Answer
Okay, common enablement pitfalls to avoid:
- Drowning partners in massive amounts of documentation or hours-long webinars right at the start. They can't absorb it all, get overwhelmed, and disengage. Break it down into digestible, role-specific chunks.
- Assuming all partners need the exact same training. Tailor content and depth based on their role and potentially their tier or specialization. I know this is hard, but start with something that's tailored to them and bite sized, and then get them to more detailed ones.
- Partners need more than just what your product does. They need to know how to position it, how to sell the value, how to implement it effectively to solve specific business problems, and how to navigate your processes. Think of building a mini "your firm" inside the partner firm.
- Having training materials, sales assets, or technical docs that are inaccurate, old, or buried deep within a clunky portal. Keep things fresh and easily searchable.
- Partners need access to demo environments, sandboxes, or practical exercises to actually build confidence and skills. Don't feed them just theory please.
- Thinking enablement ends once training is complete. Partners will have questions when they hit real-world scenarios. Ensure clear channels for ongoing technical and sales support.
- Products evolve, processes change. Enablement needs to be an ongoing effort with regular updates, refresher courses, and communication about new features or program elements.
- Last but not the least - think of how would the partners be able to access information related to your product/offering when they need it. They shouldn't be spending a lot of time going through the links on emails, partner portal, etc. Make it accessible to them at their finger tips, always. There are new-age tools available that provide such capabilities, leverage them. The harder it is for a partner to access the latest on your products' capabilities, the farther you would be from your sourced opportunity.
As a rule of thumb, I would always think of how I would like to be enabled on a product/offering, and simplify it by at least 5x (assuming partner teams you work with usually maybe offering 5-10 other offerings).