Congratulations! You invested time to choose the right resellers for your business, you're happy with your choices, and are already seeing the advantages of having resellers on board. You have great relationships with your resellers and they are hitting sales targets. Life is good! However, you know there is always room for improvement.

So how can you help them improve? Think of the relationship as a partnership and look for ways to provide the tools and resources to make your resellers more successful. If your company is interested in improving sales from your resellers, here are some ways to get started.

1. Share sales best practices

Do you know how your resellers are positioning your products when talking to potential customers? Even if they have a stellar sales team, they may never have sold a product in your category before. Look within your own company for positioning documents you can provide to them, sharing what works best for your teams, including pain points of your prospects, value propositions, and success stories from your sales team. Your resellers can use this information to become better at selling your products.

2. Offer product training

Provide training to your resellers focused on the technical side of your products. Whether you are selling software, hardware, services or something completely different, everyone who sells your product needs to understand what he or she is selling. They need to know all the features, what everything does, and how it works. Your resellers may not need to be totally technical about every aspect, but when in a meeting with a prospect, they should be confident about describing your product capabilities and how it compares with others in the market. You don't want to lose deals because your resellers are not knowledgeable enough about what they are selling.

3. Create co-marketing opportunities

Regardless of how large a marketing team your company or your reseller has, by co-marketing with your reseller you can expand your marketing reach. Together, you can offer joint webinars, co-sponsor events and run joint campaigns, sharing resources and costs and increasing your outreach and presence. This can save you time and money, and can put your message in front of more people. 

4. Share tools

You probably have tools and systems in place within your own company to help your sales reps sell more and increase efficiency. While your resellers may have some of their own tools, perhaps you can offer integration with them, or access to the tools and systems that make your own sales team more productive. Think of your resellers as an extension of your own sales organization. Enable them with tools that make it easier for them to sell your products, and can even give you increased visibility into their pipeline, so you can forecast better. Connect your resellers to your own sales process and resources, so they can better service buyers directly.

5. Become the supplier of choice

Your resellers probably sell products and services from a variety of suppliers, maybe even from your competitors. That's why you want to take steps to become your resellers' favorite supplier.

Providing them with tools and training, as mentioned previously, are important steps to take. In addition, you should ensure that your resellers always know the right people to contact for whatever needs they have. Stay in regular contact with your resellers and try to make their jobs as easy as possible -- it will keep your company on top of mind and hopefully help you become their number one supplier. Treat them well and they will enjoy working with you and selling your products. 

To learn how you can connect your resellers and distributors to your own sales process, and empower them to quote your product to their customers more easily and accurately, check out Salesforce CPQ for Communities.