Let me count the ways

Surely everyone knows what goes into making partners really love them - or do they? Nick Holt gives his 10 tips for top providers

It might seem obvious – of course you know what goes into being a winning technology provider – but as times and businesses go on evolving in this rapidly changing market, it never hurts to sit down and clarify what you do, how you do it, and how best to progress even further. I would like to think many resellers can benefit from the following top 10 tips.

1) Understand your unique selling point
The reseller community is vast. Some partners focus on just one core product which allows them to provide in-depth knowledge. Others offer a full range of products, allowing them to promote themselves around the independence of their advice.

Ultimately, the first point to consider is what benefit you offer both your vendor and your customer, benefits which are not already provided by the range of diverse partners already operating in your region.

2) Understand the value you add
Whereas a manufacturer is likely to operate a large, high-volume, self-service business model with little direct customer contact, third-party reseller providers are generally able to take the time to talk to each customer and understand their business or project needs.

As opposed to a vendor with little or no in-country support, a local VAR or tech provider can operate in the same time zone as the customer. This means the reseller is available to support customers at the times they need, making site visits and developing or maintaining a close relationship with customers.

3) Know the product
To gain a customer's trust, it is essential to really know the product or solution inside out. One needs to have the answer to all the questions a customer cannot find in the product literature or on the vendor's website. Most importantly, one needs to apply that knowledge to the client's own business and be able to explain what that means for them.

4) Eat your own dog food
To do this, one needs to use the product yourself, in your own business. That helps you get beyond the marketing material to actually understand the benefits and learn about the product's limitations.

We use the products we sell in our own critical business processes – lead management, sales processing and forecasting, quoting, account management, customer support, marketing automation, renewal management, invoicing, and management and board reporting.

5) Be honest
All products have strong and weak points. If the product doe snot suit the client, or if there are pros and cons to weigh up, transparency is critical in winning customer trust.

6) Know the competitive landscape
"Why should I buy SugarCRM rather than Salesforce.com?"
"I like SugarCRM but our IT department favours Microsoft products"

We need to understand how products stack up against the competition and be ready to answer such questions. Some customers will have already used a competing product and will volunteer why they are seeking to migrate. We also track how we compare and pre-prepare our arguments.

7) Vendor support
This is crucial. Resellers cannot achieve without such support. This is goes two ways; we also may have direct input into the product development road map and into how to better gain the kind of support we need.

8) Build your own market
We get client leads direct from the vendor, but we also work hard to build our own market. If your vendor understands you and knows what you do well, chances are that more customer enquiries will be passed on to you.

Sitting back and relying on free lead generation from the vendor is not enough. Get on the ground and develop first-hand experience of how customer businesses work. Building your own client base is essential and nothing helps cement a good relationship with the vendor like bringing in a large new client of which the vendor was totally unaware.

9) Offer end-to-end servicing
The term "reseller" is not a full descriptor of what most so-called resellers do. Product sales account for just 20 per cent of our revenue, for example. As a third-party tech provider, you may analyse customer requirements, design the offering, implement it, customise it, integrate it with other business systems, migrate customer data, train and support their users, and offer clients an ongoing partnership.

10) Give something back to the vendor
Be referenceable, be quotable, and engage in PR. Take the time to pass case studies and testimonials back to the vendor – it further benefits all parties.

We engage in joint webcasts and interviews. We host conferences and offer reference clients. This does not guarantee resulting leads will always find their way back to us, but it helps to improve the overall perception and raise awareness of the product, which helps all partners.

Nick Holt is business development director at the Sugar Refinery