April 1, 2025 • 28 mins
You can achieve your business goals with the proper support, and Ingram Micro has your back. We’re here to help with all your Cisco needs and more.
Shelby Skrhak speaks with Ingram Micro Technical Enablement Engineers Daniel Stewart, Christopher Meindl and Robert Young about:
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Shelby Skrhak speaks with Ingram Micro Technical Enablement Engineers Daniel Stewart, Christopher Meindl and Robert Young about:
- Why partner business needs reign above simply selling products
- How building partner relationships impacts results
- The one thing that helps partners pave the way to success
To join the discussion, follow us on Twitter @IngramMicroUSA #B2BTechTalk
Listen to this episode and more like it by subscribing to B2B Tech Talk on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Spreaker.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro,
a place to learn about how to grow your business
and stay ahead of technological advances before they've become mainstream.
This episode is sponsored by Ingram Micro's Expantage, the Next
Level way to transform your business's potential and reshape how
customers see you through advanced transactional data. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Welcome to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro.
I'm your host, Shelby Skirhawk, and our guests today are
Christopher Mindel, Technical Enablement Engineer, Daniel Stewart, Senior Technical Enablement Engineer,
and Bobby Young, Senior Technical Enablement Engineer, all three from
Ingram Micro. Gentlemen, welcome, thanks for having us, Thanks for
having us, Hey, Shebby, Thanks guys. Well, today we're talking
(00:53):
about the ingram Micro Cisco Enablement team and we're kind
of giving some more insight into the team. I want
to kind of introduce you guys and get to know
you guys a little bit better, mostly just so people
understand what kind of resource is here kind of at
your fingertips. So Daniel, let me start with you first off, though,
starting broad, tell us what the Cisco enablement team is
(01:17):
and then tell us kind of how you made your
way to the team.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, definitely, and you picked me first because I've been
here the longest, that's right, right, So our technical enablement
team is here to first and foremost support our partners
in any way way that we can. So we have
a pre sales contact center team, we have a demonstration
and training team, we have field based resources mapped to
(01:43):
regional territories across the US, and we also have a
technology Adoption and Deployment team.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I think that's all of them.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
We have an Ingram Micro not even considering our our
marketing and sales teams as well.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
So it's a pretty full.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Staff folks using on just giving partners everything they need
to buy and sell technology.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And so you've been there the longest, how many How
long in the tooth are you?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
The age myself, I'm almost eighteen years here at Ingram Micro.
So it's been a happy home for a while, which
is good. I've been in technology pretty much my whole life.
My first experience was building or redoing one of my
PCs at home that was you know, really old by
today's standards, like floppy discs and I just couldn't get
(02:31):
a game to work, and you know, I forced myself
to learn and just you know, make that game work.
Was my entry into technology, and through my studies and time,
I've it led me to here really focusing on in
this case the vendor of Cisco along my technical track.
But I've been through most of those teams that we
you know, I highlighted earlier with our pre sales team
(02:52):
is where I got my start on a general standpoint,
moved myself up through the stack to different roles, even
supervisor at one point of our Cisco team, and then
my way made my way over here to our technical
training and demo team for probably about the past five
or six years now, all within Ingram Micro, all within
mostly the vendor of Cisco. It's been a good partnership
(03:13):
to have on that front.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Floppies three and a half or five inch?
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Ooh, five inch? Yes I am? Yes?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah? Yeah, all right then, so Bobby, let me let
me turn to you. You know, like Dan, we've had
you on the show several times, but you know, tell
me a little bit more about you. I mean, how
how long have you been with Ingram Micro.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
I've been here fifteen.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Years, okay, all right, and have you made your rounds
through kind of each each permutation of Cisco or where
where did you start?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So?
Speaker 5 (03:42):
I started actually fifteen years ago in same as Dan,
in our solution design and services. We used to call
it technical support team, basically just taking taking inbound calls,
right eight hours a day, five days a week, just
being on the phones and just building out solutions and
just churning out you know, design. Dan was actually my
my mentor, he was my Jedi master when I first started.
(04:04):
So I still remember, you know, early on, as you know,
I'm I'm you know, I've got the headset, I'm next
to you know, next to him, and he's basically like, well,
you know, I'm like, okay, well you know when am
I going to take start taking my first calls? And
he's like, well, you probably won't do that for another
six months. And I remember at the time being like
six months, geez, like, you know, I'm not even going
to like talk to a partner for six months, and
(04:25):
realizing that there is just so much that we needed
to learn from the get go right, the idea that
that you know, the way that Ingram hired that team,
and the way that they still do now is kind
of get everyone from all these different walks of life.
Some of them are really good communicators, some of them
you know, need to be trained on technology, right, but
all of them, you know are are kind of solution minded, right.
(04:46):
And the idea of of of just working with a
partner being okay with just learning all the time, right,
the idea that hey, we're going to go end of
life on this product, and you're going to have to
learn this product, you know, in the next you know,
a couple of days, but it really it was about
six months. It was about six months, and and you know,
it's it's It was one of those, you know, one
of those things where you know, as you go along,
(05:07):
all of a sudden you become more and more of
the master, and all of a sudden people are coming
up to you and asking you questions on stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Right.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
So I started off in what we referred to as ABC,
which was anything but Cisco, right, because Cisco is such
a huge vendor at Ingram that it was you know,
Junipers and all of your other vendor your vendors, right.
And then you know, as as everybody does, get assimilated, right,
I eventually moved into Cisco's small business space and then
(05:35):
worked as a field role outside of the call center,
just doing a kind of what I do now, but
only working with the Cisco small business enterprise you know products.
So since then, I've you know, branched out into collaboration
and are you know, different architecture security as well, and
now kind of you know, moved back into a more
(05:55):
networking and specifically Morocci based role and then focusing of
territory in the US.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, I'll tackle some of Bobby's journey as well. We've
kind of mirroored each other just at the same jump
points there. Looking at Cisco, I was a generalist as well.
You come in, you got to you know, learn on
the on the everything else map. But looking at our team,
you know, it was kind of looking at the Cisco
guys like they had like they were like the.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Smartest guys in the room.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
They had like you know, the biggest vendor, like the
place to be, and they also had the best you
know takeaways, right, So you had the more parties, you
had more lunches, you had more sway coming out of
the Cisco teams like well, why do they get all
the good stuff?
