Deal registration is a big deal. It’s one of the most important KPIs for the health of your channel. The channel runs on partnerships. These partnerships occur when companies repackage/resell products from another company (the vendor). Partners make money on these transactions through commissions, discounts, etc…In order to ensure they actually make money, partners will fill out their vendor’s deal registration form.
Having your partners fill out a deal registration form gives you data on a potential customer and lets you know what your partner is offering that customer. With this, you can measure partner performance and reduce channel conflict. Without it, you’re flying blind.
Why is deal registration so important?
Deal registration is a way for partners to share leads and deals they have been developing for you. It also lets them claim a lead for a set period of time and prevent other people including their vendor from stealing the lead. Once that period of time has expired the lead opens back up.
This is a way to reduce channel conflict as others can’t bypass the partner and sell to that lead for that period of time. Vendors may also offer their partners help in closing that deal.
Deal registration also offers insights into the partner’s performance. Vendors know how satisfied their partners are and who are their most active partners. Partners know how well they work with a particular vendor and can identify potential areas in which they can improve. This allows both the vendor and the partner to evaluate their relationship and see if it is worth continuing.
How does it work?
Deal registration programs, which are run by the vendor, often offer additional incentives for partners to register the deals they make. This increases the profits of the partner. Each vendor will have their own rules on who can take part in the deal registration program and what incentives they offer.
Elements of a good deal registration program
A good deal registration program has 3 key elements
- Forms
Your deal registration system should be easy to use. Keep your partner’s time in mind. Make sure your deal registration forms are simple, easy to use, and don’t ask for any unrelated information.
These forms should contain the name of the deal, the type of deal, the potential amount of the deal and the estimated close date of the deal. If you are giving your partner the forms through a PRM, they should not need to ask about your partner’s contact details as those should already be in your system.
Here’s an example of a simple deal registration form below.
Caption: xAmplify deal registration form
- Rewarding Incentives
Make sure you’re making the process rewarding. Most vendors offer their partners monetary incentives. Monetary incentives can be product discounts, commissions, rebates, ect.
If your incentives aren’t the right ones, then your partner has no reason to register a deal with you. They may even take that deal to your competitor if they offer better incentives.
To make sure your incentives are right, make sure they reflect the degree of effort involved. If a deal is more complex, then you’ll want to offer more of an incentive. These incentives can also motivate less active partners to become more active. You’ll want to think about this and select the most appropriate incentive that works for your partners and you.
- Clear Rules
Your deal registration program rules need to be clear. This prevents abuse. Communicate these rules to your partner and enforce them.
These rules typically consist of the eligibility criteria of a deal, any exceptions to the process, and the potential reasons for rejecting a deal. Each vendor will have their own rules and partners should check them before registering a deal.
When developing your rules take common scenarios into account. Consider what the rules are for a potential customer wanting to go with a different partner and other such scenarios. This ensures that you have policies on what to do if channel conflict arises.
Deal Registration Problems
Unfortunately, deal registration isn’t perfect. For most partners, it’s a necessary but tedious step they have to take. Most deal registration programs make that step more complicated for partners by being inconsistent in enforcement, manual forms and having a complicated approval process. This makes protecting the deal more of a burden than losing it.
Manual forms
Deal registration forms are mostly manual. This makes it tedious for partners as they have to fill out the entire deal registration form each time and with all the information that the vendor requests. Vendors tend to request the partner’s company information, the prospect’s company information, relationship to the prospect and much more. This allows them to evaluate whether the partner is the right one to pursue the deal.
With automation and integration, the partner only needs to fill out the necessary information such as their relationship to the prospect and what deal the partner plans to offer the prospect. The system will populate other necessary information such as the partner’s company information which should already be in the vendor’s records. Automation also more easily integrates the deal registration form with your CRM so you can review and track the deal registration.
Without it, you would have to either manually copy the information over to your CRM or it would be created as a lead instead of a deal. If it is created as a lead instead of a deal in your CRM, you would have to add in the necessary information in order to change it to a deal. Either way, it’s more work for you.
Inconsistent Enforcement
Vendors don’t always protect the deals that their partners register with them. Sometimes, the vendor’s direct sales team poached the deal or let another partner work the lead during the claim period. This destroys all trust between the vendor and the partner. The partner will no longer want to work with the vendor and will warn other partners away.
A Complicated Approval Process
Your partners don’t work for you. Partners are individual businesses and have other things to do. They don’t have the time to jump through the hoops your deal registration’s approval process. If your approval process involves the partner documenting every presale effort they made to that deal, then it’s too complicated. Make sure your approval process doesn’t involve much work for your partners.
Conclusion
Deal registration enables visibility into partners performance. It allows the partner to claim a lead for a set period of time reducing channel conflict. This process isn’t perfect. Deal registration programs can fail if they are too complex or if they aren’t automated. This creates more work for the partner making them less likely to use the program.
To learn more about easier deal registration, contact us.