ISV Talks
ISV Talks
Building Strong ISV–VAR Partnerships
Your ISV product might be great, but can a partner confidently recommend it to their customer? 🤔
In this episode of ISV Talks, host Carol Livingston of Dynamics Connections sits down with Sal Buonocore from Technology Leader Companies, Marketing Coordinator and ISV Alliance Partner Manager at Pre-Sales Leader, we unpacked what it really takes to build stronger ISV–VAR partnerships in the ERP channels.
At the heart of it all? Clarity, trust, and meaningful collaboration. ISVs need to make their value unmistakable, think clear messaging, ERP-aligned pricing, and defined processes.
Showing up matters, too: community events like Summit NA and Acumatica Summit offer vital face time to earn credibility. We also explored how co-marketing, from webinars to shared lead gen, can scale growth when trust is already there.
The ISV–VAR relationship isn’t just about software, it’s about shared success. As Sal puts it, “Relationships are the name of the game.” Keep finding smarter, simpler ways to strengthen the channel and deliver results together.
Welcome to this episode of ISV Talks. I'm Carol Livingston, your host of ISV Talks and the owner of Dynamics Connections, and on this episode I'm happy to have Sal Unicor from PreSales Leader. Welcome, Sal.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Carol. I appreciate the time and the platform to be here and time to have conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is a little different. We're doing a little different edition today. Sal, tell us a little bit about your background and maybe a little bit about yourself, and maybe a little bit about PreSales Leader and your company.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. So again, my name is Sal Bunicar. I work with PreSales Leader. I hold a couple of different hats there, but a little bit about myself is I work in marketing primarily. So I've been the marketing coordinator for PreSales Leader and their sister companies we'll call it. I can dive into that in a second. But also I've been our ISV Alliance partner manager as well, helping to build connections and partnerships with different ISV solutions in that Matica ERP channel specifically.
Speaker 2:So a little bit about our company. We have pre-sales leader that's who I work for but we also have a parent company called Technology Leader Company and within that we have three companies, one of them being pre-sales leader, focused on fractional pre-sale support. We also have product marketing leader, helping with creating marketing content as well as doing some go-to-market strategy coaching for that. And then the third practice is business consulting leader, helping to design, build and implementation and optimization for Acumatica, vars and end users. So that's our company. So we help see everything from super top of funnel to even go live and post go live in Acumatica ecosystem. So I live in both all three of those worlds.
Speaker 2:A little bit on the marketing side of things. But specifically I engage with ISVs on the pre-sales leader branch of all that working. Our partnerships there so that's me in a super short nutshell. Partnerships there so that's me in a super short nutshell. I've been with PreSales Leader for a little over a year now doing the ISV Alliance partnership piece. But yeah, I could always dive into deeper into any three of those practices.
Speaker 1:Great, you mentioned Acumatica. Do you work?
Speaker 2:with any other.
Speaker 1:ERPs or other ecosystems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So yes and no is the short answer to that. Working backwards, we started in the Acumatica system. Our founder, our owner, came from the Acumatica world, helped start up the Acumatica practice at a far handful of years ago and then, whenever he branched off and started up PreSales Leader, the focus was Acumatica. It still is on the PreSales Leader side, and especially the business consulting leader side, just because that's where we have our expertise and our history. Thankfully, product marketing is a little bit more broad. You don't have to be as specific. So we do marketing and marketing coaching, different ERPs and even software. Sometimes it doesn't even fall into a software ERP world. Even so, marketing is kind of much broader and easier to tap into other ecosystems than having to do the pre-sales discovery demo work as well as actually designing and building ERP projects. So two out of the three are only Acumatica right now. Maybe one day in the future we'll get to spread and go into some different ERPs. But yeah, acumatica is our bread and butter right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you guys know that ecosystem, the founders. And then what's the name of the founder again?
Speaker 2:Jeremy Patoka. He is the founder behind PreZill's Leader and we've only been. August 2025 will be four years for us, so we're still a new, young company, but we have pretty deep roots within Acumatic, with our founder coming from pretty reputable bar in the Acumatica channel helping start up that practice there and then really leaning in and yeah, I won't use the word perfection, but really crafted excellent demo to even using the tagline demos that don't suck as our tagline for the pre-sales leader practice. It is definitely stuck. I don't know how I could turn around. I don't want to face my back to the camera, but my pre-sales leader shirt we have it tagged on the back of t-shirts and everything, so that's funny.
