Making Channel Training Sessions Successful

Vendors all over the world are having training
sessions for their channel partners. This is a very healthy trend because finally
they are realizing the importance of partners and how empowering the channel can
only work in their favor.

Training the channel is pertinent because they act as the
customer's eyes and ears. The people who are going to deploy your products are
finally going to rely on the recommendations made by their suppliers. So if you
have empowered your partners, they will be more confident selling your
technology and therefore your sales will indirectly see an increase. Not only
that with proper and regular training, you will have an extension to your own
sales team in the form of the channel.

At the same time, these sessions need to be meaningful and
pertinent to the partners. Otherwise it will be a waste of time and money on
both the channel and the vendor's ends. As a network consultant, I am
personally involved in training the channel and therefore I can share some of my
learning in this space with you.

Understand your audience

The channel comprises a mix of technical and not-so technical
people. There are some partners who are only into product fulfillment though a
healthy chunk of them are migrating to providing services, especially
infrastructural ones, with sales. You have to make sure that your sessions meet
the requirements of all of these people.

There are two types of channel training programs. One is
where the participants have to pay to attend the training and the second is
where the vendor trains them for no cost. Both have their pros and cons.

If you offer paid training sessions, then you will get the
truly serious audience. The participation will be assured and you can be sure
that the audience will not be nodding off to sleep in the midst of the sessions.

But if you are going to make the channel pay for their
education, you had better make sure that you are offering some value addition
which will result in tangible return on investment for them. At the end of the
day, partners want to get the knowledge which will empower them to sell more of
your products and unless they get this benefit, they will not be willing to part
with their money for the training.

If, on the other hand, you offer training without any price
tags, then you have to ensure that you get the right kind of people. There might
be some who are interested in a particular technology, whereas others might want
a more broad-based knowledge on various products. Understand the need of each
participant and invite them to the correct forum.

Making the right selection

There are several ways to decide on the content for the
training session. The easiest is to keep a track on the kind of channel calls
you get and find out which the common thread of enquiry. Is it about a
particular product or technology? Is it about a future trend? Is it on improving
their managerial skills? Rate what kind of calls you get the most and then you
can decide what your channel wants to learn about immediately.

For instance, Netgear International Inc's team used to get
a lot of calls about VPN and we decided to have a series of training sessions on
this subject. We invited those people who were regularly calling us on how to
configure VPN and gave them a hands-on demonstration. Now the volume of calls on
this subject has gone down, though the VPN sales have conversely increased.

Alternately, you can see which products are moving fastest
and have a session on that particular product or the new developments in its
technologies. Or you have a session where you share your product roadmap, so
that partners can make their own plans on how they would like to sell these
products. They will also know how to pitch your product's vis a vis your
competition. It is not for nothing that it is said that forewarned is forearmed.

Use the web

The Internet is a great medium to impart knowledge to the
channel. And it makes all the more sense as you can break the training into
smaller chunks to give more in-depth information.

For instance, you can take a topic like switching and then
break it into smaller subjects like selecting the right gear for different
customer verticals, how to configure several switches on the same network etc.
You can inform your partners about these subjects before hand and if the subject
is of interest to them, then they can participate in the web seminar.

However, while using the Web will save on your travel and
other logistical expenses, there is no way to gauge the whether your channel has
absorbed the right information. Also there is no way to monitor their constant
participation as it is easier for the participant to lose interest during the
online telecast.

Rather than having a staid Microsoft PowerPoint presentation
for session, try to be more flexible in your approach. Ask the audience a basic
question, like how many of them have deployed a VPN solution. If there are very
few who have, then start with the basics on the technology and then build up on
the subject. On the other hand, if quite a few in the audience reply in the
affirmative to your question, then you can plunge into the more

advanced information on the

technology.

Maxwell Jeffrey Fulton

The author is Network Consultant with Netgear International Inc