Partner Management Benefits: How to Manage Partner Relations

Partner management is the process of overseeing business partnerships to ensure the parent company and all its associates and affiliates remain satisfied with mutual working arrangements.

Businesses will occasionally reach out to other companies to distribute their products. These partner sales grow the parent company’s revenue and usually allow the affiliate company to pocket some of the income as well alongside other potential incentives. Other times, companies will seek out partnerships with businesses without enlisting them as resellers. For instance, they might simply partner on a marketing initiative instead.

Businesses will often utilize specially made partner relationship management or PRM software to facilitate and oversee these sorts of business arrangements. These apps operate similar to a CRM (or customer relationship management) program, offering a dashboard of options for partners to use when completing sales transactions or engaging in marketing activities with the parent company.

Partner management helps ensure all involved parties can profit from a joint venture together. Here are three of the core benefits of partner management in action:

1. 1. Increased brand awareness: When companies partner with others to sell or market goods together, both parties can increase brand awareness for their own businesses in real time. The more a business builds out its partner ecosystem, the more opportunities there are to create a sense of familiarity with a wider customer base for all brands involved.
2. 2. More potential sales: As companies bring additional channel sales reps and providers into the fold, they greatly increase their chances of increasing their income. In other words, if a business feels it could improve its revenue with the help of other enlistees, a PRM solution could prove viable for both parties so long as the parent company grants the new partner some form of incentive.
3. 3. Mutually beneficial arrangements: Establishing a partner program enables a parent company to reap rewards at the same time it contributes to the bottom lines of all its partners. Successful and strategic partner channel management is a two-way street for everyone involved.

Successful partner management requires a certain level of sophistication and finesse. Keep these tips in mind as you improve your own partner management practices:

• Aim for mutual benefits. Given the fact your partners will often serve as an indirect sales team, offer incentives of some variety to keep them satisfied with your working relationship. Guarantee referrals to other companies. Offer their employees a cut in pricing for buying your own products. Grant them revenue share from any transactions you complete together. The structure of incentivization can differ depending on the partnership, but the need for incentivization stays the same regardless.
• Choose the right metrics. Decide on key performance indicators (KPIs) distinct to your own initiatives to track partner performance. If your main goal is sales, choose metrics you can use to measure that. Alternatively, if you partner with a different company to increase your products’ functionality, set up a system to monitor how well your new team members can improve your product life cycle in that sense instead.
• Evolve alongside your partners. Even as the parent company, treat your partners as equal stakeholders. As you work together, odds are you can both learn from each other about how to optimize your mutual workflow. Rather than trying to enforce your own standards with no reference to the partners’ own business processes, see if you can both configure and streamline your unique approaches together in some way.
• Offer support to channel partners. Since your partners are likely to act as distributors and promoters for your products and services, you should support them every step of the way. From initial onboarding through day-to-day tasks, the enablement and empowerment of your partners should be of paramount importance. Keep communication channels open and partner engagement constant in case issues arise. After all, their success is your success.
• Select new partners wisely. As you begin your lead distribution, selecting the right partners is key. Implement a partner recruitment strategy you can rely on so you can ensure your market development funds go to good use. Before even working on initial deal registration, look at the track records of your new affiliates to ensure they’re up to the task of representing your brand well.
• Use technology. Make use of partner relationship management or PRM software to give your new affiliates a partner portal through which they can interact with you. These apps will use automation where sensible while still allowing partners to contact you directly if need be. They might include content management tools, client relations services, and more. These sorts of products are often sold as a subscription via software as a service (SaaS) companies.

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