OMG. How old do you have to be to remember when TV network shows admonished you not to change the channel when they broke for a commercial? And who remembers a TV with a dial on it??? Well, the advice still holds. Just because your channel partners may not be moving your products or services fast enough, it doesn’t mean you should change channels right away. The problem may not be the channel, but the reception. How much are they really getting from you in terms of the data, assets, support, and direction they need to successfully turn a lead into a sale?
Let’s stick with the TV analogy to talk today about onboarding and playbooks. If you start watching a show in the middle, you won’t ever really understand what is going on. You can maybe guess the key plot points, but the fine points will be missed. Same thing with channel partners. Are you starting them at the beginning? Onboarding is the very first step in making sure your partners really understand how to push your product. Onboarding explains the entire product line, features, main selling points, common objections, etc. If not onboarded properly, your channel partners are just guessing at the plot. This can only end in tears.
Additionally, do they understand how to market your product, or are they just doing “push sales?” If so, you are asking for bad results. You don’t hire actors to perform and then not give them a script. That’s called reality TV and it draws an audience using the disaster and mayhem that results from unscripted real-lifers. However, unless you are a TV producer, disaster and mayhem don’t drive your revenues. You channel partners shouldn’t be developing off-the-cuff lines to try to market your product or service. Instead, they need to be scripted. Playbooks provide not only suggested call scripts, but a full range of tools to employ at every stage of the sales process. Playbooks explain what to do, when, and why. With a complete playbook, partners can market to specific needs, overcome objections, optimize asset usage, and drive sales faster.
So don’t just dump your channel partners. Instead, analyze what you should be doing to help them understand the plot lines so they can really move the show forward.
