The Partner Enablement Manager: Why They Are Important & What They Do

A partner enablement manager doesn’t often get a lot of credit — but they really should.

They are responsible for helping your partners better understand your product or service. And without that, partners couldn’t be making sales or teeing up qualified leads.

To do that effectively, partner enablement managers not only need to know your ICP, your product’s ROI, your marketing messaging, and your partner program rules inside and out, they also have to be able to explain all that to your partners — in a way that doesn’t overwhelm or bore them.

These folks are diamonds in the rough. But many companies fail to realize their value and equip them with the resources they need to make your partner program stand out.

With the help of two partner enablement pros, we explain why partner enablement managers are so critical to a successful program, what to look for in a partner enablement manager, and what good enablement looks like — both when your partner program is just getting its sea legs and when it’s on solid footing.

Why Are Partner Enablement Managers Important?

Partners can’t drive revenue if they don’t know what purpose your product serves, how to pitch it to prospects, or how to implement it correctly. Top-notch partner enablement managers give partners the knowledge and insights they need to get up to speed quickly.

“Being a partner enablement manager is about giving partners the resources they need to make their brand shine *with* your brand, not because of it,” says Alex Sunseri at Inseego.

“The best partner programs I’ve been a part of have all been highly partner-centric. The materials enablement managers gave us made it easy for us to churn out content that would help potential customers convert while still giving us the freedom to make it more ‘us.’ That is what I emulate as a partner enablement manger.”

When given the proper resources, partner enablement managers can:

• Foster partner loyalty by anticipating and exceeding their expectations and rewarding them for checking items off of their enablement list.
• Boost your brand reputation by giving partners resources to stay top of mind for potential customers.
• Increase your marketing reach by delivering content that is relevant to your audience in a way that they want to digest it.

Do You Really Need a Partner Enablement Manager? 

The short answer is yes, you do.

Creating, updating, and pivoting partner enablement isn’t something that partner managers can do on top of their regular duties. Asking your partner ops person to take that on isn’t fair either — they’re juggling a lot managing your pipelines, data, and partner portal.

Morten Søger, a Partner Business Advisor, explains, “You really need someone with a dedicated focus on enablement. It’s just like sales or marketing — someone needs to own it.”

Alex was hired at Inseego for that very purpose. “The team found they really couldn’t do it themselves. They were spread too thin,” she says. “Now it’s my job to wrangle all the different talents and assets we have across our business, triage partner requests, and get everyone rowing in the same direction.”

Traits of Excellent Partner Enablement Managers

The best partner enablement managers have several things in common. Typically, they have a sales ops or even a learning and development background, so they understand the best ways to disseminate information and set people up for success.

Beyond that experience, they also have:

• Top-notch organizational skills to keep partners up to date and on track.
• Exceptional communication abilities, enabling them to convey complex concepts clearly and persuasively to technical and non-technical partners.
• Technical proficiency, guiding partners on integration, onboarding, and usage, ultimately reducing friction and improving partners’ selling ability.
• A highly cross-functional mindset, ensuring partners get the latest and greatest information.
• Analytical skills, which help them monitor partner performance and spot areas for enablement improvement or opportunity.
• Adaptability, they’re used to working in a fast-changing environment and can pivot quickly based on market or company shifts.

What Partner Enablement Managers Need to Succeed

Most people reduce partner enablement to “publish-ready marketing materials” or “training.” But it’s about a lot more than that. Any time your partner program, GTM strategy, product, or service changes, your partner enablement has to change too.

Because partner enablement is so integral to your program, your partner enablement manager needs one major thing: buy-in.

It’s something we hear over and over from our customers at Channeltivity: leadership doesn’t always understand partnerships. Not well, at least.

“From their perspective,” Morten shares, “They’re giving you marketing development funds and one to two resources to get more leads. But with partnerships, you don’t just get leads. You have to give a lot first in order to get something — and keep giving more.”

When leadership doesn’t understand this give and take, they start to see partner enablement as a cost center. “It becomes an area of the business that they can save some money, by pushing off a partner enablement resource or PRM until next year.”

If you’re having trouble getting your leadership to invest in a partner enablement manager, emphasize the benefits of first-class enablement:

• Higher quality leads
• Better (and potentially faster) close rates
• Higher customer satisfaction
• Positive reputation

If you’ve done some partner enablement already, try to measure how much impact it’s had on your sales cycle, implementation time, revenue, or end customer NPS.

What Good Partner Enablement Looks Like For…

Here are a few things to look for at each stage of your program to make sure your enablement manager is on the right track.

Fledgling partner programs

Building out a partner enablement function is a lot of work. The best partner enablement managers boil it down to four core elements:

1. A Partner Handbook

This document or set of slides outlines:

• How to get access to your partner portal
• What partners should expect in the first 30, 60, 90 days
• Rules and regulations for deal registration, lead distribution, and referrals
• Who to contact with questions and how to contact them (via the portal and email)

If your program has a tiering system, qualifications and guidelines for getting to each level should be in the handbook, too.

“A handbook may sound like a small thing, but having one document that partners can continually refer to and that you can update fairly easily holds the whole partner framework together — processes, procedures, and expectations,” Morten emphasizes.

This handbook should be prominently displayed on the homepage and in the partner portal library. Partner enablement managers may also consider including it in partner onboarding email sequences as well.

