Distributor Recruitment = A Strategic Funnel
Finding the right channel partners for your business isn’t just about making connections — it’s about building a process.
In fact, recruiting distributors is a lot like managing a traditional sales funnel!
You start with a broad pool of prospects, for example, in the BCP Partnering Portal...
Then progressively refine, qualify, and prioritise until you're left with a focused shortlist of candidates who truly align with your goals.
Stage 1: Awareness and Lead Generation
The top of the funnel and equivalent to casting a wide net in sales. The initial aim is to identify a large number of potential partners using a variety of sources: industry events, referrals, online searches, online resources such as the BioChannel Partnering Portal, or even direct outreach.
Like a sales team identifying numerous leads, the goal of your channel recruitment team is to identify a large pool of candidate organizations that cover your target market, complement your company’s product portfolio, and align with your strategic goals.
Stage 2: Consideration and Qualification
Here, you qualify each potential partner using specific criteria, and begin engagement. The aim is to refine your pool of candidates down to a manageable number of top candidates. We suggest around 20 per geographic territory.
Attributes such as market reach and the ability to engage with end users of your products, product portfolio compatibility, web presence, technical and sales capabilities, staff turnover and financial stability can all be used to produce your list of the best candidate partners.
As with the natural attrition of unqualified sales leads, potential partners will drop out at this stage, if you feel there is no clear fit, or lack of a mutual alignment between your companies.
Stage 3: Evaluation and Nurturing
This is where more in-depth discussions take place, often involving exchange of company presentations, discussions regarding partnership agreements, revenue sharing models, and support systems. This is akin to a sales representative demonstrating a product and addressing specific objections.
At this stage your recruiting team works to educate and convince the potential partner of the benefits of collaboration, answering questions and providing compelling reasons to join.
This phase can involve multiple touchpoints and a sustained effort to build rapport and trust.
Stage 4: Commitment and Onboarding
The bottom of the funnel is the conversion point. Here you reach a formal agreement with the channel partner. Similar to closing a sale, this involves contract negotiation and signing.
Following this, a robust onboarding program is vital, just as post-sale support is crucial for customer retention. This ensures the new partner is equipped with the necessary knowledge, tools, and support to be successful, ultimately leading to a productive and profitable partnership.
Just as a sales funnel delivers loyal customers, a well-executed channel recruitment funnel delivers effective and engaged partners.
BioChannel Partners can offer valuable help!
BioChannel Partners have been specializing in connecting distributors and manufacturers, for over 22 years:
Our database, the BCP Partnering Portal, has over 27000 company profiles from across the globe, allowing you to start the channel partner recruitment process with a wide variety of potential partners to choose from.
Channel partner recruitment can also be labour-intensive, taking months, at a minimum, from creating a shortlist of ideal candidate partners to begin evaluating to onboarding.
Our bespoke partnering services take the pressure off; we do the hard work for you, creating a shortlist of ideal candidate partners for you, based on your specifications, or going further and contacting these candidates on your behalf, so that you can move to the onboarding stage more quickly:
Develop the Skills to Build Stronger, Smarter Channel Partnerships.
