How hard is it to start a Smoothwall reseller?

[cyberguy]

I currently work in IT sales and have pondered the possibility of starting a reseller it will inititially be just me who will do the sales and support and also I will just be selling Smoothwall.

 

How difficult is it? From what I gather I need to:

 

1. Set up a Ltd company

2. Become a partner of Smoothwall (get myself certified in sales and technical)

3. Buy data to call

4. Start calling

 

Have I missed something?

 

I look forward to your responses.

[tom_newton]

Nb: not a Smoothwall opinion (any more )

You will need to be pretty competent technically if you want to add value - Smoothwall already have some large partners who are strong in sales, the little guys only do really well if they are strong technically. With you coming from IT sales, I don't know your background! I would STRONGLY suggest looking at a range of complementary products - with your sales background, I am sure you know how hard it is to get to speak to the right people. If you get there and they've renewed iBoss 3 months ago, you're going to want to be able to talk wireless.. or something else that might actually be useful.

[Opendium_Steve]

I currently work in IT sales and have pondered the possibility of starting a reseller it will inititially be just me who will do the sales and support and also I will just be selling Smoothwall.

 

1. Set up a Ltd company

 

Starting a limited company is pretty easy and there's a lot of information on the companies house website to explain how.

 

3. Buy data to call

4. Start calling

 

Probably pretty easy, but beware of the legalities of unsolicited calling and emailing. In short:

 

Cold-calling: you need to screen all the numbers you call against the telephone preference service, as it is unlawful to cold-call a number that is listed on it.

 

Unsolicited emails: it is unlawful to send unsolicited emails to an "individual subscriber" and companies have been successfully sued for doing this. The way the law is written basically makes it impossible for a sender to know whether the recipient is considered an "individual subscriber" or not, so sending *any* unsolicited emails is questionable.

 

You should familiarise yourself with the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) 2003 and Information Commissioner's guidance on the subject before you start, lest you land yourself in hot water.

 

I will say that most of our sales have always been through word of mouth rather than proactive sales pitches. This means:

1. I can't comment on how effective cold calling actually is.

2. Making a good reputation for yourself is very helpful.

3. If you screw up and end up with a bad reputation this will travel by word of mouth even faster and would be extremely damaging.

[Oaktech]

Nb: not a Smoothwall opinion (any more )

You will need to be pretty competent technically if you want to add value - Smoothwall already have some large partners who are strong in sales, the little guys only do really well if they are strong technically. With you coming from IT sales, I don't know your background! I would STRONGLY suggest looking at a range of complementary products - with your sales background, I am sure you know how hard it is to get to speak to the right people. If you get there and they've renewed iBoss 3 months ago, you're going to want to be able to talk wireless.. or something else that might actually be useful.

 

I would also look to broaden your palate a little.

 

Look into other similar technologies - Sophos UTM, would be a good one - I've done quite a lot of business installing the free UTM into affluent people's houses (of which there are many around the dorset area). Palo Alto is quite lucrative. There are good courses for it, the certification is recognised and the product commands something of a premium in the market. You could also look into other specialist areas - long range wireless ptp and ptmp systems for example.

 

Whatever you do I don't suggest one technology. One bad major update, product loses traction in the market and suddenly you can't shift anything!

[Opendium_Steve]

Whatever you do I don't suggest one technology. One bad major update, product loses traction in the market and suddenly you can't shift anything!

 

Or vendor pulls a Bloxx and discontinues their whole product line!