How to Avoid the 7 Biggest PRM Fails
Whether your company is launching a new partner relationship management (PRM) solution or you’re considering upgrading your current system, it’s important to know what pitfalls to watch out for to ensure a successful implementation. Here are seven of the biggest PRM fails and how you can avoid them:
1. Poor Promotion
One of the biggest pitfalls of PRM implementation is not properly promoting the platform. Your partners and other stakeholders don’t want to be blindsided by a new system, so it’s important to create an action plan and timeline to ensure that everyone knows the PRM is coming so you can build excitement and anticipation. Your ramp-up to rollout should highlight the PRM’s features and the benefits that the solution will bring to everyone involved. Ultimately, your PRM solution will make it easier for your partners to work with you, so don’t discount the power of letting key partners in for a pilot early in the process. Then, to build awareness and enthusiasm be sure all partners and stakeholders are aware of the rollout. This will ensure everyone feels involved in the process, which is critical for getting buy-in as you move forward.
2. Foregoing Training
It’s important to make sure your onboarding is smooth, and this means having self-service training set up so your partners have all the answers they need to take your product or service to market from day one. You want your partner portal to be easy to use and packed with va
luable, meaningful resources. Keep your training content current and consider filling it with videos, documents, info sheets, and more so your partners can easily access and retrieve the training materials they need to properly sell your service or product. Nurture and enable your partners, and they’ll nurture end users into customers.
3. Lackluster Content
Whatever you do, don’t launch your PRM until you’ve
built a robust library of content and resources for your partners. It’s important to get day one buy-in, and having adequate resources in place is vital to your partners having confidence in you as a vendor. If your portal is lackluster and all of the resources your users need aren’t there immediately, then your partners might not be able to truly see the value of the solution and they won’t use the portal. Also, chances are most of your assets are spread out across multiple locations, so we recommend completing an inventory of all assets and resources in order to guarantee that you’re pulling everything in for the launch.
4. Outdated Assets
Once you’ve completed your inventory and put all of your assets into your portal for distribution, the worst thing you can do is fail to update your assets regularly. If your partners are using and distributing outdated content, they won’t be as successful as you need them to be. According to HubSpot, 61 percent of customers want sales reps to give them the right, most relevant information. If your assets aren’t up to date, your channel partners can’t do their jobs.
5. No Accountability
Your shiny, new PRM can quickly fall flat if system management is not assigned to a single team or department. With lack of accountability, the system’s upkeep can fall through the cracks. If no one is managing the PRM portal, then content isn’t being managed and partner questions and feedback aren’t being addressed. To avoid this major PRM implementation fail and ensure success, provide the department responsible for managing the PRM with the right training and tools well before the portal’s implementation.
6. Failure to Communicate
Set your partners up for success by giving them access to communication and feedback channels such as Slack or a partner community so they can let you know what works and what doesn’t, as well as what they need in order to do their jobs better. Your partners are invaluable, and you want them to know that their opinions and pain points are important to you. If you don’t have communication channels set up, your partners won’t be able to connect and your channel partner relationships won’t be able to grow and succeed. Also, when you give your partners a voice, they’re more likely to provide positive feedback, which will feed into testimonials so that you can recruit more partners.
7. Forgetting Branding
Lastly, make sure your PRM portal is properly branded. Don’t forget that many of your partners work with other partners, which means they are probably accessing multiple platforms and seeing countless vendor names. Make your PRM memorable by making it obvious who you are and what your value proposition is so partners are in tune with your company from the moment they click in.
Request a demo now to learn how you can avoid the biggest PRM fails from day one with Allbound’s powerful all-in-one partner management solution.
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