What Is Partner Enablement?

What is partner enablement?

Partner enablement is the work of making your partners able to sell and market for you, and keeping them able as your products, programs and markets change. It applies to any channel partner: resellers and service providers, dealers and distributors, franchisees, agents and brokers.

It's also called channel enablement, channel partner enablement or partner sales enablement, and in franchise systems it often sits under field support or franchisee training. Whatever the name, it covers the same ground: what partners know, what they have, and how easily they can use it.

It isn't onboarding with a longer name. Onboarding gets a partner started. Enablement is the ongoing program that keeps them current, confident and active long after the welcome kit.

What does partner enablement include?

Most programs cover the same building blocks:

• Onboarding: the agreement, the partner's profile and access, an introduction to the product and program, and a clear path to their opening deal or campaign.
• Training and certification: product, sales and technical courses, with certifications that prove a partner can sell or support a product, and often decide their partner tier.
• Sales content: pitch decks, product sheets, pricing guidance, demo scripts, objection handling and competitive positioning for the partner's reps.
• Marketing content: ready-to-run campaigns, co-branded materials, print and point-of-sale pieces, and the funds to help pay for them.
• Tools: the partner portal, deal registration, quoting and configuration tools, and the places partners personalize, order and launch marketing.
• Support: a channel manager or partner account manager, a help desk, office hours and somewhere to ask questions.
• Incentives: tiers, rebates, spiffs (short-term sales bonuses) and market development funds that reward partners for selling and marketing your line.

How does partner enablement work over a partner's lifecycle?

It changes as the partner does. What a new partner needs in its opening weeks is different from what an established one needs in its third year.

1. Sign up. Agreement, access, and a short introduction to who to call and where things live.
2. Get to a quick win. Enough training and material to make an opening sale or launch an opening campaign, fast. Partners judge a program by how quickly it pays off.
3. Build depth. Certifications, specialist training and more advanced campaigns as the partner commits more of its business to you.
4. Stay current. Launch kits for new products, campaign calendars, program changes and refresher training, delivered where partners already work.
5. Review. Look at what the partner sells, markets and asks for, and adjust what you give them.

What is the difference between partner sales enablement and partner marketing enablement?

Partner sales enablement helps a partner's people sell; partner marketing enablement helps the partner create the demand they sell to. Both matter, and in our experience the second is the one programs underfund.

Sales enablement is product training, pitch decks, pricing, demos, objection handling and deal registration. It assumes a customer is already in the conversation. Marketing enablement puts customers in the conversation: campaigns the partner can personalize and launch, co-branded emails and ads, print and signage, events, and the funds to pay for them. We cover that side in what is partner marketing?

Partners with a trained sales team and nothing to market are waiting for leads. Partners with campaigns but no product knowledge generate leads they can't close. You need both halves.

Why does partner enablement matter?

Because partners spend their time on whatever is easiest to sell. Most carry several brands, and few have a marketer on staff. In our experience, the brand that makes its product easy to explain, easy to market and easy to get help with gets more of the partner's attention.

Enablement also protects the brand. A partner who understands the product describes it correctly, and a partner with approved materials doesn't need to make up its own. And it saves your team time: when partners can find answers and materials themselves, your channel managers spend less of the week resending files.

What makes partner enablement content usable?

Content partners use is short, finished and ready to put their name on. Content they ignore is long, generic or needs rework.

• Finished, not raw. A campaign a partner can personalize and send beats a brand guide and a folder of images.
• Personalizable within limits. Locked templates keep your logo and legal text fixed, while the partner's name, contact details and offer fill in.
• Organized by the partner's job (prospect, pitch, launch, close), not by your org chart.
• Current. Retire old versions so partners can't find last year's pricing or logo.
• In one place. Every extra login or attachment is a reason not to bother.

If partners aren't using what you already give them, start by finding out why. We go through the usual reasons, and how to tell which apply to your program, in why partners don't use your marketing.

How is partner enablement different from PRM and TCMA?

Partner enablement is the goal and the practice; partner relationship management (PRM) and through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) are kinds of software that support parts of it. Neither one is enablement on its own.

PRM software manages the relationship: recruiting, onboarding, training records, certifications, tiers, deal registration and the partner portal. It covers much of sales enablement. TCMA covers the marketing side: approved campaigns partners personalize and launch, materials they order, funds they use and the results. Many programs run both and connect them, which we compare in TCMA vs. PRM.

Who owns partner enablement?

Usually several teams, which is why it's worth naming one owner for each piece. Channel sales or partner operations typically own onboarding, training, certification and deal registration. Partner or channel marketing owns campaigns, materials and funds. Product marketing supplies the messaging and launch content, and support teams own the help partners get.

Some companies have a dedicated partner enablement lead who coordinates the lot. Either way, partners should experience one program, not a series of emails from different departments.

What are the signs partner enablement is working?

Partners act without being chased. Specifically, you'll see:

• New partners reach their opening deal or campaign sooner.
• More of the network is active, not just the partners your channel managers call every week.
• Partners use current materials, and off-brand pieces become rare.
• Basic support questions ("where do I find...", "can I change...") fall.
• Market development funds get used, on activities that qualify.
• Certified or trained partners sell and market more than those who aren't, which tells you the training is worth the time.
• Partners ask for the next campaign before you announce it.

Course completions and portal logins are useful early signals, but judge the program by what partners do afterward. More on the numbers in how to measure the ROI of partner marketing.

What are common partner enablement mistakes?

• Treating enablement as onboarding, then going quiet once the partner signs.
• Dumping content in a portal and calling it enabled. A library isn't a program.
• Training without a next step. If a course doesn't end with something the partner can do that week, it fades.
• Enabling sales and forgetting marketing, so trained reps wait for leads that never come.
• One size for every partner. A large integrator and a small reseller need different things.
• Too many places to go: one site for training, another for deals, a shared drive for files and a printer's site for orders.
• Never asking partners. A short conversation with a few inactive partners usually explains more than a dashboard.

Where does OnBrandify fit?

OnBrandify is the Marketing Hub for brands that sell through partner networks, and it handles the marketing half of partner enablement: campaigns partners can personalize and launch, materials they can order, funds they can use and help when they get stuck, all in one place. See how we support partners and programs, or request a demo and we'll show you how it would work for your network.