal registration and lead management.
4. Deliver training & certification programs.
5. Provide marketing & communications support.
6. Develop processes around new product introductions.
7. Implement sales performance tools.

Keeping above we are taking several initiatives. One such initiatives is Partner certification Program
for Sales and Technical teams. I will share you the list of courses available.

Pavan wants to make these certification courses mandatory. Pavan wants ideas and ways to
implement. Should be connected to commission that get for a sale? Or just naming them as
Platinum/Diamond/Gold Partner? Pavan also wish to know What competitors are doing for Partners as
far as certification is concerned. Some of the Competitors called partners as Gold / Silver / Platinum
based on certain achievement. Do you want similar to our Channel partner Eco system? If yes, what
would be your criteria?

I will call you on Monday to get your inputs. Please think over until that. Thank you.

#1. Provide resources that communicate your message.

“Create a common sales toolkit for partners so you’re doing everything possible to enable
them to communicate your value proposition and accelerate sales growth. This should include
sales collateral, messaging platforms, samples of emails and other ad copy, access to your
webinars and white papers, case studies, etc.”

-- Matt Heinz, 5 Tips for Effective Channel Sales Development

#2. Modularize your content for each stage of the buying process.

“Breaking information into micro content not only makes it more manageable on mobile
devices, but also makes it easier to integrate into long-term memory… Smaller, more
manageable ‘chunks’ or ‘bits’ of information make learning more practical. Sales reps don’t
have time to read a 10-page paper on a topic, and even if they did, they probably wouldn’t
remember most of it anyway. Instead, they want to be able to have that same information in
digestible chunks or bits as it is relevant, and at the time and place they choose.”

-- Chanin Balance, 3 Tips for Effectively Using Mobile Technology for Sales and Channel
Enablement

#3. Keep the lines of communication frequent and open.

“Call each of your channel partner sales reps on a regular basis to help him or her make a
sale. If you've got a handful, there's no reason you can't call them all once a week. Maybe a
call to one of his or her prospects from the manufacturer will make a sale, so why not ask if
you can call that prospect and help out… Convince them you won't take away their business,
and build trust. I guarantee that you'll be brought into more of their deals, and each of you
will have better sales numbers as a result.”
-- Geoff Alexander, 3 Tips to Increase Channel Sales… Try Thinking Out of the Box

#4. Get on board with social.

“Network with channel partners – make sure to connect with your partners on social networks
like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others. You’ll have more authentic, personal and
regular interactions. And as you know, positive partner interactions lead to more partner
sales.”

-- Brian Offenberger, 4 Tips to Increase Channel Partner Sales

#5. Measure the relationship early and often.

“There are two reasons to measure. First, the key to the channel relationship is trust, which
means that you need [to be] flexible in making adjustments that improve performance. That's
only possible if you know what's happening. Second, when a channel partner isn't performing
(i.e. consuming more resources than the revenue they create), you need to know quickly so
that you can either fix the problem or cut the partner from your programs.”

-- Geoffrey James, How Can I Motivate My Channel Sales Partners?

For more tips and ideas for improving channel sales performance, check out the resources
below:

 7 Ways Video Improves Channel Partner Training

 Boosting Partner Sales Performance: Aligning Enablement with Demand Generation
 3 Channel Communication Strategies that Grab Attention

1. You need an overall and by-channel sales goal. You need to establish a sales & pipeline
growth discipline with each individual partner. It would be great if the partner was aligned
with this and also had a sales goal in mind (to drive referral fees back to them as revenue),
but at minimum you need to have an internal expectation of sales & revenue yield by
channel.

This seems fundamental, but I’ve seen many channel “objectives” talk about partnerships,
customer alignment and awareness. Maybe, but those are means to an ends. Be explicit about
expected sales & revenue yield from these channel relationships.

