Jim joined Circa 65 in 2007 following a 30 year career in the computer products and electronic component industries. He last served as Vice President of Business Development and Marketing for Arrow Electronics, Inc. - one of the world’s largest distributors. There, he had executive responsibility for planning and implementing the company’s new go-to-market strategies as well as all traditional marketing functions including PR, branding, advertising, event management and communications. Jim was a key leader in Arrow’s aggressive acquisition strategy – planning as well as managing the integration of a number of companies. All told, Jim spent over 23 years with Arrow in a variety of executive positions.
Previously, Jim was vice president and an owner of Computer Products Supply Company, Inc. (CPSC, Inc.), an early computer industry creator of custom computing solutions – principally for the Federal Government. In 1982, Jim and his partner sold the company to Arrow Electronics whereupon he embarked on his career with Arrow.
Regarded as an innovator and thought leader in technology business growth and marketing, Jim has been involved in a number of other industry-related activities including founding and serving as vice president of an industry trade association, participating as a member of the Sales and Marketing Council of the AMA and most recently, joining the Board of Directors of the Association for Corporate Growth (Denver Chapter) as Marketing Chair.
At Circa 65, Jim’s efforts are focused on increasing the scope of the innovative, outsourced marketing services Circa 65 provides to its customers. He also speaks at a number of industry events on the role of marketing planning in achieving sustained profitable growth – and how to do it.
VARs, system integrators and other technology resellers often complain that agencies, telemarketing houses or other service providers can’t get the job done because they just don’t understand the technology business well enough. In large part, these complaints are valid – providers of various tactical marketing services really do not understand the world of technology – particularly in a B-to-B environment. That said, I would argue the real problem is a VAR's lack of understanding true marketing and the intricacies of dealing with an agency. A VAR doesn’t understand the agency or service provider business even to the extent they understand your business. This results in technology resellers being bad customers who demand low prices, do not understand the creative or execution side of the business and get excited by the wrong things – such as wording of a tag line - as opposed to the effectiveness of a particular tactic. The part of marketing everyone thinks they get is the creative, out-of-the-box thinking side of the business. Everyone thinks they are creative and brainstorming tag lines is fun. But the truth is, few have the skill to be good at it and the personal time required to make even the best creative effective is more than what most are willing to personally invest.
Our own business model owes part of its origin to the fact that technology businesses could get more from their marketing investment if they themselves were better customers. We have created an outsourced marketing role where among other responsibilities, Circa 65 represents and manages the needs and aspirations of a reseller while working with external resources. We manage these resources to achieve superior results for the VAR – not maximum profitability of the agency or service provider. Click here http://www.circa65.com/lp/roi.html to learn how we can do the same for you or here http://www.circa65.com/contact.html to discuss your own situation.
I can name that tune in… 60 days!
Remember the old game show where contestants would play a game of “chicken” – daring each other to correctly identify a tune in the fewest number of notes? Well, a version of that same game is played out in businesses everyday as lack of timely commitment by management causes marketing people to agree to insanely short (and ultimately unproductive) time frames to create, and launch (and generate ROI for) VAR marketing programs and events. See if the following scenario sounds familiar.
In early January, Company X proposes to launch a campaign consisting of live events to drive demand generation with new prospects sometime in March. The marketing person responsible estimates it will take 45 to 60 days to secure locations, dates, plan the events, request marketing development funds and execute. The owner of Company X isn't’t sure about the investment and wants a budget for the program which is dutifully prepared by talking to event venues, caterers, thinking about program content (and the associated cost of things, such as speaker fees) and the like. As this part of the process is complete, the owner puts his foot on the brake by insisting on meetings with each stakeholder to make sure everyone is bought into this program, particularly the VAR sales team. Now one might wonder why this did not take place prior to deciding this program was a good idea in the first place – but this is a necessary step nevertheless. Anyway, by the time the data is gathered and the meetings take place, we are now in late February – clearly too late for a Q1 event. But then in the first week of March, Company X’s top vendor tells the VP of Sales they have an additional $10k in market development funds they can provide – so long as the money is spent prior to the end of the current quarter. The owner summons the marketing person and announces the good news. Funding is “approved” but the event has to take place later that same month! The poor marketing person works tirelessly to pull it off and then in the aftermath is pelted with criticism for the poorly attended event.
