Familiar Faces

DeStefano said the folks at ROI, allConnex and Blue Front know each other well. He attributed that New England culture.

“We’re all very friendly. We don’t really compete against one another,” he told Channel Futures. “Our competition is the direct sales force from the vendors that we represent.”

He said in some cases the three partners have sold to the same customer in different technology silos. In some cases, they pointed the prospective client in the direction of their peer.

“We’ve come across common customers, and once we found out that the other organization was working with that customer, we walk away and let that other organization know, ‘I just met with John Smith, and he’s looking at a technology that you might want to reach out to him and talk to him about,'” DeStefano said. 

In addition, one firm would host other firms at its office when a vendor visited for a training.