Partner training 101: Tips for Getting Started (5 Steps)

Although businesses have primarily focused on employee training as part of their learning and development strategy, the unpredictable market conditions and competitive business climate have made it necessary to embed partner training in learning and development strategies. Today, fewer businesses are willing to settle for local markets, as the majority of businesses seek to distribute their products and services nationwide and even internationally. This is why businesses seek partners to assist them in expanding their market reach. Partner training enables your business partners to effectively market, sell, and support your products, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this article, we will dive into the basics of partner training and explain how to get started and the benefits your business can reap from adopting partner training into your business strategy. 

How To Set Up Your Partner Training For Success

Employing a good partner training strategy all depends on planning and having clear objectives that map out the path toward organizational success. Here are some guidelines to follow when building to ensure your partner training becomes a success: 

1. Set Clear Goals From The Onset
   

   Like any other training program, partner training should have specific goals. You can use these training goals to measure the success of your program by comparing the results before and after the training is implemented. Setting unclear and immeasurable goals will make it difficult to measure the impact of your partner training; hence, it is essential to determine what will be measured to make use of the metrics. If your organization aims to increase its market share in a particular region by a certain percentage, the partner training should reflect this goal and provide partners with adequate knowledge of the product as well as the market to enable resellers to adequately sell the product to consumers. Bringing your partners up to speed with the new products, features, and industry trends will aid you in boosting your brand's presence in the market as it will equip your partners with the right tools to market effectively and drive sales to your products.

   

    

2. Choose The Right Medium & Format

   Deciding what format and how you will deliver the training defines the success of your overall partner training. Choosing traditional ways of training, such as training rooms and handing out training material, or opting for a modern approach like an LMS depends on the size, needs, and audience of each business. Before deciding on what format to deliver your training, it is important to research the audience to ensure the training is engaging and accessible to everyone. 

   

3. Use An Evaluation System
   

    

   In addition to long-term evaluation metrics after completing the training program, in-course assessments from quizzes, tests, and feedback from your Learning Management System (LMS) can assist you in gaining a deeper insight into the progress and success of the program along the way. LMS reports are useful if you are clear about what you want to measure and how useful the data will be to you. Completion rates, average engagement time, and success rates are some of the key metrics an LMS can provide that are useful when measuring the effectiveness of your training. Allowing feedback through questionnaires and surveys can also be a great way to assess the ease of use of the system and the usefulness of the training, which is key in ensuring the training meets your organizational goals.

   

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4. Consider Investing In A Resource Center
   
   In addition to having a functional and easy-to-use LMS, having a knowledge and resource center like a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs) section or an online knowledge base can help your partners save time as they can learn by themselves in minutes without having to consult you or attend a long lecture.
   
   
5. Offer Something In Return
   
   Since your partners are likely business people with hectic schedules, the training you provide must be interesting and novel enough to hold their attention without requiring too much mental effort. Your business partners are more likely to gain knowledge from the training and complete the program if you use gamification and reward systems to increase learner engagement.

Benefits of Partner Training

Partner sales can be a massive boon to expanding your company's operations. However, giving your partners your products and promotional materials alone is not enough to generate sales and drive business. You must provide your partners and stakeholders with the tools they need to gain customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Investing in a solid partner training program enables you to achieve the following:

Higher Revenue: Partners who are skilled in promoting, presenting, and selling your products are more likely to generate more revenue and do so more rapidly.

Lower Support Expenses: As your partners become more familiar with your product and services, they will likely request less assistance from your support team which means you won’t need a large support department to handle customer queries which translates to lower costs on labor.

Enhanced Customer Loyalty: Training your business partners enables them to become knowledgeable and competent resellers of your products and services. Well-trained partners can show clients how to make the most of your product and integrate it into their daily lives, driving sales and changing clients' perceptions of your products. This results in well-informed clients who are well-versed in your products and their applications, which boosts customer loyalty.

Conclusion

Building the right partner training program requires effort, planning, and consistency. Just like customers, business partners are essential to the vitality of your business; hence they need to be constantly motivated and engaged to keep their bond with your products alive. Training allows you to get their feedback and opinions and assess the effectiveness of your current strategy, which is key to keeping you competitive in the industry. Building and running a training program is demanding. However, Greenmusk makes this easy by doing all the heavy lifting so you can focus on making products your customers will love and find useful. Don’t forget to stop by our previous posts to find out how we can enable you to make the most of your training.

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