Channel Sales Should Be More Than The Best Offer ...

Channel sales provide a direct customer touch point that, in my opinion, is not adequately utilized by the organizations. Dealers get more attention because of the obvious reasons, but the channel partners are the ones that need more nurturing. 

Channel partners provide valuable reach into hard-to-reach areas and, arguably, have deeper relationships with their markets and customers. They also help save costs and the organizations often are good at optimizing that. However, same cannot be said about maximizing the profits from these relationships. With a little rethinking, channel partners can be integrated to be more of “profit partners” than mere sales drivers. In my past interactions, I found the following insights that should be at the top of any sales leader's mind:

Solicit active feedback ...

 
.... on their unique customer interactions. There are trends and patterns that are not likely addressed by the holistic top-down sales model. Key insights can be gathered about brand image, pricing, product quality, support calls, etc. 
 

Enable flexible product, service and pricing strategy ...

.... for channel cohorts that appear to cater to certain categories. There may be target customer segments that may need fewer service features with lower costs and more valuable add-on products. Channel partners can be the source for such minutiae, which marketing teams can use to create custom products and services. Tailored solutions and marketing collateral should be prepared for the specific channels, which will go a long way in driving more sales and profits for either parties.  

Broader agreements to allow customer access and call-back ...

 
.... such that channel partners are enabled to up-sell and cross-sell products. Again, the channel partners need to be challenged to optimize their deeper relationships with their customers and drive greater customer share-of-wallet for the organization.
 

Creating better and frequent interactions, with active inputs into the product/service strategy will empower channel partners, which ought to be a key ingredient to making sales more customer-centric and hence more profitable – an investment worth considering!