The 2014 SKOs are finished, budgets are done and everyone has set their plans for the year. By now, you’ve probably got your events planned for the next two quarters, have run your sales reps through updated training, and are reaching out to your channel partners to refresh them on your new products. What’s next? Spring Cleaning! Now is a good time to step back and review everything.

• Is your channel plan still driving the results you want? Perhaps it’s time to add in a new tier; revise the MDF program or spice up deal registration.
• Are your demand generation partner programs returning the result you both want? It’s time to discontinue what’s not working, even if the activity is satisfying.
• Are you prioritizing your top partners? In my experience, the lowest-performing partners can sometimes be demanding, pulling your focus away from your top 20%.
• Review your portal – if you’re like most companies, your portal is a home-grown site containing out of date sales materials. It may have a deal registration form, and event request form – are those working for you? Can you track what’s been downloaded? (This is a good proxy for what’s being used by your partners).

So, take a step back, and ask yourself: Are you getting the increasing results from your channel programs that your company needs? Tools can help give an extra boost to your channel partnership results. A great third-party portal tool is provided by Zinfi – lets you see what partners are accessing which materials, lets the partners register and track deals, and lets you push out content for demand gen so your partners can easily launch campaigns – generating more sales of your products.