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Like I want to be on that team.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
So it's not only just yes, technology and learning that,
but some of just the other intangibles that go with
joining the big team that's out there. What was part
of the draw that sucked us into the world of Cisco.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I know, ib I know the IBM team. They've got
some some good swag over there.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
So money, that's where it comes down.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Right, Well, okay, so and Chris, I'm going to get
to you, but well, actually, yeah, let me go ahead,
because I want to understand your your journey. Then, so Chris,
tell us about your role there. And then also I mean,
how long have you you've been at this, how long
you've been in the industry?
Speaker 6 (07:06):
Yeah, I guess unlike Dan and Bobby, I was kind
of not born and bred, you know, the technology route.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You know.
Speaker 6 (07:11):
I wasn't building computers as the baby, you know. Yeah,
I was a sales guy and better things to do.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Yeah, spelling Lemonade on the on the corner people, Yeah,
they can't my good looks and personality, I guess, rather
than my brain seiling on on Lemonade subscriptions right, lemonone
on demand.
Speaker 6 (07:32):
Well, I've been at Ingram twelve years. I guess that
still makes me the baby of the group. I've been
part of the technical team for four years with Dan
and Bobby, but before then I was in sales mainly
we have different business units. Within Ingram, I was focused
on business development, so I was like account ownership, partner
relationship building for accounts that were doing mainly Cisco, so
(07:56):
I had a background at Cisco, but you're talking pricing, ructure, orders,
bill meant, you know, overall Ingram partnership, but then also
you know, covering you know, Mithillaneous other vendors as well.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
So kind of one of.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
The things I noticed back when I was doing, you know,
the sales gig was, you know, I wasn't as privy
to understanding the language of technology, right You're trying to
facilitate partner relationships, but not having a deep, deep understanding
of what you're selling. So a number of years ago
I started going back to school kind of did some
pre training, and then when an opportunity came, you know,
(08:32):
they felt like the role I'm in now was a
good hybrid of a sales development role and also a
technical role. So my enablement role and previously before they
kind of call this all enablement engineers was account technical
account manager, which still I think rings true for my
role because I'm focused on kind of the business development,
(08:53):
sort of the implementation the partnership with us, making sure
they're getting the most out of our resources, make sure
they have plans in place to their business practice, and
then helping them facilitate that. And then I guess, like
my special skill, like even though I've acquired a number
of you know, you know, different varying degrees of technical
knowledge over the past couple of years, and I felt
(09:15):
like coming from a place where I didn't understand it
on a deep level. Yeah, now having that deep understanding,
I feel like I'm able to offer more value to
the sales folks and the partners right to help them translate.
I always said it's like about speaking a language when
you're talking technology. I feel like I helped not only
translate that language around Cisco, but also with all the
(09:36):
varying different you know, partner programs and resources within Ingram
as well.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, I think that's so important. That's a great point
that translating this, because I mean, gosh, I could count
the times that you know, we've had a podcast that
really it's just you know, marketing, speaking and gobbily group
that you really have to be in it to understand.
And you know, I'm a journalist, I'm a podcaster. I
(10:04):
know a little bit about a lot, but I kind
of see it from the everyman's standpoint that man, if
you're not really really familiar with all this stuff and
know it very well, you could just be saying, yeah,
you basically kind of wrote memorization of these things, but
but you need somebody to truly translate it and and
make it, make it tangible, make it real. And so
(10:25):
you've got a good skill there because you understand the
technology of it, but you're also able to look at
it big picture and say, okay, so this does this
and this would help you in this way. But knowing
all that about your your business and your customers, you know,
big picture, what's what's the plan here? I imagine you've
(10:46):
been able to create some good solutions for customers.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Right, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
And I've carried over some relationship like from you know,
my previous accounts like into this role.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
You know, it's all about perspective too.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
You know, when I'm talking to a Dan or Bobby, right,
you feel like you're brand new right. When you're talking
to your partners in the sales teams, right, you realize
like how far you've come, you know, and being able
to kind of enable right and show the value around
the technology. So you know, it's it's been a good
journey for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, Dan and Bobby, let's talk about some
of the going back to those those first days. I
want to learn more about some of the solutions that
you've you've been able to put together, just so a
listener can hear themselves in these examples. So you know,
what's a common scenario that an ingram Micro partner would
(11:40):
come to you with that that you're able to walk
them through.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
The first thing is understanding where we are in the
supply chain, right. So Ingram Micro is distribution. Our core
is logistics. We ship boxes, right, That's that's.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
What we do.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
And many think of us as just that like, hey,
I need to call up and get a part number
to order through you. The thing I need is that
it That's all I got and off we go, right.
But the training and the effort we're there to provide
is looking at it as a solution, right, You you know,
go to a store to get a part, there's a
(12:17):
need for that part. Right, why are you looking to
fix this or improve that or what is this the
outcome you're trying to build from. And that's our main
objective is doing something with purpose and understanding the customers need. Right, Hey,
you're calling us. You're taking time out of your day
to engage with a thing that you need. Typically it
(12:38):
does start with a part or a solution idea, and
typically we would ask a bevy of questions, so he hey,
you know, just like I said, what are you doing
with it? You know, who's the end user? What is
the outcome? Because most times when we look at a product,
we've had that conversation many times before, and we can say, hey,
you really might need this, or there's a newer one
coming on the horizon's going to a achieve X, and
(13:02):
you know, it's our industry expertise, it's our understanding of
the vendor. You know, Cisco in this case is multi pronged,
multi architecture, have very deep options. But a lot of
times our partners just don't have the time themselves to
learn at the expense of time, right, time is money, right,
They just want to sell the thing and move on.
But we want to make sure they come away with
everything they need to make it supported. Do you have
(13:24):
the right service contract, you know who's going to install it,
you know who's going to follow up with the adoption process.
So we're you know, in a mode of giving you
the parts and pieces, you know, phase one. We're also
evolving that with you know, what complementary services are needed
and then trying to give that customer really a leg
up on their competition in the industry. For the clients
(13:46):
they're trying to pursue, everyone's chasing, you know, the same goal.
