One-hit wonder Partners: How the Right Partner Journey Can Help

Don’t let your partners be a one-hit wonder. 

Too many partners stop by your program, throw a lead out the window and go back to their work — only to drop off the next lead to your competitors. Don’t let this happen to your channel program. Create loyal partners and get them revenue-ready by giving them the right experience with the proper journey built out specifically for them. Below are two key ideas discussed in our most recent Channel Chief & Chill to take your partner journeys to the next level. 

Segment, Segment, Segment 

Remember, not all of your partners are starting in the same place or even have the same goals. This is where segmentation comes in. Just like jeans are made to fit tall, short, large or skinny people, partner journeys are not one-size-fits-all. Different journeys can and should be created to fit whatever situation your partners are in. A couple of examples that were mentioned in one of our recent Channel Chief and Chill discussions was to segment by partner type, region, length of relationship or even by activity. As you create these different journeys for your partners, they will be onboarded and maintained according to their needs, which will create loyalty and in turn means more revenue for you. 

Use a Referral Program to Onboard and Off-board 

A key highlight around the idea that journeys needs to be segmented, which was brought up in this discussion and used by one of the customer participants, is using a referral program to effectively onboard and off-board partners. As partners come into your program and you are unsure of how much they will produce, it may be best to start them out as a referral partner and ramp them up from there, depending on productivity. On the opposite side of this, if your once-thriving partners are now less active than they used to be, off-board them by making them a referral partner. Get them into an automated communication stream instead of spending your time sending them personalized emails, when you could be using that time to work with upcoming, higher-producing partners. If you have questions on how to better make this work for your channel, you can reach out to an Impartner representative. 

If you’d like to be involved in discussions like this every week with top channel chiefs from around the world – please join the community! These informal meetings happen in North America every Wednesday at 9:00 am MST and another for Europe on Fridays 9:00 am UK GMT. You can register here, North America discussion or the EMEA discussion.