Onboarding New Channel Partners - Global Sales Mentor | Zach Selch

4 Sept 2020 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

2:11

In this brief presentation, Zach Selch, speaking from Moscow, warns international channel sales managers that they have a narrow 90‑180 day window to successfully onboard a distributor before losing their attention and mindshare. He explains that distributors often add multiple product lines each year, and if a partner’s training, marketing materials, and early customer engagement are not established quickly, the distributor will shift resources to newer products, making it difficult for the original partner to gain a foothold. Selch emphasizes the importance of rapid training, provision of marketing assets, and generating early sales excitement to secure mindshare. He concludes with a call‑to‑action, inviting viewers to contact his Global Sales Mentorship service to help grow their international sales.

Chapters

Hi, I'm in Moscow. And as sales managers, we're always thinking about the issue of time. We run by quarters, we run by months. I'm going to throw out something else to worry about if you're in channel sales, and especially if you're in international channel sales. How much time do you have to get your distributors up and onboarded before you've really lost their When do you know you've lost focus and you've passed the window of opportunity? I'm going to tell you it's probably between 3 and 6 months, 90 to 180 days. If you don't get their attention, if you don't get them on board, if you don't get them trained, their marketing material ready, etc., there's a good chance you're going to lose that window of opportunity. Why do I say this? Think about how many product lines your distributor is taking on every year. Are they taking on 2? Are they taking on 4? Are you the only product line they're taking on this year? Because once they take on another product line, they're going to start shifting resources and shifting mindshare to that new product line. So what you want to do is get as quickly as possible, as soon as you're in, you want to make sure that you're training their people, that you're making sure that they have the right marketing materials, making sure that they're getting some ground and they're getting out to customers, they're talking to customers, they're getting some excitement with at least some of the salespeople. Because once you get that, you're going to get mindshare with the rest of the salespeople and you'll move forward. But if you can't get any footing, you can't get a solid footing in the first 90 to 160 days, if you can't get solid footing in the first 90 to 180 days, you're going to be in a weak position going forward. You might never get that solid footing and mindshare in the future. Remember, when you're ready to grow your international sales, reach out to us. We can help. When you decide it's time to grow For your international sales, call us.