2. To get to this, you need an accurate sizing of the channel – how many prospective
customers are involved, how big those customers are, and what revenue potential is inherent
in each. Do the napkin math on what kind of sales & revenue would result in getting 5% of
channel participants to sign up, 10%, etc.
3. You won’t necessarily be driving sales from new partners in month one, but you should
have a clear, month-to-month expectation for lead activity, sales & revenue growth.
Also, what are the leading-indicator metrics via which you can judge early success in the first
couple months? Things like message/offer penetration & impressions in their communication
channels, # of inbound leads tracked to that partner, etc. You need a very clear, quantifiable
way of measuring progress.

4. Create a common sales toolkit for partners so you’re doing everything possible to
enable them to communicate your value proposition and accelerate sales growth. This should
include sales collateral, messaging platforms, samples of emails and other ad copy, access to
your webinars and white papers, case studies, etc.

5. In addition to having a clear compensation model for the referring channels, consider
“juicing” compensated activity in the early days of the partnership to help develop the
habit of driving awareness, leads and business your way. For example, you could pay them
for inbound leads in the first month. Eventually, you’d only want to pay points on closed
deals, but you could essentially let them earn more early by delivering leads, then they’d get
paid for that with a higher % on the first couple deals (so you don’t have to pay for anything
until you start actually closing channel-generated business).

3 Ways Marketers Can Increase Channel

Partner Sales
By John McTigueMay 12 /2017

Before there was Amazon or any of the other online marketplaces, most manufacturers had
two choices for sales, direct and channel partner sales. Smart companies tried both
approaches and either stayed with both or made the decision to concentrate on one of them.
There are advantages and disadvantages to using both strategies. Direct sales teams require a
substantial investment in talent, training and technology, but they are focused on your brand.
Channel partners and distributors work independently and usually offer more than your
product line, maybe even competitor products, but your investment is relatively low.

So which sales strategy is the right one for your company?

That depends on a number of factors including:

 Buyer preferences and history in your market

 Local knowledge and proximity to end-users
 Channel partner brand awareness and reputation
 Previous relationships with buyers and companies
 Your brand awareness and reputation
 Your business strategy and sales effectiveness
  Your budget for direct sales and marketing

Let's assume that, like many manufacturers, you have decided to use channel partners as a
primary conduit for sales. Cisco, for example, sells directly to only 30 enterprises worldwide,
representing only a small portion of the company's installed base. The lion's share is sold by
its 60,000 partners worldwide who generate more than 85 percent of Cisco's revenues.

Are your channel partners performing as well as Cisco's?

There are three common challenges to working with channel partners, and here's where
Marketing can help.

1. Channel Partners Don't Understand the Value of Your

Products
They're focused on building relationships with customers and rely on them to know what they
need. It's not so much a matter of helping them find the best solution, rather to close repeat
sales and keep the pipeline open.

In B2B, especially industrial manufacturing, orders can be very large and sales cycles can
take months, even years. The best sales reps act in a supporting role, providing timely
information that helps their prospects and customers make informed decisions. To do that
well, they need the latest product information and collateral and, most importantly, they need
to know the value proposition and best fit for each of your products. Unfortunately, most
channel reps would rather work on relationships, not upping their product knowledge
on a regular basis.

How can marketers help?

 Build a bridge with your reseller and distributor sales teams. Create an easy-to-use
online resource that provides them with co-branded brochures, spec sheets and value
statements they can share with their prospects and customers.
 Keep them informed with weekly newsletters and blogs about product advancements,
big sales wins, ideas for improved selling and additional support resources.
 Host events, both in-person and online, to promote new products, answer questions
and provide two-way feedback.

2. Channel Partners Don't Understand Modern Selling

The world of B2B selling has changed forever. Some of the more telling statistics include:

 50 to 90 percent of the B2B buyer’s journey is complete before a buyer reaches out to
sales
 67 percent of the buyer's journey is now completed digitally
 By 2020, 80 percent of the buying process is expected to occur without any direct
human-to-human interaction
Channel partners may not be willing to invest in continuing education to bring their sales reps
up to speed on modern selling techniques. Sales reps themselves may resist change because it
requires a significant time investment and training on digital sales tools they may have never
used before.

