Blog - PRM (Partner Relationship Management)
PRM (partner relationship management) is the combination of practices and software that help manage your channel partners effectively. Our articles cover the gamut of PRM and focus on how to select and use PRM software to get the most out of your channel program.
Channel Management Best Practices: Avoid Playing Telephone with the End Customer
The children’s game “telephone” illustrates how a message can get mangled as it passes from person to person. The lesson of the game is to be wary of a communication that comes in third-, fourth-, fifth-hand. Of course, that’s the nature of the channel. Your product has to reach the end customer via at least […]
Top 3 Things That Help Partners Sell Better
There are three questions every channel partner should be able to answer in their sleep about your company and its offering: 1.) Who you are, what you do, the problem you solve. Conciseness is memorable. Can you get the answers to these three questions pared down to a single 20-word statement? Channel managers and anyone […]
How Channel Managers Generate More Sales
Channel managers in growing companies have huge demands on their time, but trying to stay in front of partners and customers to support increased sales should be their first priority. However, too often, they’re anchored to their computer, trying to make sense of obscure or erratic sales data. A channel manager stuck in their office […]
Get Ready for 2013: 3 Reasons a PRM Investment Fails
Companies are doing amazing things with PRM software and it can be tempting to jump right in, to just buy a program and get going – especially around the New Year when we’re all looking for ways to streamline business and improve productivity. But just jumping in without taking the proper precautions is going to […]
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
How to Identify Partners Who Are Reaching the End of Their Lifecycle It can be hard to say good-bye, but in the same way products have a lifecycle, partner-vendor relationships do, too. Ending the relationship gracefully—without burning bridges or losing customers—can be a challenge. In some cases, even knowing whether or not to break up […]
Risks of the Recurring Revenue Model in the Channel Partner Relationship
The old transactional model of selling a solution, closing the deal and moving on to the next customer is evolving. The recurring revenue model relies on ongoing relationships with customers that your partners need to be ready to service—and that you need to be able to track how well they’re servicing. The ability to transition […]
To Build or To Buy a Partner Relationship Management System
With the state of the economy, people are tending to be more conservative with their expenditures (as they should be) and this may mean tackling more projects yourself and becoming a real DIY’er. Your Partner Relationship Management System is an excellent example. When it comes to updating your home, doing it yourself can easily be the […]
What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You
Lack of visibility into the channel is one of the most common contributors to a failed indirect sales initiative. There’s no way around it: you can’t manage in the dark, and you can’t build effective strategy on guesswork. When management lacks easy access to channel data—visibility into partners’ profiles, recruitment pipeline and partner performance, geographic […]
Structuring a Partner Program to Get the Partner Behaviors You Want Part 1
If you’ve ever had a spiff program not work the way you’d hoped, you already know that partners can behave in completely unexpected ways… Or are they really that unexpected? With a little forethought, if you consider what an incentive program is actually enticing, you will see pretty quickly that the partners’ behavior is completely […]
More MPG: Three Things You Can Do to Make Your Channel Program More Efficient
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that launching an indirect channel sales program is a significant undertaking requiring a major investment of time and budget. How do you make sure you’re maximizing your chances this investment pays off? One key to success is always fine-tuning your channel program to make […]