4 Partner Program Best Practices that Save Time, Money, and Headache

What are the partner program best practices that will help you run a successful channel program?

In our work with partner programs of all sizes and configurations, we have been asked how to accomplish many things within our Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution. Our experience has revealed a handful of best practices that will help you build a successful channel program and avoid missteps.

Secure & Transparent Deal Registration

Don’t have your partners submit deal registrations with a simple public form. Give them access to a secure portal to register, manage, and view the deals they are working on. A formal Deal Registration process supported by your partner portal provides transparency and builds trust. The overarching best practice in deal registration is to design your process with partners’ interests in mind, and they will register deals.

Vet Prospective Partners Before Giving Them Access

Partner portals house sensitive non-public information about products and services, along with other important sales and opportunity data. You should have a vetting process in place to make sure prospective partners match up with your program goals. Avoid auto-approval practices that allow anyone, including your competitors, to access proprietary information about your partner program.

Integrate With Your CRM

Good data is everything, so you’ll want your PRM to sync with your CRM. Whether you use HubSpot, Salesforce, or any other CRM platform, having a single truth source is a key to making good decisions. For example, having deal registration data automatically populate your CRM allows you to do real-time consolidated pipeline reporting from within your CRM without having to combine reports from multiple systems. Your PRM should allow you to customize how your CRM integration works and control the data flow between the systems.

Prioritize Portal Functionality Over Design

We know branding and consistency are important, but spending too much time on portal design comes with a hefty price tag and slows down implementation. You will increase the ROI of the partner program by spending time and money on partner acquisition, partner training, MDF, or other programs that will impact partner and program success. Remember, partners care about ease of use, not branding.

Taking advantage of the best practices described in this post will help you implement the right processes and maximize your partner program and PRM solution benefits. Channeltivity is here to help you accomplish your partner program goals. Schedule time with our team to learn more about how we can support your program.