Tell me about how HP deal registrations work
-
That service only has real value if you are a volume purchaser. If you're a one off buyer like I am, the VAR is little more than a reseller - I'm not buying enough for them to care.
Considering that NTG doesn't resell, I'm surprised you have these relationships yourself. If your customers don't have their own VAR already in place, of course you can steer them toward a VAR you've used in the past - I guess if you do that long enough and with enough volume, the VAR will recognize your value to them.
-
@Dashrender said:
That service only has real value if you are a volume purchaser.
This is not true at all. You are taking your personal experiences that have been a problem, assuming that the issue is volume and then applying that to the category. There are good VARs that take care of you regardless of your volume.
The more volume you can bring the better the relationship can be simply because everyone has more money to work with and more efficiency all the way from you to the OEM Vendor.
But the idea that your small volume means you can't have a good VAR relationship is simply not true.
-
@Dashrender said:
If you're a one off buyer like I am, the VAR is little more than a reseller - I'm not buying enough for them to care.
Caring is not the issue. The real problem that comes in is that you fall out of their cache, so to speak. A large volume customer will have a rep that they talk to all of the time and they know each other and know the needs and can have quick, meaningful conversations.
You can have this same kind of relationship if you work through an MSP. I always mention this. Both there are VARs that will take care of you at any volume and there are mechanisms to make sure that your small volume is never a factor to a VAR regardless of point one. I don't think that anyone under a medium sized business should be dealing with VARs directly in any case. VARs are useful when working with large departments or MSPs. VARs are party of your MSP/ITSP ecosystem, ideally not someone you would interact with directly.
-
@Dashrender said:
That service only has real value if you are a volume purchaser. If you're a one off buyer like I am, the VAR is little more than a reseller - I'm not buying enough for them to care.
Same here. But even with volume, if a VAR has a customer that it knows will never shop around and will only ever buy from them, it's natural that that VAR might get a little complacent over time. A bit of loyalty is ok, but you also need to keep them on their toes. It's like marriage, can you honestly say you always treat your spouse as well as you did when you were just dating, or do you sometimes take them for granted. If my VAR doesn't buy me flowers any more, I might start flirting with someone else.
-
@Dashrender said:
Considering that NTG doesn't resell, I'm surprised you have these relationships yourself. If your customers don't have their own VAR already in place, of course you can steer them toward a VAR you've used in the past - I guess if you do that long enough and with enough volume, the VAR will recognize your value to them.
We are an ITSP and an important part of our value catalogue is handling these relationships for them. Many customers want to deal with their VARs and resellers on their own, that's fine. But the best value is when we are tasked with that because we can handle the entire relationship end to end. That's why we are a partner with the vendors as well. Let's take Dell as an example...
Our best customers (that want to work with Dell) work only with us. They have us interface with the Dell VAR (we use xByte which is no secret) but we are also peer partners with Dell. We have access to both xByte and Dell with incredibly good relationships with both. We can get things done, we have insight into the supply chain, the road map, etc. We are able to get NDRs that customers cannot, we have conversations and information and pricing that customers cannot get. We provide a lot of value in having trusted VAR relationships so that our customers have the options to never have the kinds of problems that you have described. We keep the overhead low, the volume high and the relationships strong so that little customers can get the value of a big ecosystem.
-
@Carnival-Boy said:
@Dashrender said:
That service only has real value if you are a volume purchaser. If you're a one off buyer like I am, the VAR is little more than a reseller - I'm not buying enough for them to care.
Same here. But even with volume, if a VAR has a customer that it knows will never shop around and will only ever buy from them, it's natural that that VAR might get a little complacent over time. A bit of loyalty is ok, but you also need to keep them on their toes. It's like marriage, can you honestly say you always treat your spouse as well as you did when you were just dating, or do you sometimes take them for granted. If my VAR doesn't buy me flowers any more, I might start flirting with someone else.
