Selling through partners can be a hugely profitable sales model. There are plenty of businesses that benefit from it. But the success of this strategy depends on how well you execute it, including the way you onboard your partners. Learn what partner onboarding is, how the process can be made more efficient and how exactly it can improve your bottom line.
What is partner onboarding?
Much like employee onboarding, partner onboarding is the process of introducing a new partner into your business. And although this may seem like a straightforward process, it’s actually not that simple. It involves:
- Setting up your new partner with an account
- Establishing a clear line of communication
- Formalizing goals and expectations
- Providing the partner with all the necessary materials
- Training the partner in selling your product or service
Of course, each of these steps could be further divided into smaller ones. But it could be said that the partner onboarding process involves all the actions necessary for making your partner ready to start selling.
Make no mistake, the way you onboard your partners makes a direct impact on how successful your business operations are. But if you’re smart about it, you can be among the 64 percent of companies who’ve used partners to improve their bottom line. So let’s see how you can make the most out of your onboarding process.
How to improve your partner onboarding process?
If you already have a process for onboarding your partners but think it could be more efficient, you’re probably right. This process can easily become convoluted. In fact, a whopping 40 percent of businesses take longer than 40 days to finish onboarding a new partner. Here’s how to make it much more efficient.
Aim for simple and repeatable
If you’re selling through partners, you want the process of onboarding them to be flexible. You don’t want to have to come up with a new process for every company you go into business with. You also don’t want to waste time on any unnecessary back and forth.
Develop processes for each stage
While working on your process, you might feel tempted to decide to work things out as you go. Of course, in some cases, this will be completely justified. But whenever that’s possible, you should choose not to leave things to chance.
Analyze and improve over time
Even when you think you are, you’re not really done improving your partner onboarding process. This is something you’ll always be able to streamline some more. That’s why it’s important to figure out a way to measure KPIs and gather relevant data for analysis.
Luckily, improving your process becomes much easier when you embrace technology. And the most successful businesses increasingly turn to using partner onboarding software. Such software makes training your partners, communicating with them and even boosting their motivation a breeze. But its potential benefits for your business go beyond the partner onboarding process itself.
How can partner onboarding software increase profitability?
According to Forrester, three quarters of sales in general happen through partners. This goes to show just how much potential there is in this particular sales model. Pair it with an efficient onboarding process and here are the benefits you can reap.
Developed Partner Business Plan
Setting up the onboarding process using dedicated software is simple. But it also forces you think in more concrete terms and provides you with ideas for where to get started. For example, having to automate introductory emails prompts you to think about how to structure the relationship. And well-thought-out collaborations are the ones that are most profitable.
Established Goals
Automating the onboarding process comes with many benefits. It doesn’t just save time and resources. It also nudges you in the right direction. When developing the journey for your partners, you’re also thinking of your own goals and within which timeframes it would be best to achieve them. As a result, you have a more defined and measurable path to success.
Trained Partners
With partner onboarding software, it’s both quick and easy to get in touch with your partners at just the right time with just the right kind of information. With just a few emails, provided they contain all the right links and resources, you can teach them how to use the platform, how to earn commission and how to better sell your products or services.
Easily Accessible Marketing Resources
When you use partner onboarding software, you have the option of keeping all your assets and resources in one place. You can automate sending it to your partners at intervals of your choice. But since it’s all on your platform, you make it easier for them to access it whenever they choose, increasing the chances of boosting their productivity.
Progress Tracking
Whatever action occurs within your partner onboarding software, it gets recorded. There are no messy paper trails or the need to develop a separate system for progress tracking. This gives you greater visibility into your processes and allows you to analyze the data without wasting resources on gathering it.
Success Measuring
To have a successful partner onboarding process, you need to figure out how to measure the results. But once you do, you can let partner onboarding software do the actual work. It records and keeps all the information in one place so you can be sure that what you’re doing is actually working for you, as well as optimize it if it’s not.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that selling through partners can make your business stand out from the crowd. But onboarding your partners can be a time-consuming process that wastes a lot of your resources. That’s exactly why it’s so important to optimize and automate it as much as possible. Luckily, partner onboarding software makes this into a straightforward task that’s easily customizable. It saves you time and resources, forces you to improve your strategy and helps both you and your partners make the most out of your collaboration.
