Committee Membership

We have a new application from: Andy Teteyan CertiPro Solutions https://www.certiprosolutions.com/ We confirmed this is for consultant membership, not affiliate.

I don't know them personally. I have never heard anything negative.

I've seen the Magento ad before in other areas, not our group specifically, likely seen at Summit. Like Robert, haven't heard anything negative.

Worked with them a little on the ISV side, have not heard anything negative about their consulting side.

@ScottHickman @ShawnSlavin @WayneSchulz ?

@MoiraGoggin I have no direct knowledge or experience with CertiPro. They have invested in a website that goes beyond the basics which is a good thing.

I continue to believe if a company also markets a product other than consulting they should come in as an affiliate. While it's true that comments and overt sales pitches can be moderated what we can't do is prohibit access to information that may be discussed about their product. We can't police access and private conversations. Having these type of consultant members who also sell a product/service but are not joining as affiliates makes it difficult to bring on other affiliates in similar industries because now those new affiliates join and find that they are competing against consultant members who reap many of the most important benefits. Quite frankly, I think it's BS when many of these applicants tell us that they want to just have their consultants join because they are pure consultants and aren't involved in sales. This is not specific to CertiPro who I think has a good reputation but rather is my comment on the entire spectrum of dual-role applications where there is a desire to join as a consultant member but not an affiliate. I wouldn't give a choice. If the company sells a a packaged product to end users or through partners they should be required to join as an affiliate in order to add consultant members.

Believe me, I know first hand how hard it is to recruit new Affiliates. The first thing a potential affiliate does is look at the consultant member list and then at the vendor member list on the website. If they see their competition listed in either location it could spur them on to join and compete or turn them off. I don't think it deters all of them - in 2017 we had 9 inquiries and 7 actual applications for credit card processors. In prior years we've had 4 EDI Affiliates. It seems that each year's has a flavor of the season. The one hurdle with recruiting new Affiliates is not knowing which member firms sell which ERP products. We had a great potential affiliate this year EazyStock but we had no measurable way to confirm the number of resellers outside of Sage products. What a shame, since their product works in with Sage, Acumatica, Epicor, NetSuite, Dynamics, etc. We could 'survey' the membership but it would be easier if the SC profile question for ERP products was mandatory, it's optional right now and can't be changed as far as we can tell in Socialcast. The Consultant member with Product is still an issue I agree. We had a meeting and reviewed the membership rules for 'hybrid' memberships, we felt we had enough rules in place to handle it. I'm open to updating rules and policies. Everyone, please post your comments on this topic: Consulting firms with products for resale application for membership - are they affiliates, consultants, or something new?

@MoiraGoggin Can you post the current SLP fee schedule? - Affiliate - Consultant - Any other class of member

Maybe there should be an annual survey sent to the point-of-contact for each firm which asks for all products that the firm actively works with and the number of implementations (<5 , 5-10, 10+). The biggest problem I've had with these surveys is that they are awesome when people fill them out honestly but in practice many consultants over-estimate their skills in various products. I do agree that it would be helpful to have this info both internally and for summarizing to provide to affiliates.

Here are the prices: Affiliate new first year $4,000 Affiliate renewal $2,000 Affiliate one-time lapsed renewal $3,000 Consultant new member firm first year $500 Consultant member firm renewal $400 Add'l consultant members $200 each There are a handle of memberships under different rates, founders.

Moira have you found that affiliates who also do consulting, don't want to join as an affiliate because of the price or is it usually something else? If they join as Affiliate do they also have to pay the $500 consultant firm fee or just the $200 consultant member fee? If not the later, maybe that is a recommendation the membership committee makes to the board and allows those who do both to have to come in as an Affiliate and only pay $200 for their consultant members. For the affiliate only companies who did not join, did they provide feedback as to why? Does 90 Minds turn down any affiliate applications and if so are you able to share why? At a minimum, I think the primary contact for each firm should provide an annual update of what products they sell/support, this not only gives 90 Minds an updated list, it would also be great to have this as a file for all to see because there are questions asked in the forum all the time ""who does Acumatica, etc"" AND it would also help 90 Minds to market additional affiliates. IMO I don't think the # of implementations or other items that can be fluffed would be as important.

Those are two memberships, each with their own price. I wouldn't change that part, what if they drop one and not the other. The consult members with affiliates generally don't have a crossover between the consultant side and the sales/marketing side anyway.

^^ If they have consultants and also sell products they can't drop one and not the other - bundle it in together.

We have had a member drop one and only keep the other.