Partner Enablement
Why Partner Enablement is Your Secret Weapon for Explosive Growth

For growth-oriented companies, marketing and selling through indirect channels is necessary and challenging. However, collaborating with partners to drive your organizational objectives efficiently is no simple feat. Limited resources, inconsistent training, and branding issues can result in lost revenue and market share.

Channel partners are the way forward, especially with global presence becoming a checkpoint for growth. In a crowded market, these synergistic partnerships allow companies to leverage mutual strengths, penetrate new markets, innovate faster, share resources, and reduce risks. The question is: how do we enable partners for success?

Enabling partners is more than just training. It is a strategic investment that unlocks the full potential of your partner network, driving revenue growth and long-term success.

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What is Partner Enablement?

Partner enablement means providing your channel sales partners with the tools, training, and resources for success. This includes consistent training, easy access to a repository of enablement assets and product documentation, and other guidance, such as sales playbooks, to prime them for success.

Partner enablement involves a two-pronged approach— external and internal partner enablement.

Key Components of Revenue Enablement

• External partner enablement involves enabling partners that resell the company’s products or services. This means ensuring that on-field reps at partner companies are as informed and competent as the company’s in-house sales teams. For example,being able to communicate the right information about the products and services and how it will solve customer’s pain points in the same way as an ISR.
  
  External channel partners may also be selling your competitor’s products, so your messaging must be clear and compelling from the outset.  Unlike direct sales reps, who can refine their messaging and approach over time, external partners benefit from straightforward, easy-to-understand value propositions. If the value propositions are unclear or overly complex, it may be easier for external channel partners to sell your competitors' offerings instead. This leads to lost sales opportunities.

• Internal partner enablement, involves partner sales managers and partner development managers, helping build and maintain relationships with the company’s channel partners. Companies must also prepare these internal teams to support external partners through easy access to the relevant resources, collaterals, tools, and knowledge.

This dual focus is vital for driving partner enablement. When done properly, partner enablement strengthens brand identity and builds a credible, reliable market reputation, especially in newer markets. Consistently empowering partners with the right knowledge, targeted training, and continuous support will lead to stronger, more successful partnerships.

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Why Partner Enablement is Essential for Growth:

Increased revenue and market share

Your partners are an extension of the company’s sales team. They help you break into new markets that may otherwise be hard to reach because of geographical, cultural, or logistical constraints. By empowering these partners, you  build a stable and reliable partnership that extends your company’s reach and enhances market penetration

Stronger partner relationships

Consistent partner enablement shows partners that they are valued. Engaged partners are more loyal and committed. This validation lays the foundation for long-lasting partner relationships and underlines the company's commitment to mutual growth.

Further, enabling partners requires healthy dialogue through open communication, regular feedback, and collaborative problem-solving. This promotes transparency, aligns expectations, resolves conflicts, and drives mutual success.

Improved customer satisfaction

Long sales cycles coupled with reps’ inability to provide tailored solutions based on their needs are common reasons for customer dissatisfaction. Channel partners are closer to their local customer base and have a nuanced understanding of their current market conditions, pain points, and expectations. They can  provide excellent customer experiences (CX), and increase customer satisfaction and retention.

When companies empower channel sales partners with the relevant tools and training, it allows customers to benefit in the following ways:

• Smooth sales process
• Faster lead time
• Knowledgeable partner
• Continuous support
• Consistent CX

Partner enablement helps move buyers faster through the pipeline. Further, buyers also receive relevant collateral and content that allows them to make informed decisions.

Competitive advantage

It’s critical to differentiate yourself through superior partner programs. Channel partners from diverse backgrounds and newer markets bring fresh perspectives. By empowering these partners and working closely with them, they can evaluate market trends, anticipate changes, and respond swiftly. Investing in partner enablement allows companies to leverage the potential of their partner ecosystem. Streamlined communication, targeted training, and access to relevant resources help partners understand your USP and communicate it effectively to customers.

