Honored to Receive $10,000 from Hallam-ICS 2023 Community Service Award for Clean Jordan Lake

Honored to receive Hallam-ICS 2023 Community Service Award. These funds are critical to continue our mission to keep Clean Jordan Lake clean for years to come. We have removed over 400,000 lbs of trash with over 10,000 volunteers and dozens of corporate partnerships and could not do it without YOU. Learn more about CJL here: https://lnkd.in/eBVDTpmp

Thank you Eric Fagerman, CEF and the Hallam ICS team for all that you do.

Allison Andrews Riana Ackley Joe Fleming, MBA, CPA Jordan Hart-White Kim Brewczak Erin Carter Carl Fisher Jan Sherwin #communityservice #jordanlake #trashremoval #trashsucks

Original Article

Closing Connectivity Deals: New Enhancements Drive Advisor Growth

How can AppDirect help you close more deals, focus on customer retention, and also find the best possible connectivity solutions for customers?

In the June State of the Union webinar, we welcomed several key executives from AppDirect to share their vision and to talk about current updates happening within their various business groups. This includes:

  • Phil Keenan, AppDirect Vice President, Telecommunication Services

  • Joe Fizor, AppDirect Director of Solutions Engineering

  • Jason DiFulvio, AppDirect Director of Channel Sales

Together, these leaders explore how the AppDirect Marketplace, sales engineering, and support systems continue to evolve to meet advisors’ needs, adapt to changing buyer preferences, and ultimately help advisors accelerate growth.

Van Murray, Managing Partner at Aeolus, also discussed how the complete AppDirect ecosystem—including the platform, catalog, advisor tools, and team of experts— continue to help advisors remain competitive, close more deals, and improve customer relations.

Elevating your business: How AppDirect enhancements help you grow

Jump to 4:31 in the webinar to watch on demand

The AppDirect team has been hard at work building a world-class telecom services support experience that makes advisors more competitive and adapts to the specific needs of each advisor.

Top enhancements to the AppDirect telecom services team:

1. Expanded organization: Telecom services

While SaaS remains a top focus of advisors and the channel community, it’s important to not overlook connectivity. Connectivity—everything from public Internet (fiber, cable, wireless) to the robust private circuits (MPLS, VPLS, P2P) services, and SD-WAN—remains a crucial element of every company's tech infrastructure.

Ultimately, a robust telecom and connectivity practice enhances your appeal as a full-stack technology advisor. This becomes particularly vital as businesses seek fewer tech partners to address their challenges. To best support you in driving additional revenue from connectivity sales, AppDirect has made some significant enhancements to our connectivity organization. We’ve added additional internal experts to deliver premier, top-tier support, recently growing the support team to 200-plus people

Heading the new organization is VP of Telecom Services, Phil Keenan, and below him is a team of Partner Success Managers (PSMs), whose job it is to get to know you and your business extensively to help support and operate in a way that’s unique to you.

Within the connectivity organization, the AppDirect Central Back Office team (CBOT) is involved with order management and project coordination. Next is advisor finance. The advisor finance team is involved in provider statement processing, advisor commission tickets, revenue assurance, and data operations. This team is also responsible for performing detailed audits and commission validation processes. Account Support Services are responsible for enterprise support, AppDirect Invest support, and other complex projects.

Finally, the Strategic Provider Relations team within the connectivity organization will look at provider operations, provider relations, solution engineering and solutions architects. With over 500 providers partnered with AppDirect, this is a strategic priority for the team. 

2. New support platform

AppDirect has also integrated a wide range of support models from various strategic alliances and partnerships. These activities have added dozens of experts to the AppDirect team, growing the support team to more than 200 people. Pulling from a range of experience from acquisition deals and partnerships such as TBI and Stratacore, the AppDirect team has the ability to deliver a wide range of support options, solution engineering resources, and solution architect expertise.

This new support platform is designed to be flexible and comprehensive. Current AppDirect advisors, be sure to connect with your CSM and our Sales Engineering to learn more about these support resources.

3. Premium back-office support & connectivity experts

What do these enhancements mean to your business? As an advisor, we can engage with you in the way that best supports your business objectives and growth strategy.

If you’re an advisor that wants to focus primarily on selling, the AppDirect connectivity organization has you covered. We’ve made several adjustments and additions to our back-office team to support. For advisors that want to be more involved throughout the sales cycle, we can also support you. 

