As a reseller, running a business takes a lot of setup and effort and one wrong thing can make or break the whole operation.
While it does not exactly need to be a well-oiled machine, it still needs to be functional and efficient, just like any other business.
From business strategy, budgeting and the product itself, the details need to be ironed out and within your control in order to minimize risks and costs without compromising on quality, all the while maximizing on your ROI.
The depiction here may be a bit idealistic, but it is what any successful business strives to achieve in the long run, or at least be as close as possible to it.
None of this is done in a day, especially in an industry that is in a constant shift like the telecom industry is.
Change is always required and adaptability is going to be one of your businesses most valued traits, something that depends on the foundation that you have laid down when you founded the business.
But what exactly are the cornerstones of such a business? Let us take a look.
Every success begins with a spark, an idea that needs to be nurtured and allowed to grow under the right conditions. This idea is your business, and for it to grow in the dense environment that is the telecommunications industry, you need to provide it with several key components:
1. An Ideal Start Through Market Research
To even start nurturing your business idea and allow it to blossom, you first need to scout around, comb the market for untapped opportunities through thorough research of your target audience and area.
Once you find it, make sure to hold tightly onto it and emphasize the edge that you have given yourself.
Use it to design the path down which your business will go, paving the way for its future growth.
2. The Right Partner As Your “Gardener”
While you can go at it alone, it is always better to have the support of partners who share your vision and want to see it succeed rather than hinder it.
The partner is here to help provide additional guidance on the matter by providing you with the right fertilizer (product) and the knowledge on how to best utilize it to make the yield from your business as fruitful as it can be while leaving you with enough wiggle room to adjust things to your liking.
The Bad Apples
Do be wary that not all partners are so like-minded and that some will look to leech some of your success through various business practices that rarely benefit you.
The ones you should be wary of are ones with large initial buy-ins, start up costs that can drain a good chunk of your finances.
On top of that, avoid those that implement a considerable amount of hidden costs woven through subscription based services and rentals, and SPs that do not even offer the alternative to simply buy the service outright.
Bicom Systems aims to be the former of the two, the service provider oriented toward mutual benefit, always ready to devise an offer that best suits you and teaching you how to use the product’s full capabilities in order to optimally market it to your end users.
Read more: Minimizing Start-Up Costs: Adding Comms To Your Service Offering
3. The Right Product To Feed It
A business cannot grow without something to stimulate that growth. In this case, that is the product that the partner has on offer.
These can come in all shapes and sizes and it is rare that you will find one that ticks all the necessary boxes and even rarer that it will correspond to an ideal partner that looks out for you.
Ideally, the product will have everything on offer from the get go, with no essential features locked behind higher payment tiers as is the practice of some SPs on the market in order to goad potential partners into going up that one extra tier just to have everything that they want.
Forced To Hit High Targets
Additionally, some SPs will even implement target goals that need to be met within a certain time frame and tie these tiers to your performance in relation to the goals themselves. A practice that can rob your business of essential features and incur further penalties (often monetary) just because you may have had a slow period.
These are not concerns that you have to worry yourself with when considering the Bicom product suite. Every single one of our products contains all essential functionalities regardless of edition, ensuring smooth operation all throughout.
Also, we will not strip you of any of these features at any point in time as our aim is not to stunt your growth but to stimulate it as we benefit from your success as much as you do.
4. Hardware Compatibility
A sign of a good product offered by a UC provider is that it is as hardware agnostic as it can be, allowing you to utilize existing hardware and infrastructure if you have any rather than making you upend it in order to make room for replacements that fit the product.
The latter taxes both your time and your money, delaying deployment and leading to future problems down the line when both you and your partner grow larger as a business as their specific hardware manufacturer may be unable to keep up with the rising demand which can lead to delays, missed deadlines and a degradation in customer experience.
All of this can lead to a stagnation, or even degradation of business if it keeps happening, which is why it is important to have the ability to choose the hardware that suits both you and your budget the best.
The Bicom Systems product suite offers exactly this level of hardware agnosticism with our set of products that work with most hardware options on the market, making integration as seamless as possible and letting you set up shop within minutes with no extra hassle.
Read more: Modern Integration: Embracing Hardware Agnosticism In Telephony
5. White And Private Label Options
A mandatory step if you are looking to establish your own brand rather than just be a reseller, one that lets you, as the names imply, sell either an unbranded product or one with your own name and logo for it, a ready made solution for you to sell to your customers.
