The relationships between vendors and resellers is evolving in a major way. As online shopping continues to grow, resellers must find new ways to draw attention to themselves – particularly when they are one of hundreds or even thousands of small businesses selling the same products to the same audience. Below, you can learn more about how vendors helping resellers truly sell themselves and stand out from their competitors.

The Marketing Cycle

Both traditional and online marketing share the same goal: sales. It all starts with identifying leads, or people who are suited to purchase a product, and nurturing them until they are ready to buy. At this point, hot leads are passed off to the sales team, which uses specialized knowledge and skill to convert a lead into a paying customer. As a reseller, you are the sales team – and you are one of hundreds, if not thousands, of resellers selling products for the same vendor, and your vendor relies on you to generate its income and keep its business afloat. This means the marketing and sales process is a bit more complex, particularly when it comes to big data and technology.

The Evolution of the Vendor/Reseller Relationship

Because vendors rely so heavily on people just like you – individual resellers – to nurture and grow their businesses through sales, many vendors have taken incredibly active roles in the process. Once upon a time, they simply offered things like manufacturers’ rebates or even shared some of the marketing costs, but in today’s high-tech world, they do much more. It’s all about incentives and training, and many vendors are even finding new ways to compensate resellers for their hard work. In short, vendors no longer simply tell you to go out there and sell the product; they truly want your side of the business to succeed, and they take active roles in your success.

What Today’s Biggest Vendors Offer their Resellers

Aside from discounts and shared marketing costs, today’s major vendors offer their resellers numerous tools that are designed to help their businesses grow. These include things like online reseller portals that provide you with access to myriad marketing tools, which make it much easier to build yourself a website or purchase ads. Many vendors provide free CRM software that makes nurturing and even retargeting leads simpler than ever before. Finally, there are some vendors that have discovered the benefits of real, live human help. HubSpot, for example, provides its resellers with account managers and channel consultants – both of which help guide resellers toward success.

Training Helps Everyone

While just about anyone can be a reseller, whether you choose to sell Avon products or tech from a huge company like Cisco, not everyone has the knowledge it takes to be successful. Though every sale is a win for the vendor, it’s the vendors that take the time to nurture their resellers just as the resellers themselves nurture leads who tend to enjoy more growth. As a result, vendors put more money into training than ever before. You can learn new sales tactics, how to use CRM software, and much more – all without paying a dime, and all while watching your own business grow.

Creating a brand as a reseller does not have to be difficult, but it is certainly difficult to grow and humanize a brand without the right tools and knowledge at your disposal. Fortunately, today’s vendors are investing much more into their individual resellers to help them improve things like SEO, website appearance, customer management, and much, much more. There’s never been a better time to be a reseller, and the future looks bright, as well.