Listen to the full webinar for more details 

We’ve added the following areas of focus: 

  • Back Office Services

  • ProActive Commissions

  • Concierge Advisor Support

  • Enhanced Pre-Sales Support

  • Advisor Account Support Services

How one advisor is closing more connectivity deals

Jump to 22:23 in the webinar to learn more

Van Murray was one of the early leaders of AppDirect who was responsible for expanding the AppDirect presence in the channel and for advisor growth. He helped to build the foundation of our SaaS offerings. Now that he’s started his own agency, Aeolus, he shared his unique perspective on AppDirect resources.

One way using AppDirect has helped his business is by providing a unique way to differentiate his services. What does Van highlight as some of the top differentiators?

  • Catalog breadth and depth—With a huge catalog of providers, there are multiple options Van can present to customers. This means that the team at Aeolus can focus on recommending solutions that truly fit the customers’ needs rather than suggesting whatever provider they’re locked into a contract with.

  • Expert engineering support— Other AppDirect resources include improved sales engineering support, which means that advisors can ask questions about solutions they’re not necessarily an expert in and get specialized advice. This is a huge value-add for the end customer who gets to benefit from the experience of advisors and sales engineers as well.

  • Streamlined back-office— Having the ability to create accurate connectivity quotes quickly is essential to unlocking greater value from connectivity deals. AppDirect simplifies this process with tools to locate and add products for customer requests, searching by parameters like service type, location, and specific providers.

Double-down on customer satisfaction 

In an increasingly competitive market, forming a close working relationship with your customers is key to customer retention and satisfaction, and for Van, AppDirect helps him achieve that. With better support, and enhancements to the AppDirect platform and Marketplace, advisors can focus on building customer relationships and selling without spending time or worrying about the rest of the sales process.

To learn more about the changes coming to AppDirect and how the Marketplace can add value to your business, watch the full webinar today.

AppSmart, Fresh Off Latest Acquisition, Forms Key Partnership

Written by: James Anderson

AppSmart has a new partnership with Prodoscore, the sales employee “visibility” provider.

The companies said partners will be able to sell bundled solutions that include unified communications, Microsoft Office 365, Google Suite customer relationship management (CRM) and Prodoscore applications. The vendor’s solutions calculate a score to measure workers’ productivity.

AppSmart co-CEO Van Murray praised the Prodoscore offering and support team.

AppSmart’s Van Murray:

“We can’t say enough about the Prodoscore team. We have seen firsthand the transformation Prodoscore has delivered to the agent community. Their go-to-market strategies are unmatched, not to mention the valuable education provided the agents,” said Murray. “As a current Prodoscore customer, we see much alignment in our vision, which is critical as we work together to drive innovation and productivity gains with our mutual customers.”

AppSmart, which dubs itself a “channel-led” B2B marketplace, works with more than 200 technology suppliers.

Prodoscore’s Hajibrahim Crisantos:

“AppSmart is one of the most innovative companies we have worked with, which sets them apart from the competition. Prodoscore is excited to now be part of their SaaS marketplace,” Prodoscore chief product evangelist Crisantos Hajibrahim said. “We see this as a great opportunity to help sales teams and distributed workforces to improve their productivity and effectiveness as part of this new set of bundled offerings with AppSmart.”

Here’s our most recent list of important channel-program changes you should know.

AppSmart last week said it’s buying North Carolina-based master agent Converged Network Services Group (CNSG). The deal brings new supplier partnerships and a strong Southeast presence from the CNSG side.

AppSmart last month joined the Alliance Partners’ (formerly known as the Agent Alliance) consortium of 17 master agents and channel partners. Telegration, which AppSmart purchased this fall, belonged to the consortium for almost twenty years.

Prodoscore Partners with New Next Generation Master Agent AppSmart to Improve Workforce Productivity

IRVINE, CA December 11, 2019 — Prodoscore™, a sales employee visibility company, today announced a new strategic partnership with AppSmart, a channel-led, one-stop-shop for all B2B technology services. Bundled solutions comprising Unified communications, Office365, GSuite, CRM, and Prodoscore applications will now be available for sales teams and distributed workforces, distributed by AppSmart agents.

AppSmart established a business services marketplace by operating as a new next-generation master agent to deliver business value through pioneering technology. With Prodoscore, agents can now offer a wider variety of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) productivity and communications solutions. This arrangement also gives agents a new recurring revenue model without hiring new resources, allowing them to remain focused on core competencies.

