The Remarketer

From our experience running booths at college and university job fairs, there is a simple sure-fire way to attract and recruit IT and IS students to your booth.

Include the word “technologies” or “technology” in your company name or in big wording on your display materials.

The funny thing is, Vibrant generally doesn’t go to college career fairs to recruit IS graduates, because we require several years experience in the field before we consider a systems engineer candidate (we’re looking for entry-level sales and customer service).

With fall approaching, students are stocking up on school supplies, hunters are polishing their rifles and resellers are “sharpening their pencils” in preparation to assist clients get better pricing on their IT Hardware Maintenance Renewals.

‘Tis the season when the requests start to roll in, eventually peaking in December.

I recommend you seek out quotes two or three months before your primary contracts terminate, although most vendors will still negotiate up until the last minute. Keep in mind that you can also usually co-terminate your contracts so they’re pro-rated and all start and end on the same date.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, experienced art curators could immediately sense a fake when looking at the Getty Museum’s prized Kouros statue based on their gut instinct alone. Likewise, senior sales reps can usually sense a scam in the opening lines of an e-mail or the beginning of a call.

Yesterday I spelled out 4 underrated scam techniques used against IT Resellers, and today I’ll list seven signs that should clue you in to steer clear.

These aren’t your garden variety scams involving Nigerians, Phishing and Russian Brides. No, we’re talking about under-the-radar ways in which IT Resellers are getting burned by unscrupulous buyers. These are professional scam techniques that are pulled off at various levels of sophistication.

1) They Claim to work for a Large Corporation
- Taking advantage of a company’s weakness to trust a big name.
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It’s customary for corporate clients to require payment terms, anywhere from seven to thirty days to pay their invoice after shipment. Usually credit checks are run before terms are granted, but if a company is large enough (and if the order seems urgent enough), some companies will ship first and ask questions later.