We at IntraHost are looking to expand our current reselling market, but we were wondering how other hosts are doing on this subject or any ideas on to get more resellers.

We just put up our new site and our new packages. Resellers get an even bigger discount then before but we don't know how to get the word out. Is advertising specifically for a reseller program a good idea?

Thanks!
(www.intrahost.com/resellers.html)

Originally posted by IntraHost
We at IntraHost are looking to expand our current reselling market, but we were wondering how other hosts are doing on this subject or any ideas on to get more resellers.

We just put up our new site and our new packages. Resellers get an even bigger discount then before but we don't know how to get the word out. Is advertising specifically for a reseller program a good idea?

Thanks!
(www.intrahost.com/resellers.html)

Im a reseller for Annette as a matter of fact..I picked her for a host for my domains and was so impressed by their service I decided to resell for them ..my confidance in their support, and business practices were the main factors

You cannot go wrong with marketing!

As with most businesses if you build it they will not come unless you tell them about it ;)

David

Annette, if you don't mind my asking, why would you stop offering reseller plans? Do you find that they are more work or a "problem" in some way?

We at HostX2 get most of our resellers from our existing resellers. When they sign up they have the option of recommending our program to five people. We also have a 2-tier system which makes our resellers promote the reseller program as well as participate in it. This builds the network dramatically.

Originally posted by Annette
There are a couple of reasons:

First, some resellers tend to require much more support than regular clients, because they have gotten into it without really knowing much. They tend to ask question after question without digesting the answers or bothering to read the massive number of support documents that we've put together (one, in fact, was trying to email us at an address that wasn't even ours, and complained because we never responded).

Second, some resellers are simply more trouble than they are worth, either wanting complete control over every aspect of the server (whether it is hardware configuration, software additions, build this plan for me etc.) or telling us exactly what is wrong with our business. Example of the former: one reseller is on almost every night, either through chat or through email, saying that he wants this or that on the server, or wants a particular daemon's configuration changed (for reasons known only to him, since things work fine). People like this are better off getting their own server, as everyone knows that resellers simply do not have the same control as someone who runs their own box. Example of the latter: one reseller (no longer with us, thankfully) who obviously knew nothing about hosting, servers, or much of anything (and I mean that literally) and showed no inclination to learn anything (bad sign #1) accounted for 70% of all of our support during a three week period - with only himself as a client. He also told us we should do this or that with our site, or let him design the site when (bad sign #2) his own site was crap (truly) and he was offering design services using Frontpage (and still is, last time I checked).

Third, certain limitations with Alabanza's (very nice) billing system make it necessary to manually do charging for resellers.

Don't get me wrong - I don't mind the majority of our resellers. Some of our resellers we hardly ever talk to, in fact, because most of the time everything works just fine. But from time to time, I think we may stop offering the plan, just as a little break for ourselves, and to see if there is a better solution for the third option, as the first two will never change.

Makes one afraid to become a pain

I am a reseller. A very new one, that intends to concentrate on a small niche market that I have access too until I get my feet wet, and learn a little more than I do now. So I guess the question is, how did I find the host that I resell for. Well like most I started with the sites that list webhosts. I developed a long list of hosts that offered the type services that I would want to offer my clients. I then started looking at boards like this one to find out what the general opinoins of certain hosts were. I would come to the board and do a search on each of the hosts. By doing this, I was able to narrow the list down to about 5 or 6 hosts that I thought may be able to carry me through. I then put together an email with 4 or 5 presale questions. Some of the questions were already answered on their websites, but that was not the point. I sent the same email to all 5 of the potential hosts. I then looked at the response times of the hosts. Only three responded within 24 hours, and two responded within 1 hour. The final decision was made on economics. Which host offered a resell plan that would allow me to make a profit or at least break even with the fewest number of accounts sold.

I don't know if this answered your question, but I guess it goes like this. There is some value to being listed on the host search type sites, because that is where I developed my orginal list. There is a lot of value in participating in sites like this, because that is what I used to narrow my list. And third, answer emails promptly, as that was a major factor in the final round. To me, the least import, but still important, was cost.

As a note, banner ads had no impact on my decision or search at all.

Would you mind sharing the top 5 list you came up with. I am searching for a replacement company to resell for

David

I really appreciate all of your help. I guess the best advice comes from the customers themeselves (thanks though annette!).

Marty, your comments were really helpful. We try to get listed on all of the webhost listing sites, but, there are so many, and its tough to get to the top of the list when you've only been in business for 9 months and you don't have a huge budget for marketing.

Right now what we're working on at IntraHost is a new customer service system. We put it on all of our webpages last night, and so far people seem to like it a lot. We used to use HumanClick, but this new system is a lot more professional and also is a total customer service system, not just live chat. So we hope that we will be able to provide faster, and better, response times and content.

