Recruiting and retaining good channel partners is akin to hiring and keeping high-performing employees. As a result, strategies that help companies keep their best workers should also help keep mutually beneficial channel partnerships intact.
An article in the November/December 2024 issue of Harvard Business Review examines more closely why employees quit, and measures company leaders can take to minimize the loss of stellar workers. One step the authors suggest: Instead of conducting exit interviews to learn why good workers are going somewhere else, interview them soon after they are hired to find out why they left a previous employer.
Identify the “pushes and pulls” of a channel partner’s previous partner switches and work to avoid them as you begin your partnership. Don’t settle for ambiguity. Get details about when they started thinking about ending a partnership. What was the day-to-day experience like? What was the communication like with the former partner? Listen intently and ask follow-up questions.
At the end of the discussion, the authors suggest, replay what you heard and give the partner space to correct things or add what you missed.
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