Hey all,
I have to step in here and give my 2cents.
Having worked with TUCOWS since day one I have always believed that the small business is where it is at. I have worked with many of you on this list while at TUCOWS to help you grow your business no matter how little it is. I also believed that the reseller channel had made TUCOWS what it is in the domain industry.
When you sign up with openSRS, although you are signing up for a service that openSRS provides, the value for TUCOWS is to provide the resellers with a means to succeed. Add value to your reseller. The more they make the more TUCOWS makes.
As this discussion surrounds the reseller list, I am happy to say that I am now a reseller, and I am faced with the other side of the game.
I need to grow my business. It is important that my provider, services me well. Participating on the reseller list should be a benefit not a privliege.
As a solution to this problem, while at TUCOWS I suggested having a link to a separate site that does a random generation of a bunch of resellers. I had set up a domain name called domainresellerlist.com when we launched certs, and provided my clients with a template design to sell certs. That was easy.
I would like to suggest this solution again. If TUCOWS simply had a link stating to register your domain name click on www.domainresellerlist.com. Here you may have a page potentially of 10 resellers at a time, show up in a random generated manner. This way, as you sign up with openSRS, everyone is given an equal opportunity, and this starts to be fair for all. 1. this is not hard for your team to create, 2. it eliminates Dave and his staff spending time to see if resellers have met their quota to be on the list, 3. It provides an equal playing field for everyone 4. You do not waste all this time you have spent on this list discussing potentially only a small portion of business and focus on the real core of providing all those ancillary services.
I really believe this will eliminate the issues and guidelines that you are trying to suggest simply because there seems to be some demand to be put on this referral list.
Dave it will also solve the issue with your sales team and client service team and support team, simply to direct referrals to one destination which is simply random.
Hope this helps so we can moooove on and see what cool stuff TUCOWS has in store for us.
Denzil
From: "Elliot Noss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Referral List Elliot its time for you to step in
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 12:56:16 -0500
This is so long and heartfelt it desreves a reply. It looks to me like my
last post and this might have crossed, so to be clear, Dave's position is an
official position. It is also a new position. It also provides guidelines
not rules.
One point that I would make though is that there is NOT a new management
team. There is only one senior manager, out of 10-12, in the company who has
not been here two years. I thought that was a point worth making.
Regards
Elliot Noss
Tucows inc.
416-538-5494
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 11:38 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Referral List Elliot its time for you to step in
>
>
> Hello All resellers Tucows/OpenSRS Staff and Management
> (I'm no English scholar so please excuse my grammar) But I
> have to voice
> my concern at the total miss of the point here!
> This Referral issue keeps coming comes up over and over and ELLIOT it
> is time you did exactly what you have said you should not in your
> message of
> Jan 12 2003( found here
> http://www.opensrs.org/archives/discuss-list/0301/0157.html )
> That is make a decision or better a announcement that affects all you
> managers.
> Why do I say that. Well you felt in that statement that the
> communication is better in your company. Many of us fell strongly
> that this
> view is very odd as this issue has went on for months now and nothing has
> been resolve. Nothing has been said by any one at tucows/opensrs
> that holds
> any merit until this week. The statement by your sale manager is the first
> solid statement made on the subject. This statement though is really weak
> and sure doesn't seem to be anything official or anything that is
> followed.
> The resent postings to this thread from many that qualify lets us
> know that.
> We NEED something official to put a end to all this. What does it take
> pickets at your front door to get a public decision made. Lets end all the
> Bit##ing back and forth for once and all and have you make the definitive
> statement or at minimum when it will be made.
> The Big thing I believe that the management at Tucows./opensrs is
> missing and that includes you Elliot is that the staff there also
> thinks the
> referral policy change is a real miss and a mistake. They have expressed
> that to use the resellers Load and clear but confidentially. Before some
> staff member ends up in the soup over this I for one want a
> publicly stated
> rule and guide line made and posted to end this.The resent posting to the
> list have several messages stating the person in question was told this or
> that from a staff member. Please believe that this is going on because it
> is.
> My relationship with Tucows was started long before the domain
> registration issue came to play or was a issue.Both Your company and mine
> have grown to know one another personally. I personally have
> several in your
> employ I would call a friend many of your staff have referred countless
> local contact's to us and have personally referred everything
> from designers
> to folks registered with other registers that were having trouble. Why?
> Because they know who we are and that we are honest, helpful and will
> actually help them. They have done this on a personal level Often because
> they know the result if they send the client to one of the bigger guys
> exactly how quickly that client would get lost in the shuffle.
