Verio Consolidates Channel Programs

The idea is to give its 6,500-plus partners a single point of access to all of its solutions, regardless of whether they are SMB partners selling shared hosting or enterprise partners selling enterprise hosting and access services, said Craig Schlagbaum, vice president of enterprise hosting and access channel sales at Verio, Englewood, Colo.

"We're making it easier for them by combining several partner portals to get all the information they need on pricing and selling our solutions in one common portal," he said.

Partners had already started cross-selling services--such as enterprise partner selling shared hosting--in addition to dedicated hosting and access services, he said. "Rather than go to one place for information on shared hosting and another for IP services, they now have one place to go," he said.

To encourage new partners to sign with Verio and existing partners to start cross-selling Verio services, the company has introduced generous commission programs, he said.

Under the Enterprise Fast 50 program, new partners that win new business in either enterprise hosting or access can earn up to 50 percent of the first month's revenue from each sale in addition to any regularly scheduled commission payments.

The second program awards "Mega Migration" tiered bonus incentives to SMB partners that migrate shared, virtual private server or managed private server hosting accounts to Verio. Both promotions are effective through Dec. 31, 2003, he said.

Channel business accounts for about 50 percent of Verio's revenue. The company recently adopted a sales-neutral approach that awards direct salespeople equally for direct and indirect sales.

"What we are showing is that our channel model is our business model," Schlagbaum said.