To build a channel partner program, start small and in this order: decide the one job partners do for you, pick one partner type to start with, write an offer that makes the partner money, recruit a handful of partners by name, enable them through live deals, and measure a few early indicators. Tiers, portals and marketing funds come last, once partners are already selling. Many programs that stall built those first.
By John Bates, founder of AXQ
Most channel partner programmes are built from the outside in. A partner page, a portal, three tiers with metal names and a deal registration form. It looks like a programme. A year later a handful of partners have signed and very few of them sell.
Here is the order I would build one in, whether you are a US software company starting partners in the UK or a company that has never sold through partners before.
Step by step
Seven steps, in this order.
Decide what partners are for
Partners can do three different jobs for a vendor: reach customers you cannot reach yourself, deliver work you do not want to do, or lend you credibility in a market where nobody knows you yet.
Most programmes try to do all three at once and do none of them well. Pick the main one. It decides which partners you want, what you reward them for and how you measure them.
Start with one partner type
Resellers, managed service providers, systems integrators, distributors and cloud marketplaces each want different things from a vendor. Building for all of them at once usually means an offer that fits none of them.
Start with the type that matches how your customers already buy. If you are not sure, the partner type picker suggests one in five questions.
Write the partner offer before the agreement
A partner asks one question: how does this make me money, or keep my customers happy? Answer it in a sentence. It might be margin on resale, services work around your product, a reason to stay close to an account, or a gap in their own portfolio that you fill.
If you cannot say it in a sentence, the partner will not be able to repeat it to their own sales team, and that is where most deals start.
Recruit a handful, by name
Recruit a small number of partners you have chosen on purpose, not every firm that fills in a form. For each one, know why they fit, who on their side would want this to work, and which of their customers might buy first.
A short list you can support beats a long list you cannot.
Enable through live deals
Partner teams learn by selling. A portal full of training modules gets opened once. A vendor who joins the first customer calls, writes the follow-up and helps with the proposal gets remembered.
Plan for your own team to carry most of the work on the first few deals. The goal is proof, for the partner's own people, that working with you is worth the effort.
Measure a few early indicators
Revenue through partners takes time to show. Watch the indicators that come before it:
- How many partners have a named opportunity with you right now?
- How long does a new partner take to reach a first deal?
- How many partners were active this quarter, rather than just signed?
If those move in the right direction, revenue usually follows.
Add structure once partners are selling
Tiers, a partner portal, deal registration rules and marketing funds are useful once partners are already selling. Before that, they are admin that makes the programme look finished.
Build them around what your best early partners actually needed, not around a template.
What usually goes wrong
Three patterns come up again and again.
Building the portal first
A portal, tiers and a partner page feel like progress. Without a partner who is selling, they are a shop window with nothing in it.
Recruiting for the logo count
Fifty signed partners with nobody pushing on their side is not a channel. A few chosen ones, each with a named person who wins when you win, is a start.
Waiting for partners to bring the pipeline
In the first year the vendor usually brings the first opportunities to the partner. Partners start bringing their own once they have seen a deal close.
An example
What a simple first-year program looks like.
A first-year channel partner program does not need much. It is usually enough to have:
- A one-page partner offer: what the partner sells, what they gain, what you do for them and who to call.
- One way to register a deal, with an answer inside a working day.
- A named person on your side for each active partner.
- A short monthly call with each active partner about named opportunities, not slides.
- A scorecard with the three early indicators above, reviewed every quarter.
Everything else can wait until the first partners are selling and you know what they needed.
The short version
Decide the job. Pick one type. Make it worth their time.
Then recruit a few partners on purpose and sell alongside them until the first deals close. Everything else in a channel partner program is easier to design once you know what your first partners actually needed.
John Bates, founder of AXQ. Five years at TD SYNNEX (via IQBlade, acquired), leading partner go-to-market programmes for AWS, Cisco, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia across EMEA.