90p Admin

Is there a need / desire for rules of decorum or partner resolution services for 90 Minds or 90 Minds + OASIS? I've brought this up and I think it would be worth exploring while we are together at MoM in February but one benefit that 90 Minds / OASIS could offer member firms is a level of civility in dealing with orphans and poaching that extends beyond the courtesy posts of ""are these guys anyone's client?"". In particular, I've heard from a few partners about Blytheco and their new love of SugarCRM. They are currently in aggressive telemarketing mode druming up folks for their webinars. They are calling people's clients. And I saw @JeffSchwenk post about Attivo doing something similar. I'm of two schools of thought. One is let free markets reign and the other is as a collaborative group, we should set higher standards for membership than back-stabbing, infighting and scrabbling over the same clients. I would rather see time spent to get additive business for all of us with marketing initiatives. Any thoughts?

I'm not sure how we could police this other than gentleman's agreement to make a best effort to notify the VAR. I'd say 50-60% of "" orphans "" don't want to say who their VAR is. This becomes a problem when you take money to do discovery without knowing who the other VAR is. i'm not sure how you force someone to tell you their VAR (quite a few reasonably say they want to try before they buy - maybe 10-15%). Then there's another percent who will say but don't want the VAR notified. Honestly so long as I've made a request and they decline to say - I could care less who their VAR is and I don't find it fair to hold anyone back in that situation.. Then I've had situations blow up in my face when I've contacted the other var -- that VAR immediately hangs up and calls the "" orphan "" --- and the orphan/customer fires back at me completely pissed that ""I told"" that they were looking around... This is not as cut and dry as it seems

So what about the partners that actively solicit other partners' clients?

This is hard area to police. Should someone be penalized because one of their marketing strengths is telemarketing? I can't see this being much more than a request for members of this group, due to our close working collaborations, be expected to provide notification and right of first refusal. I've also allowed anyone to tell me to back off if there's an issue - so long as I know the VAR and have gotten the same treatment in the past.

I've had instances in the past where a company contacts me directly for advice/support. I always ask who their current reseller is. If it is someone in the group, I contact them directly and explain what happened. They can then contact the company to work things out which usually happens. While it does piss me off that someone telemarkets my client (where do they get the names), our relationship is strong enough to survive. And if it isn't, it is probably a marginal client that I am happy to say goodbye to.

I get a lot of calls -- perhaps 50-60% who prefer not to disclose their VAR up front. Some even want to work together for a period of time before disclosing. Shit I even went in once and Mark Kotyla was in the back working (which I didn't know who the var was since it was an intro meeting)......

I'm pretty sure Steve would just tell the Blythe members to drop out if we told them they couldn't telemarket to current MAS clients.

Blythe has called me whenever they've been involved with one of my customers. I always return the favor. My contact there is Ginger Kittinger and/or Apryl Hanson.

They've called our customers before.