Dynamark starts Partner Council

HAGERSTOWN, Md.—Dynamark has a new way to communicate with its partners, a recently created partner council, which will meet regularly to give the company feedback.

In selecting council members Dynamark sought experienced, high quality partners who would be “honest with us and tell us where we are doing things that were conducive to a dealer program,” Hank Groff, Dynamark's SVP of sales and business development, told Security Systems News.

Dynamark chose three business owners to make up the council: Larry Conner of 1^st Security based in Ellicott City, Md.; Tara Harris of Orange, Calif.-based RHS Funding; and Nathan Taylor of TCS Security in Fayetteville, N.C.

Groff said that the partner program currently has about 15 companies in it, and the council would grow in proportion—to represent about 20 percent of the overall dealer base—until it hits a limit of six members.

Larry Conner told SSN that the council benefits the partners as well as Dynamark by providing a “forum to talk about things that are needed in the program, things that we feel [need] to be changed.”

Dynamark's partners, separate from its dealers, sell account contracts to Dynamark on a consistent basis, but can continue to manage and maintain the client.

At its inaugural meeting, held during ISC West on April 8, Groff said the council discussed about 30 issues and Dynamark is now “actively assigning a project manager to [25 of those issues] within Dynamark to get resolved.”

The council addressed the idea of creating a competition for partners. “We would develop a matrix point system, based on the credit score of an account, � the investment put into the system, the type of equipment that's been used,” Groff said. “That point system would rank the partners that we have.”

Conner said the competition would be a good motivator. “It gives the sales reps something to strive for; it gives the [partners] something to strive for,” he said.

Groff said the company is still developing prizes for the competition, which could include an all-expense-paid vacation for top partners. There may also be contests for sales representatives. This competition should start in the second half of 2016, he said.

The partner council plans to meet twice per year in person, and twice per year by video conference. News from the council will be sent to other partners through a Dynamark online portal.

In designing the council, Groff said he drew on his experiences working with dealer programs and dealer councils at ADT, Monitronics, and Guardian Protection.