Cost efficiency

Channel partners often bring valuable resources, such as infrastructure, personnel, and market research, with them. Enabling channel partners helps companies scale quickly without these substantial overheads. This approach reduces the pressure to upsell and cross-sell to all prospective customers. Instead, channel sales enablement can instead focus on specific target demographics, offer customized solutions, and enhance sales velocity.

Accelerated time-to-market

Channel partners leverage their own networks, market intelligence, and resources. Using existing resources and networks expedites new product launches as companies no longer have to create assets from scratch. This is especially valuable for entering new markets or introducing innovative products, as it significantly speeds up time to market and enhances competitive advantage.

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Key Pillars of Successful Partner Enablement

Training and development

A robust training component within partner enablement ensures a smooth onboarding process. It should cover an overview of all the company’s offerings, an introduction to the partner relationship management (PRM) and project management tools, and provide access to the integrated CRM and training content.

Easy access to training resources allows new partners to quickly understand the offerings, market positioning, and sales techniques. The next step is to ensure continuous training on product updates, sales techniques, and industry trends, along with certifications and accreditation programs to validate partner expertise.

These accreditations ensure that the company is setting high-quality standards while providing customers with the assurance that they’re working with authentic, credible companies.

Resources and support

A centralized knowledge base or partner relationship management (PRM) portal with access to relevant materials makes training and development easy. These resources typically consist of sales playbooks, co-branded marketing collaterals, case studies, and more. Regularly updating these resources ensures partners have the latest information and tools to sell and support the product. It’s also crucial to establish dedicated partner support channels such as help desks, community forums, live chat, social media, etc. This allows for regular check-ins and open communication, allowing companies to better understand partner needs, adapt enablement strategies, and offer targeted support for improved performance.

Technology and tools

The best way to maximize partner efficiency is to leverage the right tools and technology at every stage. A basic tech stack for channel sales enablement includes:

1. Partner Relationship Management (PRM) systems

PRMs are designed to streamline and optimize interactions between a company and its partner network. They provide a central platform for managing partner information, communication, collaboration, and performance.

2. Collaboration tools

They are applications that facilitate teamwork and communication among individuals or groups. This includes

• ‍Messaging apps: For real-time text and video calls‍
• Project management tools: For task assignment, tracking, and deadlines‍
• Document sharing platforms: For creating, editing, and sharing files‍
• Whiteboarding tools: For virtual brainstorming and collaboration

3. Project management and task-tracking tools

This category of tools is designed to help individuals and teams plan, organize, and execute projects efficiently. They often include features such as task creation and assignment, resource management, reporting and analytics, etc.

4. Learning management systems (LMS)

They are digital platforms that provide a centralized hub for creating, organizing, and delivering online courses, tracking progress, and facilitating communication between instructors and learners.

5. Customer relationship management (CRM)

CRMs help companies improve customer satisfaction, loyalty, and sales by tracking customer information, preferences, and interactions. Typical features include contact management, sales pipeline management, marketing automation, and customer support tools.

6. Document collaboration and management

This category of tools allows teams to work together on documents in real-time, regardless of their physical location. Common features include shared editing, version control, comment/feedback, access control, and integration with other tools such as email and calendar.

Other tools, such as analytics and reporting, help companies track and evaluate partner performance and identify areas
for improvement. Further, communication and collaboration tools help foster engagement and knowledge sharing
among partners.

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Building a Winning Partner Enablement Program

Assess channel partner needs

Periodically check in with them, understand their goals, challenges, and areas for growth, and obtain feedback. Here are some focus areas to consider:

• What are each partner's specific business models, target markets, and customer segments (e.g., resellers, system integrators, managed service providers)?
• What are their revenue targets, market share aspirations, and growth strategies?
• Identify the challenges they face in selling your offerings (e.g., competition, market conditions, sales process inefficiencies)What are their current capabilities?
• Where do they need additional training or support?
• Determine compatibility and integration opportunities based on their existing systems and tools.

