Sell to the people who install your product: how to sell through system integrators

Sunny Ray · Feb 8, 2026 · 5 min read

If someone else already installs things in your buyer's factory, your first sales team is their sales team. You just have not hired them yet. And you hire them with a cut, not a demo.

LOIs, calls, and nothing signed

On February 2 we ran a campaign review with a physical AI startup that sells into industrial automation. Their outbound campaigns were live and, by any top-of-funnel measure, working. The founders said customers were calling back and forth. Letters of intent were moving. A fourth campaign was launching that week.

Nothing was signed.

That gap, between a factory manager saying "this is interesting" and a factory signing a contract, is where hardware-adjacent startups lose a year. The buyer likes you. The buyer also has a plant to run, a capital budget cycle, an engineering team that has to approve anything touching the line, and no appetite for being the first customer of a startup.

Who installs the robots?

Halfway through the call, the question came up that changed the plan. Who puts these robots into factories?

System integrators. The firms that design, install and maintain automation for large manufacturers. They already have the relationships. They are already inside the plant. They already carry the trust that a startup spends years earning, and they are the people the factory calls when it wants something new on the line.

The team had never emailed a single one. Every campaign so far had gone straight at end customers. The suggestion on the call was short:

Get 20% of what you sell to these folks.

A reseller relationship at a 20 percent commission. Integrators who can grow revenue from clients they already serve.

Why integrators beat direct for an early team

A direct enterprise sale asks the factory to trust you. A sale through an integrator asks the factory to trust someone they already trust, who is vouching for you. That second ask is much smaller.

It also fixes the problem that kills a lot of LOIs: implementation risk. A factory manager worries about who will install it, who will fix it at 2 a.m., and whose head rolls if it breaks. When the integrator owns installation and support, those questions already have answers.

And the economics work for the integrator. They make money on projects. A new product they can add to existing client work, with a margin attached, is new revenue from relationships they already paid to build. You are not asking for a favor. You are offering them a product line.

How the big robot makers do it

This is not a startup trick. It is how the large industrial robot companies sell. Epson runs a program for authorized system integrators that it selects by hand, and gives them prioritized pre-sales and post-sales support, training and marketing materials. The robot maker builds the product. The integrators carry it into factories.

If the incumbents sell through integrators, a startup selling into the same factories should at least test it. The difference is that a startup cannot offer a famous brand. It has to offer a better margin, a faster win, or something the integrator's clients are already asking for.

The fourth campaign: integrators only

Here is how I would build it, based on what we mapped out.

• List integrators who install automation in your target industries. Founders and owners first, since many integrators are founder-run businesses.
• Lead with the commission, not the technology. "We are looking for a few integrators to resell our software at 20 percent" gets read. A feature list does not.
• Offer to co-sell the first deal. Bring the integrator into one of your warm LOIs and let them own the installation.
• Keep the end-customer campaigns running. Integrators are a second door, not a replacement.

There is a show angle here too. On the same call we talked about podcasts as a steady source of leads, with one condition: filter the guests so they want to be there, and focus on founders and CEOs. Integrator founders are ideal guests. They know every plant in their region, they love talking about the problems they see on the floor, and an episode is a much softer first conversation than a reseller pitch.

Do not lean on LinkedIn for this

Someone always suggests LinkedIn for channel recruitment. We covered it on the call. LinkedIn caps you at roughly 20 connection requests a day, and pushing volume carries a real risk of account suspension. It is good for visibility, so the integrator who gets your email can look you up and see a real person. It is not how you reach a few hundred integrators in a month. Email is.

What can go wrong

Channels have their own failure modes, and you should know them going in.

Integrators sell what they understand. If they cannot explain your product in two sentences to a plant manager, they will not sell it, however good the commission. Train them before you count on them.

Margins get squeezed. If the integrator adds a markup on top of your price and the commission, your end price may stop making sense. Work out the full stack before you quote.

You lose some contact with the customer. Insist on joining the first few implementations, so you still learn what breaks.

None of these outweigh the upside for a team that has LOIs and no contracts. When buyers keep saying "interesting" and never "yes," the missing piece is often someone they already trust standing next to you.

Selling into enterprises and want a softer way in? Reach enterprise buyers through a show.

Frequently asked questions