Deal Protection

What is deal protection?

Deal protection is an important practice in the channel world to safeguard deals in progress, reduce channel conflict with internal sales, and build trust among your partners. For your partners, it’s a practice that can protect their investments of time and resources in developing a potential sale, ensuring that if the deal closes, they will receive the agreed-upon compensation.

Let’s say you’re a partner for a cybersecurity company. You’ve spent considerable time nurturing a lead, demonstrating the value of your vendor’s product, and building a strong relationship with the client. But what if another partner steps in and tries to close the deal? Or even worse, the company’s internal sales team closes it? That’s where deal protection comes into play.

Deal protection often involves a few factors, including:

• Easy, automated deal registration: This is a common practice where partners formally register a deal with the vendor. Once approved, the vendor recognizes their claim over the deal and will not engage other partners or their own sales team to close it. This is best managed in an automated partner relationship management platform.
• Exclusivity period: After a partner registers a deal, there is often a defined period during which they have the exclusive right to close that deal.
• Guaranteed commissions: If a partner registered a deal and it closes (even if not directly by them), they’re assured their commission.

Deal protection is a critical part of fostering trust and fair competition among your partners and encourages their investment in building customer relationships. Remember, a good deal protection policy can be a deciding factor when partners are choosing which vendors to work with. Make yours fair and easy to manage to better serve your partners and end customers.

Related content:

Download a Free Deal Registration Form Template | Channel Conflict | Deal Registration | Lead Distribution | Lead Management