Many companies have figured out that training their employees is a must.

Onboarding, training, and retaining employees creates the foundation for any sort of HR strategy. There is an entire industry of businesses and supporting professionals that make this happen, and much of the learning and development conversation revolves around improving the strategies and processes in employee training.

As essential as this type of training is for employees and their organizations, there is a burgeoning learning trend attracting new attention: partner onboarding.

Partner onboarding (often called extended enterprise training or partner education) is typically used by software and SaaS companies, but increasingly, other industries are taking note of the benefits. Over the last year, I have started working with more companies from traditional industries wanting to accelerate their online education programs, and for good reason – It's a competitive advantage.

The companies I've worked with have an enormous number of partners who have the power to influence customer purchases. They might be in-channel sales reps, contractors, distributors, wholesalers, franchisees, or other associations to name a few. These partners likely have multiple competing companies at their fingertips to recommend to their clients. Therefore, educating them about your product or service becomes essential to differentiate.