Developing new tech is an ordeal. You have to have innovative ideas that apply to the public’s needs; you have to contract a gaggle of engineers and designers with diverging opinions; and then, you have to worry about marketing and selling the tech once it’s all finished so you can make money from the grueling enterprise. However, a growing number of tech companies no longer bother with that final step. Instead, they use resellers.
Instead of retaining expensive and energy-intensive sales and marketing teams in-house, businesses can outsource that effort to secondary and tertiary companies called resellers. These groups have more time and resources to devote to following leads, securing sales, and developing profitable relationships with customers and clients. Tech reselling is an ingenious new industry, and here are a few reasons you definitely should look into it, whether you might want to make use of resellers or become one.
Local, National, International Markets
Before the internet, businesses were limited by their size. A small business could only service local markets, severely restricting its ability to grow and mature. Through force of will, a small business could graduate into the medium-sized or big categories to reach vaster regions and do business with larger markets. Even with the internet, businesses are restrained by their capacity to fulfill orders, and expanding into larger markets puts a significant strain on nearly all of a company’s departments, from research and development to marketing and sales.
Using resellers, even small businesses can find ways into new and faraway markets. Often, a reseller will confine itself to a specific region, becoming an expert on that area’s demographics and demand. Thus, by partnering with resellers, your business can have access to dozens of markets around the globe without risking any time, effort, or resources in expansion.
Major tech companies already employ this sales strategy: Cisco partners number in the thousands and are organized by groups of dedicated distributors that provide more services than the manufacturer might be able to, and Microsoft channel distributors operate in every country on Earth. Without resellers, it could take decades to reach all the markets these companies might want.
Tech And More Tech
Likely, your company’s products don’t do anything by themselves. All tech requires other tech to function; even the very first commercial computing hardware by IBM used software developed by other companies. Therefore, to make use of your tech, your customers need additional products and services ― products and services that you probably don’t sell.
Opportunely, there is a type of reseller called a value-added reseller (VAR) that does. As their name suggests, VARs do more than peddle individual products to customers. In some manner or another, VARs improve upon manufacturers’ initial offerings. Some VARs bundle types of tech, like different types of essential office hardware. Other VARs provide added services, like IT maintenance or extended warranties. Still other VARs customize tech to their customers’ needs; for example, if your company produces a sales platform, a VAR might alter the design and colors to suit a particular brand. In these ways, resellers more acutely address their customers’ needs while making valuable sales for your company ― a win-win-win scenario.
Indispensable Branding Opportunities
When you are trying to focus on producing the best possible tech, immediate customer service often becomes overlooked. Unfortunately, businesses that ignore their customers usually suffer from a poor brand reputation, and the likelihood of business success decreases dramatically.
By relying on a reseller for customer interface, you outsource most of your customer service worries onto your partners, who have assumed the responsibility of addressing customer needs. Even if you aren’t doing the selling, your brand matters; even the best resellers will not be able to sell tech manufactured by a disgraced company. You can preserve your brand’s image by ensuring your customers are constantly cared for by a reliable reseller.
Most likely, you got into the tech industry because technology is your passion. That means you probably prefer spending your days improving your business’s tech, not worrying about the more mundane aspects of business, like marketing and sales. Unfortunately, a successful company needs to make money, which means selling a product or service is an integral step in business survival. Fortunately, there are resellers to assume those duties that make you cringe. Even if you like the challenge of business, your company should consider partnering with resellers today.
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