Distributor events get partners pumped up and excited about new programs, new vendor offerings, educational sessions, and learning from other resellers. But when partners get back to work and the phone starts ringing, it’s often back to business as usual. The messages from the event begin to fade. Resolve for change weakens.
To help get that energy flowing again, here’s a conversation I had at Ingram Micro Inc.’s 2012 SMB Fall Invitational with Kirk Robinson, vice president and general manager, Commercial Markets Division, and Jamie Ferullo, director of sales, SMB Business Unit, about the new Ingram Micro SMB 500, the event in general, and some trends they’re tracking for SMB resellers and MSPs.
ChannelPro-SMB: In the general session, Larry Walsh, president and CEO of market research firm The 2112 Group, provided a lot of information about your partnership with his company and the 500 Ingram Micro partners who attained a certain level of success to be counted among that SMB 500. How do these 500 resellers differ from their peers?
Robinson: I’m going to take it back a step further, which is the reason for the SMB 500. Jamie and I, Larry [Walsh], and a few others talked about creating the Ingram Micro SMB 500 for the sole purpose of [finding out] what are the dynamics in the SMB community that lead to stronger growth.
“We are in the forefront of looking at the differences between someone who has the SMB 500 on their badge and someone who doesn’t.” Kirk Robinson
We built the list over the past couple of months by looking at our accounts and coming up with the metrics that we wanted to hold true moving forward. The way I personally look at this Ingram Micro SMB 500 is every year it’s going to become more powerful because of Larry’s qualitative research, matched up with the quantitative data from our business intelligence center. We are in the forefront of looking at the differences between someone who has the SMB 500 on their badge and someone who doesn’t.
But now the fun work begins – now we’re diving in. We have a base of information from our business intelligence center that helps us understand products and solutions being sold into the end-user community. We have all the Dun & Bradstreet data so we can [for example] break vertical markets all the way down to the type of office under healthcare.
So that’s the journey we’re on – to be able to get this information and over time, like compound interest, we’re going to be so smart around SMB because we’re watching, we’re interviewing, we’re talking, we have that quantitative data, [and] we can talk to [partners] about the things they are doing as a company that wouldn’t show up [in the quantitative data], to really be able to help our partners and the vendors.
I don’t know that I can sit here today and say here’s exactly why number 47 is different from number 501 other than the quantitative data that says their growth did not enable them into the top 500 and a couple of metrics we used. But we launched it and we’re off to the races.
ChannelPro-SMB: What do your partners want to take away from the event so they can get on the SMB 500 list next time?
Ferullo: The partners realize the market opportunity that exists within the SMB space. However, a lot of these partners are very small businesses themselves, and it’s clear that they wear multiple hats all the time. So I think they’re looking to see how they can leverage our tools and resources along the way to give them some additional scale, reach – be an extension of their business. I think that’s what they’re trying to understand – what tools and programs we can offer them that are going to be the best fit to help them capture market opportunities.
ChannelPro-SMB: What are partners learning from the Ingram Micro breakout sessions?
Ferullo: As an example, we had a breakout session trying to articulate the value we can bring to the SMB channel. We walked them through the life of the sales cycle and the different elements we can help them with, whether that’s creating expertise based on a technology or a vertical market or helping them build demand in the marketplace to fill up their sales funnel.
Then, once that sales funnel is full, how we support them on a pre-sales solution basis and then what we can do to support them after the sale – the partners as well as their end clients.
So from a very high level, we articulate that regardless of where partners are in the sales cycle, we have tools that can help them.
ChannelPro-SMB: How is that message being received?
Ferullo: I thought it was eye opening. It’s exciting and I guess for lack of a better word, concerning at times, because we have all these great [programs and resources] and [partners are not aware of them]. So you see their eyes light up and they start taking notes and following up with you after the session asking additional questions: Who do I talk to, how do I get more information on that? How do I take advantage of that program? But I think that’s the purpose of these events – to provide the education and [raise] awareness of what we can do for them.
ChannelPro-SMb: How do you measure the effectiveness of an event like this?
Robinson: We look at it a couple of different ways. One, it’s partly [about] the experience. [For example], last night I was sitting in the tech fair having a beer and a customer says [to another VAR], “I’m in Minnesota.” and I asked, “What are you guys talking about?” I just barged into a reseller conversation and they said, “We’re talking about how it’s hard to find good help.” And I said, “OK, in what area? Sales? Engineers?” And they said, “Engineers.”
Then the other guy says, “I’m in Cedar Rapids. Not a lot of people want to move to Cedar Rapids to be an engineer,” kinda laughing. So I pulled Bill Peterson [VentureTech Network Sr. channel development representative] over and said, “Bill, can you explain IT staffing to these gentlemen?” And we went through an offering that we have to help customers find the right people to hire [for] full-time or part-time [work]. So that’s an example that comes to mind of one success.
The other way we do it is our marketing team looks at who came to the event, and then we look at their sales growth. We also look at what vendors were there, and what was the sales growth against those vendors, so we can get back with them and say, “Hey, Brandon [Sweeney – VMware’s vice president, U.S. midmarket and SMB sales] got onstage and gave a killer presentation. What are our VMware sales looking like for those customers?
Jamie and I go over notes that are four pages deep because [we’re] sitting there [saying], we need the site VMware has on our SMB link cause we’re trying to aggregate [SMB-focused solutions] for our customers so they go to one place and they can truly see what is the SMB offering that VMware has [and] what is the SMB offering that Cisco has.
That allows us to take what happens here and have us become more relevant to customers by helping aggregate information for people who wear multiple hats and don’t want to go to Cisco.com and search SMB.
ChannelPro-SMB: Have you already started that aggregation? If so, how far along are you in the process?
Robinson: it’s coming along. One of the hard parts is we also want to make sure it’s a true SMB offering.
ChannelPro-SMB: So you vet what’s there?
Robinson: By putting up every program we’re defeating the purpose and confusing everyone. There’s work to be done to really achieve the overall goal we have to bring in all the relevant SMB programs.
ChannelPro-SMB: What trends are your SMB partners embracing and finding success with?
Robinson: Virtualization is a big one; also a lot of systems and software, and then the natural – networking, storage.
ChannelPro-SMB: Mobility and BYOD?
Robinson: I think more and more partners are doing it. These resellers are not just dealing with it with their customers, but they’re dealing with it in their own businesses. You have to look at MDM software, how are you going to handle that? And security. Those are probably the two biggest keys to someone being comfortable setting up a BYOD [environment] in their own company and going out and offering it to their customers.
Ferullo: I think mobility is somewhat like cloud. How many are out there leading the conversation, influencing the conversation with the client vs. reacting to the conversation with their client. How many are still generalists trying to be jack of all trades vs. that’s their focus, that’s their strategy.
That’s where the business intelligence comes into play, what we’re trying to do with Larry. We’re the ones that are influencing vs. the ones that we might have to provide some influence with and try to steer them down the path.
ChannelPro-SMB: Overall, what does Ingram wish to accomplish with the SMB Invitational?
Ferullo: We want to be the distributor of choice – I will stress the word choice. We are ultra-focused on that – making sure we’re providing the service and support along the way and doing everything we can to help [partners] expand into new markets and technologies along the way and to grow profitably together.
