If you’ve read the About Us, you know that I owned and operated CommonGood IT from startup to multi-million dollar sale.  At our peak, we were just short of three million a year with true profit of 60%. 

How did we achieve that?  By working smarter and using our energy and time efficiently.  This allowed me to hold onto staff for 3x the national average, and clients 4x. 

How does this apply, you may ask? 

• This applies because the easiest money I made was doing what Tricera is offering you. 

• This applies because our team spent time doing the things that made us money. 

• This applies because I was able to put time and attention onto our clients and employees – rather than practices that wasted time and money.  By investing in them, they invested in us. 

Like many of you, I signed up for partner programs with Dell and Lenovo, trying to make some cash by doing what I was already doing, guiding my clients to purchase high-quality IT equipment.   

I quickly found the Lenovo program required a lot of extra work, then I had to go shop at distribution, tie up my credit, manage sales tax, collect funds from my precious clients (there’s a quick way to break a relationship) and mark stuff up to make a profit (that’s the quickest way to lose a client).   

Markup made no sense to me.  I made my money on MSSP contracts, and the argument that everyone uses that - Best Buy marks up why can’t I, is a false comparison.   

We made money on our relationship and nobody likes to spend extra money if they do not have to.  I was in hundreds of boardrooms in my career and 90% of the time, my future clients asked if I marked up their stuff, while sharing their disdain for the practice.   

Marking up equipment pisses clients off.   

We made our money from our contracts, and those were much more valuable than markup. 

So, I pivoted to Dell.  Their MSP program was 1% of gross, paid quarterly.  I later found out that it was paid on a Dell gift card that expired in 90 days.  Total crap.  Not only did I make a whopping $10 on a $1000 system but I could not spend the money except on stuff I did not need.  I felt like I was shopping the old version of Wheel of Fortune.  ‘I guess I’ll take the Ginsu knives, Pat.’ 

My CTO, a brilliant man named Tanvir who was with me for 14 years, had met one of our future partners and suggested I reach out.  I pitched him on a plan to get a piece of the action.   

He explained  they fund the products at distribution, managed all the logistics, carried the paper and completed the sale with the client directly as a referral. 

He agreed and said they could be quite generous with our commission.  I was hoping for 10%.  He offered 34%! 

We started doing business.  When my clients needed hardware, all I needed to do was tell them, I work with an owner of a company that we partner with and he’s awesome.  With a straight face, I could say that I don’t mark up your prices like the other guys.    

Dan managed everything from there.  He got super competitive quotes from all the distributors and presented them to me and copied the client on our correspondence if I wanted.   

I or an employee would then research the equipment if there were multiple options – like I5 laptops and guide our client to the right purchase. I suggested the choice I’d researched to the client and let them know that Dan would reach out to get a credit card or setup terms or leasing.  Dan handled everything from there. 

After Dan’s company got paid, so did we.  Custom configuration needed?  Dan handled it.  Slow paying?  Dan handled it.  A lemon of a system?  Dan handled it – several times past when manufacturers warrantee had expired, he got it done.  Weird logistics?  He would track everything down, including international deliveries.   

Our integration grew.  $5000 checks were routine.  We even saw one in the $12000 range after a big order.  And I never even needed to manage sales tax or worry about a collection.  My employees were not tied up back and forth with clients and distributors.  We quickly standardized and when a device was going out of production, Dan got samples of the next system in our hands and those of our clients.   

Covid madness happened but Dan had it nailed. 

Dan even handled MS AutoPilot and JumpCloud setup.  

• Less (almost no) work. 

• Less time (almost none) invested. 

• Much more money. 

I took the time to average out the money we received from Dan’s company and divided it by 15 which was the average number of employees we had during that period. 

We averaged $550 per employee per month.  15 employees x $550 = $8250 per month on average.  That’s a nice MSSP contract (which requires lots of work of course).  For me, that $8250 was almost passive income that brought our clients closer with us and deflected any upset for lemons or shipping issues. 

Now, why have I not disclosed Dan’s identity?  The simple answer is Tricera gets paid by referring to them.   

They have a new program for their MSPs where you’ll make 20% of profit.   

We made 34% of profit. 

I got them to agree to grandfather in everyone we refer into that 34% deal.  So, it is to everyone’s advantage to join forces right now.  In the future, we have plans to increase that percentage for you even more.  

Like all things, time is of the essence.  Do you want to keep doing things the same old way and go extinct or do you want to innovate and evolve? 

I look forward to speaking with you. 

Warmly, 

Stephen