Ken Beam provides an excellent overview of problems that may surface when marketing SaaS products through resellers or referral partners. There’s a difference between the two entities. Here’s the breakdown:

• Resellers – Typically, resellers of any product are in business to make a profit by reselling products or services of others. They purchase at a price that allows them to resell at a higher price. They’ll offer discounts, when necessary, to move their product, but the goal is to reap a profit. Resellers will usually have a sales staff and other processes in place that can offer setup, integration, training and support of SaaS software and hardware. They thoroughly understand the SaaS products and services.
• Referral Partners – These vendors seldom have sales processes or dedicated personnel in place that are dedicated to buying and reselling hardware or software. So, reselling SaaS products would be a challenge for them to market properly. Since referral partners are generally accepted as trusted advisers, their method of reselling SaaS software or hardware to their customers wouldn’t be as thorough as that of a dedicated reseller.

The best resellers of SaaS products and services are those that have a real stake in the product. Simply put, they believe in the product or service.

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