WESLEY SWART
CHANNEL DIRECTOR
As a channel only business, our channel partners (dealers) are at the heart of NSN and what we do.
Through our Exclusive Affinity Marketing, we release our live marketing calendar quarterly in advance to our partners so they are fully aware of our themes for each month and the dates for our webinars, training, social media activity and any mailers available for co-branding to send to their customer base – providing the dates and themes in advance allows our partners to plan and generally be available for key releases from NSN
Since we started releasing a quarterly calendar
we have seen attendances on our webinars increase by 60% so clearly forward planning is working!
In a catch up Teams meeting I had with Mark Shraga (our Managing Director), we discussed how we could be adding even more value to our Channel Partners. We decided that whilst the webinars are a super important part of our engagement and will continue on a monthly basis, what if our partners felt that they needed a more private engagement to discuss matters away from the rest of our partner channel in a more confidential setting? After a couple of coffees we decided to launch the ‘Dealer Drop In Clinic’ for the month of July offering 30 minute slots throughout 2 Fridays for the partners to join their BDM and myself on a Teams call to discuss literally anything that is on their mind
The pilot scheme was a resounding success, one of the first partners who joined stated ‘that was the most valuable and productive 30 minutes I have had in business for as long as I remember’
The call allows for partners to discuss any pertinent any service related issues, receive updates on any key provisioning tickets, set up a WhatsApp group for quick access to the Senior Management Team amongst other items, then I can chat through their development plans for the next phase of the year, run through commission targets, set goals, organise a marketing engagement plan for the quarter ahead and offer insights and advice on growing their commission cheque.
