Why change? Dell is Direct.

I’m going to try something new. I am going to write an eloquent post, in much the same way that I run my business and project my values through it.

There is a lot of discussion again about Dell being the fire-breathing dragon setting the lives and careers of small business professionals on fire and burning down the “channel bridge” they so often talk about building.

For those of you not familiar with this business allow me to sum it up for you:

Dell is a computer manufacturer whose motto is to go direct and compete in a market with tight margins and plenty of substitutes. Small business IT consultants are by nature middlemen that profit from service and product markups along with the overall solution design and deployment.

Both crowds are competing for the direct relationship with the customer because in the entire equation that is the most profitable variable. It is all about the customer.

Dell wins when they are able to sell their entire solution stack to the customer. Small business IT consultants win when they can sell their preferred solution stack to the customer, either because it fits better or earns them bigger margins.

Both pretend to want to do business with each other but neither is willing to give up their ground of owning that direct financial relationship with the customer.

So they lie to one another. Dell lies to the partner community by telling everyone they are very focused on the channel, that the entire company history and culture of “going direct” is going to flip on its back for a handful of SMB IT consultants. SMB IT consultants in return go back to the villified vendor for their computer equipment because they are the cheaper and the easiest of the computer manufacturers to purchase from due to their direct nature and service delivery.

The two coexist when its convenient and fight when nobody is watching.

So why is it a surprise to some that Dell is not a channel friendly company, and why is it a surprise to Dell that its channel partners are not feeling the love from their partners as it offers one critical SMB IT Consultant service after another? Onsite delivery, onsite repairs, proactive managed services, cloud services, etc?

Why is everyone so surprised that people in business talk from both sides of their mouth?

Because in business the only thing that matters is money and where you can make more of it. Wise business people take Dell at its face value, understand the number of the beast, understand the conflict and find a profitable way to work around it. Others, for whatever self-deprecating reason, choose to think they can change the status quo that has been around for over a decade in a very profitable way.

SMB IT consultants like to talk about ethics, about the importance of staying small, about the importance of local commerce and doing business within your community but I can tell you that statistically speaking SMB IT Consultants would rather do business with anyone but one of their own. I had never set out to build OWN by contributing to the community, I did so because I wanted to help build on a movement that helped OWN break through and grow by learning from peers. All the while I was writing Vladville guides, video blogging, SBS Show, I got a lot of atta-boy but in equal measure I got a lot of recommendations not to do what I do for free. I was messing up the commercial life of selling advice to the SMB IT community. I didn’t stop. Want to know what finally made me quit?

“Several hundred people, by my best account, would call me having heard of our great products and services and instead of giving me the business they said: “I love what you do for the community, but business is business.” That’s life I suppose, and I just helped train and promote the very people that took their money and gave it to my competitors.”

SMB IT consultants chose to run their business without emotion or gratitude.

There are no hard feelings over that here, OWN has made a lot of friends, I have made a lot of personal friends and despite or maybe in spite of all that I chose that we were going to run a professional business no matter what.

Dell chose the same. They go direct.

Words are just words, marketing and empty promises don’t generate revenue or pay salaries or grow businesses. They just keep gullible going for a little while longer, always falling back to the culture of the company.

If we all could admit to ourselves what our strengths and competencies are and focused on them instead of portraying what we wish we could be, we’d all be a lot better off. If we could focus on improving ourselves instead of criticizing those that don’t appear to be what their marketing implies that would be even better.