Varnex Secret Page
For my channel friends from Synnex, here are links to all of the programs that I’ve done at Varnex over the past years. Some recordings are better than others, yet I know you’ll find value in the ideas and interactions.
Feel free to share these with your colleagues. All of these materials and recordings are copyright Mark S. A. Smith. All rights reserved. You are granted permission to use these materials with your company for internal use. If you want to use it another way, ask us for permission. We’ll work something out.
Download my new book:
From MSP to BSP – Pivot from Managed Services Provider to Business Services Provider to Profit from I.T. Disruption
Click here to go to the download page.
Review of the book by Channel Futures.
Meet Mark S.A. Smith
Entrepreneur, engineer, author, and professional speaker since 1990, Mark knows what it takes to build businesses and make lots of profits. He has co-authored three books in the Guerrilla Marketing line of books, written eight other books on technology, business, and sales, and authored more than 400 articles. He works with organizations to help them accelerate sales, make more profits, and keep more margin. An entertaining speaker with more than 10,000 hours on the platform, he delivers practical strategies and pragmatic tactics you can use immediately.
Other resources
Free business-building webinars: http://MarksWebinars.com
Weekly blog about building your business: http://ArticlesByMark.com
Connect with Mark
http://MarksOnLinkedIn.com
http://MarksOnTwitter.com
http://MarksOnFB.com
http://MarksOnYouTube.com
The Future of SI in the Face of I.T. Disruption
nTegrate West 2018
Once you move beyond the fear of radical, disruptive I.T change, the future of systems integrators looks bright. How can you pivot to profit from the disruption? In this fast paced, interactive, engaging, and entertaining session, you’ll explore how to select and embrace the disruptive elements into your plans to deliver new profits and markets. We’ll discuss how to have the conversation with customer executives to plug into their roadmap, opening the opportunity to be a not just a trusted advisor, but a trusted partner, always invited to the table when developing strategy.
Key Conversations:
* Review of key technology innovations and the SI opportunities to capitalize on them
* How to pivot to profit from the commodification of servers, storage, and network
* How to identify clear winners when selecting which projects to invest in
* How your customer executives view the future to tap in to their vision and discuss it in a meaningful way
* How the C-suite executive the team’s diverse temperament drives their decisions
* How to start the conversation and keep it relevant, meaningful, and profitable
Download the Quick Reference Guide
Selling to Executive Temperament
How your customer’s C-suite decision makers decide, and how to keep your conversation 100% relevant so they say yes to you.
Varnex Spring 2018
When you know what drives executive decisions, you can instantly align with their motivations and have conversations that are meaningful, relevant, and impactful. Yet, most business partners use the same conversation approach for each executive officer, missing the point and blowing credibility. In this enlightening and engaging session, you’ll get to know what drives each executive, how they uniquely see the world, and what you need to do to gain their trust. Never go into an executive meeting blind; know exactly what to say that gets them to say yes and avoid what causes them to say no, every time.
Download the Quick Reference Guide
Finding, Recruiting, and Developing Good People
As unemployment numbers plummet, finding good people is a challenge. Here’s how to stay ahead of the game.
Varnex Spring 2018
If you’re like most business partners, you’ve got openings in your team roster and have challenges finding the right people: those with the skills, attitude, and motivation to deliver on your company promise. Along the way, you’ve probably hired a few duds, an expensive and headache-inducing problem. In this entertaining and insightful session, you’ll discover where to find the right people, how to recruit them, how to motivate them, and why you’ve hired wrong in the past. Includes a special section on motivating and managing Millennials, which helps you find winners who will willing grow with your company.
Download the Quick Reference Guide
Profitably Pivoting with Changing Business Models
Varnex Fall 2017 Main Stage Keynote
The world changes faster than you can imagine, it’s not business as usual. Changing business models disrupt how we do business. Mark Hurd predicts that 80% of data centers won’t exist by 2025. Information Age predicts 40% of the Fortune 500 won’t make it through the digital transformation. How can you manage the chaos? In this engaging, entertaining, and enlightening 30-minute conversation about radically changing business models of technology vendors, distribution, business partners, and customers, you’ll see the data and understand what’s going on. You’ll know what’s driving these changes, how to pivot your business to take advantage of them, and how Varnex will help you stay relevant and profitable.
