Success In POS

I was a VAR once. Prior to being the POS and Supply Chain Editor for Business Solutions magazine, I faced the challenges you face today. I remember the frustration of dealing with shrinking hardware margins. I still get fired up when I recall spending time creating a thorough proposal, only to have the customer take my research and buy the equipment on eBay. I couldn't begin to count the amount of time spent searching for services and 'value-adds' that would help to distinguish my company and lead to financial prosperity. I've felt your pain.

Now, I'm in a unique position. Each month, I speak to a variety of VARs, integrators, software developers, and vendors about their experiences in the POS channel. These are people and companies who have overcome challenges, created unique products and services, and are successful. In short, they are doing what every VAR hopes to. Each is a POS expert in some way, and their experiences can possibly provide you with new vertical markets to explore, creative ways to leverage hardware functionality, or simply some B2B knowledge that can be used to streamline your business. Despite the uniqueness of each of their situations, there are a few pieces of recurring actionable information I continue to hear from VARs. I believe this information could help any POS VAR increase business.

Payment Processing Can Help Pay The Bills
It boggles my mind that more POS VARs aren't jumping at the opportunities to upsell existing customers and grab new ones with both PCI (payment card industry) compliance and payment processing services. PCI compliance gives VARs an excuse to showcase their expertise by preaching about the technical hazards and financial pitfalls of not being compliant. It's also a potential opportunity to upgrade hardware and software. In addition, payment processing services have the added benefit of reduced credit card processing fees with no noticeable difference in operations. You're rewarded with a monthly residual check that might not be enough to give you an early retirement, but one that could cover the cost of some marketing materials. This all might be news to you, but the more successful POS VARs are already taking advantage of these two opportunities.

How Are Your Partner Relationships?
All too often, VARs see vendors as nothing more than providers of equipment. However, your vendors may offer a multitude of additional services that can help you, including product education and training, comarketing opportunities, and lead generation. Value-added distributors (VADs) have the resources to help with training, and can stage and prep equipment for you. Industry organizations such as the RSPA (Retail Solutions Providers Association) often offer education, discounted pricing, and access to conferences where valuable professional contacts can be made. Foster these partner relationships, and you can extend the capabilities of your company, regardless of its size.

Find Your Niche In POS
Focused expertise helps win business. The most successful POS VARs I've seen have done one of two things concerning expertise. They've either found a specific niche in a vertical market or tapped some little-known functionality of hardware to be able to offer POS solutions so well engineered the competition doesn't stand a chance when compared side by side. Again, use your vendor and VAD relationships to gain expertise. Ask an existing client if you can use its business to search for unaddressed pain points. It's possible that once you've found a pain point, you can create a solution that can be applied to other businesses in that vertical.

Much of what I've detailed takes only time. Considering the climate of today's channel, POS VARs need every extra bit of help available. If the aforementioned examples are foreign to you, it might be time to consider what opportunities you're missing and at what cost.

Mike Monocello is the Supply Chain & POS editor for Business Solutions magazine. He can be reached at mikem@corrypub.com or at (814) 868-9935 x221.

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