What Are You Doing Right Now
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@Dashrender said:
When I was consulting years ago, I had a client that would constantly ask me for quotes on things. While I didn't sell much hardware I would provide the quotes for free but he would never buy from me. After a while I became frustrated as he was basically just using me as a second price source to justify a price he had already found elsewhere. In the end I stopped doing any real work in quoting, and would just toss webbased MSRPs at him since it didn't matter anyhow.
Which, in turn, causes the other quotes that he gets to look better causing him to gradually overspend more and more.
I mentioned this as a trend that would happen with Spiceworks first released they automatic RFQ system. No good vendor would even accept something generated by that system after a few months. It was basically a quote spamming system. If you saw a quote come from that, you knew it wasn't a serious customer.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
CDWG was the only one that came back and asked for us to meet with their product engineers. We spoke with HP guys, and Dell guys, and I think EMC guys at the initial onset. There were product engineers, not sales reps. We spoke to them at length, both with and without the sales reps present on the calls.
This is where they mislead you with titles. If you were not paying them, they were sales people. Their income came purely through selling things to you. Their only financial incentives were to sell you something and the more that they could sell, the more they get paid. No matter what title someone has, if their job is to sell you things, they are a salesman.
Yeah, This is where I was mislead - nearly anyone you might speak to at CDW is a sales person, regardless of title. As previously stated, you will get different answers to the same question based upon whatever vendor is giving them a great 'special' at the moment.
Combine that with a frequently changing sales staff - I lost all interest in dealing with them. It means I have to do my job - find the solutions to my problems.. then ask for a price only from them.
We got lucky and had a couple of good sales reps after that bad one moved on. And our reps didn't change as fast as they do at Dell, lol.
We have great sales reps at Softmart. We've used the same one for years and only one before that one. And the original is still around, she is just the boss of our current one. We work hard to maintain a good relationship. They never try to sell us things, they only work within guidelines we set. And they know that they always get our business. It's a great relationship.
Huh - I wonder if that's why Softmart never tries to sell me anything either - since Danielle sent me their way.
That would be why. You are linked to our account. Do you work with Shannon?
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@dafyre said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
CDWG was the only one that came back and asked for us to meet with their product engineers. We spoke with HP guys, and Dell guys, and I think EMC guys at the initial onset. There were product engineers, not sales reps. We spoke to them at length, both with and without the sales reps present on the calls.
This is where they mislead you with titles. If you were not paying them, they were sales people. Their income came purely through selling things to you. Their only financial incentives were to sell you something and the more that they could sell, the more they get paid. No matter what title someone has, if their job is to sell you things, they are a salesman.
Yeah, This is where I was mislead - nearly anyone you might speak to at CDW is a sales person, regardless of title. As previously stated, you will get different answers to the same question based upon whatever vendor is giving them a great 'special' at the moment.
Combine that with a frequently changing sales staff - I lost all interest in dealing with them. It means I have to do my job - find the solutions to my problems.. then ask for a price only from them.
We got lucky and had a couple of good sales reps after that bad one moved on. And our reps didn't change as fast as they do at Dell, lol.
We have great sales reps at Softmart. We've used the same one for years and only one before that one. And the original is still around, she is just the boss of our current one. We work hard to maintain a good relationship. They never try to sell us things, they only work within guidelines we set. And they know that they always get our business. It's a great relationship.
Right. If I say I need an "HP Procurve 2650" that is what I want you to quote me. You don't need to include any options for Brocade, Juniper, Extreme, or any of the others. Give me a quote for a Procurve 2650. (We had this problem with a sales rep from another business, lol).
That we wouldn't mind at all. Sometimes they know about prices that we do not. They don't know why we chose the 2650 so if they, on their own, spend some time grabbing prices of alternatives while they are not busy for us to consider, that's no problem at all. We might have chosen the 2650 at random or not known of the other product. But in that situation, we already know that we want a switch with certain capabilities or we would not have asked for the quote. So no "IT decisions" being handed to the vendor. They are just offering alternatives within the set need from what they can tell. If we want to experiment with another brand, we could consider it but the consideration would be on our end. If we wanted to talk to a PSE about the new product, they would line that up.
That's where I see sales and PSE roles as valuable. But we would never let Softmart say "you know what you need? A new switch!"
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
When I was consulting years ago, I had a client that would constantly ask me for quotes on things. While I didn't sell much hardware I would provide the quotes for free but he would never buy from me. After a while I became frustrated as he was basically just using me as a second price source to justify a price he had already found elsewhere. In the end I stopped doing any real work in quoting, and would just toss webbased MSRPs at him since it didn't matter anyhow.
Which, in turn, causes the other quotes that he gets to look better causing him to gradually overspend more and more.
