I learned something powerful from a saleswoman in Dallas. She began the lesson by describing her prospecting effort to land an important account. She had asked friends and customers for referrals in the target organization and, having finally solicited a strong referral, enjoyed a productive conversation with a person in the purchasing department. They agreed to meet the following week, exchanged contact information, and booked an appointment for lunch at a restaurant close to the prospect’s place of business.

Unfortunately, they never went to lunch because the sales prospect was mistreated by another member of the saleswoman’s team. You see, the prospect called to confirm their appointment date and asked to speak to the saleswoman. The receptionist answered with a sullen voice and a matching attitude, gruffly put the prospect on hold and literally forgot about her. An inattentive receptionist failed to provide a quality service and, by doing so, alienated the prospective customer.

I attended an industry event this week and enjoyed most of our host's hospitality. Unfortunately, one of the luncheons was staged around a panel of industry data analysts. You know the people of whom I speak; the ‘channel experts’ who have neither worked in the channel nor built a channel company. They’re kind of like baseball coaches that never played baseball or psychiatrists that never went to med school. Lacking authentic small business experience, these ‘channel experts’ offer up reams of research data, conceivable trends, and plain ol’ prognostications to predict upcoming trends in the channel. Predictably, their assumptions are sometimes painfully incorrect. For example, every expert on the panel declared that channel companies must have a formal Business Plan or they are doomed to failure. The audience frowned in unison. (This is right after the only man on the panel bragged that he made a VAR cry. Seriously!) Channel folk started leaving the room so fast that it looked like a fire drill! If the analysts are so completely clueless about "who we are" (i.e. - only a fraction of the Type A's running channel companies will ever write a formal Business Plan, meaning the majority of us do quite well without one), how reliable are their forecasts for "where we're going"?

Today is a big day. It is the day that Mark Maio and Louie Llamas launch Channel Surplus.com.

Channel Surplus.com is a virtual warehouse that contains excess and aging inventory (from several big name distributors) that is available for the Channel to purchase at substantial savings. No membership or registration is required to shop the warehouse. ChannelSurplus.com makes it easy to save on parts we regularly use in B.O.M. or custom designs. It’s simple: if you see something of interest, place an anonymous bid. No contact information is exchanged until the distributor accepts your bid and you’re ready to move forward with the transaction.

www.channelsurplus.com

I’ve watched Mark and Louie nurture this idea and I’ve seen them do unusual things. I’ve seen them reach out to channel experts on both sides of the fence (vendor and system builder) and I’ve seen them actually use the feedback they solicited. They reorganized the site and simplified the interface based on our input. They actually changed the name of the site to more clearly communicate their value to the Channel. I

Microsoft hosts its Worldwide Partner Conference this week. The list of education tracks available at the event includes a Solutions Track, and features Business Model and Professional Development tracks, as well. (I’ve often wondered why companies like Microsoft feel qualified to teach small businesses how to build a small business.) Nevertheless, this is a can’t-say-no opportunity to pig out at a smorgasbord of tasty technology and business learning.

In early August, CompTIA opens the doors to Breakaway. It has become the premier education event for the IT channel. Breakaway offers channel attendees knowledge opportunities in cyber security, Cloud computing, and healthcare IT. In what is becoming a bit of a trend, CompTIA offers education and tools to help channel resellers better run their businesses. I’ll be there, as will most of our peers in the reseller community.

Just as important as these two mega-events is the Channel Alliance Summit in late August. The Alliance Summit is a members-only event that attracts channel program managers from dozens of well-known vendors. At the event, an impressive amount of time is spent listening to updates on the channel. Big Data Analyst firms always provide their macro view on the State of the Channel. These views are almost always enhanced by input from a channel advisory board member or panel. And NASBA (Association of Channel Resellers) is always in attendance to represent our membership. Because of the balanced two-way flow of information it achieves, the Channel Alliance Summit may be the most important event of them all.

In its original release, NASBA 1.0 was designed to be a company that provided the vendor community with full access to business owners and decision makers in the IT Channel. NASBA 2.0 worked to increase Member Benefits in an effort to increase NASBA membership. Officially released June 2011, NASBA 3.0 promises to support all that you’ve come to love about NASBA and more… much more!

