Every member of the business group should understand everything the company does. Partners are any individuals or organizations who don’t work for your company but are involved in selling your products. These include retailers, vendors, suppliers, contractors, and even franchises. This means they represent your company which makes partner training an important factor.
Customers and end-users connect through these individuals. When your partners don’t know what you are offering, they don’t represent your company in the best possible way. Your partners must undergo ongoing training as a means of preparing them for the job of representing your products. Whether it’s marketing or learning how to install your product, training keeps all of your partners equipped with the latest information.
Understanding partner needs
You need to understand what your partners’ needs are since your program is all about their success. A franchise owner, for example, might require training that teaches how to display and promote the brand before launch. Having said that, if you work with retailers, you wouldn’t need this type of training.
To get to know your partner’s needs, here are a few suggestions:
- Make an appointment with training managers.
- Survey your partners to find out what they want to learn or need from your training program.
- Managers and employees with close ties to partners can provide feedback on how to improve this partnership.
You can only solve a partner’s problem once you fully understand the situation.
Defining KPIs for your goals
Your company can measure the effectiveness of a training program by using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). For example, if you are training partners to improve their product knowledge, you could evaluate their performance on a product knowledge test at the end of the training. Furthermore, you can monitor the amount of time it takes your partners to take a quiz as well as test scores. You’ll be able to determine whether or not your partners are improving their product knowledge by utilizing KPI. You can track these KPIs during in-person training as well, but keeping track of them using an online training system is easiest.
Use a Learning Management System (LMS)
When it comes to delivering partner training, you have many options. Even if you only need to train a small number of partners, this can often be done in a classroom setting with a teacher and worksheets. But this has become an old method. Now with the help of LMS, things are way simpler and easier.
The purpose of a Learning Management System is to design, publish, and manage online eLearning and training courses. A SaaS LMS provider is a good choice since professional developers will host, back up, and maintain your platform. Additionally, since the LMS is cloud-based, there is no need for installations or storage of training materials by your partners or administrators. Litmos, Accord, Adobe Connect are some of the best LMS in the market for your partner training program.
Design Instructional Materials and Build The Program
Once you know everything you want to provide to your partners, you’re ready to create training courses on your LMS. Whether you create training materials in-house or have an instructional designer do it for you, make sure you consider the goals and KPIs of your partners.
Decide what type of course material you are going to use in your training program. If you are using an LMS, you can use blogs, articles, videos/audios, infographics, webinars, and many more. You should tailor curriculum and content formats to meet the needs and preferences of partners.
Analyze the learning process of your partners.
Just like training your employees or any other audience, training your partners should be an ongoing initiative. LMS will provide you with reports which are useful to identify the partner’s learning process. Whether they are completing the course, how many attempts they needed, how many modules they reaped, and similar details. It is important to analyze their learning process to make sure they achieve optimal results. As well, you can ask them for feedback if they need anything or if they are experiencing any problems. Their learning is going to affect your business growth. Thus, it is vital for your business too, to make adjustments according to their needs.
To summarize
To run a successful business you need the right people. You must have great employees, clients, and partners. To that end, be sure to invest time in creating an effective partner training program. Also, collaborate with other professionals wherever needed. Using this approach is going to provide you with the best results, which will grow your business.
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