Partner Relationship Management (PRM): A Necessary Step For Sales Growth

It’s natural for companies to wonder whether a PRM solution is even necessary for the channel to thrive. After all, they may have significantly more customers in their current pipeline than participating sales partners, making it hard to justify purchasing a designated PRM tool.

However, such thinking only considers the status quo rather than potential growth. As competitors increasingly adopt PRM software, your ability to recruit and retain partners will only slip.

PRM Software Benefits Your Partner Program

An attractive partner management tool boosts recruiting

Experienced professionals assess more than the products when determining whether to join a partner program. After all, if the company fails to find efficiencies and solidify processes, it hurts the partners’ own selling abilities.

An elegant PRM tool immediately conveys the following to prospective partners to earn their confidence:

• You will invest in their success
  A PRM tool costs a company more than spreadsheets, but the returns are tenfold. Prospective sales partners will see your steadfast commitment to the program and supporting their long-term success.
• You have solutions in place to help them make money
  As great as your product may be, it won’t just sell itself. Your partners need the proper training and marketing assets to positively portray your company and offerings. A comprehensive PRM like Allbound puts such resources and automated tools at their fingertips.
• You put your best foot forward so they can do the same
  Which of the following sales experiences is preferable: an email thread with attachments, or a dedicated URL with a headshot and regularly updated file thumbnails?

PRM software solutions automate onboarding and ongoing training to benefit both partners and yourself

When done right, onboarding entails more than merely an hour-long meeting followed by an emailed folder of materials. A quality partner management tool will offer multi-tiered learning tracks that guide newcomers through training videos, PDFs, and other modules.

Push notifications remove ambiguity about which lessons the partners should absorb next, and quizzes can further cement their newfound knowledge.

Why does PRM tool automation help new partners?
A PRM tool empowers partners to learn at their preferred speed when most convenient for them. The more they master, the more materials they can unlock.

What’s more, access to a searchable library will make it easier to find answers when needed most. Compare this to the frustration of digging through PDFs buried in their inbox or emailing you the question and waiting for your response.

Best yet, PRM automation ensures that partners are never left aimlessly clicking around the tool, unsure of how to engage. Key behaviors like completing a quiz or registering a deal can trigger the software to instantly suggest next steps based on the workflows you shape. If partners fail to log into the PRM tool for a certain number of days or leave important tasks incomplete, you can even automate the software to send email reminders.

Why does PRM tool automation help you?
Onboarding removes the repetitive and unnecessary communications from your to-do list, allowing you to use your one-on-one time with partners to focus on nurturing relationships. You will also have additional time to dedicate to recruitment and fleshing out strategies that will improve the program as a whole.

The right PRM tool improves partner communication and management efficiencies

Think of your partner program like a breathing organism: your partners are like limbs and you are the beating heart that circulates life. When the flow of information to-and-from the appendages slows or ceases entirely, the entire body suffers.

Similarly, it’s your responsibility to meet your partners’ time-sensitive needs or convey important advice in ways easily accessed and understood. If you fail, you risk losing the relationship.

Examples of ways a PRM tool strengthens communication and processes

• Predetermine which types of partners can access select materials
  Your partners are not alike. It’s important to share content that pertains exclusively to their language, industry, title, and experience level. If you give access to too many irrelevant materials, you can potentially overwhelm or mislead them.
• Co-branding tool for faster results
  Let partners co-brand materials within the platform right when they need them rather than submitting a request to you. You can dictate who can add their logo to which documents, ensuring that you maintain control of your brand and messaging without being directly involved.
• MDF templates
  Ask partners to complete a digitized form when requesting marketing development funds. In turn, you receive all pertinent information in a single submission rather than over a lengthy series of messages.
• Centralized communication within the platform with email notifications
  We’re all guilty of occasionally passing over important emails, particularly if we’re juggling a growing roster of contacts. A high-caliber PRM tool organizes crucial communications like MDF requests and deal registrations into respective sections. You can check them when you’re most prepared, as well as receive reminder emails to keep you accountable.

