Partner Portal Matters: What to Look for in an Ideal Channel Partner?

Channel partnership is a relationship and just like every relationship in your life, there is a list of qualities that we would like the partner to have. The good news is that in a channel partner relationship, you can dismiss the partner who does not meet your qualifications without the emotional upheaval. Imagine sharing you partner portal with a technologically-challenged partner, for example. It would require additional training to get them up to speed with your business process. So, what would you typically want in a channel partner?

Customer access – For one thing, you’d want this partner to know the target customers for your product. It would also be a plus if they are established and well known by their loyal customers.

Complement your product – I would recommend you choose a partner who is already selling a similar product. This eliminates the need to train and explain your product to the reseller.

Technically savvy - In the IT industry, especially, you’d need partners that know what they’re talking about. They should be competent enough to answer inquiries from customers. Technically inclined resellers would also be able to adapt easily to your channel portal when you send it.


channel sales strategy

Experienced – It is important to have an experienced reseller. An experienced sales rep knows his way around the business and is more likely to close a sale.

Financially Stable – This is an important quality of the reseller. They must have a good credit standing and their financial reputation must be impeccable.

Customer Support – Resellers, especially those selling new technology, must have customer service capabilities. Customers seeking assistance must have someone to call in case there are problems with the products they bought.

Coverage of Territory – It is imperative that you know how many sales representatives a reseller has. If your product is a typical consumer’s products, then you’d need to have more sales reps to promote your product. If however the product is for a vertical market, then you don’t need that much sales representatives because few people would really want to but the product.

Good Impression – Channel partners must be professional and respectful to the customers; otherwise, the product would never sell.
I think that there is no such thing as a perfect channel partner but it doesn’t hurt to try.

Three Customer Types

As a direct selling agent, it’s really hard to find customers who are really willing to buy your product. And even if our boss motivates us with various channel management solutions, in the end it’s just really up to the customer to buy what we sell.

I remember there was a time when there was a seminar for direct sell agents in our office before any channel management solutions were done for us. The sales pitch instructor thought us that there are three types of customers in our channels, the first being the No-No person, the second being the Yes-No type and lastly the third being the Yes-Yes type of customer.

The No-No person is the variant wherein they already refuse the product on the mere sight of an agent selling it. It doesn’t really matter if you made a sales pitch at them or not, they’re either too busy to listen to you or their just not into the product to begin with. Ah, rejection. Some of us agents are really not into this selling business and if you’re going to add a lot of denial moments from customers, it’s really frustrating. I’m not surprised some of us quit the job.


channel partner strategy

The next one is the Yes-No type. These customers are the ones that are willing to buy but are eventually hindered to purchase the product because of some factors like lack of money or being too busy to stop by and acquire any item. On my part, sometimes I consider them to be time wasters as they usually make me talk about the product so much into persuading them only to say no in the end. Sometimes, though, I can turn them around to type three customers and when that happens, I feel kind of satisfied.

The last one is the Yes-Yes type. In my opinion, this is a rare breed of customer unless your product is the type that sells well on its own. I can comfortably say that I encounter these types only once a week. It’s really hard to find people who are actually interested in soaps and lotions and whatnot that an agent sells in malls or worse, in the streets or underpasses.

Being an agent is tough and it only becomes tougher if the management doesn’t do well for their selling arms. Thankfully, there are good people on the top of my company.