Creating a US Reseller Channel: 5 Best Practices for UK and EU Tech CEOs

“We plan on entering the US market through resellers” is a comment I hear often. While the idea of not having to spend the time and money to set up a US subsidiary and hire a sales and customer success team in the US certainly sounds appealing, setting up a successful and profitable reseller channel in the US from thousands of miles away rarely works. There is a common misconception that having a “superior” product will attract reseller partners and succeed in the US market. The reality is almost always the opposite. Resellers react to market demand for a particular product and are rarely interested in introducing a new, cutting-edge, or “great” product into the market. Successful resellers are much better at fulfilling demand than creating demand in any specific market segment.

Don’t fall into the trap of forecasting significant revenue from the US market through a reseller channel just because you have a great product. Establishing a successful reseller channel in the US takes significant time, money, planning, and focus. If you’re serious about setting up a successful and profitable reseller channel in the US market, check out these five best practices below.

Direct Founder Involvement

As with almost all aspects of a successful US expansion process, the company founder’s involvement is critical in developing a US reseller channel. Only the company founder has the unique market insights, deep industry knowledge, and product roadmap vision needed to quickly build credibility and trust with potential resellers. Your company’s Founder will need to spend a considerable amount of time on the ground in the US market to build these important personal and business relationships directly with resellers. Founders also have a much easier time gaining access to the CEO or other senior executive team members of the resellers. A critical component of a successful reseller relationship is the direct personal relationships between the CEOs and other key executives. These relationships will prove much more important in building a reseller relationship than simply having a “great” product. Founders have a much easier time building these key strategic relationships than anyone else in the organization.

US Customers

Having referenceable US customers is critical to developing a US reseller channel. Existing US customers serve as proof that there is already market demand for your product and that customers are willing to pay for it. If you don’t have US customers, don’t expect US resellers to be interested in adding your product to their sales efforts. If you don’t already have US customers, you should invest the necessary time and money in demand generation programs, travel, and allocating your existing sales resources to sell directly into the US market. Doing the hard work of initially selling directly into the US market from your home country to sign a list of referenceable US customers will ultimately make recruiting and signing US resellers much easier.

Demand Generation Programs

Resellers are much better at fulfilling demand than creating demand in any specific market segment. If you want to have a successful US reseller program, your company must invest heavily in US marketing and demand generation programs that will generate leads for your resellers. Classic B2B SaaS demand generation tools include white papers, customer case studies, webinars, and videos. You may also want to allocate a budget to attend key US industry trade shows and events. Events are not only a good way to capture potential customer leads for your US resellers to pursue, but they can also be a good place to identify additional potential partners and resellers in the US market. It’s a best practice to use a CRM system to track the leads that are distributed to your US resellers. A CRM system can help your company more efficiently distribute and track leads across multiple resellers, measure which resellers are most effective, and create a pipeline management system to help forecast revenue from your US reseller channel.

Sales Training & Support

A key to success when building a US reseller channel is to capture mindshare for your product with the sales team and sales leadership of the US reseller. Salespeople at US resellers often have many products to sell, and just getting them to remember your product, how it works, and how it benefits customers can be a challenge. Ultimately, the salespeople at US resellers will allocate their time to the products they believe they can sell to hit their monthly sales targets and earn the most commissions. Investing in training and support resources for the salespeople at your US resellers should be a crucial part of your US reseller strategy. Building personal relationships with the salespeople and sales leadership at your US resellers is vital for your success. Conducting onsite training or workshops, attending annual sales offsite meetings, or even providing lunch during an industry event can go a long way in building these important personal and business relationships. It is ideal if your company can assign one person to serve as the “partner manager” for your US resellers so they always have a go-to resource anytime they have questions about the product, pricing, or competitive advantages.

Customer Success Programs

US resellers will never understand your product features, customer best practices, support tricks and tips, or product roadmap as well as your direct team does. Even when you have resellers successfully selling your product in the US market, the team at your corporate office should be prepared to directly support US customers. US customers are far too important as industry proof points and investor milestones to leave their success with your product in the hands of your resellers. Having robust customer success programs will be key to preventing customer churn and potentially losing the confidence of your US resellers. A commitment to the success of your US customers will likely mean expanded support hours for the team at your corporate office in the near term, and ultimately having a customer success team in the US market.

The “If you build it, they will come” axiom does not apply in the competitive US tech market or with US resellers. If your company is serious about building a successful and profitable US reseller program, you need to be prepared to build long-term business and personal relationships, have existing US customer references, and fully support both the customers and sales teams of your US resellers.

If you have questions about building a successful reseller channel in the US market or US expansion best practices, you should book a meeting with the team that knows more about executing the entire end-to-end US expansion process than anyone else on the planet.