>
> The Biggest example of this was when the .ca registration
> came out a few
> years ago and one of your staff members received a call from a
> frantic "Nun"
> in Saskatchewan. your support staff didn't have time to help this
> technologically challenged person trough a registration. During his lunch
> break this tucows staffers called me personally to ask if I could
> call this
> person explaing she was a Nun and that she needed help but he didn't have
> time on the support line to do such and had promised a call from someone
> local.
>
> I made the call helped the sister then and several times
> since she still
> asks everytime how this tucows staff member is as she believed and I never
> corrected her that we are like a big happy family cooperating as we had.
> This is the way Tucows/Opensrs was operating not but a few short
> months ago.
> In the past 18-24 months you have tried hard to stream line and assign
> management titles to many new faces that for one we have never been
> introduced to. the staff that helped us grow and who are the ones that
> really know what is going on in the trenches have totally lost their voice
> for some reason. These staff members are the ones that should be in those
> management positions. They know there clientele and the recourses
> back wards
> and they do know how to handle these issues correctly. (MY option)
>
> There are several stories coming out of opensrs/tucows. Lots of the
> staff there are calling and emailing several of the resellers telling them
> they have there support in this little "battle" over the
> resellers list.Your
> own staff know what benefit was received by the resellers from the list
> before it was taken down and they voiced there option to there managers as
> well as to "US" the resellers. We have listened to them and
> would strongly
> suggest that the new management team start listening as well as it is
> obvious they are not. Surveys do not necessarily result in the
> right answers
> all the time the "old " method of personal contact does work more
> often that
> a possible skewed interpretation of some results.
>
> I personally have had two such calls that I will not discuss
> with anyone
> but the person who made the call. The single largest source of
> problem that
> is arising is you have without a doubt lost contact with the enduser here
> surveys or not they are not working! I do understand one cannot please all
> the folks all the time and I personally accept that......But what has
> happened here is there have been several resellers told several different
> stories now by your staff including me.
>
> Your sales manager is on line giving details of how the
> posted resellers
> get "CHOSEN" to be on the list. His story is not real creditable as it
> doesn't match many of the resellers that have voiced up and DO
> qualify to be
> on the list but are not.
> Yes we all know the income received from this referral list
> is not going
> to make anyone rich or anything like that.Its simple the complete
> disregard
> for many resellers by removing those that were there is really hit some
> nerves. Especially those that were tracking the revenue from that source.
> Last time I commented on this subject I made some references to my numbers
> which I will place below again. I gained from that referral list to a
> measure you will not understand unless your my accountant. That momentum
> will not stop no matter what opensrs/tucows does with their list we will
> continue to grow by leaps and bounds monthly. We have a good company here
> and a good product. Tucows/opensrs has been a big part of that until now
> that I have been proud to advertise such and would like to maintain that
> relationship and hope to.
> comments on my numbers found at:
> http://www.opensrs.org/archives/discuss-list/0211/0442.html
> Below is a excerpt from that comment which is a response to Elliot's
> statements on "what we think"<tucows
> Elliot's full message is found at
> http://www.opensrs.org/archives/discuss-list/0211/0439.html
>
> >>>>>>.my comments>
> I feel strongly though that you did miss one sore spot with me and many
> on this list. The referral system you changed this year. You give us (the
> small Guy/Gal ) credit here but you have taken away one of the
> absolute best
> sources of on line revenue that many of them had. We support you (strongly
> and faithfully ) and did not leave even with that. We felt and
> still do that
> you showed your favouritism of only the big guys who already have the
> connections and client base. Please re address this issue....its the small
> folks that need the exposure of our connection to you to grow. It is not
> enough to have our connection to you on our site it should also be on your
> site to "PROVE" you are also proud of your association with us as
> you claim
> to be!.
> To let you know why I feel strongly about this and have
> bitched at times
> loudly about it . Until your removed me from your site I was receiving 20%
> of my new domain and cert revenue from your site directly!. THAT IS NOW
> GONE. Yes I know my volume doesn't get that large but it grows
> yearly and my
> retention is super strong as you attest is with many small firms. I am
> forced to work much harder than the big guys to get back that
> lost source of
> revenue....We have less staff to help and our time is much more
> valuable as
> there is far less of it.
> One point I fell strongly about is your view about our ability to gain
> and keep clients affordably. Our company goes along way to prove
> that. In 5
> years of business we have only lost 12 client out of the over 1000 we now
> have. Of the 12 we lost 9 are off the web completely and not participating
> in web in any business what so ever (there Lose). The balance (3) well in
> all honest if they hadn't left we would have likely asked them to
> . I don't
> know what that related to for numbers on your model but to us our clients
> are the first priority
> >>>>>>>>>>end>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>
> Greg Makuch
> Whatever Computes Ltd.
> http://www.whatevercomputes.com
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> phone: 306-569-4174
> Toll-free: 1-877-291-3269
>
>
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