But if our solution typically is you know, going to
look at more components which may look more expensive, but
more comprehensive, and as long as we can you know,
discuss that and they can relate that to their client
more times than nod, that wins the deal and they
feel more empowered, you know, with the training we can do,
(14:09):
the demonstrations, we show them that they're comfortable that the
reason we gave them you know, that solution of that product,
and they can transform that to their clients more than
just giving them what they asked for. That that's you
know a lot of what we bring to the table
beyond just you know, logistics and giving that box a
timely shipment to their home. Yeah, and think of us
like kind of like the general contractors.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Right.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Nobody's coming to a general contractor saying hey I need
you know, I need twelve two by fours and a
window this size. Right, they say, hey, I want a kitchen, right,
And so that's that business need. And then our job
is to basically kind of bring in all the right resources,
bring in the architects, bring in the plumbers and the
electricians right to kind of build that that dream, right,
that to fulfill that that business need. So Dan's team, right,
(14:55):
giving giving more kind of directed demos towards products, you know,
Chris's team, you know, with kind of a more direct
relationship with the actual bills of materials, and then my
team of more kind of the structure of different Cisco
programs and stuff like Cisco three sixty that I know
we've done another podcast on, but kind of you know,
giving a more you know, kind of rounded understanding of
(15:16):
you know, enablement plans and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Do you find is there kind of a just an
old mentality that they don't see you, that partners don't
see you as as that general contractor that they're still
seeing you as as the home depot or the Walmart. Yeah,
I guess can you quantify that? Like, what kind of
difference in partner's success is there between the partner that
(15:39):
sees you as Walmart and the partner that sees you
as a general contractor.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
It puts a lot on the partner if you're just
thinking that, hey, this is all we need, right in
the same sense of if someone said, hey, I'm going
to you know, I want a new kitchen, right, Like,
this is what I do with my wife. She says
I'd like a new kitchen, and I say I could
do that, right, And then all of a sudden, I'm
the ELECTRICI I'm the plumber, I'm all of these things, right,
So I have to go out to the home depot
(16:04):
and then I have to pick up the two by
fours and I have to figure out how many of
these I need and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Right.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Imagine if you had a service, right, but that service
was free, right then it wouldn't make any sense for
me to diy any of this if I had if
I had a contractor, I could call up for zero
dollars and basically do all of this for me, and
to Dan's point, a lot of our partners just don't
know we exist. A lot of them just have no idea,
you know, where to start right. They don't know that
(16:31):
they can reach out to our teams. They think that
there's a cost or that a certain amount of business
that you need to do to be able to get
Dan on the line. So so really, I mean the
step that we'd like partners to do moving forward, that
first step is just to reach out right to get
a hold of your you know, your Cisco development executive,
to understand who your your account managers are, to understand
(16:51):
the resources that we have. And then just when there's
that first need, bring us into that conversation and then
just allow us to help you where we can be that.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Familiar face right, build that relationship, go beyond just a
you know, a person a voice on the phone or
hidden behind a platform like our ex advantage site is
to really create those relationships. Like you know, we have
many different layers and sometimes we can be seen as
a big machine to work through. But once you you know,
call into our contact center, you're met with a defined
(17:22):
team that you're gonna probably gonna have repeat conversations with oh,
I know, you know, you know Bob from over here
on the security team and I've talked to him a
few times on this. You know, let's have that conversation again,
or hey, I know Bobby in the field. I know
Chris is part of my regent approach.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
We've become a little more that human elements, right as know,
as we're trying to always you know, put things into
different AI bots and different platforms, and it's going to
be there for efficiency purposes, but that that human element,
that interaction is still needed to make sure that you
have that comfort of what you're asking for can be
built and delivered and coordinated and help Bobby build his kitchen.
(17:57):
It goes a long way. But that's that's a lot
of the unknown, right, So we want to make sure
that we can be you know, leveraged, found and you know,
supporting the business where appropriate for those solutions.
Speaker 6 (18:11):
It's also important to note that we have like a
varying degree of partner styles, right. You know, we have
some that are really built up like a good solid
and almost a larger even engineering presence, right that we have,
and then we have some right that are you know,
new businesses bringing up right and then varying degrees of
you know, how much they need our help, you know,
(18:32):
And I agree with Bobby and Dan from the standpoint
of a lot of people certainly don't know about like
the the amount of resources and opportunity to work with us,
Like they just don't know. But I think in a
way a lot are stubborn in a sense of you know,
they have to make a conscious decision of where to
insert INGRAM and our resources into their sales cycle, into
(18:55):
their pre sales cycle, and depending on the partner, you know,
I know that there's something for everybody, right even though
from the largest to the smallest, we have a ways
to bring them greater efficiencies, show them value, and you know,
it's a partnership in a way that they have to
make a decision on when and where to bring us in.
(19:17):
And you know, even if it's small bill materials or
larger projects or demonstrations, them making that conscious decision and
kind of building us in is where we've seen the
most success as well. And that goes small too large, right,
doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Well, that's a that's a good point then, So for
that partner that is just you know, whether they're new
to Ingram Micro or they are just new to this
concept of Ingram being more of a full services general
contractor what's a good starting point like how, yeah, I'm
the partner, I want that support, but how do I
(19:58):
get started on that?
Speaker 5 (19:59):
I would propose just having some sort of question or
business need that you can bring up. I mean, we
we start conversations with as as simple of a conversation
of Hey, I just want to I want to sell
more Cisco, right, or I want to understand this product.
You know, in Dan's case, sometimes it starts off with
a little bit more of a reactive notion. Right, Hey,
(20:20):
this this person wants to buy Muraki from me, but
we don't know much about Muraki. So can we get
you on to either train our team to you know,
to give this this end user a demo and kind
of introduce you guys as part of our team. You know,
There's lots of different ways that we can get either
reactive to something that you know, hey, I just want
to sell the you know, the the solution, or more
(20:43):
proactive to say, hey, you know, we have a quarterly
goal to maybe increase our Cisco you know, within the
next year, right or we would like to move up
the Cisco stack from maybe being registered partner to you know,
a select.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Or, a premiere or a Gold partner or.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
Right with the new Cisco three sixty prom that again,
I know, we've we've we've gone we've gone through. Hey,
I just I just want to know more about this, right, So,
definitely lots of different ways that you can get in touch.