Why do we let this game of chicken take place? Even with "someone else’s money", the event needs to be done the right way. If doing it right takes 60 days, it takes 60 days - and all of your procrastinating won’t change that!
Met with a client yesterday who voiced concerns regarding the preparedness of their company to make some of the strategic changes to the existing sales and marketing approach and strategy we recommended. In view of the good shape the company is in and the operationally sound state of the organization, their reluctance to make fundamental changes to the way they go to market is understandable.
Experience has taught me that it is imperative for the management team of the reseller to feel there is a compelling reason to chart a change of course to have the support required to make any large change in direction or strategy. That said, I also feel there is significant risk in failing to observe shifts on the distant business horizons as any developments or evolutions that occur will cause a technology reseller to be reactive.
I understand that many businesses are uncomfortable on any path which takes them too close to the bleeding edge of the market. However, even if the company is not prepared for more radical changes in sales and marketing strategies, I do feel there is a need for someone to assume the role of “canary in the coal mine” for these VAR businesses in order to help them see and react to significant seismic shifts in the business climate and/or political landscape prior to it dramatically impacting business.
Someone should be assigned strategic planning responsibility to function as the long range set of eyes and ears to help in early response to market changes. This individual must be a trusted advisor and be experienced in strategy development while frankly, free of the pressures that come with day-to-day tactical responsibilities carried by everyone else in the company.
A recent meeting with a client provided a vivid reminder of this fact. As we are often called upon to do by VAR businesses, the purpose of this meeting was to examine the viability of creating a sales and marketing plan to address a specific vertical market – in this case - healthcare. In addition to the usual collection of technology sales experts and people from the marketing department we were fortunate enough to have the presence of the company’s VP of Operations. Despite not being a sales or marketing person, this person was definitely the MVP of the meeting.
Typically, our challenge in developing Reseller marketing plans is finding any expertise or experience unique to the company’s offering in a specific market. During the opening “round the table” introductions, we learned of this person’s prior work history which included not only extensive years of experience in the healthcare industry but in fact an invaluable rich list of current industry contacts. Perhaps your company possesses a similar asset in the form of market expertise – but you may have to look for it outside the technology sales and marketing groups.
Douglas Adams – author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series – wrote that the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” is 42! Now I wouldn’t think of opining on quite so cosmic a topic, but in the technology reseller marketing world of customer communications, I believe the answer to the ultimate question is 52.
What “ultimate” question are we answering and why does the number 52 represent the right answer?
The number 52 represents the total number of contacts per year the best performing VAR businesses are making with customers and prospects. This is not meant to infer you should “bombard” your customer contacts every week with some email sales pitch. Rather it is recommendation that your company should communicate with – in some fashion – each customer and prospect company on average, once per week throughout the year. Note I did not say have your sales rep contact their IT director or purchasing manager once per week. I said your company should communicate with their company once per week. The “how” is up to you as is the “who”. It can be a sales call, an invite to an event, an e-newsletter, a tweet, a link to a blog and it can be from anyone in your organization to anyone in the customer’s. The goal is building a consistent dialogue between two companies in an effort to create institutional relationships.
You think the number 52 is too high? What’s your “answer to the ultimate question”?
Every company needs a marketing plan - why? One reason and one reason only: to achieve accelerated, profitable growth! If any consultant, agency, outsourced marketing company or any other so-called “expert”, tells you anything else (e.g. to build awareness for your brand); run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Building a brand can be an important tactic in reaching your goal — but it is not, in and of itself, a goal. Nor are lead generation, customer loyalty programs or value propositions. All might have their place for your company – but they are NOT goals.
You might ask, “If marketing can really contribute to sustained profitable growth, why doesn’t every company have a marketing plan?” There are many different answers. Some VARs or resellers don’t understand marketing’s role in a growing company. Others believe it is too expensive or unnecessary for a company of their size. Still others bemoan the lack of internal expertise or time to make it happen. A few even believe that the channel marketing organizations of vendors and distributors make it redundant for them to market their own company. This last sentiment can usually be dismissed by answering one question: When a vendor offers to put your name or logo on a direct mail piece or seminar invitation, whose company do you believe they are promoting – yours or theirs? If you answered the former, you need to stay and see me after class.
