Yer OUT!!! The 3-Strike Rule: How to Develop (& Fix) Sales Channels

Increasingly, businesses are turning to sales channel relationships to sell their products. These relationships provide both parties access to markets and revenue they would otherwise not be able to reach and/or penetrate.

But many companies are attacking relationships without considering and solving the challenges that arise upon beginning the search for channel partners. For example, here are three very common challenges that arise:

Challenge 1: Knowing Your Market

Far too many businesses decide they want channel partners without considering which partners would be best suited to resell or integrate their products. In other words, reality and perception are often different things. For example, our flagship product, LogMyCalls is a tool that is built to track marketing performance. However, we are finding great success with partners that want to resell the product (or use it themselves) to improve their customer service and sales skills on the phone. This is a sales channel we hadn’t considered until we began seeking sales channel partners.

What’s the Point?

Well, there are two points here. The first is that you need to be able to switch gears midstream if certain sales channels are developing and appear more fertile than others. The second is that you must research your market and have a very, very good idea of where you fit prior to expending valuable resources to find and develop new sales channels.

You need to know who your customers are and — more importantly — how they’re finding you, if you want to determine which sales channels are the best for your business. For example: In the last six months, how many customers found you via the Web? How about via the phone, or via a Google Places listing, or via an ad? You should have percentages for every possible marketing method, before you can accurately say which sales channels will be effective and which won’t be.

Challenge 2: Defining

You need to have your options for potential channel partners very clearly defined. Exactly what is the channel partner’s relationship to you? Who pays whom how much? These are questions that must be agreed upon internally and then written down, long before you have partners on board and ready to go.

Far too many businesses leave these channel relationships far too vague – they are concerned with getting the partners on board and less concerned with exactly how the relationship will work once it is finalized. That’s the wrong approach.

What’s the Point?

Start from the beginning. Have every possible relationship, revenue stream and contingency plan mapped out before you begin going after new sales channels. Don’t develop a plan on the fly.

Challenge 3: Training

The number one concern in the world of sales channel development is training. In a retail environment where a channel partner will be bundling or selling goods, can the retailer effectively sell it? Do retailers know enough about it? Can they resolve concerns or objections? Or, in a channel partner environment where a partner is bundling a service or a product with other offerings, does the proposed pricing model make sense? Can partners effectively sell the product? Can they demo it or answer detailed questions about it?

These are vital, vital questions that must be addressed in the early stages of sales channel development. You need to have a concrete system of providing them with the material and collateral they need to effectively sell your product or service. They need to have the answers at their fingertips.

Additionally, you need to implement a way to help them sell or bundle your product effectively. Perhaps, you implement a system where you randomly record sales calls about your product and then you can actually hear how they’re selling. Or better yet, you can actually join sales channel partners on calls or onsite to answer questions.

What’s the Point?

Your new channel partners need to see you in action selling your product. This can be done using a system of recording and feedback, or real time and in person. Either way, you have to hold them accountable for selling effectively. Because, after all, if they don’t sell your product effectively, all of your work is for naught, and your sales channel relationship is worthless.

Conclusion

Developing new sales channels is one of the quickest and most efficient ways a business can expand and increase revenue. However, sales channel development must be approached with the right tools, the correct strategy, and the best training for it to be effective.

This topic and more are included in the Vistage Connect™ peer advisory sessions. Learn more.

Jeremiah Wilson founded ContactPoint in 2001 with a patented device that records customer phone calls, allowing companies to hear what their customers hear. Prior to that, he specialized in logistics, customer service and sales training, and was assistant to the counselor of economics at the U.S. Embassy to the Czech Republic; he currently serves on the board of directors for various global companies.

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