Now a recognized member of the Alliance consortium, AppSmart is aggressively expanding its channel presence as part of launching its marketplace to the agent channel.

"AppSmart is one of the most innovative companies we have worked with, which sets them apart from the competition. Prodoscore is excited to now be part of their SaaS marketplace," said Crisantos Hajibrahim, Chief Product Evangelist at Prodoscore. "We see this as a great opportunity to help sales teams and distributed workforces to improve their productivity and effectiveness as part of this new set of bundled offerings with AppSmart."

"We can't say enough about the Prodoscore team. We have seen firsthand the transformation Prodoscore has delivered to the Agent community. Their go-to-market strategies are unmatched, not to mention the valuable education provided the agents," said Van Murray, Co-CEO of AppSmart. "As a current Prodoscore customer, we see much alignment in our vision, which is critical as we work together to drive innovation and productivity gains with our mutual customers."

About AppSmart
AppSmart is the channel-led, one-stop shop for all B2B technology services. The company offers the industry's largest catalog of applications and services from leading providers—such as Google, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink—available through one website to access, manage, and get support. Tens of thousands of organizations of all sizes in all sectors, including retail, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, banking, education and more, trust AppSmart with their technology decisions.

©2019 AppSmart, Inc. AppSmart is a trademark of AppSmart, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the
United States and other countries.

About Prodoscore
Prodoscore™ is a company dedicated to empowering teams to be more effective and productive, validated with improved sales performance and time management metrics. By providing visibility into employee activities through a single, easy to understand productivity score – a Prodoscore – is calculated to improve workforce productivity. Prodoscore works seamlessly with Google Cloud apps, CRM systems, and VoIP calling platforms allowing it to be quickly implemented and maintained. Learn more at prodoscore.com.

Media Contact:
Mike Perrone
[email protected]

Raleigh startup AppSmart (formerly NeoCloud) acquires Charlotte tech consultancy

by WRAL TechWire — December 5, 2019

RALEIGH – AppSmart, a provider of services focusing on the business-to-business (B2B) market, is growing its footprint to Charlotte, acquiring Converged Network Services Group, or CNSG.

CNSG provides consulting and technology solutions.

It’s the third deal in a year for AppSmart – which is built around the former NeoCloud, a spinout of NeoNova – in the past year.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

The CNSG management team will stay in place, according to AppSmart.

“We believe joining AppSmart will fuel CNSG’s rapid national expansion efforts, providing our partners with more resources and support than ever before,” said CNSG founder and CEO Matt Harty. “This is the next step in the future of CNSG, a future that has never been brighter.”

AppSmart offers a platform for SaaS [software-as-a-service] distribution. It also recently acquired Telegration and World Telecom Group. The company says it provides services and applications through its website to “tens of thousands” of organizations.

NeoCloud was spun out of NeoNova in 2016 then acquired by San Francisco-based AppDirect last year. NeoCloud was combined with WTG to form AppSmart.

AppDirect's AppSmart Completes WTG Integration, Looks To Disrupt The Telecom Channel

A subsidiary of a leading SaaS marketplace vendor, AppSmart has now merged a cloud services provider and master telecom agency, yielding an innovative channel play.

Almost a year ago, AppDirect, a rapidly growing developer of a platform for distributing Software-as-a-Service, made two consecutive and somewhat unusual acquisitions.

The San Francisco-based startup first bought NeoCloud, a Raleigh, N.C.-based cloud services provider, then followed that deal up with an even more peculiar one for WTG, a master telecom agency based in Southern California.

The unorthodox vision was to unite those two companies as AppSmart, a new subsidiary that would focus entirely on empowering the channel to deliver comprehensive cloud services through its parent's marketplace platform.

[Related: AppDirect Acquires Canadian IT Services Provider Radialpoint]

The integration of former NeoCloud and WTG operations has now been completed, AppSmart co-CEO Vince Bradley told CRN, and the re-launched AppSmart is firing on all cylinders.

"It's what is needed with the speed of cloud today," Bradley told CRN. "The impetus was looking at the telecom industry and seeing that digital transformation was needed."

Bradley, the founder of WTG, said he knows of no other master agency that's merged with a cloud services provider—a formula that positions AppSmart to deliver unprecedented support, guidance and automation to solution providers looking to bring to market a comprehensive portfolio of professional services.

The merger creates a bicoastal company, with Bradley running the former WTG office in Los Angeles; his co-CEO Van Murray (formerly CEO of NeoCloud), the one in Raleigh; and a headquarters at AppDirect's base in San Francisco.

