Trace3 CEO Beecher Credits The 'Human Element,' Honesty And A Simple Playbook As Keys To Becoming A Next-Gen Solution Provider

Innovative solution provider Trace3 has ridden cloud, DevOps, data intelligence and a recently-launched security practice to immense growth in recent years, but CEO Tyler Beecher credits much of his technology company's success to a keen sense of both the customer and employee mindset.

Speaking Monday at The Channel Company's 2017 Best of Breed conference in Atlanta, Beecher told the IT leaders in attendance that Trace3 collaborates extensively with clients when it comes to planning the next 36 months of the business relationships. Everything comes from the customer, he said.

"Everything we build at Trace3 is focused not just on selling to IT and helping IT architect itself, but how can IT rearchitect the business? Everything we do in technology is focused on helping these companies transform," Beecher said.

[Related: Trace3 Launches Security Practice, Aims To Make It The Company's Biggest Business Unit by End of 2017 ]

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Beecher highlighted several elements of Trace3's systems integration strategy that "focus on the human element," with the goal of helping companies achieve a digital transformation.

Perhaps chief among Beecher's advice for fellow solution providers was his call for companies to "juice at the edge." Trace3 has doubled the number of people on its sales team and doubled the headcount production per salesperson, he said, because the account executives have been empowered.

"Rather than corporate deciding who gets what resource, what if we got out of the way? What if we allowed the strong to reveal themselves?" Beecher said. "We're going to take centralized budgeting, take the majority of it and push it out to the reps. This was a big, big bet for us … That represents exponential growth to your business."

Chris Pyle, CEO of Champion Solutions, agreed that it is important to "listen to the rainmakers" who are on the front lines dealing with prospective customers. "You don't want to make decisions in a bubble," he said.

Beecher also urged companies to be honest with themselves when it comes to their shortcomings. Employees tend not to tell the truth to leadership for fear of backlash, he noted, and decision makers do not always see the hard truths on their own because it is uncomfortable.

To address this issue, Trace3 conducted an anonymous employee survey that posed two questions: What would stop you from recruiting a close/talented friend to Trace3, and what would you prioritize if put in charge of company growth? The results, Beecher admitted, were telling.

"The only lies we are truly punished for are the ones we tell ourselves," he said.

Once armed with insight from both clients and employees, solution providers need to a develop a simple business playbook that addresses four basic questions: why do I exist, how do I behave, what do I do/don't do, and, how do I achieve success?

For Beecher, Trace3's answers came down to relying on a "street smart, entrepreneurial" spirit that utilizes elite engineering and IT executive services to solve business problems with technology.

"That's the power of a simple playbook," he said.