Learning to increase profits

At Riverbed, Steve Dixon is also helping resellers break down the WAN barriers with training in its own Wide area Data Services (WDS) solutions.

“There are huge opportunities for partners that have the additional skill to assist companies in removing WAN as a barrier to things such as centralised back up and server consolidation,” said Dixon.

Riverbed takes its training around the country based on demand, waiting for six to eight students ready to attend before it travels interstate, though Sydney and Melbourne resellers have access once a month. There’s less opportunities for online training, but Dixon said a series of CBT that provides the practical skills to set up appliances is under development.

Apart from running its own training, Riverbed’s distribution partner Networld Systems is also delivering training that teams its WAN optimisation with other solutions from the likes of VMware and NetApp or Microsoft.

Fits all sizes

There’s a wide range of add-on and complimentary products that suit, whether you are selling to micro businesses or SMB, there are plenty of opportunities. Vendors are well-equipped with training programs that can get you or your staff up to speed.

Chances are you already have some sort of relationship with SMB network vendors such as NETGEAR and Linksys, why not check out what training programs they have on offer.

Graeme Reardon, country manager for Linksys said the Cisco subsidiary is focusing on a range of ancillary and add-on areas for its training program in 2008. In fact, its seems like a substantial amount with Webinars running about once every two or three weeks in one area or another. Recent examples included QoS, VPNs and network Voice and Video, which would put you on the road to all sorts of new solutions for customers. Reardon said that a recent Webinar on network storage solutions looks at things such as setting up the correct shares, how to open your storage to the Internet, replicate handle virtualisation and back up etc.

Another interesting training area is for the Linksys One channel partners. A relatively quick and painless way to get into hosted VoIP solutions, training up on this solution would have you reselling IP telephony systems hosted by the likes of Soul which will handle all the heavy lifting so long as you install and specify the solution. Best of all, you will be looking forward to a regular pay cheque as the passive income continues to flow through the door.

Apart from walking you through the set up of a standard phone solution, you can get into areas such as video surveillance, attaching storage or integrating CRM systems.

If you are looking for something a little different, Linksys is expecting big moves in the entertainment space in 2008 and is gearing up resellers to start selling media centre extenders for use in business environments such as feeding boardroom plasma screens. It will happen eventually.

NETGEAR is tackling some of the same areas, such as NAS, but country manager Ryan Parker said his organisation is currently focusing a lot of its training attention in cultivating a “you want fries with that?” habit among partner salespeople.

The pitch is to keep in mind to ask if they need more storage, or WiFi and this actually becoming a key message in their channel marketing as well. NETGEAR goes so far as to suggest the type of product and service you can pitch to your client dpending on the size of their network. If it is a small network, maybe they need this wireless AP, or that NAS solution.

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