Apple Frustrates VARs

The board had been trying for months to battle low morale in the Apple channel. The Mac retail machine was gaining steam and several lawsuits had been taken out against Apple by its channel partners. Many VARs weren't even sure if they were going to be able to stay in business.

So, that afternoon, Apple was lending its office to help publicize the launch of the Apple Specialist Marketing Co-Op, an organization created by solution providers for solution providers.

"There was just a lot of pessimism in the channel at that point in time," recalled Kevin Langdon, president of Crywolf Inc., an Apple solution provider based in San Diego, who just a few months before had become a member of the advisory board. The board wanted to see if it could "pull together and start working on something positive" that would raise morale and "create opportunities for all of us," Langdon said.

More than 100 Apple resellers tuned into the Co-op's Webcast that afternoon. Within 48 hours, the group had signed up more than 40 members, the number it had hoped to recruit over the next six months.

The following spring, the Apple Specialist Marketing Co-op had its first meeting in Portland, Ore. More than 100 resellers attended. "It was transformative. It was amazing," Langdon said. "We had speakers talking to us about how to grow our businesses, how to better manage our businesses, how to take positive steps to market our businesses. The whole purpose was to help people do a better job to grow their own businesses."

And the group has done just that.

The Co-op recently surveyed 35 Apple Specialist Dealers and Authorized Service Providers and found that 95 percent had grown their businesses in 2007. More than 30 percent of them grew by more than 30 percent in 2007, including Crywolf, at 32 percent. What's more, 100 percent of respondents said they expected to grow sales and services in 2008.

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