I recently had a long discussion about the fundamentals of key account marketing and channel marketing. Whilst there were lots of good ideas about how these types of clients need to be served, one common theme consistently reoccurred. Education.

Educating your channel/key accounts is fastest way to get real buy in to your product. If your clients know more about your product (vs. the competitors), it’s more likely that they’ll use/recommend yours (all other factors being equal).

Your training program also gives you a good mechanism to relationship-build with your customers, it also allows you to gauge the real level of interest your channel/client has in your product. Simply put, if they’re investing time/money in training, there’s a much higher chance that they’re planning on buying.

If you can reach the point where you certify, not only can it be revenue generating, but it’ll help build confidence & stickiness in your channel. Hopefully even a level of exclusivity similar to Cisco’s ATP certification.