Passive income is easily the most widely revered source of cash.
Making money while you sleep? It’s a no-brainer.
Even better is having someone else make money on your behalf.
Partner Programs
Partner programs can be of various kinds depending on your business and goals.
Most partner programs are developed in order to find sales solutions. When companies partner with outside channels, they get access to more leads and customers. Typically, this looks like a commission or credit for channel partners upon the referral of leads to the company.
Alternatively, some companies nurture a partner relationship with marketing development teams. They outsource the marketing section of the business to help grow revenue while maintaining a “hands-off” approach. Marketing development partners manage key channels, including:
- paid ad campaigns
- message automation
- social media
- content marketing & SEO
When you’re successful in effectively managing partner relationships, selling will feel like automation! If you create the right strategies and implement best practices, the whole process is highly scalable and repeatable. With detailed and structured steps in place, you can always guarantee returns of X from Y.
But partner relationships need to be nurtured and developed inside a partner program in order to ensure a smooth onboarding and sales process. If there are barriers to this process, it may not be as efficient as it could be. Therefore, partner relationship management seeks to build a strategy towards communication and collaboration to improve performance.
Growth Strategies
- Penetration
- Product Development
- Market Development
- Diversification
PRM vs CRM
While PRM is partner relationship management, CRM refers to customer relationship management.
So are these two similar?
No, they aren’t. In fact, the techniques you’ll use for partner relationship management will typically contrast with customer relationship management. This is because PRM focuses on business-to-business (B2B) management, whereas CRM refers to the business-to-customer (B2C) relationship.
In both cases, you are managing the relationship between your company and a source of revenue, but partners are internal while customers are external. Therefore, keeping these relationships separate is important in order to make both parties feel valued.
PRM also requires more communication and a collaborative mindset. Partners who feel involved in the plans and future of a company are more likely to be aligned and working towards its success. Plus, PRM software is a functional database to aid all parties in making sales and creating win-win situations.
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PRM Best Practices
The best practices in partner relationship management involve finding solutions that create maximum efficiency within the partnership. These PRM solutions might focus on the tools and processes being used or how your company works with data. Either way, it’s about discovering and supporting what solutions work to help increase sales.
Partner Knowledge
Partner Portal
Access to a cloud-based portal collects and connects your partners in one location, and simplifies the collaboration to a single platform. This type of PRM solution is brilliant for streamlining the training process but also sets boundaries around contact and involvement.
By creating a partner portal, your channel or other partners can work through a consistent system to onboard and gather insights and data on your product. They can also collaborate with managers inside your company to engage more quickly. What’s more, a portal will not impact the relationship between your partner and their customer – it is simply a platform to track ROI.
Deal Registration