Make the Transition from MSP to Business Service Provider
Varnex Fall 2017
As the world moves to the cloud, your traditional business becomes less relevant and less profitable. How can you be a managed service provider if there’s nothing to manage? In this pragmatic discussion about the changing role of technology business partners, you’ll explore how to make the transition to a Business Service Provider, where you work with executives to deliver the tech that runs their company. This will be a conglomeration of devices, on site, and cloud all designed, architected, plumbed, protected, and managed by you. You’ll leave the session with a new road map on how to direct your team to evolve with this unstoppable trend.
You’ll discover:
How to move from tech acumen to business acumen
How to have business roadmap discussions that map to tech deployment
Changes in your business model to be agile and flexible
What needs to change with compensation and sales strategies
How Synnex and Varnex helps you with this transition
Download the Quick Reference Guide
Getting More Done in Your Day: Executive time and territory management secrets
If you have more on your to-do list at the end of the day then at the start, it’s time for you to take control of your time and demands. In this entertaining and enlightening event, you’ll learn executive secrets to getting things done fast and controlling your day. You’ll get tools and tactics to control your time, making you day more productive, less frustrating, and get done what accelerates your career.
- How executives prioritize their tasks and their day
- How to create a to-do list that gets done
- How to safely delay and defer tasks, giving you more time for what’s important
- The efficiency experts secrets to getting more done in less time
- How to eliminate unproductive tasks forever
- Common time sucks and how to turn them into time sources
- How to keep track of your time to determine how to best invest it
Download the quick reference guide.
Better Cold Calling: How to use cold calling the right way to grow your business
Many people use cold calling as their primary way to prospect. Yet the also say that it’s hard work and they experience low returns. The reason why is because they’re going about it wrong. And in this event you’ll learn how to do it right. Cold calling works, but you have to know who to talk with, what to say, and how to instantly create value for the person you’re talking with. This session is based on Mark S. A. Smith’s book, “Guerrilla TeleSelling” coauthored with Jay Conrad Levinson.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why traditional cold calling is broken and how to fix it
- The true purpose of cold calling and how to make the most of every dial
- How to get the conversation started
- Why you never want to ask for the decision maker when cold calling
- Why you never want to make an offer on your first call
- How to get transferred to the right person
- How to start a relationship that leads to deals
- What questions to ask and what questions to never ask on a cold call (some of these are common)
- How to get unstuck when you don’t want to make cold calls
Download the quick reference guide.
How to Build and Run Your Customer Acquisition System
How do you find more customers? More importantly, how do you find the right customers? What do you do? Where do you look? How do you get their attention. In this two-hour live training session for IT professionals, you’ll discover exactly how to build your customer acquisition system. Presented at the 2016 Varnex Regional meetings.
Download the quick reference guide for this event.
Make Massive Margin with Your Own Product: How to Create it, Market it, and Sell it
- How to figure out where there’s opportunity in the market
- What investment you’ll need to make
- Finding partners who can speed the process
- What infrastructure must be in place to succeed
- What price to charge to make the most margin
- How to test the market and create proof of value
- How to decide how to go to market
Download the quick reference guide for this event.
The Art of Closing a Sale Fast
- Products and services that you can lead with that close fast (you’re probably ignoring them right now)
- How to use special offers to close deals but not set you up for margin-killing negotiations
- How to tell if you’re speaking to the real decision maker without insulting anyone
- How to get to the right person who can make the decision and commitment on the spot
- What stalls most deals and how to get sales speeding again
- How to find, create, and amplify urgency to place the order
- What to say to eliminate objections that slow down deals
- How to create a culture of sales velocity
Download the quick reference guide for this event.
Inspiration and Motivation: How to Inspire Action
The Future of IT: 10 Money-making Trends in 2016 and Beyond
Cloud and Mobility: How to Sell Your Customers the Complete Package
As you sell cloud computing, are you including the most common access point, mobile devices? If not, you’re leaving money on the table. In this special, 90-minute double-length session, you’ll learn how to tie cloud services to mobility sales, and vice versa. You’ll leave the session with a specific plan to amp up your cloud and mobility sales.