I mentioned this as a trend that would happen with Spiceworks first released they automatic RFQ system. No good vendor would even accept something generated by that system after a few months. It was basically a quote spamming system. If you saw a quote come from that, you knew it wasn't a serious customer.
I mostly do understand what you are saying - but at the same time, is it not our responsibility to shop around for the best price?
Let me ask it this way - Let's assume your vendor of choice is Best Buy (just go with me) when you go shopping for TV's - after you've done your research and decided which one you want, assuming BB has it, do you just buy it from them? or do you shop around?
Why does a business relationship with a vendor at CDW, SoftMart, etc work any differently?
I know that HP and others break the shop around aspect with the project registered lock-in thing (You call CDW tell them you want XZY HP stuff, CDW registers this desired purchase with HP, HP gives CDW an even better discount on this equipment. Now you call SoftMart, and SoftMart tries to do the same, but HP rejects them because someone else has already registered your desired purchase, and now SoftMart doesn't get the better pricing).
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
CDWG was the only one that came back and asked for us to meet with their product engineers. We spoke with HP guys, and Dell guys, and I think EMC guys at the initial onset. There were product engineers, not sales reps. We spoke to them at length, both with and without the sales reps present on the calls.
This is where they mislead you with titles. If you were not paying them, they were sales people. Their income came purely through selling things to you. Their only financial incentives were to sell you something and the more that they could sell, the more they get paid. No matter what title someone has, if their job is to sell you things, they are a salesman.
Yeah, This is where I was mislead - nearly anyone you might speak to at CDW is a sales person, regardless of title. As previously stated, you will get different answers to the same question based upon whatever vendor is giving them a great 'special' at the moment.
Combine that with a frequently changing sales staff - I lost all interest in dealing with them. It means I have to do my job - find the solutions to my problems.. then ask for a price only from them.
We got lucky and had a couple of good sales reps after that bad one moved on. And our reps didn't change as fast as they do at Dell, lol.
We have great sales reps at Softmart. We've used the same one for years and only one before that one. And the original is still around, she is just the boss of our current one. We work hard to maintain a good relationship. They never try to sell us things, they only work within guidelines we set. And they know that they always get our business. It's a great relationship.
Huh - I wonder if that's why Softmart never tries to sell me anything either - since Danielle sent me their way.
That would be why. You are linked to our account. Do you work with Shannon?
Yep.
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@Dashrender said:
I mostly do understand what you are saying - but at the same time, is it not our responsibility to shop around for the best price?
I don't know, are you paid to be in IT or to be a shopper? Purchasing is a different job role. And one that IT people are not good at. But do you see the gear you buy as a commodity or as something that needs support? Most businesses need support and care from their VARs.
So....
If you only buy from places like Amazon and NewEgg, then yes, someone (not IT) should be shopping around for low prices.
If you buy from VARs (including CDW, Softmart, or resellers) then pretty much no, if you are shopping around you are undermining the relationship of the VAR and aren't thinking of this properly.
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@Dashrender said:
Let me ask it this way - Let's assume your vendor of choice is Best Buy (just go with me) when you go shopping for TV's - after you've done your research and decided which one you want, assuming BB has it, do you just buy it from them? or do you shop around?
BB is like Amazon. If BB was my seller, I'd shop around BECAUSE they are not a VAR. That's the key here.
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Important terminology that is being used too loosely, I think...
Vendor - the original vendor that makes a product. They might or might not sell directly. This would be Cisco, MS, Apple, HPE, Dell, etc.
Reseller - people who sell stuff. Like Amazon, Best Buy, NewEgg
VAR - a reseller that combines value with the services. Normally technical but also logistical. These are the CDWs, Softmarts and to some degree NTGs.
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@Dashrender said:
Why does a business relationship with a vendor at CDW, SoftMart, etc work any differently?
Because..... relationship.
Softmart is our partner. They know our needs, we know their needs. We work together. We are a team. They provide sales support, we do the technical stuff. They aren't a store, they are a VAR with lots of resources of all types. They have licensing people, vendor reps, all kinds of things.
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OMG... I swear the people over there are freaking incompetent... the number of people on SW that just "fear" anything virtual, hosted or remote is crazy.
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1374462-starting-over-do-i-need-avtive-directory
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Off to do some MangoCon Video Diary stuff today and taste test more mango based foods. The Website is coming along hope to have it done soon!
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@scottalanmiller said:
OMG... I sweat the people over there are freaking incompetent... the number of people on SW that just "fear" anything virtual, hosted or remote is crazy.
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1374462-starting-over-do-i-need-avtive-directory
Linux domain controllers and linux desktops joined to it - I didn't have such a good laugh in a while.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I mostly do understand what you are saying - but at the same time, is it not our responsibility to shop around for the best price?
