Unified Deal Registration Improves PRM (A Channel Sales Must-Have)

When partners aren’t registering their deals or opportunities - your channel suffers and you don’t have visibility into what deals are being worked on. As well, the possibility of channel conflict is greatly increased and that has serious consequences that negatively affect partner churn rates, profits, and channel efficiency.

Deal registration is a necessary part of any optimized channel strategy and helps you gain greater insight into what your channel partners are working on. With the data from deal management, you can start to nurture a healthy and active sales funnel.

Are you managing deal registration or merely recording it?

We don’t need to tell you that having no visibility into your channel deals is problematic. Our customers tell us constantly how they are struggling with overwhelmed internal channel teams due to time-intensive manual follow up with a growing partner ecosystem. We've heard about the struggle to forecast sales let alone ensure forecast accuracy.

The impacts of unclear deal management practices range from burnt-out channel sales teams and inventory issues to countless hours wasted trying to consolidate spreadsheets and insufficient resources delegated to the channel sales team.

According to IF International, Marketing Channel Strategy Consultants, channel conflict is another major issue when there is little visibility into channel sales activity:

“Destructive channel conflict can have serious consequences on channel efficiency, channel effectiveness and channel partners' and principals' profits. Such consequences lead to significant channel partner churn and low partner loyalty to principals.”

How does Deal Registration work?

Modern deal registration powered by PRM software is a vital part of any channel management strategy focused on partner enablement in 2018. An effective partner deal registration workflow should be simple, mobile-friendly, integrated with your CRM, and ideally automated as much as possible.

Optimize your process

A streamlined Deal Registration should work something like this.

1. Partners fill out a simple form with all the important details regarding the deal* in the partner portal.
2. Once the form is submitted, it syncs with your CRM creating a unique record and the appropriate channel manager is notified.
3. The channel manager can now review the details of the deal and approve or reject natively within the CRM where they usually work.
4. The partner receives a notification with the approval or rejection of the deal along with any notes from the channel manager.
5. The Partner and channel manager can collaborate and both have visibility into real-time status so they can work together for the win

*this also applies to workflows where partners submit leads to channel managers that convert approved leads into opportunities/deals.

Benefits of Deal Registration

Deal registration allows you to monitor and get involved with partner performance using a PRM portal. When partners are registering their deals, the internal channel team gains insight into channel sales activities. Are partners losing a lot of opportunities? Why?

With data easily accessible through dashboards and newsfeeds of partner activity on deal records, the internal team can now easily view the data that is driving the channel. They can go about improving partner performance by targeting the weak areas of partner performance, and asking questions such as:

• Will a partner benefit from further coaching?
• Training?
• Is access to collateral a problematic trend?
• How often is response time the reason for a lost deal?
  

Active and informed channel partners

Deal registration encourages active and informed partners. They need to see what’s going on after they’ve submitted a deal. We all know deals are time sensitive and partners don’t want to be left in the dark once they've submitted a deal. With deal registration, partners can easily scan the  status of submitted deals on visual dashboards offering them a snapshot of their current sales funnel at a glance and receive notifications for follow up tasks which keeps them engaged with you as well as their prospects.

Deal registration in a collaborative PRM community answers the common questions we've heard over and over from the channel chiefs, including:

• ”Did they send the quote?”
• ”Do they need help?”
• "How much progress has been made?"
• "What stage are they currently at?"
  

Mutual accountability

Deal registration in a PRM portal provides mutual accountability in your channel environment. Partners can see what actions are being taken by the internal team to support the deals they've submitted while giving the internal team insights into all partner activity so they can spot opportunities to assist partners with resources or advice in real-time.

This dynamic increases partner loyalty, by offering more interaction & support, partners feel like they are a valued part of your sales team. Keeping them involved throughout the sales cycle will lead to happier more active partners.

And the simple truth is that your partners are the best point of contact for their customers, and “when the customer is happy, every part of every channel works better.”

Foster an active, engaged, informed channel partner program with easy deal registration that integrates with your CRM for seamless customer care in your channel. Magentrix PRM portals provide end-to-end partner relationship management including a streamlined deal registration module out-of-the-box. If you have questions, we've got answers. If you have 10 minutes, we can show you exactly how we can help you build a healthy channel program. Talk to us today.

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