How can you create effective sales enablement tools for your channel partners?

2 Segment your partners

Not all partners are the same. They may have different levels of experience, expertise, commitment, and performance. Therefore, you need to segment your partners into different groups based on criteria such as size, industry, location, product mix, revenue, or potential. This will help you customize your sales enablement tools for each segment, and prioritize your resources and efforts. For example, you may provide more training and support to new or low-performing partners, and more incentives and recognition to high-performing or strategic partners.

3 Choose the right tools

There are many types of sales enablement tools that you can create for your channel partners, such as e-learning courses, webinars, videos, podcasts, case studies, white papers, brochures, infographics, testimonials, demos, scripts, FAQs, checklists, templates, calculators, or proposals. However, you need to choose the right tools for the right partners at the right time. You need to consider the purpose, format, frequency, and delivery of each tool, and how it fits into your partners' sales cycle and preferences. For example, you may use e-learning courses to train your partners on your products and value proposition, webinars to update them on new features and best practices, case studies to showcase your success stories and customer testimonials, and templates to help them create compelling proposals.

4 Communicate and collaborate

Creating sales enablement tools for your channel partners is not a one-way process. You need to communicate and collaborate with your partners throughout the process, and solicit their feedback and input. You need to inform them about the availability and benefits of each tool, and how they can access and use it. You also need to listen to their questions, concerns, and suggestions, and incorporate them into your tools. You can use various channels and platforms to communicate and collaborate with your partners, such as email, phone, chat, social media, newsletters, blogs, forums, or portals.

5 Measure and improve

Finally, you need to measure and improve the effectiveness of your sales enablement tools for your channel partners. You need to track and analyze the usage, satisfaction, and impact of each tool, and how it relates to your partners' sales performance and results. You can use metrics such as completion rate, feedback score, engagement rate, conversion rate, revenue, or retention to evaluate your tools. You also need to identify the gaps, challenges, and opportunities for improvement, and adjust your tools accordingly. You can use tools such as surveys, quizzes, tests, or reports to measure and improve your sales enablement tools.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?