How do you become a million dollar reseller? You answer Laserfiche CEO’s Nien-Ling Wacker’s challenge to “Be IT’s sweetheart in 2009.”

That’s what Unity Business Systems (UBS) is doing – albeit with a slight twist. Over the past two years, the Virginia-based reseller has made its technical support staff the sweetheart of its sales effort: technical staff now account for 15% of sales.

“Plain and simple, it’s our techs being aware of their surroundings,” explains Joe Kennedy, UBS Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “They’re our eyes and ears. They can be with a customer and say ‘It’s great how you’re using the system to keep records, but we can put them in a more formal structure with Records Management.’ They can whip out their laptop and do a demo right there and leave with an order.”

It’s this kind of simple but effective innovation that made UBS one of the original five Winners Circle resellers in Cabo 11 years ago—and that made UBS a first-time million dollar reseller when the Winners Circle returned there this year. Key to recent success has been the vision of UBS President Carl Long, who bought the company from founder Gordon Reams in 2006. Changing hands at the onset of a contracting market was a risk, Kennedy admits, but it also mandated success in a market where others merely survive. “Q1 ’07 was a struggle, there’s no denying that,” he says. “But it gave everyone in the company a stake in us succeeding.”

Especially tech support. In fact, the newest addition to the UBS sales arsenal is longtime installations specialist Bob Pell. Pell has been with UBS 12 years, earning the trust and confidence of customers along the way. Last December, UBS began formally leveraging Pell’s expertise with a new title: Technical Pre-Sales Engineer. “Bob moved over to a sales position, essentially,” Kennedy begins. “One of the things he does is set-up visits to our existing customers to talk to them about how they can maximize and expand their system. We just give them Bob for a half-day for free.”

The logic, Kennedy explains, is that Pell can reach customers in a way traditional selling can’t. “Instead of a salesperson saying ‘Here’s what I have,’ it’s an expert saying ‘Let me show you how to do this.’ Customers know him and Bills knows their systems because he installed them. They take what he says almost as gospel.”

That message has translated into solid business. UBS has implemented 50-plus electronic content management systems in local governments in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Delaware and Washington, D.C.—with over three thousand total users. Last year, UBS installed the first Rio system in the United States in the Norfolk City Schools while growing its roster of new government accounts like the Cities of Alexandria and Fairfax. With this steady but expanding growth, UBS’ seven-digit success makes the reseller a top candidate for VAR of the Year at next year’s Winners Circle.

But for as bottom-line as all this success sounds—and being a first-time million dollar reseller in ’08 is certainly an accomplishment in itself—UBS is also a great champion of the Laserfiche Community. UBS supports five regional user groups, devoting one of its systems consultants, John Lane, to coordinating the company’s involvement in meetings and events. “They can usually get us to buy them lunch,” Kennedy jokes. But for the price of lunch, UBS can take advantage of new messaging opportunities. “One of the things John’s tasked with is getting us speaking engagements with these folks,” he says. “We’re always finding a way to come out and give a Workflow demo. It’s like when we do tradeshows. I figure if we’re going pay $750 to have a table, we should be able to get 20 minutes to talk, so people can talk to us at the table afterwards.”

There’s no opportunity that UBS can’t turn into a pulpit to preach the benefits of Laserfiche from. Kennedy remembers being asked to speak for a BRITE user group about integrating with Laserfiche. “Essentially, I turned it into a seminar about how to enhance your ERP system using Laserfiche.”

UBS’s real talent, it seems, is being able to make Laserfiche everybody’s sweetheart.

Author Info

Laserfiche
Staff

Hobey Echlin is a Writer/Researcher in the Laserfiche Marketing department and is active in the Laserfiche Luminaries program.

Posted on Sunday, February 1st, 2009 at 9:33 am under VAR of the Month. You can comment on this post.