Speaker 1:Well, good. Well, thanks for sharing about a little bit about the company and the services that you provide. I know I met you through acu connect. You know we both yeah, we're on. You were on a webinar that I was participating in and I thought what you guys do is pretty interesting, and so I reached out to you. So tell me a little bit, since you work with both of ours and ISVs both, so maybe you can kind of share your thoughts in terms of either side of that table. How do VARs discover and evaluate and select ISVs? Because that's always what I try to do is help them find, meet their requirements. But how do you see that VARs are doing that today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, I'll wear my pre-sales leader hat for a moment. What we do with pre-sales is fractional pre-sales support. So VARs as well as ISV subscribe to our pre-sales as a service subscription where we help do the pre-sales, the SE Solutions Engineer work for these Acumatica FARs and even some ISVs. So that gives us an interesting look into the Acumatica channel, kind of gives us a little bit perspective of the FAR but also the ISV. So even though we're a service partner in the Acumatica channel, there's some of us that's kind of far, some of us that's kind of an ISV. But to answer your specific question, I wanted to give that context. This is how we can speak into this a little bit deeper into things at pre-sales. But the question was how FARs look at, learn about, discover ISV solutions. Yeah, we could take two approaches there how ISVs stand out, how you can stand out and make yourself discoverable and more aware to the FARs. But even FARs, how are you going about looking into those? And I think it's having a very specific kind of set of questions that you are bringing to those FARs, trying to check out compatibility, what the implementation process looks like, what's their track record, what their history, compatibility, what the implementation process looks like? What's their track record, what their history is? What kind of support do they provide? The FAR perspective it's not about the features necessarily of your solution, as it is the fit of that solution with that partner and their end clients. So, approaching things that way, I think so often FARs need to be asking a question of will this ISV solution enhance our customer's ERP experience or is it going to complicate it more and make it more cumbersome to work within the main software itself? So yeah, from a FAR angle, asking questions, asking some of the right questions. So the compatibility assuming if they're having a conversation with you they're compatible with the ERP software you work in.
Speaker 2:But implementation is also big on. How long does it take to implement the solution? How was that timeline look like? What's your support in that? Is that solely on you guys? Do we have to handle some of that?
Speaker 2:So questions that Fars should be asking to handle some of that. So questions that Fars should be asking On the other end, kind of building on top of that ISV, is how you stand out to Fars, to stand out to partners within your channel. Is really having a streamlined approach to some of those questions, being able to share your unique value right off the bat, being able to share how you fit within to that industry and kind of talking through the integration implementation stages as well. If you're able to come with some of those questions already fully thought through and pretty simple and get to them even before a partner has to ask what those are, that really helps you stand out and gives clarity as well as relevance to what a partner is looking for clarity as well as relevance to what a partner is looking for. So I think that gets some of the heart of that question trying to help FARs and ISVs do some discovery evaluation as they're looking at partnerships on both sides.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think that is really interesting. What is your unique value versus the out-of-the-box solution from the publisher or even other kind of competitors? Just knowing kind of what makes you very unique, what's your differentiators? Being able to talk to that, because I find that there's so many ISVs. Partners have a hard time kind of distinguishing between the differences between the different ISVs.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I totally agree, especially when you get wrapped in with all the other people that do similar things. It's not always the same or 100% identical, so being able to just be hey, I'm an AR solution and what makes me different is XYZ than the 2,200 other AR solutions that's probably in the marketplace as well.
Speaker 1:Exactly, so what do you think are the best strategies for really helping build those channel relationships VARs to ISVs, isvs to VARs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for both sides ISVs and VARs I think thinking of at least for me, speaking from the Acumatica channel specifically, it's a very personal relational channel. So it's about the FaceTime virtual or in-person that you're able to give, as well as the people that as well. So for the ISV it's an importance of those personal connections and participating in the options that are out there. So Acumatica has user groups that I think are quarterly I could be wrong on that but they have user groups that you can plug and attend in, you can be sponsors at. Acumatica has their big summit conference at the end of January every year.
