How Do You Plan a Channel Partner Program?
You plan a channel partner program by first confirming it fits your go-to-market strategy, then staffing the program, developing enablement assets, and establishing infrastructure to motivate, enable, and support partners. The planning step lays the groundwork that determines whether partners can actually succeed selling your product.
The precondition is strategic fit. Before staffing or building anything, familiarize yourself with the possible routes to market for your product and determine whether selling through indirect channel partners aligns with your overall go-to-market strategy and your target segment's preferences. If indirect selling doesn't fit how your customers buy, a channel program is the wrong investment. You'll also identify the internal stakeholders the program needs — HR to recruit and train program employees, and sales and marketing to create and contextualize enablement assets and to motivate partners.
Staffing comes first in execution. Identify the roles that need to be filled to manage the program based on the number of partners you expect, then reassign existing headcount and recruit new employees as required for the program to run smoothly. The staffing scales with the partner count, so this is sized to ambition.
Enablement assets are the essential core of planning. Create the materials and training modules that give future partners what they need to sell and support your products. Simple and effective enablement materials attract more partners — and they should include not just skills training and marketing collateral but also preliminary legal agreements that can be customized per partner, with partner compensation terms like margins, commissions, and rebates set out clearly.
Infrastructure can be phased to manage cost. Install the digital infrastructure to support partners and smooth daily operations, but do it as a phased process: initially, your internal development team can build a partner portal on your website linking to enablement resources, with partner-relationship-management systems added later when there are spare funds. By confirming fit, staffing appropriately, building strong enablement, and phasing infrastructure, the CEO lays a foundation that genuinely motivates, enables, and supports the partners the program will recruit.
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