The right partnerships have the potential to elevate and propel your business forward, but how do you ensure your partnerships are the "right partnerships"?
In this blog post, we want to help you establish solid, mutually-beneficial partnerships, so we're sharing the three questions you need to ask potential resellers to understand if they're the right partners for your business.
Question #1: Does the reseller work in the market verticals we're targeting and can they add value to our value proposition?
We recommend that you start by assessing the profile of the reseller, understanding if their scope of business aligns with yours, and if they have the technical capabilities you need to grow. To evaluate this, it's important you ask about the market verticals they're currently in, which geographical markets they focus on, and what technologies they support.
Question #2: Does the reseller have a good market reputation, and does their team have the skills necessary to promote our product appropriately?
After you establish whether their profile matches your business needs or not, make sure to enquire around about their reputation and footprint in the market. It's also important to understand if the people that work for the reseller are a good fit, and have the right technical knowledge and sales skills to successfully commercialise your product or solution.
And last but not least,
Question #3: Does the partner demonstrate interest and did he capture the value of our message?
The last step to assess whether the reseller is the right partner for you is understanding whether or not the reseller is displaying the right level of commitment to ensure a profitable business relationship. To evaluate their commitment, check if they've understood your message and if they can communicate it with clarity to other people. Confirm if they are able to allocate the appropriate number of resources and have the needed bandwidth to fully support the growth and expansion of your product or solution.
These three questions are a good place to start as you go about reaching out to resellers and evaluating their potential but don't forget to listen to your intuition and trust your gut - perhaps unusual advice to give in the corporate world? - still, as much as our decision-making process should be led by reason and logical thought processes, chemistry in relationships is important, including in business.
We hope this blog helped make your path to expansion clearer. We may be biased as a company connecting tech vendors with channel partners (such as resellers), but we're big fans of mutually-beneficial partnerships, and working with a network of resellers to generate the ultimate multiplier effect and propel your business forward.
If you did find this helpful, share this post with your wider network and get in touch if you're expanding your business this year but don't know where to start. Send an email to sales@unitedchannels.net and we'll schedule a 15-minute discovery call to see if we're the right fit.
P.S.: As you evaluate the potential of partnering with United Channels Consulting, do make sure to ask about our profile, check our market reputation, and assess our commitment ;)
About the author
João Beato Esteves is the CEO of United Channels Consulting. He founded the company in 2017 after 20+ years of working in the IT and cybersecurity industries developing channels and leading sales teams for prominent companies such as Symantec and disruptive start-ups like Watchful Software.
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