Speaker 2:That's a phenomenal time to get a lot of face time in with partners, other solutions and end users. A lot of good FaceTime that you can get there. Accuconnect's one. There's other ISV programs. Presales runs one, you run one. There's a lot of different other opportunities to get a lot more FaceTime and personal connections. But relationships are the name of the game. For FARS it's really trying to figure out how to identify really trustworthy solutions that are out there and which ones are going to help you and help collaborate with you to ensure that your customers are really successful in your ERP software so that trust gets built with having transparency, time being responsive and being willing to collaborate with yeah, so it's relationships is the name of the game. If I have to sum up probably one word to encompass all of that the best strategy is being relational and creating relationships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think building that credibility and build your trust and having a relationship doing what you say you'll do and I think that's really key and this channel and other channels aren't any really different. That way it is building a relationship. And I think bars too, when they're trusting their clients kind of systems and everything to ISV that they recommended, they want to make sure it goes well and they have a good experience and the ISV is going to be on top of it and communicating with the client, with the partner.
Speaker 1:So those are all important things I don't really get to find out after the fact that the client didn't have a good experience. And now the partner.
Speaker 2:It's all about the end client and how they are, their happiness, their success with that software. From a farce perspective it's not about pushing that individual solution. It's not about that. There is an end dollar amount. That is a concern.
Speaker 1:But most people realize to keep our, if our clients are happy, that's going to help the bottom line out drastically instead of just selling so yeah, oh well, and if you have, as of our, good experience with the isv and you and the isv is provided great value, it's so much easier the next time because that partner can full-heartedly recommend this isv because they know they had other clients that had good experiences and that's what clients want to know, Is this a good product? Do you recommend it? Have you had other customers using it? So?
Speaker 1:yeah, it goes back to that track record that history from the first question yeah, yeah, that first time that you get that client, do not mess that up and make sure you do a good job yeah. So, above and beyond, Exactly A never truer word. Well, how can ISVs and partners work together to go to market to help educate their client base, or just even go together to find and market to new customers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, these almost go in order, because I feel you've got to be building those relationships and then, as you build those relationships, opportunities come to do co-branded, co-selling offense together.
Speaker 2:Because I always start in the ISV realm of things, thinking of joint webinars that you're able to be a part of with partners, or not even just be a part of but even sponsor.
Speaker 2:If you can just sponsor and support webinars and other bigger marketing pieces, that is an awesome way to help go to market with a partner as an ISV. But even if you're able to be a part of it and share not just pushing your product but sharing some thoughtful, helpful material whether maybe you're in e-commerce and being able to share some helpful strategies as an e-commerce solution that is helpful for Acumatica end users, if you're doing a joint webinar with AFAR. So webinars there's marketing campaigns that you could do that can be co branded, leveraging the leads that partners bring to you. If you're building up that relationship and it's continuing to grow, partners are going to give you leads, whether it's on net, new deals or even with active end users of your, of the ERP, and those are hot, as hot as they can get leads. That should be easy softballs. Hey, they're ready to go. They have the ERP.
Speaker 1:They just want to jump into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So taking those and running with it and then that helps build up the credibility that they can hand you leads with their clients and then you're able to follow through and give them something that's going to help support and increase the value of the end solution then as well. So on the far side, the partner side, doing some co-selling and building in some bundles to your solutions could be helpful with that. But also leveraging some of the marking material your ISV has as well. Isvs some, not all have their own marketing material that they have.
Speaker 2:If you don't start working on some, but whether it's even just a short pamphlet going back to hey, acumatica has payments now an out of the box solution that is direct competitor to a lot of AR features within the channel. So so if you're, even if you're able to come up with a short pamphlet that compares you to the out of box of the solution, what makes you different, that's an easy thing for them to share. So even if it's a brief conversation of partners having when they're talking about, hey, I'm looking at how to receive payments a little bit differently because it's kind of clunky what we're doing now, and partner can just be like hey, so-and-so has this right up and could be a really great solution. So being able to leverage the ISV solutions you have a relationship with their marketing material can really help escalate. And then it could even go the same way. There's people are going back and forth between ERPs and a lot of ISV solutions are in multiple ERP channels.
Speaker 1:And yeah, if relationships build up well and an ISV is aware of someone looking to switch out of their current ERP, there's again a hot lead for a partner who's got a strong relationship with an ISV to then work the other way around and work on selling the ERP, not just a add-on solution, then also yeah, so, yeah, definitely that marketing collaboration to work together to help solve those client issues right, and don't don't just approach it from hey, let's sell more stuff together, let's what kind of challenges are your clients having and how can we help you meet those needs, and really look at what kind of value are you bringing to the table in the marketing world.
