B3 Computers: Calling All VARs

Published for the Week Of July 19, 2004

red Schlaffer has a simple strategy that he hopes will triple his business over the next 18 months: Recruit more VARs.

Schlaffer, president of B3 Computers, a system builder in Gwinn, Mich., last year saw his companys revenue jump 50 percent to $9 million from $6 million. And the number of systems B3 Computers built grew to 3,200 per month in 2003 from 1,750 per month in 2002.

While B3 Computers has seen healthy growth across its entire product line, its server growth has outpaced both desktops and notebooks. In 2002, it was building about 50 servers per month. In 2003, that number increased fourfold to 200.

We made a big effort to recruit more resellers, Schlaffer said. Weve gone after the ASCII Group members and other small resellers that the big guys [large PC vendors] dont pay much attention to.

And the efforts paid off. Two years ago, B3 Computers counted 600 resellers as customers. Through a concerted recruitment effort, that number has now grown to more than 1,100, he said. To accommodate planned growth, B3 Computers has secured grants from the state of Michigan and local governments and just moved into a 30,000-square-foot facility that was a former Air Force base.

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Small businesses typically dont go to HP Direct; they go to a local reseller, Schlaffer said. He noted that the typical reseller targeted by B3 Computers has fewer than 10 employees. Incrementally, they bring in a little business, but in total they brought in a lot of business. Thats where all of our growth has come from.

Chris Chaltron, senior technician at Creative Computer Solutions of Michigan, said that B3 Computers gave his company a cold call, set up a face-to-face meeting and convinced the VAR to start buying B3 systems. We used to build our own systems, but we found that we werent making any money, Chaltron said. The real money is in service. We buy 10 to 12 systems per month from B3, and theyve been nothing but top-notch in their quality.

Schlaffer added that B3 Computers is focusing on whitebooks as a way to bring more VARs on board. You need special tools and special expertise to build notebooks, he said. Plus, he said that B3 Computers can do custom configurations on notebooks.

The ability to custom-configure systems to the VARs specification is also a big selling point in attracting new resellers, Schlaffer said. Everyone else builds a whole bunch of systems all the same. But every one of our systems is custom-built. It can be different software, different video. We customize them to meet the needs of the reseller.