 | Solving the business dilemma for That Computer Guy
27 August, 2009
By Robert M. Cohen |
The famous consultant, Peter Drucker said: "There are only two things in a business that make money, innovation and marketing. Everything else is cost."
The Good.
Most VAR organizations (a.k.a. That Computer Guy) are fabulous techies and have tremendous relationships with their small and midsize business customers. It is no wonder: with a keen interest in making sure the technology they provide works, those Computer Guys tend to be emphatic about providing SMBs with the products, services and support they need, in a timely fashion.
By removing the FUD Factor (fear, uncertainty and doubt) for their SMB customers, most of these Computer Guys have assumed the role of an outsourced Chief Technology Officer for their customers and have become their Trusted Business Advisor.
The Bad.
Most Computer Guys have very little business acumen. They do not understand basic business skills, have little, if any, business training, shy away from marketing and are very weak at sales. Furthermore, they are not very innovative and, with declining selling prices, shrinking margins, intensified competition and an overall declining demand due to the current economic slowdown, most of them are barely eking out a sustainable living.
The Opportunity.
In North America, SMBs have become the most sought after segment of the business marketplace. While individually their purchases are small, collectively they purchase $300 billion of IT products per annum. Of these purchases, about 80% go through the 85,000 organizations owned by those Computer Guys.
The Dilemma.
Vendors make products. Over the past decade SMBs have been steadily shifting their focus from buying products to wanting IT-centric business solutions with a measurable ROI.
Vendors and SMBs rely on That Computer Guy to develop and implement effective and cost efficient IT-centric business solutions. Without business education and training, most of these guys do not have sufficient business skills to run their own businesses. Yet now, both Vendors and SMBs expect the Computer Guy to be the business link between products and business solutions.
The Traditional Solution.
Government agencies, vendors and distributors have traditionally tried to solve this dilemma by creating stimulus programs, white papers, webinars and seminars; developing canned solutions; providing solution experts to assist them; creating modeling instruments, configulators and ROI calculators; and so on. While these are great and have done a lot of good, they are essentially solutions that allow the Computer Guy to stay alive, from a business perspective, to see another day.
Solving The Dilemma.
mar.com's Trusted Business Advisor program is designed to help all these Computer Guys to thrive now and in the future. It is about transforming the channel into a business focused profession. We call these Computer Guys with biz ed & Trusted Business Advisors.
Starting with the development of an industry wide code of ethics and the Trusted Business Advisor universal job title that they have to earn to use, the program is layered with business education and certification, on-going business advise, and best practices, with the objective of providing the Computer Guys with the business education they so desperately require in order to:
- Run their own business better.
- Develop and implement effective and cost efficient IT-centric business solutions for their SMB customers.
Under the traditional method, Vendors spent billions of dollars every year on developing collateral marketing and sales material for SMBs. Since the Computer Guys own the relationships with the SMBs, the Vendors relied on them to distribute these collateral messages to their SMB customers.
Usually less than 10% of all of the Computer Guys send Vendor-supplied marketing and sales material to their SMB customers, stating that they don't do so because:
- No time.
- Don't want to send product stuff to their customers as they feel it is their job to select the products.
- Don't want to spam their customers & especially since they are relied upon to reduce the spam their customers get (the average Computer Guy has about 20 close vendor relationships. On average, each Vendor wants them to send out about 3 messages per month to their audience. This works out to about 3 disjointed messages per business day that they are expected to send out).
- Don't trust their Vendor partners who will try to get the responses to come back to them and thus allow the Vendor to steal their customers (this happens a lot more than the Vendors admit to, but a lot less often then the VARs think it happens).
The TBA's W3 SaaS driven channel enablement program automates the process so that Vendors' marketing materials are automatically sent by VARs to their SMB customers with all responses coming directly back to the VAR. This increases SMB sales for the VARs and the Vendors.
Conclusion.
So Mr. Peter Drucker, for the IT Channel, the Trusted Business Advisor program is the next innovation in IT channel marketing! Furthermore, we provide the tools for FREE and guarantee the VARs that these tools will double their business opportunities.
To find out more about how the Trusted Business Advisor program can help you, please email me at rcohen@integratedmar.com or call me 905-763-1200. Please be sure to let me know if you are a Vendor, Distributor, Computer Guy (VAR) or service provider to the IT Channel.
Robert Cohen, a passionate and enthusiastic channel advocate, is the founder of the ChannelLine Advisory Council as well as president and business editor of Integrated mar.com, publishers of Channel Advisor, eChannelLine and ConnectIT. Since 1980 he has worked with 350 IT vendors, distributors and resellers in developing and implementing strategic go-to-market programs, using a variety of direct, channel and hybrid models. Integrated mar.com, in conjunction with Robert has created the Trusted Business Advisor program.
Previous Trusted Business Advisor articles by this author:
08/27/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & Autotask's Bob Godgart
08/27/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & Ingram Micro's Justin Crotty
08/14/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & Cisco's Dave O'Callaghan
08/14/09 Keeping the IT industry in touch via social marketing
08/14/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & Westcon's Anthony Daley
07/30/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & N-Able Technologies'Gavin Garbutt
07/30/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & Dell's Greg Davis
07/23/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & McAfee's New VP of Channel Operations Fernando Quintero
07/23/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & D&H's Co-President, Dan Schwab
07/08/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & Tech Data's Joseph Quaglia
07/08/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & CSG Openline's CEO Jay Leon
06/25/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & Synnex' Bob Stegner
06/25/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & Hewlett Packard's Tom LaRocca
06/11/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen and Level Platform's CEO Peter Sandiford
06/10/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen and Level Platform's CEO Peter Sandiford
05/21/09 On The Record With Robert Cohen & CompTIA's New Head: Todd Thibodeaux
05/21/09 Grassroots marketing for those 'Computer Guys' - Part 6
05/21/09 On-The-Record with Robert Cohen & Keith Bradley, President Ingram Micro North America
05/15/09 On-The-Record With Robert Cohen & Gary Gillam, Xerox's VP, North American Resellers, Channel Operations
05/15/09 On-The-Record: Robert Cohen with Synnex Canada CEO Jim Estill
04/24/09 Twitterdee, Twitterdo, Part 1 of 2
04/15/09 On-The-Record with Arlin Sorensen
03/25/09 How vendors should partner with Those Computer Guys - Part V
03/25/09 The Trusted Business Advisor/Trusted Business Partner Code of Ethics
03/18/09 8 reasons why you need "That Guy" to penetrate the SMB -Part IV
03/11/09 Part III: Vendors Wanting To Penetrate The SMB market Need That "TBA Computer Guy".
03/04/09 That "Computer Guy" is what we call a Trusted Business Advisor (Part II)
02/25/09 Reaching SMBs through their 'Computer Guy' (Part I)
02/18/09 TBA: The program built with you & for you!!!
02/18/09 Without a code of ethics, a professional industry isn't 'professional'
Home | Feedback | Printer Friendly Version | Email this article
|
Listen to an audio clip of W3 Business Network's Bill Osborne and his overview of the Trusted Business Advisor Program.
