Leverage Innovation To Cultivate New Sales

The other day, while my nine-year-old son was beating me badly at some Wii game that involved that little guy Mario, I realized the Wii itself was quite an innovation; in fact, it has changed the way people view video games. Consequently, it has created huge profits for its manufacturer, Nintendo. As I looked around the house, I realized my TIVO unit, wireless router, and a BlackBerry are all similar products that have reached an almost ubiquitous status in society due to their innovative nature.

Now, I’m not suggesting the solutions profiled in this year’s Channel Innovator Awards are on the same level as a BlackBerry or a Wii. There are different degrees of innovation. For a VAR, a solution’s degree of innovation is often measured by the amount of repeat sales it generates. Further, the roots of innovation for VARs are often started with a challenge — a client has a problem that needs to be solved. Perhaps you have an off-the-shelf, tried-and-true solution that can solve the problem. You implement said solution and Voila! problem solved. Some would argue that’s not innovation since the VAR was simply supplying a product designed for that problem. Where real innovation occurs is when there needs to be some level of customization to an existing product — or an entirely new solution needs to be crafted. For instance, this year’s Channel Innovator Award for wireless technology went to wireless networking provider, Active Control, which created ActiveMine, a two-way 802.11n wireless communications and tracking system for underground mines. The integrator created this solution after seeing reports of trapped coal miners on the news. Creating an innovative solution like that requires creativity, persistence, and often, a lot of sweat equity. You may think, ‘Hey, that’s just what being a VAR is all about,’ but there are many companies in the channel these days that are simply ‘box movers’ with no intention of ever being creative or innovative, since that could cut into their already slim margins.

Being innovative as a VAR doesn’t always mean you’re customizing or creating a new solution. Sometimes the innovation is related to your business model. For example, you could create a new sales approach, update a maintenance agreement to better serve a hot new market, or implement a Web-based project management system to provide customers with real-time access to the status of projects. One of our Channel Innovator Award winners, Imaging 411, even created a new company for purchasing, refurbishing, and selling pre-owned document scanners and low-cost data capture solutions to entice clients who have put budgets on hold because of the recession. The result was a 100% increase in hardware sales in 2008 over 2007’s sales.

Have you created the innovative equivalent to the Wii in your market? You may not think so, but your customer might, and that could lead to more sales.