2. A Standard 12-Month Enablement Plan

At first, most partners will onboard the same way. Experienced partner enablement managers will build a standard 12-month enablement plan that points new partners to specific materials in your portal library and training courses and provides a fixed onboarding checklist to make sure new partners have been offered and carried out all minimum activities.

That way, each partner manager can copy and customize this plan for each of their partners and potentially include a draft business plan. Having these ready-made templates makes it easier to personalize the enablement experience for each partner while still ensuring your partners get all the information they need.

Depending on the size of the organization and the scope of the partner enablement manager’s role, they may also be responsible for helping partners follow that plan before handing off to another team member. Per Morten:

“Depending on the profile of the enablement manager, they could be the person who holds on to the partner until they reach a certain maturity level, such as having created their first three leads or closed their first deal, at which point they hand over the partner to a partner manager or to sales ops.”

3. Sales and marketing materials

A partner’s main job is to sell your product — no matter whether they are a referral partner, affiliate partner, channel partner, or anything in between. Skilled partner enablement managers help them make the pitch.

“I’ve found that brochures, data sheets, and especially product pictures help out our partners a lot because they can directly apply them in their own sales and marketing practices,” says Alex.

Other sales-related enablement materials could be:

• Slide decks
• A collection of one-pagers, case studies, and thought leadership content (bonus points if they are optimized for co-branding)
• Sales scripts

Pricing can also be tricky for partners, so some partner enablement managers create a “menu” of bundles for them to sell. Partners can pick one, register a deal, and get going.

4. A strategy for collecting feedback

Though partner enablement managers can certainly make an educated guess as to what partners need to be successful — and that’s a good start — they don’t know if their enablement strategy is helping partners unless they ask them.

Gathering feedback can happen on a one-to-one basis where partner enablement managers meet directly with partners. Or, they could enlist the help of partner managers to collect answers to their specific questions.

At Inseego, Alex has formed a Partner Advisory Council (PAC), a group of partners she meets with quarterly to ask what’s going well, what’s missing from their program, what else could be helpful, and what they see in other partner programs. The key to getting constructive feedback from her PAC?

“We strategically select partners so that we have a mix of new and old, large and small. We have a diverse set of voices, but not too many where people aren’t comfortable to talk.”

Growing partner programs

As a partner program expands, partner enablement managers need to put even more effort into training, particularly if your company sells a complex product. At this stage of growth, seasoned partner enablement managers will develop:

1. Technical training

Outstanding partner enablement managers work closely with your product, engineering, customer success, and sales teams to figure out what partners need to know and the best way to organize and present that information.

As we hinted at the beginning, partner enablement can come in many forms. Your partner enablement manager may publish:

• Instructional videos
• Interactive demos
• Slides and screenshots
• Guides for using a sandbox environment

With partner relationship management software, they don’t even have to use an LMS to distribute this content and train your partners.

Channeltivity’s built-in training and certification, for instance, lets admins set up courses with online learning content in any format, including rich text, video, PDF, SCORM, AICC, cmi5, or xAPI. They can also test their partners’ knowledge with quizzes and award partners certificates that they can proudly share on their LinkedIn profiles.

2. Campaigns in a Box

Partner enablement managers use canned campaigns to keep your message unified across partners as you grow.

Plus, they’re easy for partners to use — they just add their logo, tweak the language, and send it to their customer lists. And the easier they are for partners to use, the more they’ll get used, and the more qualified leads you or your partners will get.

Alex points out, “Partners want to know that your content is fresh. Campaigns in a box get the word out about new features or position your product in a new way.”

3. A Partner Community 

Veteran partner enablement managers know that new partners have a lot of questions. Instead of answering them individually, they let existing partners show new ones the ropes by starting a community in a tool like Slack, Teams, or Discord.

Partner enablement managers that use Channeltivity activate the Forum feature so that partners can post questions about the problems or use cases they’re dealing with and ask other partners to weigh in.

Note: Starting a community may not work well if your partners are extra competitive with each other, but it’s worth a try — most of them would prefer to get answers to their questions from someone who has been in their shoes.

Enable Your Partner Enablement Manager

With the right tool, your partner enablement manager can get your program up and running quickly and have an easier time managing it over time. Besides a robust partner portal, Channeltivity has the features you need to build a world-class partner enablement motion.

Out of the box, Channeltivity’s PRM software includes:

• Resource Library, where your partner enablement manager can make all your digital assets easily discoverable and accessible.
• Co-Branded Collateral, where your partner enablement manager can upload unlimited PDFs, select which partner profiles and groups can see each document, and define where you want your partners to add their custom content, including logos and contact information.
• Training & Certification, where your partner enablement manager can create unlimited lessons tailored to teach partners the things they need to effectively sell your product — and award certifications at both the Rep and Partner level that they can post on LinkedIn.
• Business Planning, where your partner enablement manager can set enablement goals and keep partners accountable.
• Reporting, where your partner enablement manager can see what resources people are downloading most and rating highest, what materials they’re co-branding, what courses they’re taking, and who is passing exams.

If you’re a partner enablement manager wanting to streamline your work or you’re thinking about hiring a partner enablement resource — you’re going to want to see these modules in action.
Book a demo with the Channeltivity team today.