Are You Partnering With the Right Companies?
A few days ago, while on the phone with a potential partner, I was asked the following questions, “What makes ExchangeDefender different from other vendors that offer the same services? And why should I do business with your company?” After replying to the caller’s questions, I could tell that he was totally unprepared with my answer. So how did I answer? I’ll tell you what; we’ll get back to that one in a minute. First, I want to ask all the business owners and sales representatives that are reading this post a question: Why are you doing business with your current clientele?
In a previous post, I talked about the Pareto Principle—also known as the “80/20 rule”. I mentioned in that post that when I operated my VAR/MSP business, I implemented this principle and dropped roughly 80% of my clients to concentrate on the top 20% remaining. After all, these remaining clients made up +80% of my revenue that year. However, that aside, these particular clients were… different.
After really investigating my remaining clients, I discovered that the vast majority of them were referrals. They were all like-minded and appreciated how technology enhanced their businesses. Furthermore, they viewed me as an employee of their company—not just a contractor for hire. I would sit in on monthly, quarterly, and annual meetings with most of my clients to discuss technology concerns, allocated funds and budgets, and the overall state of their network and devices. I went from being only viewed as the “computer guy” to being appreciated as their technology manager.
So when I was asked the following questions, “What makes ExchangeDefender different from other vendors that offer the same services? And why should I do business with your company,” how do you think I answered? “We are different because we only want to partner with like-minded businesses that are interested in forming a long synergetic relationship between our two companies. We recently shut down our partner program to concentrate on our current partner base. So it’s not whether you should do business with us; the question I have is should we enter into a partnership with your company. Now, with that said, tell me more about your company and what your do so I can determine if our two businesses have anything to offer each other…”.
Michael D. Alligood
Partner Sales & Support, ExchangeDefender & Shockey Monkey
michael@ownwebnow.com
(877) 546-0316 x707