Just realize that, you know, there's a ton of human
beings at Ingram that are there with the sole purpose
of just helping those partners to find those answers and
(21:19):
to give them the confidence to be able to go
out and sell these products and increase your revenue.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, I wonder if if you can speak to and
I'll point this question to any any three of y'all,
what are some success stories then? I mean, can you
think of examples where a partner has fully embraced all
of these wrap around services that Ingram micro offers and
it's really been a difference maker in their business.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
Yeah, I could think of one, Bobby or multiple But
you know, like we we work in different segments right
where we're focused on different accounts, and you know, I
have a few partners that have embraceding us in to
their business from the standpoint of right, we have direct
interface with like their teams, and this is like their
(22:07):
sales teams. They kind of like break down some of
the filters of Hey, you know you're working with one
point person here, or you know you're you know, you're
doing things internal. And you know, one of the things
that works really well is is they come to us first, right,
instead of trying to do the legwork, instead of trying
to find a solution, They're asking for our expertise, right.
(22:29):
And then if they need to find tune things from
their internal processes, they will, but they think of Ingram
as like a first point of contact right before doing
the research, before doing the work.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Right.
Speaker 6 (22:40):
And what we've shown over the years is, you know,
you go from a partner that's reaching out you know,
once every month to once every week to speaking every day, right.
You know, they learn more about what we can offer,
we learn more about how they're running their business, right,
and we kind of gel and it becomes you know,
hundreds of engagements over the course of a year, and
(23:03):
then you see the revenue growth to follow, right, because
at the end of the day, that's what Cisco. The
viewpoint of like our services within the technology channel is
they want to see the dollars follow the engagement. So
when you look at these partners that get to that
level of engagement where it's daily, we have a direct
correlation with seeing the growth in numbers right and kind
(23:27):
of outpacing partners who are not engaging right with our
services as well. And that is like you probably name
multiple accounts or partners that are doing this today, but
that is like our measuring stick of success.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, and that's interesting, that's interesting. How about you, Bobby
or Dan?
Speaker 5 (23:45):
I mean quick one for me is I just mentioned,
you know, moving a partner up the stack. I had
a conversation with a partner This was probably last year,
that was out of the blue. We really didn't do
much with them. They were registered partners, so they weren't
really on anyone's radar, and they said, hey, we want
to we want to be gold partners. And that's a
that's a heavy hit, right. It's kind of like a
(24:08):
you know, a kid saying they want to be an astronaut.
You know, when they grow up, it's like, okay, buddy, yeah,
let's do that. You know, But we gave them the
time of day and they were just in a growth
mode like crazy, where I was like, okay, well this
is going to be a heavy hit because you need
you know, four c CIEs and all of these people.
And then that's that's fine, Well well we'll hire them.
And I was like, oh, okay, all right, well let's
(24:29):
let's take a look at this. And yeah, it was
probably around i want to say, six months later they
were a gold partner. So it is doable, right. It's
it was their goal something that they needed just somebody
to help them out and to help them understand the structure,
but they had the workhorse there to be able to
say this is my goal and this is what we
want to do. Those are the partners that we're looking for, right,
(24:51):
the ones that say, with a little bit of help,
I can be successful, right, And we can give them
that help.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
And some partners like know where they want to go to,
you know, like we talk to a lot of partners
that maybe we're you know, become new business owners. They're
part of a larger organization, so they have the knowledge,
they know the roadmap, but they need help scaling. So
that's about knowledge gain and it's more about bodies, Right,
how do we get resources when I'm like in my
(25:19):
infant stage here as a business to help me scale
and grow? Right, I got the vision, right, you know,
Bobby provides the vision for a lot of partners, right
and educates them. But then we also kind of on
the flip side, people that are already determined and kind
of have the experience, maybe they're in industry twenty twenty
five years. We're providing the scaling too, right, you know.
(25:40):
So that's another way to look at it.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
You know, scaling's big because our empower EA program helps
partners grow with using our technical expertise, using our lab
environment where I support them. We see successes where they
use our lab versus having to pay for their own equipment,
their own using NFI dollars, stand up their own lab
and then learn on the fly. They can just you know,
talk to somebody again, Right. You can do as much
(26:05):
learning as you want from a book or a YouTube video,
But until you actually engage and see some of the
challenges we went through, or the gaps in the portfolio
or things that we've experienced, right, You're not going to
get a lot of those maybe sometimes right from the vendor. Right,
you got to kind of walk the walk a little bit,
and you know, we can work with partners and we've
done that so many times and a lot of those
(26:26):
that come to us looking for demos latch onto us.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
We have a lot of frequent flyers that come through
and say, hey, you help me with this, how about
this one?
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Right?
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Or Hey, I don't have the dollars or time to
get my team up to speed on that, but I
got this opportunity. Can you guys do a demo for
me here? And when we see the demos, it gives
them that seeing as believing approach, and like Chris mentioned,
it's the revenue dollars that come from that that you
know obviously you know that's their measuring stick, but our
measuring stick too, so it goes hand in hand well.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
As we do start to wrap up our episode, for
ask this a little bit like how will you get started?
But you know, for the partner that is already engaged,
you know, with the Cisco team, and for the partner
that really is just getting started with ing Ingram micro Dan,
how do you find out more?
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Our easy answer is our ex Vantage website. It's our
platform where we have Cisco's vendor homepage, our pre sales, solution,
design and services page, all of our professional services. Everything
can be found on our ex Vantage site. Whether you
are logged in or just kind of glancing as outsider,
kind of seeing what services we offer. That is the
(27:38):
main homepage. That is where everything can be found. Obviously,
we're a phone call away or a bookings away or
an engagement whatever you need. But if you're starting, it's
our expandage site.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I'm glad you mentioned the whether you're logged in or not,
because I think that's that's an assumption right there, that oh, well,
I'm just getting started. I'm not in the system. I'm
not you know what, how can I, you know, find
out all that there is from the outside kind of
dipping your.
Speaker 6 (28:03):
Toe in the water, right exactly?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
So all right, guys, well, I appreciate it a lot
of great information today. Thank you so much for joining me, Jaialvien.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
Appreciate it. Thanks for having us, of course.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
How any time, and thank you listeners for tuning in
and subscribing to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro.