Exclusively through a swelling channel of former WTG sub-agents, MSPs and cloud resellers, AppSmart offers a catalog of hundreds of products and services those partners deploy directly from the AppDirect dashboard that also puts at their fingertips billing, information, quotes, tickets, and other management tools.

"We've created the easy button in the industry," Bradley said.

Bradley saw the trendline years ago, when his WTG sub-agents began grappling with disruptions in their businesses brought on by cloud. Those traditional telecom services providers increasingly were looking to add cloud services, but many struggled because there simply wasn't enough automation in the telecom channel, he said.

Some of those agents were also making big plays with Internet of Things solutions and expanding their practices into mobility and even supplying energy.

While Bradley rejected offers to merge with other master agencies, he said, the AppDirect deal was intriguing because of those trends.

"It’s a perfect fit because there's this whole underserved area of the telecom industry," Bradley said. No company was helping the channel deliver popular SaaS solutions from Google, Microsoft, Salesforce and a proliferating number of ISVs, along with connectivity and energy services.

AppDirect's founders, on the front lines of the SaaS disruption, appreciated the opportunity to fill that void when they purchased NeoCloud, one of the first Google Cloud VARs, and rebranded the company as AppSmart.

"The timing of us joining with them was perfect because they needed more help in the sales firepower area," Bradley said of WTG.

The master agency boosts AppSmart's capabilities by greatly expanding its solutions portfolio, as well as by providing expertise in sales enablement and back office management, he said.

"We were a real good fit for combining with the folks in Raleigh to relaunch AppSmart and go to the next level with it," Bradley said.

With the businesses integrated, AppSmart is truly a channel-led, one-stop shop for all B2B technology services, he said.

The company is now focused on supporting partners looking to build out IoT practices.

AppDirect, relied on by some of the world's largest telecoms for building and curating self-branded cloud software marketplaces, extended its portfolio in 2015 by acquiring AppCarousel, a similar platform vendor for IoT solutions.

AppSmart is leveraging that technology as it develops IoT bundles that package software, connectivity, mobility, and energy services.

Original article: https://www.crn.com/news/cloud/appdirect-s-appsmart-completes-wtg-integration-looks-to-disrupt-the-telecom-channel?itc=refresh

Master Agent WTG to Be Bought by AppDirect, Merge With NeoCloud

WTG is merging — but not with another master agent.

In a transaction the Malibu, California-based company calls the first of its kind, WTG will merge with NeoCloud, a North Carolina-based cloud service provider.

The cloud commerce platform AppDirect is acquiring both WTG and NeoCloud to create a new unit called AppSmart.

WTG’s Vince Bradley: “In order to transform and be successful in the long term, master agents in the field truly need to partner with technology companies to do more,” WTG CEO Vince Bradley said. “Because with cloud proliferation, with IoT, there is… a need for a lot more resources and technical assistance in the channel.”

Why didn’t WTG follow the model of rival master agent Telarus, which acquired fellow master CarrierSales a year ago? If anything, the agreement is a little bit closer the distributor ScanSource purchasing master agent Intelisys, but even so, AppDirect fits into an entirely different category.

Bradley said distributors and other master agents expressed interested in combining with WTG, but his outfit turned them down.

“That’s a financial transaction. It’s not a strategic one. I was looking for something strategic if I was going to do anything,” he said. “Partnering with a cloud SaaS company was a far more promising path in my opinion, avoiding some of the pitfalls that have happened with other acquisitions in the past.”

Bradley assured partners that the transition will not disrupt their businesses. He will remain with the company and take on the role of vice president of business development, and WTG’s entire executive team will remain on board. Its parent company, Commerce Consulting Corp., will also stay intact, preserving provider contracts and commission structures.

Bradley said the new unit will invest in additional channel managers, provider managers and field marketing support.

Keep up with the latest channel-impacting mergers and acquisitions in our M&A roundup.

Van Murray, AppSmart’s vice president of strategic operations, told WTG subagents that AppSmart intends to do for the channel what Uber did for taxis: simplify the experience.

AppSmart’s Van Murray: “We want to make it easy to sell. We want to make it easy to transact. That shouldn’t be a big part of your day,” Murray said.

Bryn Nettesheim, senior analyst for The 2112 Group, said the M&A reflects the trend of a “marketplaces model.”

