As Climb Channel Solutions navigates continued success, it is important to highlight Climb Elevate’s contributions behind our ascending trajectory.

In this exclusive interview, we sit down with Michael Bernstein, Director of Sales at Climb Elevate, to unravel the strategies, insights, and experiences that have propelled Climb Elevate to new heights since its launch in January of 2021. Starting off as a one-man team Elevate is now a small, but mighty, team of four working to keep up with their growing popularity amongst their 750+ onboarded vendors.

Join us as we explore the ongoing opportunities for vendors and resellers alike within Elevate. In a conversation you don’t want to miss, Climb marketing asks the questions on everyone’s minds in regards to Climb Elevate and how it will help them grow their business!

What is Climb Elevate?

Michael Bernstein: “Climb Elevate is a division of Climb Channel Solutions, where we perform three tasks from a reseller perspective. We help all of the national resellers, really, any and all Climb resellers with what they call a ‘one-off’ opportunity which means we help them get products that are not on their line card,” he says.

To break it down, he continued to explain: “if an end user comes to a reseller and says I want product X and they don’t have access to it, they reach out to us to go see if we can get it for them and that’s the majority of our business. Just that, that simple.”

However, the services do not stop there. “The second thing that we do for resellers is help them with what they call their ‘long tail vendors’. What I mean by that is: A reseller may be direct with thousands of vendorss, right? The majority of their sales come from their top, say, 200 vendors and then you have this whole long tail of vendors that maybe do one or two sales here and there. So, what the resellers have recently started doing, and what we’re offering, is let us take on those vendors for you.

Climb Marketing: “What is the benefit of Elevate taking on those vendors for our resellers?”

Michael Bernstein: “When those vendors are direct with resellers, they have to work on legal agreements, keep the pricing up to date… There’s just a lot of work cycles that the reseller has to do as opposed to if we sign up that manufacturer and we could sell it, all we have to do is just quote it for the reseller and then they sell it. So, the benefit is, it streamlines the reseller and reduces their work cycles of managing vendors when the volume isn’t there, so to speak.”

He continued, “From a vendor’s perspective, the biggest thing that we offer is access into all of these national resellers, which can be very difficult to get onboarded. The bigger resellers are very tight with the vendors that they onboard, making it difficult to sell into them. What Elevate provides is that one-off opportunity, as being a partner of CDW, SHI or other big DMRs, we can quote them like we do everything else that we sell to them. So, our value to the vendors is getting them easy access to a whole slew of sellers that they wouldn’t have access to before.”

Climb Marketing: “That’s awesome. Is there anything else that Climb Elevate does?”

Michael Bernstein: “We serve as the bench to get onto Climb’s main line card. If we onboard a new vendor and we see enough volume, enough profit and enough opportunities, there’s potential for them to be moved over to our main line card.”

Climb Marketing: “That’s a great point. Elevate does also help our vendors to continue to grow and scale to be a part of our main line card where Climb can continue to offer services to them.”

What is an example of a success story through Elevate?

Michael Bernstein: “A lot of the vendors Climb Elevate works with are one and done, but there are others that are bright spots. They have a very good product and have a good story to tell. These go from a one-time transaction to selling their solution multiple times.

One of those bright spots is a security vendor that started off as a one-off through a reseller. During the conversations, the light bulb went off in the vendor’s head and said, ‘wait, working with Climb is pretty easy… All I have to do is quote you and then you could quote reseller A, reseller B, reseller C, right?’. Before, if the vendor had to sell to them, they would have to do a reseller agreement, an end-user agreement with all the T’s and C’s that come along with it, which, again, prolongs the sales cycle, makes things a lot more complicated. However, since Climb already has relationships with all these resellers, we could quote them with no issues. With them, we went from a one-time transaction to probably 25-30 quotes over the next six months. So that’s how you know that we have vendors that find what Climb does very simple and easy.”

How does Climb Elevate work with vendors, resellers and DMRs?

Climb Marketing: “I think you did touch on this already answering prior, but if there’s anything in addition that you think is important to add, feel free to add it now.”

Michael Bernstein: “I will point out that we make it very simple for both the reseller and the vendor, right. Once we have agreements in place, all the vendor has to do is send us a quote, tell us who to send it to and it’s there. And it’s the same thing for the reseller. All they have to do is reach out to us and say, ‘Can you get this product?’ and we get to work.

Some vendors only sell directly to end-users and don’t go through the channel. But really, our value to everybody is just the simplicity of doing it once we set up a relationship.”

Are there any questions I am missing that you would like to provide information on?

Michael Bernstein: “It’s important to add that something exciting is coming soon that will allow us to reach more of our global audience with the services Elevate provides…”

Climb Marketing: “Well that sound exciting! It really shows the value that Elevate has to our partner ecosystem and hopefully can provide something of the sort to all of our vendor and reseller partners.”

To be first to hear about what’s coming, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn in North America, UK/EMEA and Climb Global Solutions.

What do the resellers need to know about Climb Elevate?

Michael Bernstein: “Resellers not only have access to Climb’s main line card, but our Elevate team can work directly with just about any datacenter and/or software vendor out there.”

Climb Marketing: “I think that is a great thing to highlight. Although there are vendors focused on other aspects of technology than what we do at Climb with our main line card vendors, all divisions of Climb stay true to what we are always focused on: datacenter and software technologies.

Is there anything else that you think is important for our audience to know before we conclude?”

Michael Bernstein: “The last thing I want to leave you with is that over the last three years, the Elevate division has onboarded over 750 vendors. There’s a lot of software out there that the national resellers just don’t carry, that’s why they come to us to leverage getting those products and solutions for them.”

Climb Marketing: “Yes, that’s great. I can attest to the fact that you have an extensive line card for Climb Elevate.”

Michael Bernstein: “Yeah, and every day it changes, right? It just continues to grow, it’s exciting.”

Climb Marketing: “That is very exciting and seems like you continue to have your work cut out for you, but you do an amazing job at it. I know we were excited to sit down with you today to showcase the incredible work you and the team are doing within Climb Elevate at creating additional opportunities for vendors and resellers that may not have as much of a play with Climb or other bigger distributors quite yet.

I really appreciate your time today and your insights on Climb Elevate and what it has to offer. It’s important for vendors and resellers to learn more about it, as they may not know it exists, how it works or how to utilize Elevate’s services. So, thank you again!”

Michael Bernstein: “Yes, thank you. I appreciate the spotlight on Climb Elevate and I am excited to continue the conversation as we grow larger. Thanks!”

Are you a reseller looking for a one-off solution or are you a manufacture looking to break into emerging distribution?

Contact Climb Elevate TODAY!

Interview with:

Michael Bernstein – Director of Sales Climb Elevate