8 Tips For Building Stronger, More Profitable Vendor Relationships

By Neal Bradbury, Senior Director of Business Development, Barracuda MSP

For many resellers, vendor relationships don’t extend much beyond the contract signing and some initial training. That may be fine for some product lines, but if you aren’t fostering a closer working relationship with a vendor, you’re probably leaving money on the table.

There are numerous ways to get more out of your  vendor engagements as a VAR — and merely pushing products on your customers isn’t the way to go. By engaging in some essential relationship building with key vendors, you can provide greater value to customers by building up goodwill and opening up additional opportunities for more business and referrals.

Every vendor relationship is going to be a little different (e.g., some have very formalized partner programs, others don’t), but following a few simple best practices can go a long way toward cementing a close and profitable partnership.

Focus on the customer: Work with your vendors to create a plan for each deployment that will help the vendor recognize that you are putting  your customer's interests above your own. If the customer is happy with the solution, you both win, and that can provide the foundation of trust and familiarity needed for a solid relationship.