Whether you are selling through the channel to end businesses or consumers, chances are you may be grappling with one or more of the following challenges: too much churn in your partner base, lack of partner marketing and sales competencies; poor marketing ROI from co-marketing activities; loss of sales velocity due to increasing channel management costs. While the success of a channel program depends on a multiplicity of factors like end user value proposition (product and solutions), partner business proposition (predictable profitable growth) and overall market growth opportunity, it takes an integrated partner relationship management (PRM) framework to successfully realize the true revenue potential of any organization selling through the channel.

In this overview, we will address multiple aspects of the partner relationship management framework, starting with partner recruitment and also covering partner training, partner engagement, multi-partner demand generation and performance management. Needless to say, at the epicenter of this partner relationship management framework is a very strong business proposition for the partner. (Please refer to our previous article on How to Stay Relevant To Your Partner Base to learn more about the core elements of a successful channel program.) Here are some guidelines on how you can build a partner relationship management framework step by step:

* Partner Portal - The first step in launching a partner relationship management framework is setting up a dynamic partner portal that can be used for partner recruitment, training, performance management and demand generation activities. Most companies today have some sort of a partner portal. However, lacking a dynamic content management system that can not only make content mobile-responsive, but also visitor-specific to reduce the time needed to find the right content, most partner portals fall short of meeting the objective of engaging and communicating channel programs and content to the target audience. It is vitally important that the partner portal not only incorporates a dynamic content management system but also provides a set of secure web services communication interface so that it can connect to other tools for functions like partner training and incentive management.

* Partner Recruitment - Whether you are an organization with a large channel network trying to engage existing partners into a specific set of channel programs, or an emerging start-up trying to build your channel, partner recruitment is always the first process step that to initiate a structured approach towards partner relationship management. Without a proper partner recruitment framework and the appropriate onboarding steps, the entire relationship can get off on the wrong foot. But if your organization follows a logical 30-60-90 day onboarding approach, it can increase partner satisfaction in these early stages of engagement, but also build partner engagement, resulting in substantial revenue acceleration.

* Partner Training - After recruitment, the next most important step is to provide a structured approach towards training the partner organization effectively with your channel programs. If you are recruiting a new partner, you could base your partner relationship management program on a combination of face-to-face training events ...