Expert Speak

Overlooking the Goldmine Next Door

Goldmine Next Door

The biggest challenge a partner faces is to find a new customer while struggling to cope with the pressure of falling margins. In order to retain the viability of the business he knows that he has to sell more. But the problem arises when he doesn’t know who is interested in his products. Most channel partners today are focusing on the home buyer. In a survey done by 360 Magazine – Channeltimes.com last month, over 70 percent of the partners surveyed said they sold to the home buyer, while only about half that number said they sold to small businesses.

And therein seems to lie the problem. By putting all his energies into a buyer segment that has a limited budget and IT needs, the partner is limiting his opportunities right from the start. While if he considers expanding his clientele, he not only gets a chance to sell more, but also sell higher-value products, which offer bigger margins.

I was reading a report by the Kolkata-based AMI Partners that says that those partners who have mixed customer portfolios can get about 46 percent of their revenue from SMBs. Not only this, the report also states that Indian SMBs also rely heavily on their channel partners’ recommendation when choosing IT brands. However, the one trait the SMB looks for in his partner is timely sales and support for IT problems.

Unfortunately, most partners are hesitant to approach the SMB customer. Language barriers, financial limitations and delayed payments are some of the reasons that keep most partners away from the SMB goldmine. However, it’s important to remember that most of these barriers are demons of our own making. Learning to overcome them and keeping in mind your core competency, which is getting the perfect combination of technology-pricing-application to meet the customers’ requirement – is what is expected of you.

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