What do most successful VARs have in common
Table of Content
We look upto people who succeed in their craft. We try to follow their footsteps to reach the same platform as theirs. Every field has some success stories to follow. VAR business is no different.
Key Takeaways:
- Successful VARs position themselves as problem solvers and advisors ratherthan as simple resellers of hardware and licenses.
- They build repeatable solution offerings tailored to vertical or use case niches where they develop deep domainexpertise.
- Top VARs invest heavily in vendor certifications and training so their teams can design and support complex architectures.
- Operational discipline in quoting, procurement, and project delivery lets leading VARs scale without losing margin control.
- Strong customer relationship management practices help high performing VARs spot expansion, renewal, andcross sell opportunities early.
What is a value-added reseller?
A seller that enhances the worth of a product by providing some additional features and customizations of any product or service for resale to end-users is known as a value-added reseller (VAR). VARs are independent companies or individuals who resell a particular vendor’s product under license.
They play a similar role to the vendor in that they become the party that sells, installs, and trains the user on usage of the product, while the quality of the vendor is something that can be evaluated during a selection phase.
A restoration firm can be an example of VARs. What they do is they buy antiques and unique products, restore them and add some parts of the product that are incomplete, or just restore it and resell it. These features typically help earn a high-profit margin for the dealership.
IT VARs do this by either providing consultation or external devices(hardware), software (third party API’s), etc.
If you are a value added reseller (VAR) or you want to become one, here are a few traits that the successful VARs have in common.
A Profitable Niche
Sucsess in business is another name for profit. Successful VARs start building their business model around a profitable niche.
You cannot start selling anything for anyone. A passion and knowledge for certain products leads you there. But is it profitable what you want to sell? Read on.
From a broad range of products and services available to sell, narrow down to the more profitable one. Ask yourself if as a VAR you can add some value to it? Find out the target customer base for this product. You are still not ready as a reseller.
Now broaden your research towards the level of need of this product in the market.
- Is your potential customer base ready to pay the price that you ask for?
- How can you gain expertise related to value addition to that product or service?
- What are the logistics needed to add value to this product and resell?
- Are there any licences needed?
- What will be cost incurred and what is the margin that you can add to tht cost after value addition?
The answers to these questions lead you to a profitable niche.It will connect you to the targeted customer base and reate your business strategies accordingly.
Pro Tip:
Choose one or two industry verticals where you can become known for outcomes and build reference rich stories instead of trying to serve everyone.
Own the customer – Sales Personalization
“Own the customer” is a mantra that never fails. Once you know your prospects and their needs very well, its time to take over those requirements. You are an excellent seller if your customers consider you as a one stop solution to all their problems related to the product or service you offer. Be that VAR who knows everything related to the customers’ needs.
The question is how you can be more effective and prfessional in your sales personalization tactics than others?
Modern businesses rely on software solutions that assist their users with automated processes for sales and customer service.
CRM is such a software that mainly focuses on information about existing clients and potential customers. It’s a scientific approach for building and sustaining long-term business with customers to satisfy them. It is a great tool to personalize your sales approach in an operational, analytical, and collaborative manner.
Strong sales pipeline
Every marketing strategy focus on bringing traffic to the online or physical store. What if these leads do not convert into clients?
That is why the successful VARs maintain a strong sales pipeline that does everything to process maximum conversions out of the leads.
A strong sales pipeline is the backbone of businesses of all shapes and sizes. Every VAR business stands erect with the help of this backbone.
Use good sales management systems to guide your sales leads to conversions. Not only does sales management platform store data about the prospects and exsisting customers, it also reduces the admin work for the sales team.
Sales management platform helps VARs create a strong sales pipeline and reduce the sales cycle to close the deals quickly.
Pro Tip:
Codify your best deals into playbooks that define discovery questions, solution patterns, and pricing logic so new reps can replicate veteran success.
Sales Automation
In this era of technology, successful VARs plan their business with the help of automation. The most crucial of all the business departments is sales.
Sales automation techniques enhance a business to coordinate and communicate with several leads in real-time. In this way, each prospect gets to enjoy a customized communication channel, which is wisely engraved and crafted using the data gathered by the system. Sales automation software is an integrated application of personalized sales tools. The entire sales cycle is optimized with the use of automation.
In today’s business world, sales automation has become an effective solution for IT VARs as well. Sales automation tools are used to eliminate several time-consuming manual tasks for which you need to spend valuable selling time.
Go Digital
It is survival of the fittest everywhere. Yes, in VAR business too!
Successful VARs understand and adopt with the changing times. They go digital.
Today if you do not have a digital presence you loose out on so many business opportunities.
81% of buyers research online about the product before they purchase anything.
This is a huge number and you cannot afford to be invisible in the digital domain.
Go with a reliable ecommerce software for VAR business. A good ecommerce platform takes care of a lot of digital requirements that a VAR business has. It provides you with best business management solutions and business management software for VARs.
These solutions are not meant for big size businesses only. There are SME business solutions for IT resellers and other VARs businesses too.
Once your VAR business goes digital, your marketing strategy also works on digital platforms.
Multi-channel Marketing
Multi-channel marketing enhances your presence across all digital platforms. Today’s customers relate with a brand when they see its presence on different online platforms. A multi-channel marketing makes your brand visible everywhere. This approach builds a trust in the minds of the customers.
With multi-channel marketing, your gain a competitive edge and your sales and revenue increase.
Here, we will discuss a little bit about SEO(search engine optimization), the lifeline of online marketing strategies.
A strong SEO strategy will always allow brands to position their website and their content highly on the SERPs for pertinent keywords so that they can attract the attention of prospective customers and bring them into their sales funnel.
There can be ON-page SEO which is all about optimizing individual pages to rank higher and generate more relevant traffic for search engines and OFF-page SEO refers to all the things you can do outside of your website to help you improve SERP position: link building, forums, influencer outreach, and content marketing are a few activities that you can do by performing OFF-page SEO.
SEO helps you build better relationships with your audience, improve the customer experience, increase your authority, and more growth for your business. SEO is important for business because it provides organizations with the visibility they need to attract customers during this digital era.
In The End
The most successful VARs do things differently. They plan their business strategies in way which is both profitable an manageable.
Success doesn’t happen overnight. You have to plan your way and steer towards it with consistency.
We hope that the knowledge shared in this blog will help you achieve your goal. You too can be one of the most successful VARs!
