How to help channel partners maximize sales - Part II

We wrote last week about how to make it easier for your channel partners to sell your products by identifying their pain points. Now let’s talk about the hurdles they face in the process of turning a generated lead into a sale, and ways to overcome those hurdles.

You may guide the channel partners on how to sell your products, tell them how to use your marketing assets, how to treat leads, personalize marketing assets for them, etc. but even after doing this, if they are not able to identify and turn a prospect into a sale, then all your assets and efforts go waste.

Identifying issues they face while generating a sale and providing solutions for the same might well solve the issue:

Misinterpretation of a lead

Just because someone inquires about a product or service doesn’t mean they are a likely lead. They may have no serious interest or need, or they may not have one in the near term. In that case, expending sales energy on them is a misuse of limited sales resources.

Solution –

Lead scoring is the answer. Individual prospects can be assigned scores based on their level of interest and attributes. This helps identify leads most likely to be converted into a sale and also to design customized marketing programs based on their interest level. Needless to say, it also saves a lot of time and helps focus on the right leads.

Inadequate knowledge about the product

You can’t expect channel partners to sell for you if they don’t understand what, where and how to sell your product/service. They need to understand the value of the product–­its positioning, key target markets, etc. They also need to understand the prospect’s needs and pain points. Insufficient knowledge about the product may also lead to misunderstanding the customers’ expectations. Failure to recognize specific customer needs and respond with relevant messaging can kill a sale.

  

Solution –

Provide them with playbooks that will guide them with a step-by-step process on what to say and when to say it to a prospect at any point in the sales process.

Pay Attention –

Despite showing interest, the lead disappears.

Solution –

Every lead has different interests, attributes, and needs. Personalization is the key. With sales prospecting tools, you can gauge the prospect’s specific interests and needs and identify their location in the sales funnel. A good tool allows for creating a personalized, multi-step, multi-channel lead nurturing program using media such as emails, e-books, print, etc. to understand specific prospect behavior and attributes required to convert them into a sale.