What Makes a Great Channel Partner

The meaning of “channel partner” can vary from company to company. But the most general definition of a channel partner is an individual or organization that sells, distributes, or delivers a vendor’s products to end customers.

Why not sell direct, you ask?

Well, many companies that use channel partners do still sell direct. They just use channel partners to expand their reach even more — to geographies or verticals that they don’t currently market to or have a harder time getting in front of with traditional marketing strategies.

Below, we cover what channel partners bring to the table and what to look for as you build your channel partner program.

Why Use Channel Partners?

Channel partners act as an extension of your team, helping your company scale its pipeline and operations. Depending on what you sell and how your company functions, channel partners can:

• Resell your products or services, either as-is or bundled with their own services.
• Distribute your products, ensuring they reach end customers efficiently.
• Offer support with product setup, customization, and maintenance.
• Identify potential customers and send them to your sales team.

And in all of these capacities, channel partners amplify your marketing, whether it’s through one-to-one conversations or co-branded campaigns — ultimately contributing to your bottom line.

Having challenges with channel conflict? Read our guide to preventing and overcoming it.

4 Qualities of Great Channel Partners 

Good channel partners are compatible with your mission and have a baseline desire to sell your product or service. But those two characteristics alone aren’t enough to skyrocket your growth.

You want channel partners willing to go above and beyond and who care just as much about an end user’s success and satisfaction as you do. Here’s what the best channel partners do well (and how you can find and serve them):

1. Standout Channel Partners Deeply Understand the Value of Your Product or Service

It’s one thing for partners to regurgitate the information on your website and promote your stock marketing materials. It’s a totally different thing for partners to tailor their pitches to end customers based on their unique needs and use cases.

In order to do the latter, partners have to know the benefits of your product or service inside and out, and they have to know the industry you serve like the back of their hand.

David Isola, Director of Product Marketing at Black Box, emphasizes, “We are always on the lookout for partners that understand our products and can grasp the technology behind them. If they understand the technology, they will find buyers who want and need it!”

Without that core knowledge, it’ll be tough for channel partners to make compelling pitches. Even if they manage to make a sale, the customer they sold to may not have been a good fit for your product, which can lead to churn down the line. If that scenario happens more than once, you risk your company’s reputation.

How to Serve Your Partners

Most channel partners that you’re thinking of bringing on probably have the industry expertise you’re looking for. Maybe they may work with your competitors or have been serving your particular market for decades.

What they may not know are the intricacies of your product. That’s where good partner enablement comes in. 

John Simmons, Head of Partnerships at InboxAlly, explains, “We put a huge emphasis on partner enablement at our company. We give partners access to the same training resources as our own sales team, plus co-brandable assets. We also assign them a dedicated partner manager who is essentially an extension of their team.”

Importantly, he points out: “This high-touch approach has allowed us to build incredibly strong and lasting relationships with our top channel partners.”

To develop even deeper product knowledge, you might consider giving your channel partners hands-on access to your product in a sandbox.

Need some help getting your partner enablement off the ground? Learn what to look for in a partner enablement manager.

2. Ideal Channel Partners Are Connected to the Audience You Want

People buy from companies they know and trust — but your brand may not be known to prospects in certain geographies or verticals. Identifying channel partners with a customer base in those areas is a way to close that gap.

David shares, “We specifically look for partners that have an established base of users in our target demographic. In our case, it’s Command and Control, so it makes sense for us to find partners in industrial, air traffic control, broadcast, transportation, and defense markets.”

As you search for these partners, remember that audience size isn’t everything. What matters more is how strong a channel partner’s relationships are with their customers, how committed they are to marketing your product, and their reputation in the market you want to go after.

John highlights: “A few years ago, we partnered with a boutique consulting firm that specialized in our target vertical. Despite their smaller size, they blew us away with their industry knowledge, passion for our solutions, and innovative marketing ideas. That partnership unlocked access to an entirely new customer base and accelerated our expansion plans.”

How to Find Them

It can be tough to find the right balance between reach and expertise. One way to narrow your search for channel partners is to think about where your product organically overlaps with other products or services.

For example, Shanique Brophy, Marketing Executive at Rocketseed, says, “We look for channel partners that have a natural fit for our product in their service portfolio. In our case, it’s MSPs managing hundreds or thousands of Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Exchange mailboxes who see email signature management and marketing as a complementary offering.”

Daniel Ndukwu, CoFounder of DoxFlowy, evaluates potential channel partners on several axes:

• How they’re promoting(and the quality of) their assets. “If you have a channel partner with a sleazy-looking website, that can reflect on you. If they have strong views about religion and politics, that can also be associated with you.”
• Specific channels that they focus on.“Too many potential affiliate partners spread themselves too thin and end up generating little to nothing for the brand.”
• Open communication about what they need or want to be successful. “Many affiliates may not have something they think they need, and, instead of asking for it, they just don’t promote the brand or try once and leave it.”

