Upsell Retailers With Video Surveillance Solutions

By Mike Monocello, Chief Editor, Business Solutions magazine

At a recent industry conference, I asked one progressive POS VAR where he was taking his business next. His answer? He's going to begin selling ECM (enterprise content management) solutions! Of course I wished him luck and expect him to do well, but I believe most of today's POS VARs stand a better chance of success selling new solutions that at least complement what they're already doing. One complementary technology I've been hearing a lot about is video surveillance. In fact, based on the amount of feedback I've been getting regarding the technology, if you're not selling video surveillance to your retail customers, you're missing a huge opportunity. John Gagnon is one VAR who's having great success with video surveillance. In fact, he says he's installed videosurveillance solutions for 60% of his retail customers. Not a bad upsell when you consider his average video solution costs about $15,000. If the added revenue isn't exciting enough, consider Gagnon's statement that the knowledge required to sell video surveillance is fairly simple.