# Reseller and partner enquiries

A reseller approach is an inbound enquiry that happens to be about distribution rather than a purchase, so the same machinery handles it: resolve the person and the organisation, research the company from public sources with evidence attached, ask the qualifying questions, and open an opportunity. Every term a partnership actually turns on — margin, territory, exclusivity — is refused and escalated.

- **Status:** Available
- **Audience:** both
- **Channels:** email, phone
- **In the app:** #/inbox, #/pipeline, #/prospects
- **Last verified:** 2026-09-10
- **Canonical:** https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/use-cases/reseller-and-partner-enquiries/

## Who is actually writing

The first useful thing Connect does is work out which of four things this is, because a reseller enquiry form catches all of them and a person reading forty a month will not sort them reliably.

| What it is | How it shows | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| A real distribution enquiry | A trading organisation with a relevant customer base | Research, qualify, opportunity |
| An existing customer wanting better terms | Identity resolution matches them | The existing relationship, not a new pipeline |
| A supplier approach in disguise | They want to sell to you | A different thread and a different person |
| Nothing | No trading evidence, generic wording | Recorded, answered once, not researched deeply |

Identity resolution is the part that saves the most embarrassment. `prospect_identity_resolution` exists to stop an existing customer being treated as a cold discovery, and an established account asking about reselling is exactly the case where a generic partner reply reads badly.

## Qualifying with evidence rather than assertion

- Public-source research fills in the organisation, and **evidence is attached to claims** — a claim without evidence does not reach the record. What you read about the applicant is therefore traceable to something.
- Research spend is routed so a deeper pass runs only where it can change a decision. Forty enquiries do not get forty deep passes.
- **No email address is ever guessed.** If a decision-maker is not discoverable, the record says so and the next action is not an invented address.
- Freshness governs re-research, so an applicant who reappears in six months is not judged on last year's snapshot.

What Connect can ask on the enquiry itself is the ordinary qualification set: what they sell today, to whom, in what territory, whether they hold stock, what support they expect. None of that requires a commercial commitment, which is what makes it safe to automate.

## The terms that never leave a person

**Margin or discount tier** — `safe_sales` is the rule that Connect does not invent commercial terms. A margin Knowledge does not state is refused and escalated, and a published tier is a fact that can be repeated.
**Territory or exclusivity** — A grant of exclusivity is a contract term with years of consequence. There is no source that makes it safe to state, and the refusal is correct behaviour rather than a gap.
**Minimum volumes and rebates** — Same class. Quotable if written down; refused if not.
**Anything about a competitor's arrangement** — Not knowable, not evidenced, and the sort of claim that ends in a complaint from someone else.
**Signing anything** — Connect drafts, sends and records. It does not accept terms on your behalf.

> **Careful** On the realtime voice path the pricing rule can only live in the instructions, so a breach is *detected* rather than prevented. `price_spoken` counts the lines the voice priced, through the same expression the carrier path checks each sentence with — so review the Voice Lab if partner conversations happen by phone.

## Carrying it forward

1. Let the enquiry create the Person and the Company.
   - Result: Several people from the same applicant attach to one organisation, which is how the second and third emails stop looking like new leads.
2. Open an opportunity when it is worth pursuing, with the value in minor units.
   - Result: Stage rules apply and the follow-ups hang off the deal rather than off somebody's memory of a promising call.
3. Use `raise_for_review` when a deal needs a second pair of eyes.
   - Result: It is flagged deliberately rather than escalated by hearsay, and clearing the review is its own recorded act.
4. Put the commercial conversation on a `task` follow-up.
   - Result: No drain will ever send it; it appears as work for a person, with the thread attached, which is exactly where a margin discussion belongs.

## Where the money goes

Research, and only where it earns its place. The cost router exists because a deep pass on an applicant with no trading evidence is money spent to confirm a decision already made. Replies are one model call each. Calls are the expensive tail — audio tokens at four times the text input rate, the session re-billed for its whole context every turn — and partner conversations tend to be long ones, which is worth knowing before the channel is opened.

## Questions

### Can it tell an applicant what margin we offer?

Only if that margin is written down in Knowledge, in which case it is a fact like any other. Anything not documented is refused and escalated to a person — `safe_sales` treats an unsupported commercial term as something to hand over rather than improvise, and a partnership term stated in error is expensive to retract.

### What if the applicant is already a customer?

Identity resolution catches that before any research or outreach treats them as new. They belong on their existing relationship, where the history of what they already buy from you is the context that makes the reply sensible. Two records for one organisation is a duplicate to merge, and the merge is a human decision.

### Will it research the applicant's business for us?

Yes, from public sources, with evidence attached to each claim — a claim without evidence does not reach the record. It will not construct a contact address that is not discoverable, and the depth of the research is routed so the expensive pass runs only where it can change your decision.

## Related

- [Working with partners and suppliers](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/use-cases/partner-communication/)
- [Evidence on a prospect](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/prospects/evidence/)
- [Opportunities: the deal record](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/sales/opportunities/)
- [Escalating a commercial decision](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/sales/commercial-escalation/)
- [Resolving a prospect to an existing relationship](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/prospects/prospect-identity/)
- [Call quality review](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/phone/voice-lab-review/)

## What this page is based on

- docs-source/sources/CHANNELS.md §4 — research, evidence and cost routing
- docs-source/sources/CHANNELS.md §6 — sales, safe_sales and review flags
- docs-source/sources/PHONE.md §12 and voice pricing detection
- Connect capability registry (docs-source/facts.py)