We met Dimitris at Agency Connect, a cocktail party series hosted by the Cloud Software Association to bring agencies together to talk shop and build relationships with software partners.

Our host is Sunir Shah, CEO of AppBind, which makes it easy for digital agencies to sell more services to more clients by bringing the managing and expensing of subscriptions under control.

Thank you to Dimitris Kalantzis, Creative Eye, an agency in Greece that spans commercial photography, advertising and social media. For clients, Dimitris will build e-commerce sites doing everything from the positioning, commercial photography, web design, social media and advertising for clients in Greece, Italy and Turkey.

Who has been the most disappointing software partner you’ve had?

Some software is fantastic like Ecwid, Magento or Shopify. But, our clients cannot do their job with these tools. We make it easy for him.

Global payments
We have too many problems with the banks. The clients don’t understand what is Stripe or PayPal. They just want to pay with their banks. For instance, in Greece, we have Viva Wallet.

You can make a site, you can run the advertising, but you cannot pay with your bank. It’s unbelievable. But it’s very, very important because we the Greeks need to do our jobs better. We need to buy from everywhere.

Who has been the best software partner you’ve had?

I work a lot with Shopify and Ecwid. I like these two better than the others.

Upsell training
All these things need extra hours to educate our clients. Now, this is very important for us. That’s why we separate our job from making the site and how many hours we need to educate our clients. Maybe it’s extra money for our clients but it’s very important because the clients won’t know how to work these tools.

Trusted experts
Our clients don’t want to make their websites by themselves because it takes too many hours. But why do they want us? Why do they need us? We are writing the story of the company and how we can promote it from the beginning to the end. Maybe everyone can put a buy button and make a web page with Shopify. But at the end, the story will sell the product. We do the photograph, the icons, the web development, the tools, and the payments to make it easier. It’s not easy to make a website for sure. And of course, it’s not easy to make a website that’s selling.

Any advice for software companies reaching out to you to become a partner?

Commissions don’t matter
May companies say, “OK, I will give you an affiliate program. I will give you the first 20 percent, 10 percent, five percent.” But…

Partner trainingI believe that the partners must have closer communication. I can be your partner, but if we don’t talk, I don’t understand your tool. So how can I use it? If you don’t educate me in these things, how can I be your partner?

Align to the partner’s sale
I have my people, of course. But my partners before they become my partners, they learn what is my job, what we are doing, how they have to discuss the job with the client, and how they promote our job to the client.

Agency risk is higher
As I told you, I am incredibly nervous. When we go to a client, my partners have to learn what to say, what the client is buying, and what are the problems.