Basics
How EV Charging Companies Can Align Their Resellers
If you are in sales, this sounds like a dream. Demand is exploding, funding is flowing, and governments are practically mandating adoption.
The EV charging industry is at a turning point. In Europe, the number of public charging points has already passed one million and continues to grow by more than 30 percent year over year. In the United States, federal and state programs are investing billions into charging infrastructure, with a strong push toward reliability, open access, and standardized payment systems. Everywhere you look, new networks are being built, new players are entering the market, and customers are expecting faster, simpler, and more transparent charging experiences.
If you are in sales, this sounds like a dream. Demand is exploding, funding is flowing, and governments are practically mandating adoption. But the reality inside many EV charging companies feels very different. Growth creates complexity, and complexity if unmanaged creates chaos.
Most manufacturers, software providers, and charging networks cannot scale fast enough with just their internal teams. The logical solution is to work with resellers and distributors: companies that already have relationships in the right industries, who can bring your solutions into new markets faster than you could alone. On paper, it is a perfect growth engine. In practice, it is often messy, slow, and frustrating.
Let’s unpack why enabling resellers in EV charging is so difficult, what happens when you get it right, and how you can bring consistency and speed to the process without burning months of effort.
Why resellers are hard to manage in EV charging
Reseller networks are not new. Industries like IT hardware, industrial equipment, and telecoms have been using them for decades. But EV charging comes with a unique mix of challenges that make alignment harder.
1. The technical details are complex and constantly shifting
EV charging is not a simple “plug in the box and sell” product. It is a technical solution that spans hardware, software, energy systems, and customer experience. Every conversation with a buyer can touch on:
AC versus DC charging and when each makes sense
Compatibility with different vehicle models and communication standards
The difference between versions of charging protocols (like OCPP)
Features like smart charging, roaming, and plug and charge authentication
How the charger integrates with energy management systems and payment platforms
The pace of change makes this even harder. New standards are being adopted, regulators are setting minimum requirements, and features that were “roadmap” last year are becoming “table stakes” today. If your resellers do not stay up to date, they risk promising capabilities you cannot deliver or underselling the advantages you actually have.
2. Regulations are no longer optional
In the early days of charging, buyers were more forgiving. If a charger was online most of the time, that was fine. If it only supported a few payment methods, customers found workarounds. Not anymore.
In the U.S., federally funded charging stations must now maintain at least 97 percent uptime per connector, and they must accept multiple payment options with pricing clearly displayed. In the EU, new rules under the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) require operators to ensure open access, clear pricing, and reliable service. These are not just nice-to-have features, they are compliance requirements.
That means your resellers need to be fluent in the language of regulation. If they misstate a requirement or overpromise what your product can deliver, you do not just risk losing a deal, you risk damaging your credibility in the market.
3. Installations can break a deal late in the cycle
Even when the product and the pitch are solid, the practical realities of deploying charging stations often derail projects. A perfect proposal can collapse if the site does not have enough available power, if trenching or permitting delays stack up, or if the installer misses something basic during commissioning.
The frustrating part is that these risks can usually be managed upfront if the right questions are asked early. But many resellers do not know what to look for. They oversimplify, skip steps, and leave you with an unhappy customer or a delayed project.
The cost of misalignment
When resellers are not aligned, you pay the price.
Lost deals. Opportunities slip because resellers pitch to the wrong prospects or give the wrong answers.
Support headaches. Your internal teams spend more time fixing mistakes than closing new business.
Brand erosion. Customers hear conflicting messages about your product. Some expect features you do not support yet. Others are promised uptime you cannot guarantee. Word spreads quickly in a market this small.
In short, a patchwork channel is worse than no channel at all.
The upside of alignment
Now picture the opposite scenario.
Every reseller explains your solution in the same way. They know which customers are worth chasing and which ones are not. They ask the right discovery questions upfront, which means projects are scoped properly and installation surprises are minimized. They talk about reliability and service consistently, without overpromising.
This alignment brings three big benefits:
Faster time to revenue. Instead of spending months teaching each new partner how to sell, they get the right knowledge from day one.
Higher win rates. Resellers qualify customers more accurately and propose the right solutions, which makes closing deals easier.
Fewer fires later. Your support team spends less time cleaning up after poorly scoped projects. That translates into lower costs and happier customers.
Alignment also builds credibility. In a crowded market, being the company with consistent, confident messaging can be the difference between being seen as a trusted partner or just another vendor.
What effective reseller training looks like
The idea of channel enablement often gets lost in endless PowerPoint decks and generic webinars. But training that actually works shares three characteristics:
1. Role-based content
Not every reseller needs the same level of knowledge. Sales reps need positioning, target profiles, and objection handling. Technical presales teams need a deeper dive into software versions, features, and integration points. Installers need site-readiness checklists and commissioning guides.
2. Stage-based training
The information you need during discovery is very different from what you need at the proposal stage or during installation. Breaking training down by stage of the sales cycle keeps it practical and easy to apply.
3. Practical, usable tools
Cheat sheets, discovery questions, talk tracks, and objection cards are far more valuable than a 50-slide lecture. If a reseller cannot use it in a customer conversation tomorrow, it is not effective training.
The time problem
Here is the hard truth: building this kind of training takes time. A lot of it.
By the time your team has built a polished deck or a full learning module, your product has evolved, your competitors have moved, or the regulations have shifted. Rolling it out to your entire channel network can take weeks, which means that by the time it lands, it is already out of date.
That is why so many sales leaders end up defaulting to quick fixes: PDFs, recorded webinars, or one-off partner calls. But those are not scalable. They do not stick. And they definitely do not guarantee consistency across your reseller base.
How to fix it quickly
The solution is not more time. It is a smarter way of working. Instead of treating training as a one-off project, you need a system that lets you:
Build role-specific content quickly
Update it as soon as something changes
Push it out consistently across your partner network
This is where platforms like Deelan help. They allow you to take the knowledge you already have such as slides, product notes, and regulatory updates, and turn it into structured training modules, quizzes, and even role-play exercises in minutes.
The advantage is speed and consistency. You do not spend weeks building training from scratch, and you do not risk partners making up their own versions of the story while they wait for you to update them.
A practical rollout plan
If you want to align your channel quickly, here is a simple two-week playbook:
Set the outcomes. Decide what you want resellers to actually do differently: qualify sites better, sell services alongside hardware, or reduce false promises about reliability.
Segment by role. Create separate training tracks for sales reps, technical staff, and installers.
Build core modules. Start with a discovery checklist, value messaging, a basic technical primer, and a site-readiness guide.
Pilot with key partners. Run the training with a handful of resellers. Get feedback. Improve.
Roll out across the network. Push it live with short follow-up sessions to keep it alive.
Keep it current. Every product release, regulatory shift, or new learning gets added back into the training. With the right tools, that update takes minutes.
The bigger picture
The EV charging market is transforming. Customers expect reliability, transparency, and speed. Governments are raising the bar on service levels. Competition is intensifying.
In this environment, you cannot afford for each reseller to tell their own story. Consistent, centralized training is not just nice to have. It is a competitive necessity.
When you get it right, resellers become an extension of your team instead of a liability. They sell the right solutions to the right customers, they set the right expectations, and they deliver the kind of experience that builds trust and repeat business.
And when you can deliver that training quickly and keep it fresh, you stay one step ahead of the market instead of scrambling to catch up.
That is the difference between being a company that struggles with its channel and one that scales confidently.