If you haven't subscribed, be sure to do so and
don't forget you can find all of these episodes on
the Expantage platform. Until next time, I'm Shelby Skirhawk.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
You've been listening to B to B tech Talk by
ingram Micro. This episode was sponsored by ingram Micro Exvantage.
B to B tech Talk is a joint production between
Sweetfish Media and ingram Micro. To listen to this episode
and many others, visit ingrammicro dot com.
You're listening to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro,
a place to learn about how to grow your business
and stay ahead of technological advances before they've become mainstream.
This episode is sponsored by Ingram Micro's Expantage, the Next
Level way to transform your business's potential and reshape how
customers see you through advanced transactional data. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Welcome to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro.
I'm your host, Shelby Skirhawk, and our guests today are
Christopher Mindel, Technical Enablement Engineer, Daniel Stewart, Senior Technical Enablement Engineer,
and Bobby Young, Senior Technical Enablement Engineer, all three from
Ingram Micro. Gentlemen, welcome, thanks for having us, Thanks for
having us, Hey, Shebby, Thanks guys. Well, today we're talking
(00:53):
about the ingram Micro Cisco Enablement team and we're kind
of giving some more insight into the team. I want
to kind of introduce you guys and get to know
you guys a little bit better, mostly just so people
understand what kind of resource is here kind of at
your fingertips. So Daniel, let me start with you first off, though,
starting broad, tell us what the Cisco enablement team is
(01:17):
and then tell us kind of how you made your
way to the team.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, definitely, and you picked me first because I've been
here the longest, that's right, right, So our technical enablement
team is here to first and foremost support our partners
in any way way that we can. So we have
a pre sales contact center team, we have a demonstration
and training team, we have field based resources mapped to
(01:43):
regional territories across the US, and we also have a
technology Adoption and Deployment team.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I think that's all of them.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
We have an Ingram Micro not even considering our our
marketing and sales teams as well.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
So it's a pretty full.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Staff folks using on just giving partners everything they need
to buy and sell technology.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And so you've been there the longest, how many How
long in the tooth are you?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
The age myself, I'm almost eighteen years here at Ingram Micro.
So it's been a happy home for a while, which
is good. I've been in technology pretty much my whole life.
My first experience was building or redoing one of my
PCs at home that was you know, really old by
today's standards, like floppy discs and I just couldn't get
(02:31):
a game to work, and you know, I forced myself
to learn and just you know, make that game work.
Was my entry into technology, and through my studies and time,
I've it led me to here really focusing on in
this case the vendor of Cisco along my technical track.
But I've been through most of those teams that we
you know, I highlighted earlier with our pre sales team
(02:52):
is where I got my start on a general standpoint,
moved myself up through the stack to different roles, even
supervisor at one point of our Cisco team, and then
my way made my way over here to our technical
training and demo team for probably about the past five
or six years now, all within Ingram Micro, all within
mostly the vendor of Cisco. It's been a good partnership
(03:13):
to have on that front.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Floppies three and a half or five inch?
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Ooh, five inch? Yes I am? Yes?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah? Yeah, all right then, so Bobby, let me let
me turn to you. You know, like Dan, we've had
you on the show several times, but you know, tell
me a little bit more about you. I mean, how
how long have you been with Ingram Micro.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
I've been here fifteen.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Years, okay, all right, and have you made your rounds
through kind of each each permutation of Cisco or where
where did you start?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So?
Speaker 5 (03:42):
I started actually fifteen years ago in same as Dan,
in our solution design and services. We used to call
it technical support team, basically just taking taking inbound calls,
right eight hours a day, five days a week, just
being on the phones and just building out solutions and
just churning out you know, design. Dan was actually my
my mentor, he was my Jedi master when I first started.
(04:04):
So I still remember, you know, early on, as you know,
I'm I'm you know, I've got the headset, I'm next
to you know, next to him, and he's basically like, well,
you know, I'm like, okay, well you know when am
I going to take start taking my first calls? And
he's like, well, you probably won't do that for another
six months. And I remember at the time being like
six months, geez, like, you know, I'm not even going
to like talk to a partner for six months, and
(04:25):
realizing that there is just so much that we needed
to learn from the get go right, the idea that
that you know, the way that Ingram hired that team,
and the way that they still do now is kind
of get everyone from all these different walks of life.
Some of them are really good communicators, some of them
you know, need to be trained on technology, right, but
all of them, you know are are kind of solution minded, right.
(04:46):
And the idea of of of just working with a
partner being okay with just learning all the time, right,
the idea that hey, we're going to go end of
life on this product, and you're going to have to
learn this product, you know, in the next you know,
a couple of days, but it really it was about
six months. It was about six months, and and you know,
it's it's It was one of those, you know, one
of those things where you know, as you go along,
(05:07):
all of a sudden you become more and more of
the master, and all of a sudden people are coming
up to you and asking you questions on stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Right.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
So I started off in what we referred to as ABC,
which was anything but Cisco, right, because Cisco is such
a huge vendor at Ingram that it was you know,
Junipers and all of your other vendor your vendors, right.
And then you know, as as everybody does, get assimilated, right,
I eventually moved into Cisco's small business space and then
(05:35):
worked as a field role outside of the call center,
just doing a kind of what I do now, but
only working with the Cisco small business enterprise you know products.
So since then, I've you know, branched out into collaboration
and are you know, different architecture security as well, and
now kind of you know, moved back into a more
(05:55):
networking and specifically Morocci based role and then focusing of
territory in the US.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, I'll tackle some of Bobby's journey as well. We've
kind of mirroored each other just at the same jump
points there. Looking at Cisco, I was a generalist as well.
You come in, you got to you know, learn on
the on the everything else map. But looking at our team,
you know, it was kind of looking at the Cisco
guys like they had like they were like the.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Smartest guys in the room.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
They had like you know, the biggest vendor, like the
place to be, and they also had the best you
know takeaways, right, So you had the more parties, you
had more lunches, you had more sway coming out of
the Cisco teams like well, why do they get all
the good stuff?
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Like I want to be on that team.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
So it's not only just yes, technology and learning that,
but some of just the other intangibles that go with
joining the big team that's out there. What was part
of the draw that sucked us into the world of Cisco.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I know, ib I know the IBM team. They've got
some some good swag over there.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
So money, that's where it comes down.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Right, Well, okay, so and Chris, I'm going to get
to you, but well, actually, yeah, let me go ahead,
because I want to understand your your journey. Then, so Chris,
tell us about your role there. And then also I mean,
how long have you you've been at this, how long
you've been in the industry?
