Partner Recruitment Basics - Starting off Right

When it comes to partner recruitment, we get into a lot of challenging conversations. Why? It’s because any time we get into a conversation about recruitment (and we do, a lot) our first question is “Why do you want to recruit?” It seems harmless enough, yet often it’s met with a look of disbelief – as if whoever is across the table from us hadn’t thought it through.

Of course, our clients do think things through. But when it comes to recruitment, we’re still surprised by how often people have overlooked a few fundamentals. And so ‘why’ remains a very good starting point for us in any conversation. Of course, we’d rather not have to ask. So how can you avoid starting your next recruitment conversation with ‘why’?

For us, there are really only a few reasons why you recruit new partners:

• Your customers are stopping buying through your current channels.

• You have gaps in coverage (geographic, vertical, technology) that cannot be fulfilled by existing partners.

• You are taking a new technology to market that cannot be serviced by your existing partners.

• Your current partners are controlling your growth – your rate of growth is entirely governed by theirs and is not meeting your needs.

To arrive at a decision on which one – if any – of these applies, asking a few simple questions will start you off right.

1. How are my customers buying preferences changing?

Start with the customer, not the channel. Ultimately it’s the customer who decides who they will do business with, and what business they will do with them. In a channel role, it’s easy to neglect the knowledge that your customers have of your channel partners. You need to be in a dialogue with them regularly if not constantly. Understand how their buying journey is changing, and how that influences their decision toward some channel partners and potentially away from others.

2. How much do I know about my existing partners’ business today?

Too obvious?Well, no.Vendors have a habit of taking a ‘rear view mirror’ view of a partners.They focus solely on their partner’s relationship with them, failing to take into account that very few partners’ businesses are built exclusively around one vendor.Take a look at what they do with the rest of world and form a picture of how you fit into the partner’s world, rather than how they fit into yours.Use information on their overall expertise – geographic, technology and vertical to identify partners who already have the capability and customer base to address gaps in coverage and simply don’t cover that area for you today.And increasingly, take note of how they are adapting to their customers’ changing buying journey.

3. What are my partners’ aspirations?

This step is too easy to miss. We focus on data points that are readily available – sales out reports, MDF spend, skills and certifications. Unless you happen to have been tracking how that changes over time and have invested in analysis tools to understand why, chances are you don’t have a view on where your partners want to be going outside of those in your top tier that you are managing very closely and talking to regularly. If you’re surveying or talking to partners for capability now, be sure to ask them about their future. Where do they see their growth coming from? Do they see their business with you growing or shrinking? What is their appetite to do more with you – and how can you help them?

Put simply, it’ a matter of ‘will and skill’. You need both for a partner to be successful. So look for those partners who have the capability, but perhaps not the will and those with the will but who have yet to develop the skills needed.

4. Do I still think I need to recruit, and why?

Time for a final check. You’ve talked to customers, you’ve understood what partners’ businesses look like and where they see themselves going. You’ve found partners you need to ‘re-recruit’ to do more with you then you do today. If you still think you need to recruit NEW partners, which of the four reasons we listed for recruitment does you need fit into? Then get clear on what you need, and how you will service any new partners you recruit. Get buy in from everyone involved – sales, marketing, and channel operations. And only then move ahead.

bChannels exists to inspire, guide and grow our customers’ partner networks. When it comes to recruitment, we’ll always start off asking ‘why’. It’s in our nature. Following these basic steps can help you start off right. So when you do recruit you know why you are recruiting and what you need those new partners to be doing for you, and you for them to make them and you successful. Read more at http://www.bchannels.com/inspire

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