Most intermediaries see the skills they offer as their major differentiator, the thing which most adds value to what they do.  As the head of a large building materials distributor put it: "Our skill, the advice we can give to plumbers and builders, is what makes the difference between us and the DIY sheds." 

Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Fayrewood, a pan-European, value-added distributor of networking products, said: "Not only is training a differentiator, it is also a great opportunity for us to get eyeball-to-eyeball contact with our resellers and to form a real relationship with them."

"Even if we halve the sales that the salesman reports were down to training, we still find that training is generating a massive return on investment!"

Odd then, when the channel places such emphasis on the importance of skills, that most vendors severely limit the training they offer their partners.

Usually, such training is restricted to transferring knowledge about how to support, install and sell a specific product, rather than to building up a partners' long-term competency.  For example, sales training typically means intensive sessions devoted to the features and benefits of the latest product.  Very few vendors systematically set out to ensure that their dealer sales force really knows how to sell.  Even fewer offer training in how resellers could best run their businesses.
 
This article looks at the pitfalls and preconceptions which explain why most companies choose not to go down this route.  In three separate side panels we look at precisely how Philip Morris, Caterpillar and HP deliver competency training.

Let's start with the big question.  Does competency training really pay off?  Academic research suggests the answer is yes.  In 1998 Erin Anderson and others published a paper* which examined the returns for North American insurers who invested in competency training of their agents.  The research found that, five years on, those agents who had received competency training were doing higher levels of business for the insurer than those who hadn't. 

Ruud Kronenburg is dean of marketing and distribution at Caterpillar University, the training arm of earthmover Caterpillar.  He claims that Caterpillar has demonstrated that such training generates a huge return.  "We cannot calculate the precise return on investment from this sort of training.  But we can assess how effective it is. We ask every dealer salesman how many of the units he has sold in a year are down to the training he has had.

We find we get surprisingly straight answers to this question, although, typically, we know that salesmen underestimate the effect of training.  Not unnaturally, they like to think they would have made the sale anyway.  No matter. Even if we halve the sales that the salesmen report were down to training, we still find that training is generating a massive return on investment!"