Though QuoteWerks doesn’t have a formal partner program, Aspire does have a portal with training and support materials, as well as an annual partner conference dedicated 100% to the art and science of preparing sales quotes. “The quoting piece really gets lost in that sea of everything at other events,” Laufer says.
The diversity of Aspire’s partner base sets it apart as well. Though roughly a third of QuoteWerks users are VARs and MSPs, pretty much any kind of company that needs to quote prices can and does use the system. “It ends up helping us a lot,” Laufer says, because it exposes Aspire to feedback from users with very different perspectives but similar needs. A popular enhancement to the way QuoteWerks sorts line items on quotes, for example, originated with a suggestion from an HVAC contractor.
“Nobody in the IT space had asked for it,” Laufer notes, “but now a good portion of them actually use that functionality.”
Laufer believes Aspire’s independence from outside investors enables it to act on user input more freely. “We don’t have to answer to a board,” he says. “The only people we have to answer to are our customers, so we listen to what they need and what they want.”
