Selling through partners brings growth—but also introduces several challenges of channel partner sales, from communication gaps to inconsistent messaging. From a lack of communication to keeping everything on brand, it’s not always easy to manage your partners, keep training up to date, and ensure they have all the latest product or service information to hand.
In this blog, we’re looking at eight of the most common challenges of working with channel partners, and how bringing in a dedicated learning management system (LMS) can address them.
If you’ve been considering whether a LMS is the right choice for your channel partner training, read on for helpful insights and solutions.
Because they’re not directly employed by your business, channel partners can feel left out of the loop. They can be less likely to care about the impact of their behaviour on your business.
Channel partner training brings them into the fold. With access to a constantly updated LMS and accompanying training programme, partners can feel more included, develop stronger relationships, and be more likely to continue working with you.
It also gives partners a deeper understanding of why you operate the way you do, which can help secure their support and enthusiasm.
When people walk into Apple-authorised stores, they expect the same thing: clean aesthetics, premium service, and highly knowledgeable staff. Location doesn’t matter. Whether you’re in Shanghai or London, the experience – and the brand’s vision – is consistent.
This is the experience you want with your channel partners, and an LMS is the way to achieve it. You can set out the expectations for your business with your partners, sharing full brand guidelines, standardised messaging, and full product information. This will create a stronger affinity and recognition for your brand.
Related Resource: How to Manage Your Training Programme Successfully
Clear communication is definitely one of the most common challenges of working with channel partners. You’re separate entities often focused on individual internal problems, quotas, and KPIs. Amidst the flurry of daily operations, regular communication can fall by the wayside.
With a dedicated training LMS you have a way to keep the knowledge of channel partners updated without being too disruptive. Simple reminders about updated courses and incentives help keep product training front-of-mind for channel partners, and also offer an additional source of communication.
Related resource: 5 Warning Signs Your Training is Failing Your Training Partners
Knowledge will be your edge over every other product on the shelf. Around 70% of customers say knowledgeable salespeople heavily influence their purchasing decisions. The more trained partners are, the better they can sell your products.
And increased sales secure loyalty not just from customers. When channel partners can move your product faster off shelves and feel like they are fully supported, they’re more likely to choose to sell, specify, or install your product over your competitors.
A dedicated LMS can ensure your channel partners have instant access to all the latest information about your products, and therefore be in a stronger position to sell them.
When businesses scale globally, this situation presents complexities due to language barriers, cultural differences, and the need for consistent training quality across all regions.
An LMS offers unique translation tools, robust tracking and analytics, cultural customisation, and a focus on consistent quality across various locations, providing a comprehensive solution to the challenge of training multiple partner employees globally.
Without an LMS, organisations often face difficulties in tracking training completion, engagement, and continuous learning, especially when training is face-to-face or classroom-based.
By using the advanced reporting and customisable assessment tools, certification tracking, and automated renewal reminders that come with an LMS, however, organisations can have a much more transparent system. This also helps with compliance and certification among global partner employees.
Related Resource: How To Sell Training To Your Channel Partners
Delivering face-to-face training, especially to a geographically dispersed audience, incurs significant costs. These expenses can include travel for trainers or participants, time spent away from regular work duties, and the production of physical training materials.
An online training approach using a comprehensive LMS not only minimises expenses and logistical complexities, but also ensures timely, scalable, and uniform training experiences for global, multi-level audiences.
An LMS effectively addresses the challenge of training numerous partners swiftly and efficiently, overcoming the limitations of traditional instructor-led methods.
The conventional approach often leads to instructors being overextended, struggling to keep pace with the growing demand for training. This not only risks burnout for the instructors but also creates a bottleneck in knowledge dissemination.
With an LMS, however, this constraint is eliminated. It enables the scalable distribution of training materials, ensuring consistent and uninterrupted access to knowledge for all partners, regardless of their number or location.
This method also safeguards against the loss of crucial information, as an LMS creates a permanent, accessible repository of knowledge. This ensures that all partners receive the necessary training in a timely manner, without overburdening the instructors or risking knowledge silos.
A dedicated LMS comes with a host of benefits, allowing you to really maximise the effectiveness of your partnerships and overcome some of the challenges that come when working with channel partners.
If you’re looking for a bespoke LMS to complement your channel partner training, please get in touch to book a meeting to discuss Wahoo Learning’s industry-leading options.