July 29, 2005

An Unusual Business Opportunity?

I received an email a week or so ago from someone asking for a price list of Great Plains. Microsoft had made me remove prices I had posted on my web site. I don’t know why as they were standard prices.

Instead of taking the prices down from the web site, I just removed the links to them. I was a bit surprised, when I received the request for prices, but just emailed a link to the person doing the query.

A day or so later I received an email in which he said they were unhappy with their current reseller and they had some questions about upgrading their system. I responded as matter of fact as I could and told him I was somewhat limited in what I could quote, as I didn’t have access to all the modules Microsoft had him registered for.

I sent him a VAR (Value Added Reseller – that’s me) change form and told him that if he wanted to change VARs all he had to do was to print it out, fill it out and fax it to Microsoft. This morning I received an email that he had submitted the VAR change form and Microsoft had processed it.

My total time in acquiring this new client was about 15 minutes and I have now idea how he happened to find me. Perhaps it was a referral from someone else.

I guess I’d better call him now and see what he wants.

The whole situation seems too weird in that I did so little to get this client. Of course, he may just as easily and quickly disappear. It looks like I need to do a TRI (Trust and Respect Inquiry) with him to see if I want to keep him.

Posted by The Vorlon at July 29, 2005 9:43 PM