Strengthen partners’ selling abilities with prospect pages and sales playbooks

You’d be wrong to think that a PRM tool only improved communication between you and program participants.
A comprehensive portal sets partners up for success with the following:

• Prospect pages
  Partners can share materials with prospects using a stylized portal page that spotlights their headshot and contact information.

  They can revise the on-page messaging and links to reflect the latest shared conversations and progression through the pipeline. This provides a strong first impression to prospects while eliminating the messiness of multiple email threads.

• Playbooks
  Not all customers are alike, but experience reveals which questions frequently arise, as well as common priorities shared by different types of prospects. Playbooks make it easy to pass these insights to your sales partners so they can represent your products like a seasoned pro.

  A sophisticated PRM solution like Allbound leverages the Deal Registration feature to track a prospect’s maturation and suggest the most appropriate playbook.

Prevent partner conflict with real-time deal registration

The most common reason for partner conflict is that two or more program participants lay claim to the same sales prospect. The problem is greatly exacerbated if they have both put significant resources into nurturing the relationship, unaware of their duplicated efforts.

In regards to resolving conflicts, nothing works better than transparency, honesty and being timely. Resolving issues immediately earns the respect of your partners. Even when the resolution may not be in a particular partner’s favor, knowing that the problem is addressed upfront prior to consuming their time and being transparent in why you came to a certain conclusion always seems to be respected by all parties involved.”

Ken Tripp, Director of Channel Accounts at Netwrix

A PRM tool can stop conflicts before they even start with real-time deal registration. The moment someone registers a prospective deal, the system updates to prohibit anyone else from enrolling the same opportunity. Therefore, one of your partners won’t waste too much time and should fully understand that someone else initiated contact first.

For added visibility and sales cohesion, choose a PRM solution that integrates with your existing CRM. This will prevent partner deals from registering if they already exist within other pipelines.

Enriched engagement and partner retention through meaningful PRM tool interactions

In our eBook, Six Partner Actions Proven to Increase Retention 10x, we divulge statistics based on tracked partner engagement across all platform participants. The key takeaway? Initial portal engagement is a strong determinant in long-term program participation.

• Partners who visited two articles within the PRM platform are twice as likely to continue visiting the portal 12-weeks out from their initial enrollment.
• Partners who create a prospect page are more than 2x as likely to engage long-term than those who don’t.
• Partners who access playbooks twice are 1.6x more likely to continue logging into the portal after 12 weeks. Those that leverage playbooks seven times are 300% more likely to remain active than those who never utilize one.

In light of these insights, partner programs should:

• Prioritize building out a robust, complete experience within their PRM solution (rather than have onboarding be de-centralized across multiple forms of communication)
• Provide participants with a thorough walkthrough of the various PRM tool features to inspire interactions

Make portal engagement part of their channel partner scorecard, as well as a regular talking point during one-on-one partner check-ins.

PRM tools connect data points to extract meaning and
important takeaways

Data—everyone knows they need it, but not everyone knows what to do with it.

The right PRM tool will collect data on your behalf and, more importantly, create meaningful connections between KPIs.

Drill down to see which playbooks assist with the most conversions. Alternatively, gain a macro-level perspective of your pipeline to pinpoint where you suffer the most attrition. These data points illuminate ways to improve your PRM content, marketing spending, and partner criteria.

You can configure your PRM solution to send email notifications if performance meaningfully declines. This lets you respond quickly while near-eliminating the need to manually check pipeline health on a regular basis.

Visualized program growth with shareable charts

To quote Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message.

How you present your PRM data is nearly as influential as the data itself. Allbound automatically renders polished charts and tables you can download to share directly with your leadership team and sales partners.

Whether you’re creating slides for a board meeting or compiling content for a newsletter, the visuals convey important points with immediate clarity. Plus, you can skip the time-consuming task of manually rendering charts and present your hard work in the best possible light.