2017
founded in Cape Town, South Africa
23 years
our founder has spent in technology sales and marketing
Level 1
B-BBEE contributor
5 regions
Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States
Since 2017
Nearly ten years of work, most of it with companies that sell technology.
Blacfox started in Cape Town in April 2017. Most of the work since then has been with companies that sell technology to other businesses: Microsoft partners, distributors, telecoms providers moving into cloud, and software vendors. Our clients and partners have included Microsoft, SAP, Google and Huawei, and the partners and distributors who take their technology to market: Crayon, Liquid Telecom, Westcon-Comstor and Adept ICT among them.
The four notes below are from campaign and channel engagements in our earlier years. We have left out the result figures from that time, because we can no longer verify them, and we would rather show you the work than quote a number we cannot stand behind.
Since then
Our work now starts earlier in the sale, by listening first.
Blacfox, Cape Town
4
engagements from our earlier years, written as notes
Engagement notes
Four situations you may recognise.
Each note says what the client faced, what we did and what we learned. They are notes rather than case studies, because the lessons are the part we can still vouch for.
Adept ICT · Microsoft Solutions Partner
When the partners you sell through have gone quiet.
What they faced
Some of the partners Adept ICT sold through had gone quiet, and conversations with them about Azure had stalled.
What we did
We worked on the conversation itself: what to say to a partner that had gone quiet, and why a meeting would be worth their time. Then we ran the campaign with the Adept team and sat in the introduction meetings ourselves, rather than handing over a list of names.
From the client
“Blacfox has been hands-on from the start of the campaign. They also play a vital role in the introduction meetings by being energetic and knowledgeable of the products and services. It has been a pleasure to work with them.”
What we learned
A partner that has gone quiet has usually not said no. They have run out of reasons to call. The meeting goes better when the person opening it knows both the product and the partner's business well enough to talk about either. And staying in the room, past the point where an agency usually leaves, is a habit we have kept.
Crayon · Microsoft cloud distributor · Sub-Saharan Africa
When the channel has to grow across borders.
What they faced
Crayon, an indirect CSP provider (a distributor that sells Microsoft cloud through partners), was expanding across Sub-Saharan Africa and needed its partners in every country to keep finding and winning customers at the same time.
What we did
A 48-week campaign that took buyers from first hearing of Crayon to becoming a qualified lead: five landing pages, banners, mailers, a press release, paid search and paid social advertising. We followed up with every partner daily and called and qualified every lead ourselves. For each lead we recorded a short briefing video and placed it in the partner portal with the handover, so the partner's first call picked up where ours ended.
What we learned
The briefing video was the least glamorous thing we made and the one we would keep. By the time a lead reached the portal we had already spoken to the buyer. A name and a phone number cannot pass that conversation on to a partner in another country. A short video can. Forty-eight weeks also taught us that the daily follow-up with partners mattered more than anything we launched.
Liquid Telecom · Telecoms provider becoming a Microsoft cloud distributor
When a telecoms company becomes a cloud provider.
What they faced
Liquid Telecom, a telecoms provider, decided to become an indirect CSP provider: a distributor selling Microsoft cloud through partners. Its partners had to learn to sell cloud, and it wanted results in weeks.
What we did
A four-week campaign. We helped choose the partners, then went on a national roadshow and trained them region by region. As the leads came in, we qualified each one by phone before allocating it to a partner, so that every partner's first call was with a buyer we had already spoken to.
What we learned
Four weeks is enough to create interest. It is not enough to teach a partner how to sell cloud well, which is why the roadshow mattered more than anything else we did. And the qualification call is the last moment anyone listens properly to the buyer before the lead changes hands, so we made those calls ourselves.
Westcon-Comstor · Global Microsoft distributor
When the partners you need are not in your channel yet.
What they faced
Westcon-Comstor, a global Microsoft distributor, wanted more partners selling Microsoft Dynamics through it. The partners it wanted were not in its channel yet, and a partner is slow to take on a new product line unless customers are already asking for it.
What we did
Two campaigns side by side: end-customer lead generation, so that there was demand waiting for new partners, and a partner recruitment campaign that took the same message to partners directly. Productivity was the theme of both, so customers and partners heard the same message. We also ran a webinar that put customers and partners in the same session.
What we learned
Recruiting partners is easier when you can show them customers who are already asking for the product. And the webinar that put customers and partners together is the part we would repeat, because a partner learns more from hearing a customer than from hearing a distributor. It is close to how we work now.
Now
What you would get from us today.
These four were campaign and channel engagements from our earlier years. What we do now starts earlier in the sale, with listening. Every engagement begins with one of two kinds of listening: research into what your market values and what makes one provider stand out from the rest, or discovery conversations with the people involved in a particular purchase. We prefer to start with full market research, and we make exceptions depending on your situation. The questions we prepare for your sales conversations, the analysis of each call, the content we write for a customer account and the closing presentation for a deal all come from what we hear.
People do the thinking and write the content. AI helps with the analysis and the first drafts, and the listening stays with people. We call the method Power Listening™. It is written down, so we are not guessing: it says where a person is needed in a sales process and where AI can be used. Wiley publishes it as Power Listening: Hear What Machines Miss in early 2027. We stay with your team through the closing step.
We will add newer engagements here as clients agree to be named. Until then, the quickest way to see how we work is to tell us where a deal is stuck, or where your positioning is not landing.
Tell us where a deal is stuck, or where your positioning is not landing.
We will ask about the buyer, how far the deal has got and what is still unresolved, or about your market and why buyers are not yet seeing your value. Then we will tell you plainly whether we can help.