10 Questions on Creating Your Ideal Partnerships

Are you frustrated by poor success of your sales partners? Have you put great efforts into your partnerships than and dismayed with the outcomes?

On the surface, you were doing all the right things… so what went wrong?

Best practice exists as fundamentally every business is the same. Expertise exist as every business is different. Applying best practice requires an understanding of where the tools are best used.

When you hit a wall, it’s time to think differently.
When you can’t see the wood from the trees, you need a different perspective.
When you have so many possible next steps open to you, how do you prioritise?
Always continue learning and trying new things.

Here are 10 questions do help you on your path:
1. Do you have one ideal sales partner, that you wish you could replicate?
2. What have you determined are the key criteria that makes your ideal partnership work?
3. Do you have partners that you wish were more like your ideal sales partner?
4. OR have you defined what makes your ideal sales channel partner?
5. What activities have you tried to make partners more like your ideal sales partner?
6. Have you tried to partner with one or more of the Global System Integrator or global partners?
7. Do you have a number of ‘if only’ events or criteria items, that when met your global partnership would work?
8. In hindsight, have you spent far too much time with some partners and thought, to yourself; ”I won’t make that mistake again”?
9. Have you agreed targets with a partner, and realised afterwards you expected too much from them based on what you know now about their capabilities?
10. What if your partner’s failure to sell your product, is your responsibility? What actions would you take in that case?

Take a few minutes to consider if you have all the pieces to know what you need to change in how you work with current partners and engage new partners.

Can you think of the procedural changes your company could put in place to improve your current partner engagements and new partner recruitment?

In Tenego Partnering, we’ve been involved in over 100 companies in partnering, and continuing to do so.
In Tenego Academy we’re capturing our methodologies and learnings into courses, with downloadable templates and materials, to save you time learning these again.

In Tenego Academy’s Partner Fit Evaluation Course, we seek to address the 10 Questions above to help you assess partners from the outset to determine fit and business pace. Click here for more details.