Speaker 6 (07:06):
Yeah, I guess unlike Dan and Bobby, I was kind
of not born and bred, you know, the technology route.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You know.
Speaker 6 (07:11):
I wasn't building computers as the baby, you know. Yeah,
I was a sales guy and better things to do.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Yeah, spelling Lemonade on the on the corner people, Yeah,
they can't my good looks and personality, I guess, rather
than my brain seiling on on Lemonade subscriptions right, lemonone
on demand.
Speaker 6 (07:32):
Well, I've been at Ingram twelve years. I guess that
still makes me the baby of the group. I've been
part of the technical team for four years with Dan
and Bobby, but before then I was in sales mainly
we have different business units. Within Ingram, I was focused
on business development, so I was like account ownership, partner
relationship building for accounts that were doing mainly Cisco, so
(07:56):
I had a background at Cisco, but you're talking pricing, ructure, orders,
bill meant, you know, overall Ingram partnership, but then also
you know, covering you know, Mithillaneous other vendors as well.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
So kind of one of.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
The things I noticed back when I was doing, you know,
the sales gig was, you know, I wasn't as privy
to understanding the language of technology, right You're trying to
facilitate partner relationships, but not having a deep, deep understanding
of what you're selling. So a number of years ago
I started going back to school kind of did some
pre training, and then when an opportunity came, you know,
(08:32):
they felt like the role I'm in now was a
good hybrid of a sales development role and also a
technical role. So my enablement role and previously before they
kind of call this all enablement engineers was account technical
account manager, which still I think rings true for my
role because I'm focused on kind of the business development,
(08:53):
sort of the implementation the partnership with us, making sure
they're getting the most out of our resources, make sure
they have plans in place to their business practice, and
then helping them facilitate that. And then I guess, like
my special skill, like even though I've acquired a number
of you know, you know, different varying degrees of technical
knowledge over the past couple of years, and I felt
(09:15):
like coming from a place where I didn't understand it
on a deep level. Yeah, now having that deep understanding,
I feel like I'm able to offer more value to
the sales folks and the partners right to help them translate.
I always said it's like about speaking a language when
you're talking technology. I feel like I helped not only
translate that language around Cisco, but also with all the
(09:36):
varying different you know, partner programs and resources within Ingram
as well.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, I think that's so important. That's a great point
that translating this, because I mean, gosh, I could count
the times that you know, we've had a podcast that
really it's just you know, marketing, speaking and gobbily group
that you really have to be in it to understand.
And you know, I'm a journalist, I'm a podcaster. I
(10:04):
know a little bit about a lot, but I kind
of see it from the everyman's standpoint that man, if
you're not really really familiar with all this stuff and
know it very well, you could just be saying, yeah,
you basically kind of wrote memorization of these things, but
but you need somebody to truly translate it and and
make it, make it tangible, make it real. And so
(10:25):
you've got a good skill there because you understand the
technology of it, but you're also able to look at
it big picture and say, okay, so this does this
and this would help you in this way. But knowing
all that about your your business and your customers, you know,
big picture, what's what's the plan here? I imagine you've
(10:46):
been able to create some good solutions for customers.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Right, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
And I've carried over some relationship like from you know,
my previous accounts like into this role.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
You know, it's all about perspective too.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
You know, when I'm talking to a Dan or Bobby, right,
you feel like you're brand new right. When you're talking
to your partners in the sales teams, right, you realize
like how far you've come, you know, and being able
to kind of enable right and show the value around
the technology. So you know, it's it's been a good
journey for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, Dan and Bobby, let's talk about some
of the going back to those those first days. I
want to learn more about some of the solutions that
you've you've been able to put together, just so a
listener can hear themselves in these examples. So you know,
what's a common scenario that an ingram Micro partner would
(11:40):
come to you with that that you're able to walk
them through.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
The first thing is understanding where we are in the
supply chain, right. So Ingram Micro is distribution. Our core
is logistics. We ship boxes, right, That's that's.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
What we do.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
And many think of us as just that like, hey,
I need to call up and get a part number
to order through you. The thing I need is that
it That's all I got and off we go, right.
But the training and the effort we're there to provide
is looking at it as a solution, right, You you know,
go to a store to get a part, there's a
(12:17):
need for that part. Right, why are you looking to
fix this or improve that or what is this the
outcome you're trying to build from. And that's our main
objective is doing something with purpose and understanding the customers need. Right, Hey,
you're calling us. You're taking time out of your day
to engage with a thing that you need. Typically it
(12:38):
does start with a part or a solution idea, and
typically we would ask a bevy of questions, so he hey,
you know, just like I said, what are you doing
with it? You know, who's the end user? What is
the outcome? Because most times when we look at a product,
we've had that conversation many times before, and we can say, hey,
you really might need this, or there's a newer one
coming on the horizon's going to a achieve X, and
(13:02):
you know, it's our industry expertise, it's our understanding of
the vendor. You know, Cisco in this case is multi pronged,
multi architecture, have very deep options. But a lot of
times our partners just don't have the time themselves to
learn at the expense of time, right, time is money, right,
They just want to sell the thing and move on.
But we want to make sure they come away with
everything they need to make it supported. Do you have
(13:24):
the right service contract, you know who's going to install it,
you know who's going to follow up with the adoption process.
So we're you know, in a mode of giving you
the parts and pieces, you know, phase one. We're also
evolving that with you know, what complementary services are needed
and then trying to give that customer really a leg
up on their competition in the industry. For the clients
(13:46):
they're trying to pursue, everyone's chasing, you know, the same goal.