It's also natural that they might worry more and more about their bread and butter leaving. Complacency is indeed a risk. One we watch out for, but one we have not experienced from good partners.
-
And sometimes the only way to find a good partner is to shop around. Otherwise, how do you know if your existing partner is giving you a good price, if you only ever buy from him and don't even get quotes?
I'm surprised you're so trusting of VARs, because on other threads it seems that you think everyone is out to rip you off and you should never trust anyone.
-
@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm surprised you're so trusting of VARs, because on other threads it seems that you think everyone is out to rip you off and you should never trust anyone.
Because I empathize with what they do and how they make their money, never go to them for services outside of the scope that they are supposed to be working it and make sure that I know what they are incentivized by. I don't say that you should not trust resellers, I say that you should not go to them for advice, those are very different things. I trust resellers the same as anyone else - when I'm not violating the social contract that they are there to sell me things that they have and that they will attempt to do so. Because I never give a VAR an opportunity to sell me something that I don't need, I don't have any of those kinds of issues.
Our VARs get told what to quote and the scope is kept appropriate. Our relationship with vendors is so good that we've had vendor management actually pull sales people out of conversation chains because they found out that they were trying to make a pitch to a customer of ours. They don't get to do that. They know that their relationship with us depends on them sticking to the rules - and that is no recommendations.
I've said many times, I trust sales people completely. Trusting them and being able to get advice from them are totally different things. I trust the salesperson to try to sell me what they offer.
-
@Carnival-Boy said:
And sometimes the only way to find a good partner is to shop around. Otherwise, how do you know if your existing partner is giving you a good price, if you only ever buy from him and don't even get quotes?
Because price is not the important piece. Service is. I keep saying that if we are always talking price, we should not be dealing with a VAR, just a reseller. If you feel that price is the driver and that the products are a commodity then talking to a VAR makes little sense.
I'm not saying that you should never, ever price check, but doing so is quite easy. We talk to customers, for example, who buy directly all the time and have very good ideas as to prices on a wide range of products. We don't have to pressure vendors to run through a quote process just to research prices in all but the rarest cases.
And remember, for us, we are also a VAR on paper. We don't sell anything, but we have the components in place to do so, so we can look up prices just like any other VAR can.
-
Adding a MSP or ITSP to the pile - how does this not add even more cost? I suppose you could say that because the MSP brings so much volume to the VAR, the VAR gives better pricing to the MSP than I could get direct.. and that savings is what pays the MSP. I suppose that could be true with an MSP, because they are selling you the hardware themselves. But the ITSP, the customer is paying you to manage that, at your hourly rate, which seems so more likely to be more than the savings difference between what I can get for a product and what the MSP can get it at. Granted I'm getting the MSP rate directly, but I'm paying you to manage that relationship/quote building, etc - that requires a fair amount of time, aka costs in billable hours, no?
-
@Dashrender said:
Adding a MSP or ITSP to the pile - how does this not add even more cost? I suppose you could say that because the MSP brings so much volume to the VAR, the VAR gives better pricing to the MSP than I could get direct.. and that savings is what pays the MSP. I suppose that could be true with an MSP, because they are selling you the hardware themselves. But the ITSP, the customer is paying you to manage that, at your hourly rate, which seems so more likely to be more than the savings difference between what I can get for a product and what the MSP can get it at. Granted I'm getting the MSP rate directly, but I'm paying you to manage that relationship/quote building, etc - that requires a fair amount of time, aka costs in billable hours, no?
Correct, but someone has to do that. Whether you or the MSP.... the difference is if you are using an ITSP/MSP as I recommend in a small environment, none of that comes up because it is far less work to have them do everything than to have any handoffs back and forth. Assuming that the MSP has to determine what to buy, how to get it, install it, etc. the cost of them doing the VAR management is offset by the savings in the efficiency of the entire system end to end - it would easily reduce the total time spent by the MSP. Plus, larger MSPs would have lower cost staff to do that, not engineers.
