The VAR Guy

Somehow in the last few years the term “Reseller” has become an insult.  It’s not enough anymore to just sell a product, now to be a true Value Added Reseller (VAR) partners must provide services.  None of this is news but many partners are promoting themselves as a VAR when they may still be just a, dare I say it, Reseller.

Last week I covered channel recruitment from a vendor’s perspective. Now let’s  look at it from a partner’s perspective. While the vendors are looking to recruit new partners, the partners are analyzing the cost/benefit of taking on a new vendor’s product. There are more considerations than one would think.

When a vendor channel is in the early stages of development, their requirements for channel partners are usually only that they have a pulse. Fast forward 12 to 18 months, and a fledgling channel program involves 5% of partners who are actively engaged and 95% who sold once on a customer’s request and then disengaged. So what’s the fix?

A ton of partner relationship management (PRM) tools  and other technologies claim they can make your life easier and bring you closer to your partners. But are the tools intuitive and do they work? I’ve spoken to several companies about their offerings, and here’s a sampling of my findings.

Last week I wrote a post about vendor activities in social media that praised the vendors who do it well and criticized those that could use a little help. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t pushing the envelope to see who monitors their social media and who, again, could use some help. Within 36 hours of posting I received a comment from Cisco, a call from EMC, a question from Dell, and a call from Symantec. The responses prove vendors are plugged into social media. So what are they up to? Quite a lot.

By now, you know all about the social media hype: Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. But if you examine how some IT vendors promote their partner programs across social media, you’ll discover some vendors are very late to the game.

Some vendors pride themselves on the number of partners they recruit. Congratulations, are partners supposed to be excited about that? Welcome to our partner program! You now have more competition for your business then you did before you joined. I’m not saying vendors should have fewer partners, but let’s be reasonable: Don’t be so out of touch with your partners that you promote your partner list as a benefit to them. Instead, focus on these four secrets to success.