Define clear objectives

For channel partner enablement to be effective, both players must work toward the same objective. Align the channel partner enablement goals with the overall business objectives. Here are a few objectives to consider:

• Set specific targets for partner sales and revenue growth.
• Define geographic or market segment expansion goals.
• Establish metrics for measuring customer satisfaction through the partner channel.
• Identify ways to increase partners' margins and ROI.

Develop a comprehensive strategy

Outline a roadmap for training, resources, technology, and support. Here is a simple template of a channel partner
enablement strategy:

• Develop an onboarding framework
• Offer a curriculum of partner training programs and certifications
• Provide tools, resources, and training to partners
• Offer co-branded marketing materials, lead-generation programs, and demand-generation support
• Implement a partner relationship management (PRM)
• Create a rewards program
• Establish KPIs and track performance

Communicate and collaborate

Involve partners in the process of building the partner program, seek feedback, and foster open communication. Take the time to familiarize channel partners with the business, the products, services, and the people who work there. This effort allows them to build and foster relationships.

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Measure and Iterate

Track KPIs to evaluate the partner program's effectiveness and make data-driven improvements. Remember that the specific KPIs you choose will be based on the industry, business goals, and partner enablement strategy. Also, establish both learning and business KPIs. Here are some of the top KPIs to track:

How GTM Buddy Supercharged MoEngage's Sales Teams and Partners


The client

Trusted by over 1,200 international brands, such as Nestle, McAfee, Domino’s, etc., MoEngage is an insights-led customer engagement platform. It empowers marketers and product owners with nuanced insights into customer behavior, which can be leveraged to maximize customer engagement across channels.

The challenge

MoEngage was growing rapidly, but its enablement platform wasn’t making it easy to scale. There was no way to track the collaterals being shared or their engagement. This was compounded with over 1000 partners, each juggling multiple platforms and tools for content management, learning management, and partner enablement. Not to mention, each partner had their specific tools for collaboration and communication. This meant information was all over the place, and teams had to constantly toggle between multiple applications to understand what was happening in real-time.

The solution

Unlike legacy enablement platforms, GTM Buddy was easy to implement and intuitive to use. This meant less admin work and fast adoption by all teams. GTM Buddy’s AI-driven content recommendations and dedicated digital sales rooms boosted buyer engagement. GTM Buddy also provided teams with comprehensive reports on how buyers engaged with the content.

GTM Buddy stepped in as MoEngage’s all-in-one enablement platform that their revenue team could use in their day-to-day tasks. Through GTM Buddy, MoEngage could enable its 1000+ partners with a single source of truth. This meant the partners and internal revenue team had access to the same content, courses, and learning paths. They could also track the usage and engagement. This ensured consistent messaging, language, and brand positioning across channels. Further, the revenue team controlled the content available to partners and resellers. The immediate effect was fewer content inquiries and more productive revenue teams.

MoEngage formerly used a separate tool for onboarding and learning programs. Today, GTM Buddy is being used as their onboarding and LMS platform in addition to sales enablement. In the last year, GTM Buddy has seen over a million
events performed, including the creation of multiple digital sales rooms, the use of the AI-powered Ask Buddy, and
partner enablement.

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The Road Ahead

If channel partners are the secret army, channel partner enablement is the arsenal. Channel partners will sell your products across the globe, but they need training and a clear mission.

That's where partner enablement comes in. It's about equipping your partners with all the resources, tools, and training they need to be successful. Partner enablement is a strategic driver of mutual growth and the way forward if you want to scale fast and dominate the market.

GTM Buddy is here to help you and your channel partners sell quickly and effectively with one platform. By integrating with your partner’s workflow, GTM Buddy makes channel sales enablement simple and effective. Request a demo to see the
GTM Buddy difference.