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“On a daily basis, we’re in contact to support our resellers who are working with their customers regarding product questions, product availability or pricing.”
Jeff Sharpe and Alan Fontanella
Branislav Nenin/Shutterstock.com
Q. Explain the dynamics of a vendor/reseller relationship. How do you interact?
lationship with a reseller, we have regular contact in the form of sales training, tech training and marketing support. Those things continue as the partnership pro- gresses. On a daily basis, we’re in contact to support our resellers who are working with their customers regarding product questions, product availability or pricing.
Jeff Sharpe. We’re on the phone every day with our vendors. Do they have in- ventory, what are the shipping timelines, how do we integrate their product into a unique application? Quick response time is critical. Amazon changed the way the world works – everything is right now and everything is at the lowest price.
Q. What’s the profile of an ideal reseller or vendor partner?
JS. Before a relationship between a resell- er and a vendor begins, there are promises made on both sides. The vendor promises to support the reseller. The reseller prom- ises to sell, market and support the prod- uct. Here’s what we look for in a vendor:
1. Do they have inventory available? Customers don’t want to wait for an over- seas shipment once they’ve accepted a bid.
2. Do they offer competitive pricing? Unique features are important, but if they come at a price the market won’t accept, they’re useless.
3. How robust is their tech support? Regardless of the vendor, once in a while, you’ll sell a printer that breaks in the first 30 days. The expectation is that the printer will be shipped back to the vendor at their cost and replaced with a new one free of charge. The vendor must own that. The customer can’t be without their printer while it’s being serviced. If there’s any problem, it’s ‘here’s your money back or here’s a new one.’
4. Modern digital marketing. Vendors who best support resellers provide digital assets like cut sheets, videos, images, email templates, web copy. They need a robust website and brand-building activities. It’s best when we’re working with a customer who has heard of the brand we’re propos- ing. We also like when a vendor provides
pre-written proposals, where we just add the client’s name and a few tweaks. We need whatever makes us successful pre- senting their product to the market.
On top of all this, a vendor needs to demonstrate a track record of success. Will they be around for a long time? We can’t take on a new line without knowing that it will be supported for years to come. Our customer relationships are all we have – we need to know the longevity of the sup- pliers we work with to make sure our cus- tomers will be taken care of.
AF. We look to identify the merits of a reseller that will lend themselves to be suc- cessful with us. It’s not a surprise that we want resellers who have a proven history of success in our market. Coming from the perspective of an ID card printer vendor, does the reseller have experience selling and maintaining card printing systems? Do they have complementary products that provide a complete solution for the customer? These are our ultimate markers.
Our resellers represent our brand, so it’s important that they have modern sales and marketing capabilities – a solid web presence and other customer-outreach techniques.
We look for resellers who seek to separate themselves from the pack with market-based, differentiated solutions. Ideally, resellers who focus deeply on vertical markets become customer experts in those fields. Those are attractive prospects for our distribution net- work. They have a thorough understanding of the pain points of those customers and can recommend a solution that fits.
It’s a given that a strong service pro- gram is in place. We provide a hot-swap program and conduct annual tech support training. We need to make sure our resell- ers have the bandwidth to accommodate any service needs of their customers be- cause our brand reputation depends on it.
There is some level of rigor in finding the right match of resellers and vendors. The chemistry and vision of the two par- ties need to be aligned. We ask, ‘How many different vendors are you selling? Is there room for us? How do you see the fit of our products in your portfolio?
Alan Fontanella. As we’re building a re-
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