- In this entertaining and educational session, you’ll learn:
- The six keys to cloud and mobility sales success
- A discussion about how to compensate your team on recurring-revenue deals that come from cloud and mobility sales
- You’ll discover who to talk with, and what to say to maximize your cloud and mobility deals
Download the quick reference guide for this event.
Varnex Regional Event Special Topic:
Tuning Up Your Sales Force
If you’re like most business partners, you’re looking for effective ways find the right sales people to grow your business. If you ever said, “If I could find just one more great sales person…” then this session is for you.
In this interactive workshop, you’ll work on tuning up your sales culture, sales processes, and sales team. We’ll discuss:
- How to find and interview people who will fit your culture, be self-starting, and easy to manage.
- You’ll learn ways to make sure that they’re motivated, trained, and on track without spending your precious time watching their every move.
- Includes a sales culture diagnosis and action plan that you can immediately put into place.
http://bijaco.com/assets/TuneUpYourSalesTeam2015-08-05.mp3
http://bijaco.com/assets/TuneUpYourSalesTeamQRGV1-1.doc
http://bijaco.com/assets/TuneUpYourSalesTeamV1-11.pptx
How to Manage and Eliminate Common Objections to Close More Deals
When you’re great at managing objections, you become a bulletproof sales person. In this enlightening and entertaining session, you’ll learn the source of objections, how to stop creating objections, and how to manage and overcome your most common objections. You’ll learn objection-busting formulas that you can use any time, any place, and anywhere. (And no, it’s not the tired old “Feel… Felt… Found.”) Bring your toughest objections and get ready to become bulletproof.
http://get2url.com/synnex/MakeObjectionsDisappear.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/MakeObjectionsDisappearQRGV1-0.pdf
Creating, Illustrating, and Developing Meaningful Customer Value
If you’re struggling with sales, perhaps you need to reconsider how you present your value to customers. In this session, we’ll work on your value propositions and the process you use to discuss value with customers. You’ll learn:
- How to understand and capitalize on your customer’s value scope
- Matching the your portfolio to your customer’s value scope
- Creating new, unrealized value for competitive advantage
- Calculating meaningful return on investment (ROI)
- How to illustrate the compelling value of moving forward sooner rather than later
- How to use a value scope checklist to make sure you miss nothing.
- How to determine what your customer considers valuable (role-based value scope)
http://get2url.com/synnex/CreateValueforYourCustomer.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/CreateValueforYourCustomerQRGV1-0.pdf
Top Ten 2015 Tech Trends and How to Make Money from Them
In this session, Mark S. A. Smith will share with you his insights about the top 10 trends in technology and help you put together a strategy to profit from them. You’ll leave with a written plan on how to maximize your revenue for the next three years.
http://get2url.com/synnex/TechnologyTrends2014.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/TechTrendsQRGv1-0.pdf
Your Strategic Plan for the Best 2015
In this double length, 90 minute session, Mark S. A. Smith coaches you through constructing your strategic plan to make 2015 the best year ever. You actually leave the session with a written plan that you can communicate to your team to take your business exactly where you want to be next year. The audio program starts in the exercises. See the handout materials to get the initial content.
http://get2url.com/synnex/BuildingYourStrategicPlan.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/StrategicPlanningQRGv1-0.pdf
Beyond Converged Infrastructure: The Next Generation of IT
The big IT deals these days are infrastructure refreshes with a converged data center architecture. Yet, what lies beyond this? You can create new value by looking beyond today’s offerings and and offer architectures that create powerful differentiation and real business value. Yet you’ll have to do it in a new and different way. In this session, you’ll discover the attitudes and actions that set you apart from the competition to gain most-trusted status with your customers.
http://get2url.com/synnex/BeyondConvergedInfrastructure.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/BeyondConvergedInfrastructure.pptx
http://get2url.com/synnex/BeyondConvergedInfrastructureCHEATSHEET.doc
Make the Transition from Manager to Leader: The Key to Profitable Business Growth
Most business partners start out as entrepreneurs, creating innovation based on what they see that their customer leads. Yet there comes a time when entrepreneurial spirit won’t grow the company so many hit the wall. In this session, discover how you can make the transition to be the leader of your company to take it to the next level of success. You’ll learn about the difference between a manager and a leader, where to put your attention, and how to gracefully make the transition to achieve the vision of your business.
