D&H Launches New Pre-Sales Support For Partners

D&H is cementing its commitment to the SMB solution provider market with a new pre-sales support program, building on a number of business initiatives it rolled out to partners last year to help them drive revenue.

The Harrisburg Pa.-based distributor announced the program Wednesday, stating that it will pair SMB resellers with solution experts aimed at helping them build personalized sales plans that targets the increasing complexity of IT.

According to Indy Batra, CEO of D&H partner, Ventura, Calif.-based MJP Technologies, the program will help him and other partners win more sales. He believes the program will gain popularity over the year.

[RELATED: Server Sales Help Propel D&H Growth, Distributor Exec Says]

"The D&H team is just great!" he told CRN in an email. "The whole D&H team is giving us the personal attention that is keeping us with them and encouraging us to do even more business with them."

"Some of these small-business solutions look like what enterprise solutions did five or 10 years ago: They have to have the same level of backup for storage and provide the same level of security and authentication," said D&H Co-President Dan Schwab.

Schwab said the program will make the experts - specially trained, veteran D&H salespeople – available to partners at no charge, providing assistance with creation of sales quotes and a list of components needed to assemble a customer’s product, and configuration of multi-product solutions, as well as training and post-sales support.

The program will feature individual experts in wireless, server, cloud, security, storage, digital signage, and networks, Schwab said, but they will also receive broader training to assist with solutions that span multiple categories.

Schwab said D&H is adding the pre-sales program because of the success of a number of similar initiatives last year.

He said those initiatives, which included a K-12 education solutions group, improved solution provider education programs, and a continued focus on getting feedback from partner advisory groups, helped the company grow in many categories, some of which – like desktop sales – outpaced the market.

Schwab said those initiatives helped boost D&H’s growth during the company's 2016 fiscal year – which ended April 30, marking the 24th consecutive year of growth for the company. Specifically, he said sales of desktops and monitors rose to 32 percent, server products 48 percent, while sales of 3-D printing solutions more than doubled over last year.

He also said D&H's reseller partners have increased the amount of business they do with D&H by 21 percent.

The company's reseller advisory groups had made it clear that D&H could take a leadership role in the pre-sales area and fill a void for its resellers, Schwab said.

"There was nowhere else that they could call and get the pre-sales support for free at the technical level that we are able to do," he said, which provided the rationale for D&H to create and launch its program.

"What we do is not rocket science in any respect,’ Schwab said. ’Our job is to empower our resellers with anything that complements their efforts.’