I work with several outstanding Technology VARs and MSPs in the US and a few around the globe. A few years ago, while I was leading Global Channels for a wonderful data storage company, I advised the VARs on my Partner Advisory Council to immediately begin positioning themselves with the large IT Manufacturer that announced that they were acquiring us. Some of the Channel Partners readily accepted the new reality and immediately began investing time and resources into selling their capabilities to this behemoth acquirer. Some of the members of the council were not keen on the idea that they had to sell their strengths and value to this new company, and were reluctant to do it. How do you think it turned out?
That’s right! The companies that invested in building a high level of visibility, trust, and confidence with this new (for them) vendor have thrived. Several of them are now award-winning Inc. Fast 500 growth companies, winners of awards from the vendor, and award winners with CRN. These smart and aggressive CEOs find themselves running businesses where double or triple digit revenue growth rates are the norm, and profits are at record levels.
How about you? If you’re running a nice VAR or MSP business are you focused enough on selling your sales, operational, and service capabilities to your key Manufacturer partners, like Microsoft, HP, VMWare, Dell, EMC, IBM? Every one of these companies, and all of the other great IT companies, for that matter, have a channel organization. That channel organization is being asked to raise revenues and profits by selling more through VARS and MSPs. They have to make huge bets on who they will go to market with. They MUST choose in an increasingly tight and competitive market who they will partner with and trust in pursuing global IT customers. Do you want them to partner with you, focus on selling with you, give their registration to your sales team? Or, would you prefer that they give their precious attention and investment of their time and resources to your competitor?
Everybody understands that you need to market and sell your company to prospects. Fewer of us understand the importance of selling to current customers, and to former customers. Most astonishing to me, is that quite a few folks in the IT industry don’t fully grasp the imperative to sell your IT selling savvy and capabilities to manage customers to your key vendor partners. It has become obvious to me that this is a key differentiator in the marketplace. IT companies who invest in regularly meeting with and demonstrating their loyalty and strong customer solution capabilities to their key partners, get more leads, referrals, registrations, and accounts!
The manufacturers are making huge bets on which Channel VARs and MSPs to invest their time and resources with, and you want it to be you, don’t you?
Give that a think, and let me know how you’re doing in positioning yourself with your key manufacturers as you go to market. I’m happy to help if you need some ideas to get you started!