Speaker 2:The word thought leadership gets thrown around all the time and whenever you're posting on linkedin or writing a blog, make sure it's focused on thought leadership, and I feel we say that word so much we don't fully understand what it means. But really working together at ISV, working with Avar, to come up with a piece of content that is helpful and is able to help your potential and current end clients solve real problems that they're facing. So doing a joint webinar that's talking through helpful strategies for e-commerce, doing, even just doing something as simple as a co-branded blog that you're both able to share that addresses hey, this is how to handle tariffs now in the US, if you're in the US market.
Speaker 1:That's a super real problem. That's a really good point. What are the current trends and questions that people are really actively looking for? Some advice, and if you can help them bring that information, yeah, they'll want to engage with you right. Learn more Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's good. I love that. What about just ongoing? You talked about making sure you have the right kind of fit, maybe as far as the industry or the need and requirement. But what about just technical fit and ongoing support, making sure that you've got that strong VAR ISV partnership to make sure the client is supported into the future?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's huge, especially on the ISV side of things. Erps are rolling out new versions and updates and whenever those releases come out there's timetables that end users have to update before a certain date and all that fun stuff that comes in the software world. And it is super crucial as an ISV to make sure you are keeping up with those updates and those release schedules. And the easier, quicker you're able to handle those without having to cause any more buster headaches around. Having to redo some of the integration pieces makes it super easy as a partner to keep including you in a part of those deals. And, yeah, making sure you're keeping up with the newest, even if it's not just the general updates. Acumatica has different modules and different verticals and if you're in the construction vertical, making sure your solution integrates still with the newest version of that Sometimes specific verticals get updates that are slightly different and making sure you're up to date with what those look. So, yeah, keeping up with those is a big piece for an ISV.
Speaker 2:There also could be you can talk about some technical support side of stuff how available you are, how quickly you get back whenever a partner's end client, end user, has an issue with just your piece of the software that integrates with Manico or the ERP, and how quickly are you able to address that and fix that and resolve that issue so they're up and working. So that's some ISV thoughts there. For FAR having the importance of implementation, ready to use solutions, some training pieces there, and that's where leveraging your own team, but also the solutions that you have a part of that need to know that the ISV has your back as you're going into it and even vice versa, as an ISV is implementing their solution, that your FAR has your back as well, too, as you're putting that together and really creating some predictable support together and again having that relationship, that open line of communication together. That's there's probably some more that we could dive into on the technical side and the ongoing support. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it goes on both ends because bars even help keep up with the new releases and updates that are there and making sure their end users are up to date, because that kind of goes back into the implementation side of things for partners. So ISVs want to make sure the partners they're working with are keeping up with those. And because if an ISV is on top of the ball and they're keeping up with the latest updates and such and the FARs aren't, that far they're working with isn't keeping their clients up to date as quick Like there can be compatibility issues then with the softwares. So it goes both ways keeping up, keeping things updated on the on the ball, with all of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, two thoughts I have. Well, first of all, I think not only does the marketing to know kind of what's new in the latest version or release, but also testing. Testing never goes away. Right, you got to get the new version comes out, make sure your users go in, they test everything, make sure they got all their critical processes signed off. I think that's kind of always, with the kind of more of that base ERP that we didn't have in kind of on-prem days, right, you could go and put in a test server and test it kind of. But now that you've got this timeline it was sort of driven by the cloud provider, the ERP you've got to do your testing as of of our make sure that it's going to work with that client.
Speaker 2:It is so easy to rush that piece, but that's the piece you probably want to make sure you go the slowest and thoughtful with, because it's the lifeblood of your incline's business. Want to make sure their ERP is not going to miss a beat and that update is going to be as seamless as it possibly can, and testing is a huge piece of that. No, that's a really good point to bring out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I think the other side of it is on the VAR side. They always want to know, they're always asking me I'm sure you've heard this too is how's it integrate the ERP? Is it kind of sitting side by side or is it fully embedded and integrated? And I think being able to have that clear to the partner so that they understand, kind of where the software ends and where your isv begins or vice versa, how it interacts and integrates with that's huge, even from a sale.
