Want to learn how to become a reseller of computer hardware and software? Good! You're on the right track, kind of, sort of. Why only a half-hearted pat on the back?

Because becoming a reseller shouldn't be thought of in a vacuum. The days of being able to grow a successful business, purely on the basis of reselling PC hardware and software, has seen its better days. Why? Because the profit margins on most PC hardware and software reselling run somewhere between anemic and non-existent.

Today, to become a reseller of computer hardware and software, you need to be thinking of additional related revenue streams such as installation, customization, training, and ongoing service.

That's not to say that if you're figuring out how to become a reseller that you absolutely must follow a prescribed business-salvation plan. But you need to be honest enough with yourself to recognize that reselling is a brutal business, it has been a brutal business since at least the mid-1990's, and that the only way for most resellers of computer hardware and software to survive and thrive is by getting involved in selling value-added services to their customers.

What kinds of value-added services? It largely depends on whether you try to sell to "everyone", or whether you're smart enough to focus primarily on B2B (business to business), where there's a lot more at stake with IT and the potential for loads of recurring revenue.

So if you want to become a reseller that focuses on the B2B segment, primarily local small businesses, consider offering the following 4 services.

1. Technology Assessment Services. Before you can make sound hardware and software product recommendations, you really need to spend some time getting to know your customers' true IT needs, what they already own, where their businesses are headed in the next 2-4 years, and what IT problems they currently face. As this is more of a consulting service rather than a traditional reseller role, you should most certainly charge a nominal fee for your Technology Assessment Services.
2. Systems Installation Services. While there's little value-added in just un-boxing equipment and plugging it in, there's tremendous value-add in the software patching, data migration, integration work, and customization. Again, as this is more of a consulting service, you should be charging extra for Systems Installation Services and strongly recommending them for any of your customers who don't have in-house IT support.
3. Training. While Fortune 1000 companies usually have formal plans for employee software training, small businesses rarely have this luxury. As a result, the only training employees often receive is from their reseller. Even if your customers can only afford to pay your company for an hour or two of ad-hoc one-on-one training with each employee, this training can make an enormous difference to your customers getting better utilization from their newly purchased systems. Again, add this to the list of easy incremental sales for most customers.
4. Help Desk. When your customers have how-to or troubleshooting questions, customers rarely have the expertise or patience to deal with multiple vendors each pointing the finger at each other. Solve this problem for your customers, with a single point of contact help desk. Once again, this is a relatively easy, high-margin incremental revenue source that's very conducive to selling on a subscription basis.

Most entrepreneurs, when thinking about how to become a reseller of computer hardware and software, just focus on what reseller programs to join. While you certainly do need to have your favored product lines, the harsh financial realities of becoming a reseller in this day and age demand that you diversify into higher margin value-added consulting services.

In this short article, we've introduced you to some simple strategies to take the brutally competitive, low-margin prospect of becoming a reseller and turn that into a much more lucrative value-added IT consulting business.