Dubbo – a gateway to IT

The task passed through three staff over six months, but no-one could come up with answers. “In the end I said, ‘If you guys haven’t got the time to do it, I’ll do it.’ It took me several years to get to the point that we could roll something out.”

But moving from hardware to services was not tenable under a conventional break-fix model, which relies on things going badly to win work. If Axxis did a great job on an installation, and put sound practices and quality hardware in place, clients would have less reason to call them to fix things.

“Every morning I’d walk in with a bunch of pillows under my arm, hand them to staff and say, ‘right everyone, kneel down and pray to God that we have something break down this week so that we can make some money,’” jokes Dickerson. Under break-fix, “the better a job that you do, the quicker you go broke. When you sit back now it just seems so illogical.”

The two big changes were to estimate repair work rather than bill by the hour, and to charge clients a regular monthly fee to keep the network running. The later change required a little re-education of customers’ expectations: instead of wondering what you’re paying for at the end of a trouble-free month, you should be happy with your productivity and quality of our maintenance practices, Dickerson told them.

Operating under the new fixed price model, Axxis won several awards including 2004 Microsoft Platform Partner of the Year in the small business category. The service level agreement model was introduced in 2005, the year Dickerson was named the world’s number one SMB consultant by SMB Nation.

A year later, Dickerson was grinning on a stage wearing an “I love Dubbo!” t-shirt, waving a trophy for Microsoft worldwide partner of the year in the sales and marketing small business specialist category. Axxis now has a turnover of $4 million and 20 staff. The phone business has five staff.

Later, Dickerson was approached by two men at a conference in Amsterdam he was speaking at. The two wanted to buy his SLA model as a blueprint for their own restructuring. Dickerson wasn’t even sure this was possible, but after working with his lawyer and accountant in Dubbo he came up with a packaged product called SLAM, for service level agreement model.

SLAM contains the methodology, spreadsheets and documents which Axxis itself uses, and has sold 300 copies on a sliding scale that starts at US$999 or AU$1500, depending on number of users.

“We’ve got clients in nine countries who are using exactly what we use in our business,” said Dickerson.

Reflecting on his achievements, Dickerson said resellers shouldn’t consider their location as a limitation on what is possible. “The only thing that limits you is your mindset or attitude. Some people I know in businesses in country towns have said, ‘Wow, you managed to do that and you are in a country town’. But I don’t see there is any reason to do whatever you want to do from anywhere.”

Operating as a country reseller is considerably tougher, and those who survive only do so through establishing good practices. “People think it’s easier to do it in regional areas, but we’re finding it tougher.”

Unexpectedly, country towns can be far more competitive than capital cities. At one stage there were 40 computer retailers in Dubbo servicing a population of 40,000.

A small base means high quality customer service is imperative. “Word of mouth is great if you are good in a country town, and if you do anything wrong it’s terrible.”

Apart from the trophies in the pool room, the fact that Axxis counts clients from Sydney shows how a good reseller is worth hanging onto. One of those Sydney clients told Dickerson the Axxis technicians feel like part of their staff. “But we’re 400 kilometres away, how can they feel like that? The only way is by having exceptional service. Location is almost irrelevant.”

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