XChange Panel: Vendors, VARs Tackle Lead-Generation Issues

During a keynote discussion between vendor executives and solution providers at the CMP XChange conference in Orlando, Fla., which is sponsored by CRN parent company CMP Media, several solution providers made no bones about their frustrations with lead-generation programs.

"I sign up for every lead-generation program I come across," said Robert Trocchio, a director at Computer Equipment Services, a Bay Shore, N.Y.-based solution provider. Trocchio said he recently enrolled in one vendor's lead-generation program, which included listing his company on the vendor's Web site.

"On day one, they had the area code for our company wrong," Trocchio said. "It took a month to get the area code changed."

Other solution providers complained about channel conflicts with large vendors, where lead-generation programs driven by vendors lead to sales closed by the vendors, not partners.

id
unit-1659132512259
type
Sponsored post

"I think it's a vendor's responsibility to ensure there is a level playing field," said Frank Vitagliano, vice president of distribution channels management for IBM's Personal Computing Division, who spoke on the panel. "We need multiple routes to market.

"I believe it's your responsibility to add value," Vitagliano told attendees at the conference. "And I believe you are doing it and the customers are satisfied."

Responding to vendors' descriptions of "qualified lead" programs, Frank Ballatore, president of NECG, a Ridgefield, Conn.-based solution provider, took issue with that term but said much of the responsibility lies with channel companies.

"The term 'qualified lead' is an oxymoron," Ballatore said. "The vast majority of them don't work out. It's got to carry on our shoulders to generate leads."

Raymond Robidoux, president of Netgear, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of networking equipment, said the upstart vendor was looking at lead generation in much the same way that many solution providers do.

"We are trying to get [our products] into a new space," Robidoux, a member of the panel, told solution providers. "I expect you to have customers. I expect you to sell products." However, Robidoux added that it was the vendor's job to "kick-start that lead" to help the solution providers close sales.