http://get2url.com/synnex/ManagerToLeader.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/ManagerToLeader.pptx
http://get2url.com/synnex/ManagerToLeaderCHEATSHEET.doc
Navigating The Storms of IT: What’s Changing and How to Make the Most of It (Video)
IT sales will look very different over the next three years. With cloud computing storming onto the scene, more vendors going direct, and more IT being outsourced, you won’t make money just selling hardware and software. In this session, you’ll learn how to stay ahead of the curve and capitalize on these changes.
Finding and Closing New Customers Video: How to Turn Leads into Sales (Video)
If you’re not satisfied with the sales you have today or want to expand into new markets, you need to find new customers. In this session Mark S.A. Smith reviews proven processes for finding leads, nurturing contacts, and converting them into customers. Includes ideas for using social marketing to grow your sales.
Building Vendor Relationships
To access the resources you need and get the inside information that gives you a competitive edge, you need strong relationships with the right people in your vendor organizations. Gain new insight and skills to manage and grow the value of your vendor relationships. Learn about the Business of Relationships and the Relationships of Business; discover how to manage your relationship priorities and how to reach higher in the vendor organization; and discover how to develop your relationship strategy.
http://get2url.com/synnex/BuildingVendorRelationships.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/BuildingVendorRelationshipsCHEATSHEET.doc
Selling at Higher Prices: Making Your Prices Stick
If you’re going to prosper and grow, you must be able to position yourself, your company, and your solutions in a new way, and help your customer see the real value that you bring to the table. In this session you’ll discover how, through the following topics: • Creating Real Customer Value • How to Position and Defend Your Value
• Why It’s Not Really About Price • When and How to Fire Customers • How to Make Your Prices Stick
http://get2url.com/synnex/SellingAtHigherPrices.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/SellingAtHigherPricesCHEATSHEET.pdf
Selling Big Ticket Deals
Approval thresholds have been coming down over the past several years making it harder for your IT executive to agree to big deals without going to the C-suite for approval. In this session, you’ll learn about how to close big-ticket deals in your accounts by working with executives in a way that gets them to say “yes,” fast. You’ll understand the process of how to approach executives, research their hot buttons, ask powerful questions, and put together a compelling executive presentation that gets big deals done.
http://get2url.com/synnex/SellingBigTicketDealsInTodaysEconomy.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/SellingBigTicketDealsHandoutV1.0.pdf
http://get2url.com/synnex/SellingBigTicketDealspptx.pdf
Selling in the New Economy: How to Find and Keep Customers
In the recovering economy, it’s not easy to find new customers. Plus your competitors want your customers and they’re not playing nice. Even if you sell a clearly superior product, it takes more than that to keep them. This session will focus on four key areas in today’s economy: Where to get more business, creating value beyond the product, how to beat the competition, and how to keep your customers.
http://get2url.com/synnex/SellingInTheNewEconomy.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/SellingInTheNewEconomyHandout.pdf
http://get2url.com/synnex/SellingInTheNewEconomy.ppt
13 Ways to Grow Your Business
As an executive, you’re always looking for ideas, old and new, that you can use to tune your company, increasing efficiency and profitability. In this fast-paced, entertaining, and thought provoking session, you’ll get powerful and practical ideas you can use to grow your sales, increase customer loyalty, increase your operational efficiency, make more profits, and keep more margin. You’ll get smart questions to ask you team, ideas you can build on, and valuable insights on where to focus in the year ahead.
The book I mentioned is The Challenger Sale
http://www.amazon.com/The-Challenger-Sale-Customer-Conversation/dp/1591844355
http://get2url.com/synnex/13WaysToIncreaseProfits.mp3
http://get2url.com/synnex/13WaysToIncreaseProfitsV1.0.pptx
http://get2url.com/synnex/13WaysToGrowProfitsCHEATSHEET.doc
You may also want to check out http://SalesSuperCharger.com for more on IT-specific sales training.