Every organization has various channel partners who are involved in selling the company’s product. This includes resellers, distributors, retailers, wholesalers, and franchises.
Training these partners is very crucial so that they can represent your products to customers in the best light possible and close more deals. They keep your supply chain running smoothly and achieve the overall goals of the organization.
What is channel partner training?
Channel partner training is a process to train your channel partners to promote and sell your products to build better relationships with customers.
Channel partners help to widen your customer base by reaching out to more and more customers located in the hinterland. They help you to scale your products without any hassle.
What are the benefits of channel partner training?
The following are the benefits of channel partner training:
- Brand building-
Well-trained, authorized, and long-standing channel partners help in the brand building of your company’s products. Since they possess higher knowledge about your products, they try to increase the visibility and presence of your products in the market.
- A strong relationship with customers-
If the channel partners receive good training, they will better be able to communicate with the customers. Training is essential for building professionalism in the channel partners to make customers happier.
- Create revenue streams-
By selling your products in the market, channel partners can create a free-flowing revenue stream.
- Reduced support costs-
When a channel partner receives training correctly, he doesn’t need to be retrained repeatedly. He will be able to manage and make decisions during tough times.
What is the curriculum for channel partner’s training?
Like other online training programs for employees, channel partner training needs to be well designed, structured, and executed.
The curriculum for channel partner training includes-
- Product and service training-
This training tries to build a strong knowledge among channel partners about the company’s products and services. Like what are its features, price, uses, etc. This is to ensure that channel partners can deliver the knowledge and information to customers properly.
- Brand training-
Brand training is very important to maintain the reputation of the company in the market. It involves training channel partners about what the brand values are and how they should promote your brand across various channels.
Brand training can help channel partners to-
- Better engage with your brand
- Promote your brand
- Become great brand ambassadors
- Sales and customer support training-
Sales training helps channel partners funnel profit into your organization. On the other hand, customer support training enables them to address customer queries and doubts effectively.
- Compliance training-
Channel partners need to go through compliance training so that they get a clear understanding of government regulations and organizations’ rules. Data security training and data protection training are a few examples of compliance training to avoid penalties or fines.
How to provide channel partner training?
Similar to employee training, you can make use of a learning management system for channel partner training. There are a variety of online training platforms available in the market. Before you jump onto any decision, compare their prices, features, benefits, and other aspects. For example, you can draw a comparison between Teachable vs Thinkific to check which will be suitable for your eLearning needs in the long run.
Here are a few essential features you must look for when choosing an LMS:
- Built-in course authoring-
It helps you to develop the required eLearning course curriculum effectively and distribute it with ease.
- Online digital library-
Ensure the online digital library is updated regularly with the latest information and eLearning course modules revolving around marketing, branding, and sales strategy.
- Mobile-friendliness-
Most of the time, the channel partners are on the field. So your LMS should be mobile-friendly to provide easy and quick access to eLearning courses. It ensures anytime and anywhere learning.
- Gamification-
An LMS equipped with gamification features keeps your channel partners attentive and engaged. Gamification features like badges, virtual coins, leaderboards, flashcards, etc make learning more fun.
Conclusion-
Your channel partners are the assets of your company. They help your business expand and grow. Hence, you must create online training programs that facilitate lifelong learning conveniently. You must keep updating and refreshing your eLearning courses so that they can withstand even during difficult times.
