As we reach the tail end of any year, there is a parallel effort required. You have two simultaneous jobs: to close out the current year and also plan for the next one. 

This year is especially challenging. For most of the clients we work with, their business has already shifted. They’re facing a wake-up call. They’re asking: Should we be following the old playbook or rewriting our playbook for the new normal? 

No one knows exactly how the new normal will develop, but we do know that many industries will be slow to rebound, if ever.  If you’re selling products that no longer fit or selling to an industry that will not be bouncing back any time soon, you need to change right now.

For example, if you’re selling a solution that was designed for retail, where else can you make that work? What’s the new addressable market? What is the new value proposition? What enablement needs to happen to make the team effective sellers? What will you need to do to build awareness, consideration, and demand?

When you work with partners, you not only need to answer these questions for yourself; you also need to let your partners know what changes you’re making immediately. As we constantly say, your partners are your off-payroll sales team, and to effectively represent you, they need to know the plan every bit as much as your “badged employees” do.

How to Build a Future-Proof Business Plan: Questions to Answer 

Your head is probably spinning. Shifting business models dramatically can feel overwhelming and complex. To simplify your planning, we recommend making a plan that covers four major areas with your partners. Make sure you can answer your partners’ questions, listed below:

1.   Executive Communication Plan 

Decide how you will sell your plan to the executives at your channel partners. If you’re changing the course, you’ll need to convince them to join you so you both achieve your goals. 

Especially in today's confusing and frightening times, the adage "the partner will follow the teacher" has never been truer. When done right, having a plan to answer common questions and put people at ease can become a competitive advantage.

Answer these questions in your executive communication plan:

• How will you share information with the executives at your channel partners?

• How will you help your partner executives reach their goals —not only related to your solution, but beyond. How will you help them answer larger existential questions?

• What value will you deliver at the executive level that will set you apart from your competitors?

• What is your game plan to align your own company’s executives with the executive teams at your partners? 

2.   Sales Plan

Running a successful sales push is about alignment, alignment, alignment. Your sales plan should align to your organization’s goals and strategies, get your partners on the same page,  and sync your  direct and indirect teams. 

With tight alignment, everyone is pointed in the same direction, amplifying each other’s messages, and covering all your customers without any gaps or overlaps. 

Answer these questions in your sales plan:

• What is the target market you need your partners to cover (by geography, customer segment or size, product, or industry).

• What solutions do you want partners to sell?

• What are your collective must-win accounts and what is your plan to close them?

• What groups are needed to help sales make the plan work (for example: legal, purchasing, marketing, systems engineering, pre-sales, service, support)? How will you get those other groups on board? 

• How can you streamline and simplify workflows for the sales team? What non-value-added-"stuff" can you take off their plates to radically improve the productivity of your internal sales team as well as your partners’ sellers?

3. Marketing & Demand Plan

The key to a powerful marketing plan is also about alignment. Let partners know what you’re selling and tell them your value proposition for each key audience. When they understand your investments, priorities, and plan, they can amplify your messages accurately and consistently. This is true whether you’re heavier weighted to building awareness or to building demand (or both). 

If you don’t share your plans and priorities, you leave your partners guessing about your target markets or solutions. Not aligning your marketing strategies with your partners wastes time, effort, and already-slim marketing budgets; it also confuses your customers. 

Answer these questions in your marketing plan:

• How will you build awareness and demand? Who is responsible for each part of the buyer journey, from content to pipeline? What role do partners play in marketing?

• What content & collateral can be shared with the partners so they don’t duplicate efforts or guess where you want them to place their bets?

• What are the campaigns and strategies that are resonating the most with your target audience?

• What is your marketing plan for each quarter?

• How will you measure the effectiveness of your marketing spend?

4.     Enablement Plan

Enablement is the glue that makes the above plans work. Enablement is about more than just a training class. It’s about providing all of the necessary tools and resources to help a partner rep successfully sell your solutions, a marketing professional successfully execute a demand generation plan, or a technical professional best support and service your solution.  

Answer these questions in your enablement plan:

• What is your enablement goal for each partner?

• How will you measure competency (number of certifications, level of certification, etc.)?

• To complete a sale, partners need customer references, case studies, and solution playbooks that help them in positioning, target markets, questioning, and handling objections. What tools and resources have you made available to your partners, and how simple is it for partners to find and use them? 

• What can you do to reduce the time that partners have to spend out of the field getting training and support on your solution? 

• What can you do to make your content more relevant and sticky? Can you implement gamification, video, or mobile-friendly resources?

• What do your partners need to better represent you and sell your solutions? Could they use demo units, sandbox set-ups, or try-and-buy programs?

Planning for a new year is always a major undertaking. But if you cover these four bases, you’ll be primed to achieve success for you and your partners. 

Need help evaluating your 2021 plans? Through our lean process, we find opportunities to accelerate, simplify, and optimize results for our clients. Call us for an objective, outside-in view.