Speaker 2:There's the functionality side of that where I want to do everything in one platform and that is super helpful from a functional standpoint. If it's a shipping company, shipping rate finding doesn't necessarily have to be in the same platform. Warehouse management could probably be in slightly different and still communicate, because you have different people, different teams in your business handling those individual spots. But whenever you're actually selling a full ERP solution, it looks really good on a demo to have everything directly embedded within the ERP that you're working with. If you're mid-demo and you need to show X, y and Z solution and if you have to leave the main ERP to do that, sometimes you have to and there's no other solution that does what's needed. But the more you can demo and show within the ERP itself is huge. It gives it such a nice polished look, such a nice clean demo that you can do for a potential client and it sells a lot of ISV solutions being able to do that without even having to necessarily go through a whole discovery demo process with the ISV themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's really important because when people go wait a minute now you got to jump out and back in Then they're like, okay, well, that takes time and it's not going to be hard to train everyone, because it's not all the same as far as user adoption and training, that's always huge. The other thing I think about, and you mentioned, with the systems on the FIT, but what about the support side?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, being able to have open communication, with what that looks like. I'm thinking through conversations that we've had of just even on the early demo side of things, being able from a we're kind of sitting in the seat of the far in this example, but we're looking at this WMS solution and say, hey, how exact, this is the specific need the client has. I don't need a necessarily full blown demo of your solution, but can your solution handle X, y, z? And being able to have quick, timely communication with that super early on? They're not even a client yet. This is just demo conversations and being able to put together a functional system to demo. Quick and clear communication is super, super crucial for that whole demo process and being able to make sure there's a clear product and especially once then you're designing that project for them and being able to have something that go live, going through that implementation process, especially knowing that the partner is going to have to handle some of that. You're going to have to handle some of that as an ISV and, once it's live, having to continue that clear communication. Hopefully you're building up that relationship that we talked about earlier and there's just even some general awareness of hey, updates coming along. We need to do this.
Speaker 2:Or maybe the FAR is hearing something on the end of the end user that they're struggling with X, y and C. Hey, this kind of sounds. It falls in your solutions wheelhouse. Is this something they need to add on and continue to grow their business, or is this something faulty with your solution that needs some work and we need to rework some stuff?
Speaker 2:So open communication is massive for ongoing support because, thinking of the end user, the person actually using the software, the questions are going to come to the partner and then the partner, if it's not directly for them, is going to go to whoever the solution is Exactly. Yeah, so it's going to get delegated out to who's able to fix it and being able to answer that quick. If there's a massive forms and having that kind of side of stuff to fill out for people to submit requests, it's super easy to track that. But if your process is they fill out a form, it sits for a couple of days and then you're able to get to it. You might need to speed it up a little bit faster than that, just to have transparent communication.
Speaker 1:The partner has kind of a way to handle support requests and so they, whether it comes from the isv or the base system, is you want the customer to kind of feel they sort of have one process to fill out or one process to follow and then then that gets routed to the appropriate person on a timely manner.
Speaker 1:You say you don't want to sit there for a couple days priorities, the high priority, your systems down, kind of all hands on deck, and then making sure that it gets handled and followed up and closed in a timely manner, because there's nothing worse than having a client go well, everything was great. But it's one thing that never got dealt with. Yep.
Speaker 2:However, we can avoid that outcome is the name of the game in my field.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and it does go back to the relationship, the communication and keeping the customer front and center Right. We're here to serve them together. We're not here to blame each other. We're we're here to to come in as a team and help technically and support the team and the customer technically and support the team and the customer. So what other factors do you see that define a strong VAR and ISV relationship? What are other things. I know licensing sometimes gets into it, how it's handled as far as who does the services.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think the thoughts that are coming to my head is how to have a clear, easy to understand how your solution works, how it's priced, how it's implemented. The clearer and simpler you can make that process for afar to understand, the easier it is for them to grab and run with your solution and be able to recommend it to their end clients and put it on their designs. So yeah, thinking through Acumatica even as a price list and if your pricing isn't on the price list it's not the end of the world, but if it's a very different structure than that, that's hard for an Acumatica far to wrap their head around sometimes and it's like cool. I'd rather go with this competitive solution because I at least understand how much I charge, how much I make off that and such. So having some clarity in your pricing is huge and making sure it's straightforward and kind of follows the standards of how your erp channel prices stuff.
Speaker 2:Obviously it's going to be priced different on the functionality, but is it? Does it a tiered system? Is it based on users, all these different on the functionality? But is it? Is it a tiered system? Is it based on users? All these different variables? And how does your erp typically structure that?
