Since data protection remains one of the biggest issues for customers today — both as a recurring growth and upgrade product opportunity — resellers can, unfortunately, get derailed by “new” offerings on the market.
Customers constantly urge their seasoned and trusted resellers to get them information about the new, hyped-up data protection offerings as well as those that are well-known and established without distinction for which kind it is. Resellers can spend both unnecessary time and non-profit forays getting caught up in the latest shiny baubles that widen the eyes of their customers.
How can you tell the difference between offerings that are all flash and no substance and those that actually deliver results? The answer separates the successful resellers from the struggling ones.
We will use several cloud offerings as an example for this discussion. The cloud experience reminds us of the three rules that resellers have followed and ignored as they have tracked with the cloud offerings:
Use caution with cutting-edge technologies
Don’t be the new kid on the block with cutting-edge technologies unless you are willing to lose your investment. Cutting-edge means exactly what it says. Somebody is going to get hurt while everybody else watches. If you want to be first, dip your toes lightly into new, cool-looking rivers and streams, if you get my drift. It is not the surface appearance that matters.
Prioritize customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction trumps customer acquisition. Selling a new technology because a host of folks will buy it does not mean you will make money. Data protection resellers live on keeping their customer base happy, not on delivering a fast storage product customer turnstile. Retail-level sales involve turnstiles, and reseller sales involve boardrooms and long memories. Burned customers set bridges on fire.
Data protection is slow to adapt
Data protection product lines involve constant aggregation of technologies. The leaders in data protection product development can make the same errors in adoption of new technologies that startups will make. The difference is that those data protection leaders either absorb the startups that are solid or they adopt the technology internally.
Head over to Business Solutions to read a full article on this topic by STORServer’s chairman, John Pearring.