“With the acquisition of WTG and AppDirect’s structure as a marketplace, this provides access to agents who will drive thousands of customers to purchase those digital solutions,” Nettesheim said. “The partner value is found within guiding customers to aligning platforms and integrating the variant solution sets to meet their customers’ needs.”

AppDirect President and Co-CEO Daniel Saks has advocated for the channel, noting that the personal and relational side of business should not be overlooked in the midst of a technological revolution.

“Businesses won’t just buy technology from a website; they buy technology from people they trust,” he said at Channel Partners’ Las Vegas conference earlier this year. “The biggest thing we realized is, how do we build the tools and technologies to enable you — the channel of resellers — to best help your customer through this shift to digital transformation?”

WTG made the announcement at its Holiday Event in Rancho Mirage, California. The master agent is well known for its unique energy portfolio, but has been building its arsenal of technology partnerships this year. WTG has made strides in connectivity, deepening its partnership with Bigleaf Networks for SD-WAN earlier this year. A recently expanded agreement with Sprint gave it new IoT solutions, and WTG has also partnered with SaaS marketing provider Vivial.

“The customer’s needs have changed dramatically, and if you leave solutions on the table, we’re not going to do as much business,” Bradley told partners in October.

Source: https://www.channelpartnersonline.com/2018/12/05/master-agent-wtg-to-be-bought-by-appdirect-merge-with-neocloud/

';-- Have I Been Pwned?

Back in 2013, I posted about Cloud Security and the importance of strong passwords and multi-factor authentication. This has been increasingly important and if you have not enabled multi-factor authentication on your online accounts, please get this done! There is a site available to you to check to see if your email or passwords have been compromised; https://haveibeenpwned.com. There is also an updated list of compromised sites.

';—have i been pwned? is a free resource for anyone to quickly assess if they may have been put at risk due to an online account of theirs having been compromised or "pwned" in a data breach.

Thanks to Troy Hunt, a Microsoft Regional Director and Most Valuable Professional awardee for Developer Security, blogger at troyhunt.com, international speaker on web security and the author of many top-rating security courses for web developers on Pluralsight.

Fourscore Client Tell: Van Murray of AppSmart

The purpose of Client Tell is to spotlight the groundbreaking work of our clients, and to help businesses learn from and connect with each other. This time we talked with Raleigh entrepreneur Van Murray to hear how his business, AppSmart, is leading the industry and providing best-in-class tailored IT solutions for businesses.

Entrepreneur Van Murray may have launched a new company this fall, but he’s no stranger to providing management services to businesses. The Raleigh born and raised CEO has started and run rapidly growing IT companies around the Triangle for years. As a North Carolina State University graduate, Van chose Raleigh as his business’ home because of the vast talent pool from surrounding universities and tech companies and the reasonable cost of living. “When folks move here, they want to stay,” said Van. “Attending NC State gave me the opportunity to explore different IT opportunities around the Triangle, and the experience really shaped my path and helped me figure out what I wanted to do.”

Passion in Practice

AppSmart was conceived out of Van’s passion for IT and his desire to help businesses compete and win in the marketplace. “We work with more than 60 providers to help companies figure out which apps and services would be most beneficial to their business, and then we give them a marketplace to buy and manage their IT services,” he explained. “Think Amazon for Business Technology.”

Solid partnerships are foundational to AppSmart’s operations. A big focus is put toward training and recruiting new partners who can offer the cloud and its apps to their customers, making it easier to sell software and technology. “We offer on-boarding, support services and consolidated billing along with our products, and of course we handle all the migrations for our customers,” Van said.

AppSmart’s target partners are technology firms selling anything from internet bandwidth to cabling, marketing and consulting services. Today the company serves about 1,500 organizations in the United States and around 150,000 people under management. It’s quickly becoming the world’s leading marketplace in powering the digital economy.

Taking the Plunge

Van says that for him, the biggest risk in starting a company is leaving the security and stability of a full-time job. “Overcoming that fear is the biggest step,” he explained. “My wife was pregnant with our first child when I made the decision to step out on my own nearly 10 years ago, and that drove me even more. I encourage and challenge entrepreneurs to think about what they want to build or what problems they want to solve, and then take the risk to go out and make it happen.”

A Strong Alliance

When it comes to the legal aspects of starting and running a business, Van encourages other entrepreneurs to bring in a trusted partner, rather than just hiring someone to come in and do the work for you. He recalled:

“I partnered with the Fourscore Business Law team because they understand startups, their challenges and how they work. Fourscore provides me with valuable counsel and resources, so I can make the smartest and most efficient decisions for the good of the company.”