Speaker 1:yeah, you want it so different that, okay we. This is how you license or get a subscription to the base erp and then your system is oh well, it's all different than that. It depends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's barrier number one for you making money and being able to be included on deals with partners is they just don't. So yeah, there's the pricing side. If they can't understand that, it's hard to do that Kind of going back into what is your unique value as an ISV having clarity around what you do. I have stumbled into a couple ISVs that it's I'm not sure what they do and even after a conversation with them it's still a little cloudiness around exactly where they fit in, whatever that vertical is. So really having a clear, precise message of what you do and why it's different than solution XYZ that's also in the market is super valuable. And even if you do multiple things and multiple verticals, really having a clear story and understanding what that is so partners can understand what it is. Sometimes that can be as simple as your solution's name. Sometimes it's having some other language around that to really help it be clear and easy to understand what it is and what it does.
Speaker 2:You have to scrub into multiple pages of your website to figure out what that is. You're lost to whoever the potential partner or even end client is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is, you're lost to whoever the potential partner, even end client is. Yeah, I mean even attending events. If you are sponsoring and you have a booth, that's when I walk by your booth. If I can't understand what you do, at least get a grasp of kind of oh you do ar, automation and payments. Well, if you're, if it doesn't say that in a simple way where I can see it, I might walk by, I might not even stop and you got a weird name.
Speaker 1:It has to all kind of be part of your brand and what you do and has a strong value.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Stop and say yeah, okay, tell me more, I see what you do here.
Speaker 2:Simplicity is the name of the game yeah, I know the name. I know, sometimes the names are very confusing or or they're super similar to a competitive solution. Yeah, there's a lot of ar solutions out there with the word pay in their name are you this?
Speaker 1:are you this?
Speaker 2:however, you as an isv, to continue to grow that partnership. However, you can make your solution simple to understand, simple with crucial too, because even before they sell your solution once on a design, if they know it's going to take X amount of weeks to get that ISV solution live, and you're handling 95% of that, that's really easy for them to understand and it's really easy on their workload. So, yeah, if you can always simplify and make it clear to understand and it's really easy on their workload, so, yeah, yeah, if you can always simplify and make it clear to understand the implementation, the support, the pricing, what, what you do, that is probably the best way, as an isv, to help build some traction and give you some stickiness within the market yeah, and be able to articulate to the partner when should you come into the project?
Speaker 1:Because I feel sometimes if it sounds like it's going to be a big project and maybe a costly project, that goes into phase two.
Speaker 1:But if it adds value and they would actually in the end probably save money by doing it all together up front, then that's always good to have that conversation with a partner so they understand that, because I feel sometimes, oh well, let's put it in phase two, because the VAR, we want to know we're going to get paid for the implementation services first, right, and then we'll add in all the little bells and whistles, as they say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as you were even saying that, the one thing I thought of too is if you're, as an ISV, if your solution's already able to integrate with their existing ERP and you're able to give that kind of crossover, so it's not a totally brand new solution right off that where they're learning the ERP and your shipping solution and your warehouse management solution because you switched all of that at once.
Speaker 2:If there's something that that, hey, this potential client also is on Sage or what name the ERP, if you're able to integrate with that right off the bat and then whenever they go with, when they're ready to go live and whatever their new ERP is, that just helps smooth that transition time to the end client as well. I didn't think about that till a couple months ago with one of the ISVs that we partner with. I was sharing that they are doing that with an Acumatica client. They already went live with them on Sage and whenever they, when the design's done and they go live on Acumatica, they're this ISU solution inside now and already comfortable with that. So it's eased the blow of that transition and that change for that team.
Speaker 1:It's kind of change management yeah, Maybe that's a system critical to them and get that integrated with where they are today and then it just moves when and that's less of a change when they go to the new point. I feel HR payroll is always one of those. Oh, let's do that after, but it's so much better to do that one first, because that's so you have to know and time it so that it's a good timing for your clients and their payroll processes, right, so sometimes you can get them up and running on that first and then take them through the erp implementation. So just a thought. So I know we talked about the ecosystem. There's a lot of community things to be involved in. Where should people go to kind of stay informed and be able to not only kind of participate and support the community but also gain that visibility and brand awareness?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel, especially in the Acumatica ecosystem, visibility is really earned through what you're contributing to. So I'm thinking of places. Acuconnect is a great place to plug in Sponsorships. The summit not even just attending but even doing sponsorships and having a booth there creates more visibility being a part of as an ISV. We talked about different ISV programs to be a part of Carol, you have yours, we have ours at PreSales Leader. Those are Acumatica specific things, but all the ERPs have something similar. Acumatica even has their own ISV kind of alliance-y program.
