An Ounce of Prevention: Reducing and Mitigating Employee Turnover on your Channel Team

Driving business through partnering is on the rise. Companies of all shapes, sizes, and industries are leveraging the benefits of indirect sales and building out channel programs as their go-to-market strategy. To do this effectively, these companies are turning to technologies like PRM to help them extend and automate their reach.

The influx of companies entering the channel presents a unique growth opportunity for professionals with partnering and PRM experience. The growing demand for channel experts has increased turnover in the sector, with individuals now often switching positions yearly.

What to do about channel team turnover

Employee turnover can leave channel programs in a lurch, but there are several actions you can take to both retain your channel team and reduce the impact of departing team members:

1. Create redundancy – Cross-training provides a backup if there is turnover in your channel team. Make sure there’s no single point of failure in your processes for managing either your PRM system or partner program as a whole.
2. Document, document, document – Develop detailed documentation both on the program level and for the various processes within your PRM. This includes partner onboarding, content grouping and permissions, deal registration and any other functional areas. It is critical that the “why, what and who” are included so that anyone can step in and manage the channel program and its tools. While you’re at it, consider creating partner facing documentation as well. Review documentation regularly to capture any changes.
3. Retain the talent you have – With the number of channel and partnering jobs on the rise the risk of your team being recruited away increases. Spend time getting to know your team and their goals and empower individuals to succeed. Offer opportunities for growth by setting regular feedback loops, providing opportunity for program and automation input. No one likes to be blindsided with a resignation, so keep your finger on the pulse of your team.
4. Outsource the work to specialists – If you haven’t prepared and find yourself in a situation where you’ve lost key resources, outsourcing can be an option to bridge the gap. There are consulting firms that offer managed services to support channel programs and PRM systems. They can step in for just a short period of time or take over ongoing management. Plugging the hole quickly will keep your program and portal goals on track and your partners will never miss a beat.

Benjamin Franklin’s quote “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” clearly applies to running your partner program and PRM system: Leverage the actions above to minimize the exposure created by internal turnover and ensure the best experience for your partners.

Next steps

Ready to make your channel more resilient to turnover? Need help managing your channel?

Get a demo from our team to find out why 40,000+ channel professionals use Channeltivity to manage their channel programs. Also make sure to check out our Channel Service Partners for both short- and long-term channel help.