Did you know that recruitment of new partners is only 30% of the job, whereas the other 70% entails keeping them productive and engaged with the vendor’s brand? In our blog this week, we explore 3 reasons for poor partner engagement.
Poor partner programs
This is the number one reason for poor partner engagement. While it may seem very obvious, it is surprising to observe that a lot of vendors have poor commission structure, partner tier setup, or an awful partner program in general that lacks clarity, transparency and communication; and works to drive partners away.
Lack of data visibility
Partners suffer due to a lack of data visibility. In order to be able to sell, partners need visibility of multiple elements such as-
- Lead behavior- Partners need answers to questions like, how did their lead interact with them, what emails were opened, which whitepapers were downloaded, what pages of the vendor/partner websites were visited, etc,.
- Opportunity data-Partners need full visibility of opportunity data, so they can go after the right account or lead at the right time. Not having access to this information is demotivating for partners
- Data regarding commissions and orders-Deal commissions are a very important element for partners and they want full visibility of those
The problem is, either this data is not available at all–meaning, the vendor doesn’t really track some of this information, or, it is available, but in silos; spread across multiple platforms. Partners are too busy working in their business to work on it. They don’t have the time or inclination to visit multiple platforms to access the data.
It’s all about the vendors
Another reason for poor partner engagement is vendors focusing on vendor-specific data. Partners are provided with vendor-specific marketing and sales materials. They get no help in building their local brand. Often, vendor-specific marketing and sales materials fail to resonate with end customers and after a while, the partners just give up.