But if our solution typically is you know, going to
look at more components which may look more expensive, but
more comprehensive, and as long as we can you know,
discuss that and they can relate that to their client
more times than nod, that wins the deal and they
feel more empowered, you know, with the training we can do,
(14:09):
the demonstrations, we show them that they're comfortable that the
reason we gave them you know, that solution of that product,
and they can transform that to their clients more than
just giving them what they asked for. That that's you
know a lot of what we bring to the table
beyond just you know, logistics and giving that box a
timely shipment to their home. Yeah, and think of us
like kind of like the general contractors.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Right.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Nobody's coming to a general contractor saying hey I need
you know, I need twelve two by fours and a
window this size. Right, they say, hey, I want a kitchen, right,
And so that's that business need. And then our job
is to basically kind of bring in all the right resources,
bring in the architects, bring in the plumbers and the
electricians right to kind of build that that dream, right,
that to fulfill that that business need. So Dan's team, right,
(14:55):
giving giving more kind of directed demos towards products, you know,
Chris's team, you know, with kind of a more direct
relationship with the actual bills of materials, and then my
team of more kind of the structure of different Cisco
programs and stuff like Cisco three sixty that I know
we've done another podcast on, but kind of you know,
giving a more you know, kind of rounded understanding of
(15:16):
you know, enablement plans and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Do you find is there kind of a just an
old mentality that they don't see you, that partners don't
see you as as that general contractor that they're still
seeing you as as the home depot or the Walmart. Yeah,
I guess can you quantify that? Like, what kind of
difference in partner's success is there between the partner that
(15:39):
sees you as Walmart and the partner that sees you
as a general contractor.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
It puts a lot on the partner if you're just
thinking that, hey, this is all we need, right in
the same sense of if someone said, hey, I'm going
to you know, I want a new kitchen, right, Like,
this is what I do with my wife. She says
I'd like a new kitchen, and I say I could
do that, right, And then all of a sudden, I'm
the ELECTRICI I'm the plumber, I'm all of these things, right,
So I have to go out to the home depot
(16:04):
and then I have to pick up the two by
fours and I have to figure out how many of
these I need and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Right.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Imagine if you had a service, right, but that service
was free, right then it wouldn't make any sense for
me to diy any of this if I had if
I had a contractor, I could call up for zero
dollars and basically do all of this for me, and
to Dan's point, a lot of our partners just don't
know we exist. A lot of them just have no idea,
you know, where to start right. They don't know that
(16:31):
they can reach out to our teams. They think that
there's a cost or that a certain amount of business
that you need to do to be able to get
Dan on the line. So so really, I mean the
step that we'd like partners to do moving forward, that
first step is just to reach out right to get
a hold of your you know, your Cisco development executive,
to understand who your your account managers are, to understand
(16:51):
the resources that we have. And then just when there's
that first need, bring us into that conversation and then
just allow us to help you where we can be that.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Familiar face right, build that relationship, go beyond just a
you know, a person a voice on the phone or
hidden behind a platform like our ex advantage site is
to really create those relationships. Like you know, we have
many different layers and sometimes we can be seen as
a big machine to work through. But once you you know,
call into our contact center, you're met with a defined
(17:22):
team that you're gonna probably gonna have repeat conversations with oh,
I know, you know, you know Bob from over here
on the security team and I've talked to him a
few times on this. You know, let's have that conversation again,
or hey, I know Bobby in the field. I know
Chris is part of my regent approach.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
We've become a little more that human elements, right as know,
as we're trying to always you know, put things into
different AI bots and different platforms, and it's going to
be there for efficiency purposes, but that that human element,
that interaction is still needed to make sure that you
have that comfort of what you're asking for can be
built and delivered and coordinated and help Bobby build his kitchen.
(17:57):
It goes a long way. But that's that's a lot
of the unknown, right, So we want to make sure
that we can be you know, leveraged, found and you know,
supporting the business where appropriate for those solutions.
Speaker 6 (18:11):
It's also important to note that we have like a
varying degree of partner styles, right. You know, we have
some that are really built up like a good solid
and almost a larger even engineering presence, right that we have,
and then we have some right that are you know,
new businesses bringing up right and then varying degrees of
you know, how much they need our help, you know,
(18:32):
And I agree with Bobby and Dan from the standpoint
of a lot of people certainly don't know about like
the the amount of resources and opportunity to work with us,
Like they just don't know. But I think in a
way a lot are stubborn in a sense of you know,
they have to make a conscious decision of where to
insert INGRAM and our resources into their sales cycle, into
(18:55):
their pre sales cycle, and depending on the partner, you know,
I know that there's something for everybody, right even though
from the largest to the smallest, we have a ways
to bring them greater efficiencies, show them value, and you know,
it's a partnership in a way that they have to
make a decision on when and where to bring us in.
(19:17):
And you know, even if it's small bill materials or
larger projects or demonstrations, them making that conscious decision and
kind of building us in is where we've seen the
most success as well. And that goes small too large, right,
doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Well, that's a that's a good point then, So for
that partner that is just you know, whether they're new
to Ingram Micro or they are just new to this
concept of Ingram being more of a full services general
contractor what's a good starting point like how, yeah, I'm
the partner, I want that support, but how do I
(19:58):
get started on that?
Speaker 5 (19:59):
I would propose just having some sort of question or
business need that you can bring up. I mean, we
we start conversations with as as simple of a conversation
of Hey, I just want to I want to sell
more Cisco, right, or I want to understand this product.
You know, in Dan's case, sometimes it starts off with
a little bit more of a reactive notion. Right, Hey,
(20:20):
this this person wants to buy Muraki from me, but
we don't know much about Muraki. So can we get
you on to either train our team to you know,
to give this this end user a demo and kind
of introduce you guys as part of our team. You know,
There's lots of different ways that we can get either
reactive to something that you know, hey, I just want
to sell the you know, the the solution, or more
(20:43):
proactive to say, hey, you know, we have a quarterly
goal to maybe increase our Cisco you know, within the
next year, right or we would like to move up
the Cisco stack from maybe being registered partner to you know,
a select.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Or, a premiere or a Gold partner or.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
Right with the new Cisco three sixty prom that again,
I know, we've we've we've gone we've gone through. Hey,
I just I just want to know more about this, right, So,
definitely lots of different ways that you can get in touch.