Keep in mind that not everyone has these options on offer though as a lot of SPs want to primarily promote their own brand and are not keen on having competition in the field, but there are more than a handful of others who are happy to offer you the option to take a confident step forward into the world of telecommunications, wearing the name of your business proudly.
Bicom Systems offers you all three options depending on your preference, whether you want to sell the product under our name, an unbranded, white label variant, or a private label with your name, logo and design on it. We believe in the power of choice and are more than welcome to enable you to pick what suits your needs the best.
Read more: 7 Key Benefits of a White Label Provider in UCaaS
6. CRM Integration
In order to keep all of your customer data easily accessible and intuitive to read, CRM integration with the SPs product and your CRM software is a must in today’s world, greatly cutting down on handling times by keeping everything centered in one place and improving the product’s existing features with access to this highly valuable data all becoming accessible from one place rather than a dozen different apps which would only hinder the product.
That is why making the software compatible with as many CRMs as possible is as big of a deal as it is to make it hardware agnostic.
Both of these traits are invaluable in modern telecommunications whose focus is on streamlining work and information flow to best optimize handling time and overall service.
The products offered by Bicom Systems are all compatible with most popular CRMs on the market and seamlessly integrate with them to provide you with as frictionless of an experience as possible, allowing you to access all relevant customer data from one place, drastically improving your infrastructure capabilities.
Read more: CRM Integration In UC: Furthering Overall Business Efficiency
7. Mutual Respect
Last, but not least is mutual respect between reseller and service provider.
An SP should be courteous to you as a potential future business partner and offer deals that benefit both parties as equally as possible.
They should be as transparent as they can about their product offer and its full capabilities and react to your needs, finding which product mix of theirs best suits your needs rather than just trying to push you toward the most expensive editions.
Finally, they should be flexible in their offer, not fully folding to pressure, but understanding that compromise is the key to any successful relationship, business or otherwise.
That last one goes doubly so for you. If the service provider does not have everything that you need, feel free to ask if the missing features could be added down the line. The answer will most likely be yes if the SP is receptive to feedback, but will most likely require patience on your end.
Existing partners of Bicom Systems are well aware of this fact. Our partner-centric mindset is what drew them to us and had them stay along for the ride for so long.
While our offer is robust, it does not cover every niche, but it can in time as we always look toward the future, ensuring our partners can have access to cutting edge features without delay.
Read more: Delving Into Partner Status Requirements: Avoiding Hardships
UC Provider Red Flags
While we have gone over everything desirable in a UC provider and a reseller, there are a few things to be wary about when interacting with an SP, a few traits that should trigger alarms and warn you that they may not be the right fit.
We have mentioned most of them beforehand, but they warrant further emphasis.
1. A Selfish Provider
A selfish provider is one whose offers primarily benefit them with a lot of the partner-oriented benefits and QoL absent from all but the most expensive packages, and even those are known to be put under heavy restrictions and high annual targets.
It goes without saying that you should steer clear of those who seem to receive your input on deaf ears.
2. A Passive Provider
The passive provider may not be as egregious as the selfish one, but they are undesirable for a whole different reason, not taking risks and not thinking of the future.
Passive providers are unlikely to deliver the newest features to you on time because they likely do very little research on the topic and wait until someone else popularizes it to begin work, leading to a growing risk of your competition beating you to the bell and losing you valuable customers and new potential leads.
Stick to a service provider that is proactive rather than reactive as they are more likely to keep up with the constantly changing landscape of the telecommunications industry.
3. An Inflexible Provider
Finally, we have the inflexible service provider, one that may have a partner-focused offer, but is unwilling to negotiate any changes to it, believing it to be perfect in its own right even though a partner may not need half the features in a specific package.
Those who are unwilling to compromise may not be the most ideal choice for a long-term business partner.
A Good Partner Is Worth Their Weight In Gold
Given how oversaturated the field of telecommunications can be, finding a partner that you can trust can be invaluable as it is always easier to navigate such rocky terrain with good company.
Find a partner who is willing to build a relationship with you, that has a great starting offer, and, most importantly, one that is willing to compromise for the sake of mutual benefit and respects you as their equal.
We here at Bicom Systems offer all that and more. We value each of our partners and go out of our way to ensure that all of their needs are met accordingly, allowing them to grow and allowing us to grow alongside them, creating bonds that will last for years to come.
If you would like to check out if our product suite is something you are looking for, feel free to request a demo, or contact us directly if you have any other questions.