Struggling to source ideal partners? Learn more about what partner recruiting is and how to do it.

3. The Best Partners Care Deeply About the End Customer Experience

As we alluded to already, channel partners aren’t doing you any good if they’re (1) reeling in low-quality customers or (2) giving good customers a bad experience.

Because channel partners are a direct reflection of your brand, you want to onboard the partners who are going to give the best first impression and help your customers get the best ROI possible.

How to Find Them

To get a feel for whether a potential channel partner is going to ensure end customer satisfaction and loyalty:

Look at their reviews

Are customers happy with their results, or are they reporting major issues? Pay attention to customer opinions on the company’s level of support. Are they satisfied with the help they get?

If you’re looking at a partner’s case studies, ask yourself whether your product or service will really matter to someone in their customer base. If not, the partner selling your product may come off as more of a nuisance than a great help.

Talk to references

Review their list of partners and try to spot companies that aren’t in your line of business. Because they aren’t competitive with you, they may be more willing to give their honest opinion on working with a company on your potential channel partner list. Use those conversations to gauge how well the partner represented their interests and catered to their customers.

Ask about their SLAs

This is particularly critical if you’re operating in an industry with heavy compliance restrictions or where channel partners need to step in last minute.

For example, Tracie Crites, Chief Marketing Officer of HEAVY Equipment Appraisal, looks for channel partners that are equipped to handle unexpected demands without delay. Time management and availability matters.

“Last year, when a construction client needed appraisals across multiple sites almost immediately. Our partner had the staffing and infrastructure to jump in and provide support right away, which allowed us to deliver results on time and secure future business with that client. Without a partner ready to scale up as needed, we could have missed that opportunity.”

Dr. Maria Knobel, Medical Director of Medical Cert UK, has been on the flip side of the coin as a partner.

“We recently worked with a medical group that needed certifications for hundreds of their staff, all within a tight timeframe. They were under pressure to meet regulatory deadlines, and delays would have had serious consequences for their operations. We reinforced our reputation as a partner they could count on by approaching the task with complete dedication to accuracy and timeliness.”

See whether they are willing to go through training

If they’re not keen to invest in your training and certification, that could indicate a lack of commitment to service quality. If applicable, you may want to do a mock sales call or even a mock implementation to offer partners guidance and feedback before they approach real customers.

Here are five strategies to help you recruit the kind of partners who will prioritize the customer experience.

4. High-Yield Partners Participate in Your Program

Outstanding channel partners see partnerships as a strategic growth lever for their business. And because of that, they put significant effort, thought, and preparation into any training, resources, or incentives you offer.

This is one of those things that you can’t necessarily predict off the bat. But a couple of months into a channel partner joining your program, you’ll want to see:

• Use of your Partner Portal: They are logging in to look at your joint business plan, download newly uploaded documents, and complete partner training.
• Marketing development fund (MDF) requests: They have ideas for promoting your product or service and want your buy-in to do so.
• Account mapping requests: They want to see where they can add the most value by making introductions or tapping into their account base.

How to Serve Them

As David puts it, “To keep partners, you have to incentivize them!”

So, put yourself in your partner’s shoes. What do they really want and need from you? Some examples could be:

• A list of leads your sales team hasn’t had the capacity to nurture
• Generous rebates or discounts
• SPIFFs
• One-on-one training
• Extra sandbox accounts
• Co-brandable collateral
• Marketing development funds
• Opportunities to speak at your conference

If you’re not sure, ask your partners directly. They’ll be able to tell you what other partner programs provide that you could emulate or riff off of.

As your channel partner program grows, you might want to think about creating several tiers of partnership. This somewhat gamifies the partner experience — if the next tier has some benefit they really want, it pushes them to reach the next level (while increasing your brand awareness, pipeline, and revenue).

Attract and Retain Your Channel Partners

Keep in mind that while you’re looking for great qualities in potential channel partners, they’re looking for great qualities in you.

To catch and keep their attention, you need to show them off the bat that you’re putting in the same level of effort they are — and you plan to continue that throughout the partnership. Having one place where partners can go to get the information, training, and assets they need is an excellent way to make a great first impression.

In a PRM solution like Channeltivity, you can:

• Share important product or program announcements via a partner portal
• Give them access to resources, training, and co-branded collateral
• Set clear mutual goals with business plans
• Show partners their progress with real-time reporting
• Invest in their success with customizable MDF management

Check it out for yourself — reach out to our team to schedule a demo of Channeltivity today.