Seven Steps To Increase Your Value

Acquire, be acquired, merge, develop close ties to peers in other geographies. Larger potential clients and vendor partners will take you more seriously.

More and more, tier-one vendors are skewing their channel programs toward larger partners at the expense of smaller VARs. Here are seven ways for solution providers to increase their value.

1. Grow
Acquire, be acquired, merge, develop close ties to peers in other geographies. Larger potential clients and vendor partners will take you more seriously. More and more tier-one vendors are skewing their channel programs toward larger partners at the expense of smaller VARs.

2. Increase Monthly Recurring Revenue With Services
Start offering services yesterday. No experience? Resell pre-packaged services with little or no startup costs such as printer management or online data backup from a host of companies looking for channel reach.

• Hungry For Solutions • 2006 Solution Provider Acquisitions • Key To A Successful Sale: Understanding Your Own Value • Seven Steps To Increase Your Value • System Builder Mergers And Acquistions Are On The Rise • 2006 Could Be A Record Year For Deals

3. Sharpen Your Vertical Focus
Develop in-house expertise or find a partner with that expertise, to go after local verticals such as manufacturing or pharmaceuticals. Or state and local government.

4. Add Emerging Technology Or High-Level In-Demand Technical Certifications
Don't jump on the bandwagon, drive it. Differentiate your business with expertise and certifications in fast-growing areas such as WAFS, VoIP, business continuity or compliance.

5. Increase Geographic Reach
You have to be able to reach outside your local area to better serve customers with remote or branch offices.

6. Add Applications Expertise
Hardware margins? Don't count on them. Have the skills needed to help customers with the applications that add value to the hardware to form a complete solution.

7. Add Business Consulting Expertise--And Charge For It
Customers still need a lot of hand-holding before making a purchase. But avoid situations where they take your consulting for free and then go out and order the hardware online.