The next step in a channel selection process is to acquire potential candidates. This can be done by going to trade associations and looking at trade association directories for resellers, of which there are many, to actually get lists of potential resellers. Or it also can come from looking at who your competition is using or complementary products companies are using in order to get their products to market.
It certainly includes defining a list of potential candidates. You'll never want to select a reseller without having multiple options to compare against, just like you'd never hire a key salesperson without having multiple options to compare against. So, acquiring lists, getting names, also getting referrals from your best customers is an excellent way to identify potential resellers. Who are they buying from? Who do they like to buy from? Who do they view as the most professional reseller vendors in your market? Those are easy questions to ask of some of your best customers and prospects to define who it is that you should be working with as your channel partner.
The next step is contacting those companies and using either referrals or through a direct mail process which is very easy to set up and do. Then, you establish the actual channel partner selection criteria that you're going to use in order to make sure that you understand what it is that you're looking for. After developing that selection criteria, you're going to want to develop a questionnaire or an interviewing guide and gather the information that you need from those channel partners in order to match that information against a selection criteria that you've established. Then, of course, from there, after you've gone through the due diligence process, gathered their performance history, understood their sales organization, looked at how much they're selling for each of their principal vendors and understood who their customers are and why they win against their competition, you're going to want to go into the process of actually negotiating an agreement.
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