Speaker 2:Those are some pretty big, tangible ways that you can connect and create some visibility Even not as visible ways is being a part of user groups and forum pages. I feel like that gets looked over a lot. Acumatica has a forum user group page and people are posing questions about how to use Acumatica and the different functionalities of it all the time and it's a super easy resource to see what people are having problems with and see if your solution helps with that. But even just being able to hop on and giving a couple sentences back of help and suggestion, helping build your name for your company's sake, is huge on that and that can go both. A lot of those things can go both ways. Obviously, isv programs are for ISVs, not FARs, but user groups. The Foreign Pages Summit FARs can participate in that as well and if you have a specific vertical that you're a part of, there is so many other conferences that you can go and attend as well.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking of construction solutions that we've worked with. They were at Summit at the end of January with us and then a couple of weeks later they stayed in Vegas and went to Concrete World, one of the largest construction shows. So there's a lot of opportunity to get face time with potential clients and other people within the channel, and you don't really have to dig terribly too hard all the time for it. It's just kind of knowing where to where to look, right off the bat it does take.
Speaker 1:you do need to have some intentionality around it. Right, we're going to go out to the forums. Put it on your calendar calendar so you're regularly looking at and answering questions or posting, even content that back to their thought leadership word, but just showing that you have some thoughtful insights that maybe could be helpful. Hey, we just solved this for this client the other day and maybe you too have that same issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think that's another place as you were talking about. You said the word post and I thought linkedin. There is acumatica, specific groups on linkedin, great kind of forum-esque still there, but another phenomenal platform to connect with other vars, connect with isvs out there, connect with even some end users that are part of that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point. There's don't pass up on lincoln yeah, aug forums is a good one, oh yeah yeah yeah, that's a good one too I do a good job so well good, so so I I just appreciate your time. What's kind of the one reason that vars or isvs would come talk to to you and get your help at Pre-Sales Leader?
Speaker 2:The cool thing is we can help both VARs and ISVs. A way that we could help both is I talked early on about Product Marketing Leader, our one practice we can help give some marketing help, whether that's content creation or go-to-market coaching and helping with your strategy there. Whether that's content creation or go-to-market coaching and helping with your strategy there. Even doing some fractional pre-sale support, whether it's seasonal or you have a growing team and you need help there. Both of those VARs and ISVs can take advantage of.
Speaker 2:If you're a VAR, our business consulting leader branch can help with doing the designs, builds, even optimizations for your clients that are already live. So help with the implementation service and then helping your end users and implementing improvements after they've already gone live is a big thing that we do with FARS, with Business Consulting Leader. And then, if you're an ISV, we have our ISV Alliance program. That really I've kind of talked about how I've been thinking of it recently is it helps you manage 40 different partners through one relationship with us and being able to help create that connection as we're doing the SE work for 40 different partners, getting to connect with us as the one funnel for that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so those are a handful of ways that you can connect with us. Some marketing help, fractional pre-sale support, fars, if you're needing help with implementation services and doing some post-scope live optimization work, and then ISVs, if you're looking for a way to connect deeper into the Acumatica channel. Those are all great ways that we can help support and help grow your business.
Speaker 1:So glad to know you guys are there and you're helping those that are new to the channel maybe aren't as familiar- so, navigate that Well. Thank you, sal, for joining me today on this episode of ISV Talks. I really appreciate you and what PreSales Leader offers the VARs and the Acumatica channel and also ISVs. So if you need to reach out to Sal, here's his contact information. Sal, do you want to go? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you again, Carol, for the time, and it's been great. We've talked about relationships. It's been great getting to build a relationship with you and get to support one another and do what we've just been talking about doing some co-branded material together as well. If you need to get a hold of me or want to get a hold of me Again, my name is Sal Bunicore and my email is salbunicore at techleadercocom. That's spelled S-A-L dot, b-u-o-n-o-c-o-r-e at T-E-C-H-L-E-A-D-E-R-C-Ocom, and then you can get connected with any of our websites through our techleadercocom web page, which is techleadercocom T-E-C-H-L-E-A-D-E-R-C-Ocom.
Speaker 1:Great Well, I appreciate you joining us today, and everyone. I'll be looking for you on the next episode of ISV Talks. So I'll see you soon, friends, bye-bye.