Your Sales Partners Are Not Selling: Trace Stalled Proposals Before Changing Commercial Terms

Author: Daisuke Irikura (Representative Director, HUV DESIGN OFFICE)

You have signed a partner agreement, but opportunities are not coming in. Should you increase commissions or hold another product briefing? Before choosing either, find out how far the partner's proposals actually progressed.

Was there no opportunity to discuss the product with a customer? Did the intended use not fit? Or was the customer interested, but the proposal stalled while waiting for a quotation or technical answer? Sales figures alone cannot distinguish these situations. Start with one partner and one offering. If no proposal has been attempted, ask whether the obstacle is choosing a customer, assigning a person and time, or a lack of willingness to handle the offering. The following is a practical review method. Contractual roles differ; “sales partner” is used here as a broad term, not a legal classification.

Who are the customers beyond the partner?

Are you forecasting sales from the partner's size or customer count? The more useful question is where that partner encounters customers who need your offering.

Ask about its current products, the problems customers bring, the departments it speaks to and the timing of purchasing decisions. Do not insist on customer names. Share use cases and requirements within the agreed limits of confidentiality and information handling. If the contact points do not fit, revisit the target customers or partner choice before producing more materials.

J-Net21, operated by Japan's Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, explains export preparation through selecting local trading companies, importers and agents familiar with the market, considering their advice on products, and planning customers, products, sales methods, prices and quantities.[1] This is practical guidance on overseas channels, not research measuring the results of domestic B2B partnerships. The review proposed here is for considering work with sales partners, including domestic ones.

Put the partner's work and economics side by side

Do not compare commission percentages alone. Separate the work the partner actually undertakes:

• finding customers and hearing the initial issue
• establishing the intended use and requirements
• handling explanations, quotations and trials
• supporting implementation or delivery
• receiving inquiries and reports of problems

Who does each part, and how much time and cost does it involve? Keep uncertain costs marked as estimates. If compensation does not cover the partner's workload, better wording will not close the gap. Examine compensation, responsibilities, scope and the combination of products. Do not assume economics explain inactivity; ask the partner.

Support also costs the supplier money. Increasing commissions while adding technical or implementation work can leave the supplier with insufficient profit. Avoid increasing sales volume without examining the workload on both sides.

Align the customer promise before explaining specifications

Complete specifications do not necessarily make it clear which customer's problem the offering addresses.

Together, describe the intended use, conditions where the offering does not apply, supporting evidence, lead times and support scope on one page. Separate what the partner can answer from what requires a supplier response. Use a stalled proposal to trace the explanation given, the customer's questions and the answers that were missing.

This is where brand strategy becomes relevant: connect whom you serve and what you promise with the conditions under which an external partner can explain it and your company can deliver it. Consistent logos and materials cannot by themselves close a gap between a proposal and actual delivery.

Aligning a company promise is separate from imposing uniform restrictions on customers or prices. Consider contractual and commercial changes with an appropriate professional for the individual situation. This article does not provide legal contract design.

Try the next proposal for one use case

Once you have a suspected cause, test a specific use case and customer group. Agree on the partner's proposal, supplier support, the person responsible for answers and when to review progress. Do not assign activities the partner has not agreed to undertake.

Record customer contact, substantive inquiries, quotations and orders separately. For proposals that do not progress, retain reasons actually established, such as unsuitable use, timing, price or economics, and unanswered questions. A few observations cannot establish the partner's sales ability or market demand. Turn unknown conditions into the next questions.

Partner contracts and attendance at briefings are not sufficient measures of success. Examine whether both sides can continue profitably and whether the customer promise was kept. If performance or supply capacity is inadequate, address delivery capability before changing brand language.

The article on choosing sales targets concerns which work to pursue; the article on aligning sales explanations concerns consistent promised terms. This article addresses carrying those promises through an external sales partner.

HUV DESIGN OFFICE provides brand strategy support to define target customers and reasons to choose a company, then make those decisions usable in sales and other touchpoints. This is not an offer of partner recruitment or outsourced selling. Choose one stalled proposal and trace it together: did the problem occur before reaching the customer, or in the conditions needed to deliver the promise?

Source

[1] Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, Japan, J-Net21, “STEP2: Prepare Thoroughly for Channel Development” (Japanese-language practical guidance on exporting; accessed October 14, 2026). https://j-net21.smrj.go.jp/solution/global-expansion/export/step2.html