Resellers and distributors may not be willing to invest in the digital marketing platforms and
content required to rank highly in search engines and offer needed online support for the
buyer journey. Even if they are willing to build a robust online presence, your products
may not be featured or even accurately represented.

How can marketers help?

 Build channel partner locators and co-branded web pages on your site that feature
your products and make it easy for searchers to find a partner that fits their needs.
 Assist channel partners with SEO and demand generation campaigns for your
products and their prospects.
 Offer workshops, CRM tools and other online resource pages that partner sales reps
can use to quickly and accurately choose the right solutions for their needs, better
manage the sales process and close sales more efficiently.
 Dedicate a team specifically to support channel partner sales by providing lead data,
sales rep notices of lead activity, feedback on sales performance and sales content for
each stage in the buyer's journey.

3. Channel Partners Aren't Accountable for Sales of Your

Products
The truth is, high value channel partner relationships are rarely easy to find and still harder to
grow. Relationships that work are built on a solid foundation of trust and alignment of goals
and processes. Start with understanding your own requirements for a good partner, then
apply those standards in the vetting process. Some things to look for include:

 Experience in selling and supporting your products or similar products

 Commitment by both parties to support the relationship, regularly communicate and
provide honest feedback to continuously improve results
 A service level agreement that spells out the roles and responsibilities of both parties
 Consider using partner relationship management (PRM) software to track sales and
manage all of your channel partners in one system. Learn more about some of the best
PRM solutions here.

The Bottom Line

If you want your channel partners to perform as well as Cisco's, some strategic thinking may
be in order. Your best partners may well be your best chance to grow revenues and reach
your goals, but they will need to be with you on that quest. The more you can do to help them
with both sales and marketing, the faster they can increase revenues from selling your
products. Your best partners will embrace your offer to help and participate themselves in
getting the word out, improving sales performance and developing great client relationships.
Your "other" partners? Well, maybe it's time to move on.

Motivating a channel partner, such as one of your distributors or resellers, is different to

motivating your own workforce. When encouraging your own staff, your priority is to focus
them on your company values or business goals like customer service, sales performance or
even product quality, so that they can relay these principles directly to your customers.

Your channel partners require a much more straightforward approach. Specifically, a product
they can sell easily, to maximise profits with minimum fuss.

For the best results, you need to inspire your channel partners to sell your products and
services, over and above those of your competitors – who will also be clamouring for
attention. Your priority needs to be ensuring they are incentivised to concentrate on your
offerings and equipped to provide a best practice service when it comes to selling them.

How can you get more from channel partners?

The key is to develop a strategy to engage with them. The good news is, you can engage in a
number of ways:

 Invest in time and resource. Concentrate all your resources in one place for ease and
focus, like within an online platform that encompasses incentives, goals & targets,
promotions, claim forms, e-Learning, rewards and so on.
 Group your partners according to size, so targets and rewards can be efficiently
allocated, managed and made available to all.
 Position your company messaging at the forefront to attract attention and maintain
momentum. Vehicles to achieve this include SPIF days, giveaways and incentives.
 Provide education for partners so they feel confident about your product and are able
to communicate key messages easily. You might managed this through remote e-
learning or on-site training days.
 Offer rewards for good performance with tiered options available for different levels
of achievement. Options could range from shopping vouchers up to incentive travel
for high level successes.

Make it personal
In order to get this across and make an impact with your channel partner, develop your
relationships. The more contact you can facilitate the better: it will keep you and your
products top of mind, and will allow you to understand your partner better. Incentives put this
into practice, as they give you an excuse to keep in touch with partners in a positive way. So
not only will your partners benefit, but you will too.
Make it easy
As a channel partner, if you had to choose between an easy sell and a hard sell, it’s pretty
obvious which is more appealing. In a crowded marketplace, if you can make it easy for your
partners to sell your services they’re likely to sell more of them.