-
OK, so if you don't get advice of a VAR, what do you get from them? Where is the "Value Added" bit?
-
@Carnival-Boy said:
OK, so if you don't get advice of a VAR, what do you get from them? Where is the "Value Added" bit?
Advice and confirmation that the parts you asked for all all correct for the need is the point of a VAR.
If oyu are not doing that, then you are just wasting everyone's time and money. Just guy buy your shit from random Ebay seller 42.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Adding a MSP or ITSP to the pile - how does this not add even more cost? I suppose you could say that because the MSP brings so much volume to the VAR, the VAR gives better pricing to the MSP than I could get direct.. and that savings is what pays the MSP. I suppose that could be true with an MSP, because they are selling you the hardware themselves. But the ITSP, the customer is paying you to manage that, at your hourly rate, which seems so more likely to be more than the savings difference between what I can get for a product and what the MSP can get it at. Granted I'm getting the MSP rate directly, but I'm paying you to manage that relationship/quote building, etc - that requires a fair amount of time, aka costs in billable hours, no?
Correct, but someone has to do that. Whether you or the MSP.... the difference is if you are using an ITSP/MSP as I recommend in a small environment, none of that comes up because it is far less work to have them do everything than to have any handoffs back and forth. Assuming that the MSP has to determine what to buy, how to get it, install it, etc. the cost of them doing the VAR management is offset by the savings in the efficiency of the entire system end to end - it would easily reduce the total time spent by the MSP. Plus, larger MSPs would have lower cost staff to do that, not engineers.
You're assuming the MSP's rates would be lower for this type of work because they hand it off to a lower paid employee? I've never seen that happen before. Granted, I have seen tiered support, Fake numbers ahead Windows desktop = $125/hr Windows servers = $150/hr Linux servers = $200/hr Exchange = $250/hr Firewall 1 = $500/hr, etc
So the question is, will it cost less paying the MSP $125/hr to do your VAR management than what you can do it for in-house?
Now remember, we're talking about SMBs here. Average pay is $40-80K On the low end that's about two hours of the internal employee's time, high end, just over an hour.
-
@JaredBusch said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
OK, so if you don't get advice of a VAR, what do you get from them? Where is the "Value Added" bit?
Advice and confirmation that the parts you asked for all all correct for the need is the point of a VAR.
If oyu are not doing that, then you are just wasting everyone's time and money. Just guy buy your shit from random Ebay seller 42.
Advice? I Thought Scott's being saying for years that the advice should come from paid professionals? Now if you're talking about advice within say the RAID controllers themselves on a specific server chassis, well maybe, but even then, other than compatibility within the parts list, I don't expect to much if any advice.
-
@Carnival-Boy said:
OK, so if you don't get advice of a VAR, what do you get from them? Where is the "Value Added" bit?
I don't get advice on what to buy. I never go to my VAR and say "what do I do?" It's micro advice, not macro advice. All within the scope of the sale.
VARs help us to decide which options go together or might offer a sale item that we didn't know would have a lower price or help us figure out if something will ship earlier than something else. Advice "within the scope of the sale." Never advice outside of the scope.
-
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Adding a MSP or ITSP to the pile - how does this not add even more cost? I suppose you could say that because the MSP brings so much volume to the VAR, the VAR gives better pricing to the MSP than I could get direct.. and that savings is what pays the MSP. I suppose that could be true with an MSP, because they are selling you the hardware themselves. But the ITSP, the customer is paying you to manage that, at your hourly rate, which seems so more likely to be more than the savings difference between what I can get for a product and what the MSP can get it at. Granted I'm getting the MSP rate directly, but I'm paying you to manage that relationship/quote building, etc - that requires a fair amount of time, aka costs in billable hours, no?