So, if good marketing can enable profitable sales growth, how does it happen? Well, begin with the understanding that a well-devised and executed marketing plan can enable and direct sales growth only if it can successfully build and articulate the connection between your company’s resources (people, products, services, etc.) and your target end users. I didn’t say “sell more stuff” or “sell your stuff to more people”, because until you can build a strong connection between your organization and your target customers, it is difficult — if not impossible — to figure out what to look for in new customers, and equally challenging to articulate the value you offer once you find them.
I have never quite understood why companies will utilize what they often refer to as their most precious resource – the outside sales team – to make cold calls. Two notions lead me to this state of confusion. If you have an experienced, high quality sales team why wouldn’t you want this “precious resource” calling on qualified prospects rather than the ROW? Second, if you buy into the philosophy that marketing is responsible for directing and enabling the efforts of the VAR sales team and the sales team executes, isn’t your investment misplaced?
Whether you have a robust in-house marketing team or rely on outside contractors and service providers, cold calling and other “lead identification” activities don’t belong being performed by the sales team when they could be closing deals – in other words, selling!
Care to offer another point of view?
If you are expecting a “that depends” answer, you have come to the wrong place. In my view, now is always the right time to invest in marketing – even if the economy causes you to exercise a measure of financial restraint in doing so. You don’t sell only when times are good. You don’t serve your customers, pay rent, buy business cards or cut invoices only when things are humming along. Yet somehow, people have decided that when the market takes a downward turn, jettisoning their technology marketing strategy (people and programs) is a smart move. This strikes me as akin to losing out on a major proposal and deciding to stop selling anything until business picks up. Sounds a little crazy when you say it that way, doesn’t it?
While I am an unabashed proponent of marketing on a consistent basis, I believe the argument can safely be made that a downturn is precisely the time to make sure your IT marketing plan is hitting on all cylinders. Why? Let me answer by way of example.
Suppose you have the opportunity to run a seminar, lunch-and-learn or other similar live event intended to identify new prospects. The people you invite are prototypical of the clients you would like to develop, but you know that none has any current budget for what you have to sell.
You know they have no money.
They know they have no money.
They know you know they have no money.
But you decide to push on with the event anyway – hoping to begin building relationships that may come to fruition in time to come. In whose shoes would you prefer to stand in a year from now, when they have an approved budget - the company now trying to break into the account, or the company who developed a trusting relationship a year earlier when there was no opportunity (or pressure) for an immediate sale.
Marketing your company – something to do in good times and bad!
Where have all the good times gone? Do resellers really need a brand of their own?
Once upon a time, resellers, system integrators and other channel partners were known by the brands they carried. I know – I owned a reseller business way back then. Sparse competition and an element of “black magic” (associated with getting the technology to work), made for some unknowledgeable and very dependent end user customers. Fast forward 25 or 30 years and what have you got? An ultra-competitive market with competitors on every (physical and virtual) street corner, technology better understood by the masses (can you say commodity?) and an abundance of functioning out-of-the-box (though not necessarily intuitively so) hardware and software, can easily leave a reseller feeling not so special. So, what are you going to do about it? You could decide the business is forever a commoditized one and proceed to merely advertise low prices. You could look for the most obscure technology products around in an effort to fend off competition.
Or, you could BRAND YOUR COMPANY! This does not require spending boatloads of money on TV ads during the Super Bowl. It merely means taking the time to define your value proposition and then create a messaging and branding platform. Finding something that makes you special (beyond the products you carry), understanding who it is important to and articulating a well crafted message to these same people, are critical in attempting to carve out a place for your company to shine.
For years I have listened vendors talk about needing VAR businesses and other channel partners to “create demand” for their products. They even target vast amounts of their channel marketing spend (i.e. market development funds and coop) for partners to conduct demand generation activities on behalf of the vendor. This always strikes me as being an unreasonable expectation. Really – shouldn’t the creator of the product or intellectual property be responsible for creating demand for their own product? Resellers and other channel partners can LOCATE demand and perhaps can even SHAPE or DIRECT (to a particular brand or technology) demand. Channel partners make themselves valuable to vendors by establishing, maintaining and expanding the number of relationships with end users who are desirable and appropriate targets for the vendor. Reseller credibility with these end users creates the connection necessary for the vendor’s product marketing activities to reach the desired audience. Having product or technology expertise may help the channel partners “pitch the vendors wares” but it can’t take the place of the vendor’s need and responsibility for creation of brand awareness and loyalty and familiarity with the technology.
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