Tripp Lite is trying something new on the promotion front with Canadian partners in a bid to get VARs selling across its product line.

Over the last four or five years, the company has focused on doing a big reseller trip promotion for top revenue earners, top growth partners and other partners – but only a select few.

It’s changing that up with Tripp Lite Power Play Rewards, a promotion that introduces a rewards structure of Tripp Lite Dollars, with all reseller sales reps earning four Tripp Lite Dollars for every $100 of Tripp Lite products they sell.

It’s gone from a narrow focus to a broader one for a reason, said Eric Diehl, the company’s vice president of sales for Canada. It wants its partners to go from a narrow focus to a broader focus as well.

“The goal is to educate resellers that we’re not just about the core UPS products, but also rack enclosures, PDUs, KVM switches, and hundreds of other products,” Diehl said. “We want them to come to Tripp Lite for all of the different categories – when you’re setting up a data centre, we can provide everything you need, including the rack, except the server that goes into the rack.”

Along with the promise of four per cent back to reseller sales reps, Diehl said the company is spreading a broader margin message – he says that Tripp Lite products “always carry a really good margin line” for its partners, making it lucrative for VARs to cross-sell and upsell.

“It’s always good to have more line items on the invoice, but it’s even better when they’re all good margin line items,” Diehl said.

In keeping with the spirit of flexibility, the company is opting not to maintain a rewards catalogue, opting instead to pay out to reseller sales reps with Visa gift cards.

In the U.S., the focus remains more on product-specific rebates and spiffs targeting its rack and PDU products, and the company runs its promotional activity more through its distributors, Diehl said.

The Power Play promotion runs through the end of the year, but Diehl said that is if it’s successful, it will likely be continued into 2012. The promotion is open to all of the company’s Canadian reseller partners.