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make big waves in channel
We are absolutely the same as the people we are doing business with. What we are really offering is our skill and expertise in winning and securing deals.
“The minimum requirement for a partner relationship with 4Com CP is that resellers sign up for our leasing and minutes offerings. In return we will help reseller partners with lead generation, increase their closure rates, achieve better prices from suppliers and win long term network contracts.
“Also, as a larger business we have developed detailed and complex accounting procedures so we have a very clear financial understanding of our internal business relationships. We have had to be extremely analytical to understand the relationship between contract terms, systems sales, maintenance contracts, leasing terms and so on. We will happily pass this knowledge on to our reseller partners.
“All of this will increase the value of a reseller company should they wish to exit the business.” Hutt has laid out his channel offer to a group of resellers who attended his inaugural partner meeting in early May and says he was ‘bowled over’ by the response and positive feedback he received.
“We are nice people trying to launch a new business in a new field. At our first partner meeting resellers were saying to us ‘you’ve cracked it’. It’s what they have needed for years, a channel support business that understands the challenges they face on a daily basis from personal experience. For example vendors will sell lines and minutes, systems, call loggers etc. but how many of them understand reselling? Many vendor sales people try to work in a reseller environment and fall on their face when it comes to selling to end users. “Real volumes are being achieved by resellers selling bundled solutions and package deals. In talking to resellers we are learning why we
Leasing means more leads, higher close rates, higher achieved prices plus longer term network and maintenance contracts.
James Emm
have achieved our own growth. It’s been a fabulous journey learning about ourselves and why we have been successful.”
Hutt’s views are endorsed by Oak Telecom’s James Emm, a strong advocate for bundling solutions tailor made for end users and financed on a lease.
“When you are supplying to resellers you forget how difficult it is to sell to the end user. We have always sold on quality not on price. The 4Com sales model is unique. It’s about creating demand and providing product differentiation. Most customer prospects know nothing about call logging, recording or, marketing on hold. At the small end of the market they set the specification and the sale is made on price. It makes it difficult to make a solution sale.”
Oak’s special relationship with 4Com dates back to when Oak sold its Abillity billing platform base to Tony Cook’s Union Street.
“With the sale of Abillity our monthly recurring revenue gross profits dropped by £60K a month and I still had a company to finance and feed. At that time, 4Com were already a major Oak reseller and they were happy to agree to a revolutionary deal whereby they committed to a monthly spend for a high and guaranteed supply of our call logging product. This model was
the inspiration for a monthly licence model that we have offered with various sizes and restrictions across the Oak reseller network and is still available today. “The 4Com Oak bundled offering which is based on volume commitment and dedication to other 4Com channel services is an extension to this. It is a win- win scenario in that the reseller gets a better price, Oak and 4Com get recurring revenues and the end user gets a high value communications solution that will benefit his business. “4Com is almost certainly the most successful SME reseller in the country and I strongly believe its new offer to the reseller community will help this industry achieve greater success in years to come. And the quality channel people that 4Com CP has onboard are so well known that new doors will be open to resellers all the time. “
That team includes former Siemens and Westcon channel manager Neil Moulton, former Datasharp directors Roy Carter and Paul Forman and 4Com Capital ceo Ian Wedderell, who has 20 years experience in selling telecoms leasing. “Having channel aspirations it was very necessary for us to recruit the best channel people we could,” said Hutt.
“It was also important that those people reflected what we are
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about. Our channel management team are people with long term reputations for honesty and integrity, and going the extra mile. I am very proud we have been able to attract them to our business and even more proud of how well things are going. We are family already. After our first reseller meeting we were shell shocked. We realised we were on to something fantastic.”
4Com suppliers LG Ericsson, Toshiba, Samsung and Nimans- Rocom have all agreed in principal to the new model and, according to Carter, have all started to recommend 4Com CP to their customers. The final string to the 4Com CP bow is the establishment of a recruitment and training academy headed up sales director Martin Dunn and Gary May from The Association of Sales Professionals.
As Hutt explained: “The biggest issue resellers face is recruiting good people and having the time to train them. We understand how to train people that come from outside the industry. We will give them a basic telecoms education about system and network selling plus a range of courses on selling bundles, leasing, CTI, call management and so on. “Once trained, they will be delivered to the reseller fully primed and ready to sell for £999. That’s better than any recruitment agency!”
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