Make sure they have everything they need, from pricing to sales brochures, and make the
pricing systems straightforward. If it’s easy for your partner to calculate profits and see
exactly what’s in it for them, they’re going to be all the more motivated to do a good job for
you.

Focus
Logic suggests the more partners you have, the more opportunities there are for your products
to reach the end-user. But this doesn’t necessarily always happen. The more partners you
have, the harder these relationships can be to manage and performances levels will drop.

Make sure your channel team can efficiently manage and support your partners; anything
beyond this will lead to wasted time and effort. Fewer partners, performing well, will have a
much more positive impact on your sales figures.

A well-managed and motivated channel is a force to be reckoned with and will help to make
your business a success.

Getting more out of your sales channels

Incentive schemes are the perfect way to improve engagement with your brand and drive a
consistent level of high performance, not only internally but with your channel sales partners
too. The right channel incentive can reap major rewards for your business – keeping your
brand front of mind and encouraging your sales channel teams to prioritise your products and
services above others.

At CR Worldwide, we can quickly design, launch and optimise effective channel incentive
programmes that drive increased sales for your business. Our channel incentive schemes are:

Easy to implement — Our turnkey MyRewards platform can be tailored to suit the specific
requirements of your business, which means you can be ready to implement incentive
schemes quickly

Easy to use — It’s easy for your sales channel teams to track their targets and performance
as well as view potential rewards, because we’ve designed our platform to be easy to use and
quick to launch

Easy to manage — Managing, organising and tracking your channel incentive scheme is
easy. This is thanks to the inclusion of real-time reporting tools to chart ROI and budget
management
https://www.ansys.com/about-ansys/partner-ecosystem/channel-partners

ANSYS Channel Partner Program

ANSYS channel partnerships are created to ensure ANSYS software solutions reach every
potential customer. All channel partners are required to meet stringent certification and
resource requirements. The channel partnership program includes thorough sales and
technical training on ANSYS products. ANSYS Channel Partners value owning the end-to-
end customer experience.

Channel partners are considered for Elite status through defined metrics, including customer
satisfaction ratings, depth of staff certification in sales and technical ranks, business growth
and overall sales volume.

Laxminarayan:

Altair is best as far as support to Partners is concerned. Other principal companies are charging for training and
support. It is extremely pathetic with Ansys and Abaqus. Altair is far ahead and best.

Issues with Altair is new Features addition and new acquisitions. Most cases we get PPt’s and sales positioning
Videos vis PK/Vikram/Madhesh. But we need hands on session. Doing through boot camp is not good. Many of
our team could not able to attend the same. Having webex is the best. Best time is Morning session 7.30 to 8.30
AM. If it is recorded and shared will be of great help.

Boot camp is done with Hurry burry. Not much focussed on hands on. HyperLife is in demand we need hands
on along with HWx new release. Web based hands on training is best suited to our nature of work.
Possible Solution:

1. Many marketing materials is shared in HUB – This is Altair Internal. There needs to be Sync between
HUB and PRM tool (Yet to implement). So the Program Managers upload data to hub, they can enable
a setting for Partners so that the same can be routed through PRM.
2. Need to make partner portal a strong resource database for partners ecosystem.
3. Plan for a discrete boot camp where DT AE can visit Altair office with predefined learning program.
He will sit with respective technical expert > learn the tool. This will help. This has to happen
individually.

- Hyper Life / ARD / MDS / ESA Comp – Need Hands on, HWx19 Newly released

Madesh:

- Create experts in DT AE team

- Guideline document > Non Linear debug and convergence issues.
- Simsolid Push / OptiStruct Non Linear / SimLab
- Product Positioning issues