NASBA 3.0 will feature a more diverse collective with representatives from all the new demographics that make up today’s Channel. Membership includes system builders and integrators, VARs and solution providers and the new generation ‘Hybrids’. 3.0 Members understand and negotiate by the credo “you’ve got to give to get”, and take seriously their responsibility to the sponsoring vendor. 3.0 Members will provide vendor partners with valuable insight into the marketplace with an “on the street” perspective.

NASBA 3.0 will feature a confident, committed vendor community. Program and product feedback is predictably candid and constructive. Technical feedback is bombproof and marketing feedback can be surprisingly useful. Vendors enjoy dialog at a strategic level (as opposed to tactical issues such as needing another slot on this board or a connector on the back of this whateveritis). We talk about issues that benefit the Channel-at-Large, because they know that if its good for the Channel, its good for the vendors, too.

For years, both as a system builder and a member of Intel's Board of Advisors, I have complained about the moniker by which all small businesses in the ecosystem are referred: The Channel.  It has no name recognition.  It means nothing to the end user; the small businesses that are my customers have no clue what a channel company is or why it is important.  They don't know that channel companies are their peers; local businesses with specific expertise and superior products and services customized for each customer's needs.

Today, that changed.  At Intel's Solution Summit in Las Vegas, C.J. Bruno (Vice-President of Sales & Marketing Group, General Manager of Intel Americas) announced a new membership program for its resellers.  There will be lots published about the details of this new program and all the new benefits for its members, but first I want to tell you about the best part -- the new name.

Most of us try not to think about selling; we want our customers to buy from us.  But, in most cases, it doesn't work like that.  I ran a server and storage company for 12 years and I never had a single customer wander into my shop looking to buy a server.  Not once in 12 years.  We have to sell our hardware and service, and we have to know how to sell to be successful.

Unfortunately, we don’t like to sell.  There are those that say they like it, but it’s only because they’ve learned that the aversion to sales is natural and - for the most part – universal.  It is uncomfortable for them, too.  But they have learned how to overcome it.  I have a great story to illustrate this fact…

I was invited to a social event and the girl I was dating told me that I needed to put my black slacks in the closet and wear something more "earthy".

Security is a topic of great interest to the users of servers and large storage systems.  Mostly, when they think about security, they think about viral attacks.  They are very uncomfortable with their lack of knowledge on this subject and the abundance of knowledge in a hacker’s big brain.  Safeguarding against data corruption is not a customer's core competency and the impact of a security breach could be disastrous, if not fatal, to that company.

There is, however, another aspect to security that we often overlook.  In addition to protecting our customer’s from data corruption, there is a business opportunity in providing security against data loss.  We want to protect and preserve our customer’s data.  There are hardware sales and service revenues available in protecting data lost by system failures within the storage subsystem or by coneheads that sit between their chairs and their keyboards.  When a customer is reminded of these possibilities, he wants an evaluation of his system to see if he needs any help.

C.K. Prahalad was the father of the concept of ‘core competency’, a phrase that most of us use every week (if not every day).  He has been selected as one of the top 10 management thinkers for each of the last ten years.  In 1996, he joined Gary Hamel in co-authoring "Competing for the Future".  Taken from their book, the following quote is the Channel in a nutshell.

"It is not enough for a company to get smaller and better and faster; a company must also be capable of getting different."   - Competing for the Future; Hamel and Prahalad

By our very nature, Channel companies are smaller.  Our attention to quality makes us better.  And not having layer upon layer of management enables us in our quest to be faster.  Sometimes, however, that's not enough.  We must also be capable of “getting different”.

Infrastructure, in my opinion, provides us with the ideal opportunity to differentiate ourselves from the competition.

I’ll start this blog by sharing one of my ‘pet peeves’.  There are two words used in our industry that have become tired from overuse; ‘solutions’ and ‘opportunities’.  As entrepreneurs, we know that you cannot get a loan for an ‘opportunity’.  Bring the banker some tangible business and maybe he will help you.  Every day, a vendor tells you about an opportunity in the Cloud.  I know where you can find tangible business...

There are three distinct areas of cloud technology that can bring new business to our Channel companies.

• Infrastructure
• Security
• Support

Infrastructure refers to the foundation for the BCDs (Billion Connected Devices espoused originally by Paul Ottelini of Intel); specifically, server and storage technology.  The Channel has consistently been competitive in this arena, primarily because it benefits from vertical expertise.  Customers do not want canned infrastructure; they want something customized to meet their particular requirements.