I guess you can say for the past 9 months we've been working on building up the site and services and now we are looking for that mad rush of clients. We have a strong customer base and wanted to expand our reach with resellers.

We'll see how the dice roll.
Thanks again!

David,

I can't remember all of them but some of the finalists were coolreseller.com, hostmatters.com, hostrocket.com, below10host.com, etc.

Hope that is at least helpful.

Jeff,

Glad I could help.

Marty

Thanks
:beer:

David

Thanks Annette for the information.

I can definitely see the possible problems. I guess everything is relative and depends on the number of resellers and the reseller themselves (whether they have experience, etc.). So far I think that we have been lucky to have good people as resellers for us. I hope it continues (for you and us). :)

Now I'm curious...
Who do you resell for, Marty??

So far as the bothersome reseller customer goes, I may be able to inject a couple of pointers.

First of all, we're in the age of the internet now and we all need to be oh so thankful that at least we don't have to smell the customers breath while they are bitching at us, or taking up our time.

That aside, I've found in doing general e-commerce that it's often better to just outright refuse service (or product) to some people. Instead of telling your customers to "sign up now!", try telling them to "apply now". Let them know up front that you are not in the business of dealing with "problem child" customers. Something like "we want to be able to provide support as quickly, painlessly, and efficiently as possible, so we ONLY offer our services to customers that are not going to bottleneck the system. We've put this rule into effect to better serve our customers".

That should weed out the occasional customer (and they know who they are) that is going to need constant attention. I sold very small domain accounts (1-2mb) for 9.95 a month to a few people who I designed sites for. But I hardly ever have to do anything except bill because I let my design customers know up front that I don't deal with problem child customers. Even when there are problems with the service, my customers know that while I will do everything possible to help them, if there's nothing I can do, there's nothing I can do. And if they push me, I'll warn them that the relationship CAN end at any given moment. They can either be patient with me like the rest of my customers or find another host/maintainer. I've had to tell two customers this during a recent loss of mail service, and on both occasions, they immediately emailed apologizing for their impatience and let me know that they enjoy doing business with me. And more importantly, the aggravated emails stopped.

This is not something that you're going to want to put on a webpage that is selling to end-users en-masse. You don't want to come off TOO confident, you could lose your ass. But in dealing with resellers, absolutely. You should let your resellers know right up front that YOUR THE BOSS. You're providing THEM with the opportunity to make money. If they are responsible, rational, people who understand the basics of the business that they are getting into, they should have no problem "qualifying" as a reseller for you.

It's definitely a "sellers" market. Be confident in your service or product, and your customers will respect you for it. When someone dominates your time, let them know that you're monitoring them and that if it gets out of hand, you'll have to cut them loose. Nine times out of ten, that will solve your problem with them. If it doesn't, well, there's always one way to solve the problem, eliminate the source.

Just a suggestion.

Beau

I agree, but reseller can really make your business grow. Without them, it can be like pulling teeth. The reseller handles the customer support for their clients, and we get involved with the reseller. It makes for a perfect marriage.

Originally posted by Annette
However, those resellers trying to build a house without any construction knowledge, tools, or blueprints can rapidly become a problem for the upstream host.

That is the case with any reselling in any industry.

One simply has to way the benefits with the disadvantages and make decisions based on that.

Which it seems like you have a clear understanding of both sides

later

David

Yeah, it all melts down to this. Resellers save you the work of marketing and providing support, and get their share of the profits for this work. But it can become a pain in the most painful places if either the reseller or the actual seller or the end users are dumb idiots asking you to tie their shoe laces for them.
You would love to do that if you are a kindergarten teacher but not a college professor. If your reseller asks you questions that encourage you to think and learn, you would love to do business with him, but not if he bores you, eats all your time and thinks it is his birthright, and he's not willing to do his homework learning things he can.
Guess we can have a test for all people (that would inculde hosts too, as there are also many dumb hosts out there in the field) before they get into a business. Wishful thinking :)

To fly is a bird, to think is a man.

TheWingThing.

This reminds me of my previous job in an end user support role, Believe me or not, I have to answer to the same person the same question everyday for the past 7 years ! What a nightmare ! Glad it is over now. :D

There are people who wish to learn, there are also people who depends on others to handle things. We are in a business world, it is somtimes difficult for you to say no to your customers because there are just too many things you have to take in considerations to say no. I guess we just have to built up some patience in this. ;)
__________________

I agree that you have to be confident from the very start, and clearly define what is allowed and what is not.

I have a reseller who has several domains with me and knows absolutely nothing about webhosting. Mind you, he is willing to learn which is why I have spent the time that I have with him. If he hadn't been willing to learn, then no amount of business he brought me would have been worth it. Like Annette said, you cannot in any circumstance allow one client to monopolize all your time at the expense of others. If that happens, then it's time to make a decision.