Correct, but someone has to do that. Whether you or the MSP.... the difference is if you are using an ITSP/MSP as I recommend in a small environment, none of that comes up because it is far less work to have them do everything than to have any handoffs back and forth. Assuming that the MSP has to determine what to buy, how to get it, install it, etc. the cost of them doing the VAR management is offset by the savings in the efficiency of the entire system end to end - it would easily reduce the total time spent by the MSP. Plus, larger MSPs would have lower cost staff to do that, not engineers.
You're assuming the MSP's rates would be lower for this type of work because they hand it off to a lower paid employee? I've never seen that happen before. Granted, I have seen tiered support, Fake numbers ahead Windows desktop = $125/hr Windows servers = $150/hr Linux servers = $200/hr Exchange = $250/hr Firewall 1 = $500/hr, etc
So the question is, will it cost less paying the MSP $125/hr to do your VAR management than what you can do it for in-house?
Now remember, we're talking about SMBs here. Average pay is $40-80K On the low end that's about two hours of the internal employee's time, high end, just over an hour.
You are looking at it from a "pay by the hour" perspective rather than a full support agreement. Pricing gets complex but granular when you leverage the whole MSP rather than just hiring a tech by the hour for you to direct.
You can absolutely be taking advantage of those pricing advantages.
-
@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
OK, so if you don't get advice of a VAR, what do you get from them? Where is the "Value Added" bit?
Advice and confirmation that the parts you asked for all all correct for the need is the point of a VAR.
If oyu are not doing that, then you are just wasting everyone's time and money. Just guy buy your shit from random Ebay seller 42.
Advice? I Thought Scott's being saying for years that the advice should come from paid professionals? Now if you're talking about advice within say the RAID controllers themselves on a specific server chassis, well maybe, but even then, other than compatibility within the parts list, I don't expect to much if any advice.
No, you missed the point here. When you send a VAR a list of hardware, the need for advice on what you need for project X is already over.
You are getting advice that the parts you are asking for are all correct and that you did not make a mistake by buying the wrong HP iLO license.
Thew VAR should know this information because you have always worked with them as a partner. So they should know when you send in the RFQ with the wrong shit that it will be a phone call back to you to confirm instead of just dumping out a quote.
This is why you had the wrong thing like 2-3 times. You treat the VAR as a reseller and only ever tell them what to order. So the VAR never bothers to care about your stuff and did not check that you ordered the wrong thing.
-
@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
OK, so if you don't get advice of a VAR, what do you get from them? Where is the "Value Added" bit?
Advice and confirmation that the parts you asked for all all correct for the need is the point of a VAR.
If oyu are not doing that, then you are just wasting everyone's time and money. Just guy buy your shit from random Ebay seller 42.
Advice? I Thought Scott's being saying for years that the advice should come from paid professionals? Now if you're talking about advice within say the RAID controllers themselves on a specific server chassis, well maybe, but even then, other than compatibility within the parts list, I don't expect to much if any advice.
No, you missed the point here. When you send a VAR a list of hardware, the need for advice on what you need for project X is already over.
You are getting advice that the parts you are asking for are all correct and that you did not make a mistake by buying the wrong HP iLO license.
Thew VAR should know this information because you have always worked with them as a partner. So they should know when you send in the RFQ with the wrong shit that it will be a phone call back to you to confirm instead of just dumping out a quote.
This is why you had the wrong thing like 2-3 times. You treat the VAR as a reseller and only ever tell them what to order. So the VAR never bothers to care about your stuff and did not check that you ordered the wrong thing.
This^^^^
-
@JaredBusch said:
You are getting advice that the parts you are asking for are all correct and that you did not make a mistake by buying the wrong HP iLO license.
And also advice on things only a VAR would know...
A common example is "that desktop is $500 and available normally. But we see this other one in a warehouse around the corner for $550, you could have it today." That's valuable info. We can decide it $50 to get something slightly better sooner makes sense.
Or they might know that the drive we want it a month out, but this other drive that is a little smaller is available now.
Logistics are a huge part of VAR value.
