PSNI has a strong focus on ROI, but the acronym in this case stands for relationships, opportunities and ideas, says Miller.
“If it doesn’t fall into one of these three areas, it’s probably not a fit for us,” he says. “The key is having the right integrators in the room to develop that feeling of coop-etition,” referring to a hybrid word of “cooperation” and “competition” that allows PSNI affiliates to work together but also compete for work.
The affiliates have a licensed territory that’s essentially a legal vehicle to make them stakeholders, says Miller. He’s noticed some affiliates “growing and diversifying” while others are “going very much to niche. They all have to learn how to work with each other on that. Some integrators want to have a lot of partners, while others want to go completely niche.”
Diversified buying PSNI affiliate Technical Innovation earlier this year “opened a line of thinking” in terms of territorial rights, says Miller.
“We can’t just give services to the big guys or the little guys,” he says. “We want everyone to feel like there’s a value.”
Miller is proud of its work with Belden, which offers Lean training to six PSNI affiliates per year to help them streamline their operations. He also points to the Qualtrak customer satisfaction survey that has generated 25,000 responses, both from the group’s largest integrator and its smallest, and an employee engagement survey as a way to help affiliates get real value for their membership.
PSNI has also developed the Marketing Assistant, a benchmarking tool for marketing initiatives that includes a website, phone interview, goals and initiatives.
“We’ve pulled together data that’s been difficult to capture in our industry,” says Miller.
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Looking to the future, Miller says PSNI “started to develop an international model” in 2013 that could include an affiliate program in Europe, the Middle East and Asia after focusing on the U.S. and Canada to this point.
“The international issues are similar to territorial issues,” says Roberts.
“We’ve never focused on recruiting affiliates, but there are some slots we’d like to fill,” says Miller, pointing to Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming as areas they’d like to fill with the right candidates.
Roberts talks regularly to manufacturers about lead generation, freight and many other issues.
“It’s not just about price,” he says.
Miller has noticed a major change in how and why PSNI offers its services.
“Customers are becoming a part of the solution more than ever,” he says.
