Distributor Recruitment: identifying your needs and getting the best candidates
Finding your ideal distributors is a strategic process, involving identifying, qualifying, evaluating and onboarding companies that meet your desired criteria and align with your strategic goals. Much like a traditional sales funnel, the channel partner recruitment funnel starts with awareness and lead (i.e., candidate) generation.
For efficient and successful distributor recruitment that results in your company onboarding the best partners, it is critical to do two things:
Identify your needs by specifying criteria that defines your ideal channel partner - this serves as a blueprint to guide you throughout the process.
Generate “leads” - a broad range of distributor candidates - to give yourself ample opportunity to find the best partner.
The ideal distributor
Your ideal channel partner’s profile may be shaped by one or more of your current partners, or if you are building a new channel partner network, it may be newly created.
Such activity should generate a partner specification acts that can be referred to at all stages of the distributor recruitment process.
The specification should outline essential partner qualities, such as a complementary product portfolio, desired target market and end user alignment, sales and marketing infrastructure, possessing the necessary technological capabilities to sell your product, financial stability, low staff turnover, geographic reach, existing customer base, the ability to be transparent, communicate openly and be receptive to feedback, and cultural compatibility.
Without this clear understanding of what your company requires, finding the right channel partner can become disorganized and inefficient, from including unsuitable companies within your initial search for ideal partners, to wasted time evaluating candidates that are a bad fit for your company.
Casting a “wide net” for potential business partners
In addition to the specification of your ideal distributor, the channel partner recruitment process also requires identification of a large pool of potential candidates. Each company should then be compared to your specification throughout the qualification and evaluation stages.
Note, it is important to "cast a wide net" and give yourself ample opportunities to identify potential partners.
A broad-based approach minimizes the risk of settling for subpar partners and maximizes the chances of finding the best fit for your specific market needs and strategic goals. A diverse pool of potential partners allows use of a more rigorous selection process, which leads to better partner identification.
Market dynamics can also shift rapidly, and having a deep bench of potential partners provides your own company with flexibility and resilience; if one partnership falters, or a new market opportunity emerges, a company with numerous options for potential partners can pivot more quickly.
Resources for finding potential partners
There are a number of online resources available to obtain information about potential distributors, including basic internet searches, artificial intelligence (AI) tools and social media platforms. LinkedIn is an excellent platform for discovering companies through groups and professional networks, as well as finding key personnel.
Online repositories and novel databases like the BioChannel Partnering Portal, which provides thousands of curated company profiles that offer comprehensive data on companies, including their products and services portfolio, industry focus and existing partnerships, are also an option.
Industry blogs, news articles, corporate websites, and financial reports may also provide names of potential partners and insights into a company's business model, market focus, and financial health. Industry-specific associations and chambers of commerce can also provide lists of potential partners and valuable networking opportunities.
Trade shows and industry conferences are prime environments for face-to-face networking. Finally, word-of-mouth referrals from existing customers, industry contacts, and even competitors can be surprisingly effective.
By combining a wide reach with a precise understanding the type of company you wish to partner with, you can optimize your channel partner recruitment efforts. This will lead to a better, smoother, and more efficient recruitment process which will generate more successful alliances and accelerated business growth.
BioChannel Partners can help you expedite the channel partner recruitment process
BioChannel Partners have been specializing in connecting distributors and manufacturers for over 21 years.
Our database has almost 30,000 company profiles from across the globe, giving you a wide variety of potential partners from which to choose. Our company profiles contain information to help you decide whether a company is worthy of further review, and are a great starting point in your search for new business partners.
Database users can automatically generate a targeted selection of companies to create their own datasets. The latter will contain collections of company profiles that have been researched and updated by our dedicated team who regularly investigate active companies in the market.
Our Bespoke Services
Distributor recruitment can be labor-intensive, taking months from creating a shortlist of ideal candidate partners to begin evaluation to completing onboarding.
Our bespoke partnering services take the pressure off managers - we do the hard work for you, creating a shortlist of ideal candidate partners, based on your specifications, and (as an additional service) even contacting these candidates, so that you can move to the onboarding stage more quickly:
BioChannel Partners has been helping Manufacturers and Distributors to connect for over 20 years
We offer a repository of almost 30,000 companies from around the globe. Information from our company profiles:
Identify qualified distributors more efficiently.
Can be aligned with partners who understand your market.
Expedite your distributor selection process.