Just realize that, you know, there's a ton of human
beings at Ingram that are there with the sole purpose
of just helping those partners to find those answers and
(21:19):
to give them the confidence to be able to go
out and sell these products and increase your revenue.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, I wonder if if you can speak to and
I'll point this question to any any three of y'all,
what are some success stories then? I mean, can you
think of examples where a partner has fully embraced all
of these wrap around services that Ingram micro offers and
it's really been a difference maker in their business.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
Yeah, I could think of one, Bobby or multiple But
you know, like we we work in different segments right
where we're focused on different accounts, and you know, I
have a few partners that have embraceding us in to
their business from the standpoint of right, we have direct
interface with like their teams, and this is like their
(22:07):
sales teams. They kind of like break down some of
the filters of Hey, you know you're working with one
point person here, or you know you're you know, you're
doing things internal. And you know, one of the things
that works really well is is they come to us first, right,
instead of trying to do the legwork, instead of trying
to find a solution, They're asking for our expertise, right.
(22:29):
And then if they need to find tune things from
their internal processes, they will, but they think of Ingram
as like a first point of contact right before doing
the research, before doing the work.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Right.
Speaker 6 (22:40):
And what we've shown over the years is, you know,
you go from a partner that's reaching out you know,
once every month to once every week to speaking every day, right.
You know, they learn more about what we can offer,
we learn more about how they're running their business, right,
and we kind of gel and it becomes you know,
hundreds of engagements over the course of a year, and
(23:03):
then you see the revenue growth to follow, right, because
at the end of the day, that's what Cisco. The
viewpoint of like our services within the technology channel is
they want to see the dollars follow the engagement. So
when you look at these partners that get to that
level of engagement where it's daily, we have a direct
correlation with seeing the growth in numbers right and kind
(23:27):
of outpacing partners who are not engaging right with our
services as well. And that is like you probably name
multiple accounts or partners that are doing this today, but
that is like our measuring stick of success.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, and that's interesting, that's interesting. How about you, Bobby
or Dan?
Speaker 5 (23:45):
I mean quick one for me is I just mentioned,
you know, moving a partner up the stack. I had
a conversation with a partner This was probably last year,
that was out of the blue. We really didn't do
much with them. They were registered partners, so they weren't
really on anyone's radar, and they said, hey, we want
to we want to be gold partners. And that's a
that's a heavy hit, right. It's kind of like a
(24:08):
you know, a kid saying they want to be an astronaut.
You know, when they grow up, it's like, okay, buddy, yeah,
let's do that. You know, But we gave them the
time of day and they were just in a growth
mode like crazy, where I was like, okay, well this
is going to be a heavy hit because you need
you know, four c CIEs and all of these people.
And then that's that's fine, Well well we'll hire them.
And I was like, oh, okay, all right, well let's
(24:29):
let's take a look at this. And yeah, it was
probably around i want to say, six months later they
were a gold partner. So it is doable, right. It's
it was their goal something that they needed just somebody
to help them out and to help them understand the structure,
but they had the workhorse there to be able to
say this is my goal and this is what we
want to do. Those are the partners that we're looking for, right,
(24:51):
the ones that say, with a little bit of help,
I can be successful, right, And we can give them
that help.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
And some partners like know where they want to go to,
you know, like we talk to a lot of partners
that maybe we're you know, become new business owners. They're
part of a larger organization, so they have the knowledge,
they know the roadmap, but they need help scaling. So
that's about knowledge gain and it's more about bodies, Right,
how do we get resources when I'm like in my
(25:19):
infant stage here as a business to help me scale
and grow? Right, I got the vision, right, you know,
Bobby provides the vision for a lot of partners, right
and educates them. But then we also kind of on
the flip side, people that are already determined and kind
of have the experience, maybe they're in industry twenty twenty
five years. We're providing the scaling too, right, you know.
(25:40):
So that's another way to look at it.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
You know, scaling's big because our empower EA program helps
partners grow with using our technical expertise, using our lab
environment where I support them. We see successes where they
use our lab versus having to pay for their own equipment,
their own using NFI dollars, stand up their own lab
and then learn on the fly. They can just you know,
talk to somebody again, Right. You can do as much
(26:05):
learning as you want from a book or a YouTube video,
But until you actually engage and see some of the
challenges we went through, or the gaps in the portfolio
or things that we've experienced, right, You're not going to
get a lot of those maybe sometimes right from the vendor. Right,
you got to kind of walk the walk a little bit,
and you know, we can work with partners and we've
done that so many times and a lot of those
(26:26):
that come to us looking for demos latch onto us.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
We have a lot of frequent flyers that come through
and say, hey, you help me with this, how about
this one?
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Right?
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Or Hey, I don't have the dollars or time to
get my team up to speed on that, but I
got this opportunity. Can you guys do a demo for
me here? And when we see the demos, it gives
them that seeing as believing approach, and like Chris mentioned,
it's the revenue dollars that come from that that you
know obviously you know that's their measuring stick, but our
measuring stick too, so it goes hand in hand well.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
As we do start to wrap up our episode, for
ask this a little bit like how will you get started?
But you know, for the partner that is already engaged,
you know, with the Cisco team, and for the partner
that really is just getting started with ing Ingram micro Dan,
how do you find out more?
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Our easy answer is our ex Vantage website. It's our
platform where we have Cisco's vendor homepage, our pre sales, solution,
design and services page, all of our professional services. Everything
can be found on our ex Vantage site. Whether you
are logged in or just kind of glancing as outsider,
kind of seeing what services we offer. That is the
(27:38):
main homepage. That is where everything can be found. Obviously,
we're a phone call away or a bookings away or
an engagement whatever you need. But if you're starting, it's
our expandage site.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I'm glad you mentioned the whether you're logged in or not,
because I think that's that's an assumption right there, that oh, well,
I'm just getting started. I'm not in the system. I'm
not you know what, how can I, you know, find
out all that there is from the outside kind of
dipping your.
Speaker 6 (28:03):
Toe in the water, right exactly?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
So all right, guys, well, I appreciate it a lot
of great information today. Thank you so much for joining me, Jaialvien.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
Appreciate it. Thanks for having us, of course.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
How any time, and thank you listeners for tuning in
and subscribing to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro.
If you haven't subscribed, be sure to do so and
don't forget you can find all of these episodes on
the Expantage platform. Until next time, I'm Shelby Skirhawk.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
You've been listening to B to B tech Talk by
ingram Micro. This episode was sponsored by ingram Micro Exvantage.
B to B tech Talk is a joint production between
Sweetfish Media and ingram Micro. To listen to this episode
and many others, visit ingrammicro dot com.
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