If you want to reliably work with partners across your sales channels, an effective onboarding program (full of partner onboarding best practices) has to be part of the equation.
From the incentives you use to entice new partners all the way to the training they need to sell on your behalf, structuring your partner engagement can make a huge difference in attracting and retaining those partners.
Plus, there are tons of benefits. According to one report, 96% of B2B leaders engaging in a channel partner program expect the revenue from that program to continue increasing.
Another found that organizations with successful channel sales models reduce their average cost of sales and marketing by 33%.
But that success is not automatic. Successful partner activation requires an outstanding onboarding experience, from the first impression to integration into the larger partner ecosystem.
Needless to say, to succeed, you need to be strategic. Read below to know more.
What is partner activation?
Partner activation or partner enablement generally refers to the steps or best practices that ensure your partners are fully trained and engaged in your partner ecosystem, in essence, prepared to start selling your products or services.
These activities can include onboarding, certification, resource management, sales readiness (enabled with materials like product guides, sales or partner playbooks, and marketing collateral), first-deal closure, learning platform usage, deal registration and more.
Perhaps the most important of all of these is onboarding. Nothing beats a first impression, right?
You’ll want to make sure that your partners feel equipped with everything they need and you can only do that through thorough onboarding.
Read below for top best practices for partner onboarding.
7 partner onboarding best practices
1. Strictly structure your partner onboarding process
First, and perhaps most importantly, is building a structure.
In fact, most of the below partner onboarding best practices will not succeed if you don't already have a structure in place to support them.
The right structure can go a long way toward improving your channel management and partner success long before the first sale. It should include a few key components, including:
- An exact timeline or roadmap of the onboarding process, including key milestones along the partner journey, from training courses to the first sales opportunity
- An outline of the tools you'll need to accomplish that timeline, from task management to a Partner Relationship Management (PRM) system
- A clear definition of how the partner onboarding and enablement process will fit into your larger business plan and priorities
- An overview of the incentives your partners get for selling on your behalf and how you plan to streamline distributing those incentives to each potential partner
- An understanding of how your partners will build basic business and product knowledge through webinars and training modules
- A clear outline of responsibilities within your own team, following a model like RACI to keep accountability for channel management and onboarding front and center
We'll discuss many of these pieces in more detail within the other partner onboarding best practices below.
The key here is building them into an overarching structure and plan designed to make your new partner experience reliably and consistently successful.
2. Balance individual partner needs with overarching partner onboarding best practices
Not all partners are created equally, and the more partners you welcome into your partner program, the more likely you won’t be able to build a one-size-fits all program.
Still, you should strive to create a one-on-one partner onboarding program. In other words, what you build has to at least partially account for the individual needs of the new partners you are bringing on board.
Think, personalization but more efficient.
Building partner personas is one way to balance efficiency and customization.
Identify the commonalities between groups of partners in a similar way you would treat your buyers.
Then, conduct a needs assessment for these groups of similar partners to understand what they'll need for onboarding.
This approach prevents you from creating a custom needs assessment and approach for every partner going through the process.
At the same time, you can still account for at least some custom needs to make the process more relevant in every case—ultimately leading to better partner onboarding and retention.
3. Leverage automation where relevant in your partner program
Another advantage of a needs assessment when building partner personas is finding out what your partner segments have in common.
This key piece of information enables you to standardize and ultimately automate pieces of your onboarding process.
Automation is among the most powerful partner onboarding best practices you can implement.
You can easily automate and streamline your partner program by using PRM software or learning management platform.
By automating your onboarding, training, or messaging to new partners, you can free up your time and energy to focus on more strategic planning.
Take new partner training as an example. Depending on the format you implement, some standard parts of the training, like building a basic understanding of your marketing materials or the quizzes after each module, can be automated.
That, in turn, leaves room for your channel managers to focus on some of the more qualitative workflows and questions your partners are looking for as they familiarize themselves with your company and products.
4. Create a welcome package for new partners
No guide to partner onboarding best practices would be complete without a welcome package that starts the process.
A welcome package creates that positive first impression while also giving everyone an overview of the templates and steps they need to make it through the program.
Your welcome package may look different depending on your industry and partner relationship. Generally speaking, it should include:
- An opening letter welcoming new partners
- Fact sheets about your company and products
- A checklist that guides them through the onboarding process
- Any incentives you offer for partners selling through your channels
- Examples of the marketing campaigns your partners can tap into
- Contact information for the onboarding program leads on your side
- Answers to frequently asked questions you've encountered from other partners
- Links and guides to your partner portal and learning management platform
Don't be afraid to ask your partners for input on the welcome package. If there's a missing piece, use that information to improve the package over time.
5. Create a partner onboarding checklist that covers the timeline and milestones
That checklist we've mentioned in the welcome package above deserves a bit more discussion.
Think of the checklist as a roadmap for your new partners to find their way through the entire process, making it one of the most important partner onboarding best practices you can find.
The checklist may include different stages, like:
- Introduction: This includes your welcome package, a broad overview of the product, and perhaps an initial call among key stakeholders.
- Initiation: Focus more deeply on your company and products. Checklist items might include reviewing your company mission statement, core values, and product fact sheets, accessing the partner profile, and more.
- Training: Go in-depth on some of the items from the initiation phase. Checklist items should focus on completing specific modules that build the knowledge base.
- Transition: Focus on the steps needed to move from onboarding into regular operations alongside other channel partners.
Depending on your individual process, you may have other steps in place.
The key here is building out the checklist items to make them easy to follow for partners as they move through the onboarding journey and toward customer success.
6. Prioritize an evaluation strategy for your channel partner onboarding
No list of partner onboarding best practices could be complete without discussing how to evaluate your success in the partner onboarding process.
Without analytics, you're just operating on hunches. You need a strategy to quantify when new partners are successful in their onboarding journey.
So where to start? First, identify the metrics that help you measure success, like training completion and satisfaction rates at the end of the process.
Depending on your partner program and industry, referral rates to other partners may be another potentially valuable metric.
Then, turn these metrics into KPIs to evaluate each channel partner.
With analytics in your toolbelt, you can regularly check in on the process, making adjustments as needed to learn where you can improve over time for maximum success.
Plus, with a learning management platform, you can automate those analytics to make the process much more efficient.
7. Create a seamless transition from onboarding to partner enablement
Partner onboarding is not an isolated process. For true partner enablement, the same concepts that drive the onboarding efforts should continue to remain in effect through the life of the partnership.
Training modules, core documents about your company and products, and your incentive overview should remain available for your existing partners.
Plus, ongoing communication with your partners remains crucial to keeping the partner relationship strong.
That's why the last step of onboarding has to revolve around building that transition.
From putting the right resources in place to reminding new partners that those resources remain available to them, making it as seamless as possible will ultimately benefit everyone involved.
Ready to optimize your new partner training and onboarding?
Time to take your channel partner onboarding to the next level.
With Docebo, you get a platform by your side that allows you to streamline all of your training efforts, and that includes powerful analytics so you measure the impact of your partner onboarding process.
Disguise, a technology company that creates software and hardware for immersive, innovative experiences, turned to Docebo to elevate partner enablement and customer education.
With Docebo, Disguise transformed its training approach, expanding from 8 to over 80 courses, moving to modern microlearning formats, and providing tailored content for different learner profiles.
This shift not only increased engagement but also supported Disguise’s clients and partners in delivering immersive experiences more effectively.
As a result, Disguise saw their active learners quadruple, in addition to a 45% rise in learning revenue.
Ready to optimize your partner training and onboarding?
Schedule your demo today and see why more than 3,800 companies worldwide trust Docebo with their employee training, customer education and partner enablement.