Overview of a Partner Advisory Board

A Partner Advisory Board consists of senior leadership from partner organizations (e.g. resellers, distributors, alliances, etc.) who work with your leadership team to address industry challenges and guide vision and strategy. A Partner Advisory Board offers a highly proven strategic approach to engaging senior decision makers at your channel partner organizations. When properly designed and executed, companies can increase partner retention, increase sales opportunities and nurture partner loyalty by fostering relationships between your senior management team and your partners’ senior management teams.

Your channel partners have unique insights into your business, market, end-user customers, competitors and your own organization. A Partner Advisory Board enables you to access valuable feedback and knowledge from channel partners. Together with channel partners, you can turn their business insight into powerful strategic impact for your company.

Structure Partner Advisory Boards around common interests

A successful Partner Advisory Board brings C-level executives from 10 to 20 of your top partner organizations together into an active and lively strategic discussion community. The key to Ignite Advisory Group’s innovative and successful approach is structuring Partner Advisory Boards around common interests and concerns — so your channel partners derive as much benefit from participation as you do.

Benefits of a Partner Advisory Board

The value of a Partner Advisory Board can be seen across many departments and functional areas, including strategy, sales, marketing, solutions and customer satisfaction.

	Functional Areas	Typical Results
Strategy	Plans and directions	Validation of thinking on business development, pricing, channels, sales force, marketing strategy, M&A, organizational culture
Sales	Deep relationships with key partner accounts Increased revenues New prospects Sales process	Pick up the phone and talk to senior leaders Sell more to existing accounts Create new opportunities via referrals Adapt the sales process to buying needs and cycles. Create new customer-driven sales terminology
Marketing	Branding and positioning Value propositions Marketing spend and marketing mix References Thought Leadership	Revised positioning and powerful branding New and highly effective value propositions Optimizing marketing ROI Strong references used for promotional purposes New pieces of Thought Leadership by Partner Advisory Board members
Solutions	Overall roadmap New Product introductions Beta customers	Validation on direction and new ideas Successful roll out of new offerings Early product feedback and guidance Partner Advisory Board members supporting product launches
Customer Satisfaction	Overall satisfaction score New professional services offerings Customer loyalty	Increase in CSAT and Net Promoter Scores Cross sell and up sell opportunities Increase in partner retention

An effective Partner Advisory Board impacts strategic direction

A poorly-conceived, one-way Partner Advisory Board can easily degrade into a self-serving sales showcase that merely irritates channel partners. An effective Partner Advisory Board treats channel partners as true strategic advisors that will help steer your company’s go-to-market strategy.

How can we help you with your customer advisory board or partner advisory board program?