To learn more about AppSmart, visit appsmart.com.

Source: https://fourscorelaw.com/client-tell-van-murray-of-appsmart/

How Microsoft National Reseller NeoCloud Uses Nimble to Manage Channel Growth

About the Company

NeoCloud is a leading Microsoft managed cloud services provider based in Raleigh, North Carolina with over 1,500 customers. The company provides licensing, deployment, and support services for software and infrastructure solutions to help businesses be more secure, reliable, and efficient. As a CSP tier 1 direct partner with Microsoft, NeoCloud offers customized solution bundles through a national reseller network of dealers.

The Challenge

NeoCloud works with 1,000 dealers representing a large, diverse, and growing group of value-added resellers, business consultants, infrastructure technology and solution partners, telecom agents, and freelance sales people. The sheer number of people NeoCloud works with made it impossible to communicate and engage effectively with all of their constituents.

Add to that the challenge of customizing solution bundles for each target audience– with 55 vendors and over 300 solutions. You can begin to understand the scope of the company’s complex operations and communications challenges.

To solve their operational challenges, NeoCloud began looking for a CRM solution that would allow them to scale sales operations to address its growing audiences, while building and managing those relationships to drive business growth.

The Solution

NeoCloud became a Nimble reseller to provide a simple, powerful, yet affordable CRM for Office 365 and G Suite to its channel and their customers. Impressed by the popularity of Nimble, the company evaluated the solution for themselves. They were familiar with its capabilities, and knew Nimble offered the robust contact management, data enrichment, and social insights necessary to easily scale their network and operate more effectively.

Without the bandwidth to handle customer engagement on a one-to-one basis, the ability to communicate effectively at scale by segmenting a large group of people was very appealing to NeoCloud. Now, with Nimble, the team can easily use custom fields to create lists based on tag profile information, segment contacts based on custom tags as well as social and business data, and use group messaging to send customized emails to targeted contacts.

Another important factor in the company’s decision was the ability to access Nimble anywhere; from directly inside their inbox, web browser, and from their mobile device. NeoCloud considered this as revolutionary and crucial to increasing their efficiency.

Deep integration with Office 365 and Gmail was also key in the selection of Nimble; not only for the company’s own use, but to enable their resellers to sell it more effectively.  Users can adopt it without much behavior change.

“We wanted a solution that would fit into our existing suite of products and solutions in place, and Nimble has done that very well. There are hundreds of CRM products out in the marketplace, but the level of integration and ease of use is really the differentiating factor,” explains Steve Slaughter, Channel Manager.

The Nimble Experience

NeoCloud now uses Nimble to leverage the vast amount of information available to them in a central repository for more effective outreach and development of enduring relationships with their resellers.

Using Nimble to walk in the social footprints of their partners and resellers is extremely valuable to NeoCloud. By accessing their history of conversations and social media insights, the team can send more personalized outreach, allowing them to have meaningful conversations that are key to growing those relationships quickly and effectively at scale.

“A typical CRM system gives you the basics – contact title, what they sell, where they live. I wanted more than that. I wanted critical relationship-building information that would allow me to understand the reseller’s needs, priorities, and what drives them. Nimble gives me that,” notes Steve.

Nimble has also been instrumental in the introduction and recruitment of new partners. As a result of the personalized group messages the team has sent thus far, partners have introduced other people from their own networks  that NeoCloud has since started working with. NeoCloud has also seen these messages drive engagement with previously unengaged partners.

The team also appreciates the ability to remain productive while on the road with Nimble mobile. They can prep for a meeting with all of the background information at their fingertips, and send follow up emails right from their mobile device so they never miss a beat.

“Nimble was a significant supplement to our existing systems in the back office. It helps us manage relationships and have better conversations with partners versus simply managing transactions. Nimble has been vital to our success and made what was once an inefficient process exceedingly simple, which enables us to reach that high level of engagement quickly and effectively,” concludes Steve.

Future Plans

NeoCloud has plans to expand the team that will be using Nimble to continue to automate processes, collaborate and share information, and manage their pipelines–all in one place. Steve is also configuring their onboarding process into Nimble to centrally track and manage the data collection around those workflows. This will help to improve management and team visibility into each customer’s onboarding status and results.

