Channel-partner recruitment checklist for manufacturers

1. The territory is defined on a map and valued as a number: how many of your kind of customer, what they buy in a year, what share a good partner could take in two years. 2. The ideal partner profile is written as checkable criteria: lines carried, customers served, reach, scale, infrastructure, financial standing, reputation. 3. The commercial offer is on one page: margin, volumes, terms, credit, territory protection, support, and what you expect back. 4. The recruitment materials exist: a partner presentation, product literature in the local language, samples, the price list, a draft agreement, and a first-quarter plan template. 5. The internal readiness: who supplies, who trains, who answers the partner’s phone, and how the first order is credit-approved — named, before the first candidate is met.

Items 1 and 3 are the ones most often skipped, and they are the two a serious candidate asks about first.

6. Candidates are sourced from several channels: complementary brands’ distributors, association and exhibition lists, your customers and existing partners in adjacent areas, online directories verified by phone, and a day in the market — with ten qualified candidates per territory as the aim. 7. Screening against the profile before contact: lines, customers, reach, scale — from the desk and a phone call. 8. Outreach by someone senior enough to discuss terms: a call, a visit with the offer and samples, and the territory number. 9. Verification: a visit to their premises — stock, team, godown, vehicles; two of their customers spoken to about what they are like to buy from; trade references on payment; and a look at the accounts or a credit check where the exposure warrants it. 10. Commercial evaluation: their realistic first-year volume against the territory number, the credit they will need, the support they expect, and whether their existing lines conflict — scored against the profile and against the other candidates, in writing.

The candidate who scores best is often not the one who was most enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is what the eventual inactive partner had most of.

11. The agreement is signed before stock moves: territory, terms, credit limit, responsibilities on both sides, the programme requirements, exclusivity conditions and review date, and how it ends. 12. The first order is sized from the first-quarter plan, not from the candidate’s optimism, with the credit limit set and the security, if any, in place. 13. Training: the partner’s salespeople trained on the product, the positioning and the objections before the stock arrives, with the materials in their hands. 14. The first-quarter plan: which customers they will approach, what demand you will generate in the territory, when the joint visits happen, and what a good first quarter looks like in numbers. 15. The ninety-day review is in both diaries at signing: secondary sales, active accounts, stock position, issues on both sides — and the decision to continue, correct, or exit early.

Item 15 is the one that turns a recruitment into a relationship. Without it, the partner is a shipment.

The mistakes: recruiting in the territory a candidate came from rather than the one that matters; no territory number, so the partner is never measured; a verbal deal and a truck of stock; skipping the customer reference calls; appointing two partners in one area to hedge; and no ninety-day review, so the first sign of trouble is the unpaid invoice. A safeguard: read the evaluation score before the enthusiasm, and never appoint on the first visit.

Judge the recruitment at six months by the share of new partners active and reordering, secondary sales against the first-quarter plan, and credit outstanding against limit. This is the distributor-development work we do for manufacturers — the territory valuation, the profile and offer, the materials, the candidate pipeline and field evaluation, the agreement, and the onboarding through the ninety-day review — and the free audit starts by scoring your last three appointments against this list.