I don't know, are you paid to be in IT or to be a shopper? Purchasing is a different job role. And one that IT people are not good at. But do you see the gear you buy as a commodity or as something that needs support? Most businesses need support and care from their VARs.
So....
If you only buy from places like Amazon and NewEgg, then yes, someone (not IT) should be shopping around for low prices.
If you buy from VARs (including CDW, Softmart, or resellers) then pretty much no, if you are shopping around you are undermining the relationship of the VAR and aren't thinking of this properly.
So help me think about this properly - VAR = Value Added Reseller - what value are they providing if I don't ever use them for suggestions on things to buy? I suppose I could use them to assemble the server instead of getting 100 tiny boxes mailed to me (remember I'm an SMB, I'm the one who will rack and stack my server).
It would be different if we were talking about consultants, or even MSPs, but in those cases, I would fully expect them to be the ones doing the price shopping and making sure we got the best deal we could.
In the SMB there rarely is a purchasing department (at least in my experience), so yes, it's my job too.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Why does a business relationship with a vendor at CDW, SoftMart, etc work any differently?
Because..... relationship.
Softmart is our partner. They know our needs, we know their needs. We work together. We are a team. They provide sales support, we do the technical stuff. They aren't a store, they are a VAR with lots of resources of all types. They have licensing people, vendor reps, all kinds of things.
Wait - why or rather how am I using the licensing people, etc at Softmart - those are sales people trying to sell me something - I can't trust them to not over sell me. That's what I pay NTG to tell me how much to order of what, and then I tell Softmart to order exactly that.
If you're now telling me that NTG uses the licensing people at Softmart to help them decide what customers need, I see that as hypocritical.
Of course not saying you are being so - just looking for an explanation. -
If we have to reach out to Softmart on anything it's more for the clarification on how licensing works or what's available for a certain package. Things change so often that it's difficult to keep up with all the little details sometimes.
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Softmart also has a department that helps a customer if they get audited on software etc. (MS specifically). So we use them as a resource if needed.
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@dafyre said:
No argument there. But if we have a bad sales process, we won't be doing business with the company that the sales rep works for.
Two problems here...
- Why punish the company for the sales person's actions?
- Unless you didn't need the sales person, how would you know that the process was bad?
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@Dashrender said:
So help me think about this properly - VAR = Value Added Reseller - what value are they providing if I don't ever use them for suggestions on things to buy?
It's value add to the sale, not to the sales process.
There are many values. Big ones include technical knowledge of the products themselves. They know, we hope, what parts work together, what feature codes are needed to get what you intend, access to resources, etc. NTG signs up as a VAR Partner with a lot of vendors not to sell anything but because it provides us access to their technical resources that only VARs can get. We don't care where you buy Netgear, we've never sold a single unit, but we have inside access to technical support to help our customers. We get more manuals, access to Netgear people, roadmap insight and more that Best Buy can't help with.
Then there are logistics. I need a server in two hours. Softmart can do that. Amazon cannot. I need a view into the entire US supply chain and knowledge of where parts are, how long they take to get where, etc. Our VARs do this for us. Logistical management is a big thing.
It's a combination of logistical, competitive and technical knowledge about the products that they sell as well as upgraded options, features and support from the primary vendors. Which makes them valuable, but useless for choosing what we need from an IT perspective but great once the choice is made.
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@Dashrender said:
In the SMB there rarely is a purchasing department (at least in my experience), so yes, it's my job too.
That's something you need to decide if it is or isn't part of your job. It has rarely been part of mine in the SMB or in the enterprise. I've been in big for an SMB but not THAT big companies (over 1K employees but not huge) that had whole purchasing departments just to make sure pricing, POs and such were good and went through smoothly. Really any company of a few hundred people should likely have one, they pay for themselves quickly. High cost, highly skilled IT staff spending time shopping on Amazon is a pretty big waste of resources.
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@Dashrender said:
It would be different if we were talking about consultants, or even MSPs, but in those cases, I would fully expect them to be the ones doing the price shopping and making sure we got the best deal we could.
Depends if that is something that you hire them to do or not. As consultants, we often have the customers do their own shopping because they have existing relationships that we don't want to interfere with or we don't want to give the impression that we are making money on the sale directly or indirectly. Having customers shop and buy directly helps to avoid that as they never see the money or the relationship passing through our hands. Varies by customer, some wish that we were a VAR and want it all on one bill. Some, like you, do it "sideband" with our existing partner Softmart who works as the VAR but has "hooks" to us to let us function in a VAR-like role with visibility into logistics and supplychain for our customers.