Source: https://www.nimble.com/blog/case-study-how-microsoft-national-reseller-neocloud-uses-nimble-to-manage-channel-growth/

Companies Are Ready to Spend Big on G Suite. These Best Practices Can Help You Win Their Business.

Late last year, Spiceworks released a study that shows organizations are getting ready to go on a technology spending spree. IT budgets are going up in 2018, and one of the solutions many companies are eager to spend on is cloud-based office productivity solutions.

For G Suite resellers, this is welcome news. Google’s office productivity solution is already used by more than 3 million businesses, and adoption is poised to grow even more. In fact, Gartner reports that Google G Suite is approaching 50 percent market share of companies with revenue less than $50 million. Once an upstart challenger to Microsoft’s Office 365, G Suite is being used by a wider variety of companies of all sizes.

However, just because companies have more money to spend doesn’t mean that they’ll spend it with you. In fact, today’s technology buyers have more choices of where to buy from than ever before. Here are some best practices that can help you win more deals in 2018 and beyond.

Best Practice #1: Solve for Why

If businesses can go directly to Google to get G Suite, why should they buy from your company? This isn’t a trick question, nor is it an easy one to answer. But it’s critical to get it right because it sets the stage for everything that follows in your go-to-market strategy.

For instance, let’s say your company’s value proposition for selling G Suite is the combination of your deep experience in the retail sector and your proprietary mobile app for that industry. Your go-to-market strategy would accentuate your company’s strengths and might include aspects such as creating integrations between your app and some of Google’s apps.

For some companies, the answer won’t be as straightforward. If that’s the case, don’t be tempted to skip this step. Without a strong value proposition, your leads won’t be as qualified, and your prospects may just be skeptical bargain hunters. In contrast, a well-articulated value proposition can give you leverage to charge premium pricing and help you turn more qualified leads into loyal customers.

To solve for why, ask yourself these questions:

  • Why should customers buy Google G Suite? How does it solve their business challenges?

  • Why should they buy G Suite from my business? What do we do differently and how does that help the customer?

  • Why should customers trust us? What can we offer that proves we’ve successfully helped other companies like theirs?

A well-articulated value proposition allows you to charge premium pricing and can help you turn more qualified leads into loyal customers.

Best Practice #2: Focus on the Solution Sale

Today, there are tens of thousands of business apps on the market. Unlike consumers, businesses don’t have time to try out many different apps to see what works best for their complex environment. They also can’t afford to make the wrong decision.

Prospects and customers need help and guidance to make the right choice and they look to trusted advisors to help them do that. That’s why selling G Suite is part of a solution sale. Your sales teams need to engage business buyers with conversations that focus on how Google cloud apps deliver benefits to the business.

Van Murray, chief executive officer at NeoCloud, a services provider in Raleigh, North Carolina, offers this advice to companies that are considering selling G Suite: “Moving to the cloud is a drastic change for many businesses. There’s a significant amount of education and change management required to help your customers take best advantage of apps such as G Suite. Everything from your selling process, to onboarding and customer service, must be based on minimizing business disruption while helping customers successfully move to the cloud.”

"There’s a significant amount of education and change management required to help your customers take best advantage of G Suite."

Best Practice #3: Invest in Sales Enablement

You can’t rely on prospects being able to understand the value of G Suite and other cloud apps for their business without your help. Instead, you need to empower your sales teams with tools to help them efficiently and effectively move through the sales cycle to close more deals.

This doesn’t mean arming them with data sheets full of technology “speeds and feeds.” In a modern solution sale, it means giving sales teams content and tools that help them add value to conversations with the customer. The point is to prepare them for working collaboratively with customers to determine the best solution for their needs.

Consider developing the following to support your go-to-market efforts for G Suite:

  • Sales training

  • Buyer personas

  • Elevator pitch

  • Sales deck

  • Sales cheat sheet

  • Vertical and/or horizontal use cases

  • Customer case studies

  • TCO/ROI tools

  • Objection handling tips

It takes time and money to develop training and enablement tools, but they can end up paying big dividends as you ramp up your sales efforts.

To read the rest of our best practices for G Suite resellers—they cover the critical areas of onboarding and customer support—click here to download our strategy brief, “Five Best Practices for Going to Market with Google G Suite.”

Ideas @ AppDirect is a leading source for trends, statistics, best practices, and other information related to the digital economy.

Original Article: https://www.appdirect.com/blog/spend-big-g-suite-best-practices-win-their-business