No. 1: Focus Training On Total Solutions

Sovereign invests more than $2 million and 2,500-plus hours every year on training and certifications, but it leaves the product-specific education to vendors and focuses most of its internal activities on end-to-end infrastructure design issues and best practices.

The system integrator supports four primary business units, including data center infrastructure, virtualization and cloud services, data analytics and its in-house laboratory and testing facility. Every practice leader boasts a hybrid of sales and technical skills, and the integrator purposely avoids the "Virtualization 101" business, Barkley said. Rather, it is pushing upstream into cloud automation and service management consulting and implementation services.

Every week, practice leaders hold at least at least one training session centered on the solution provider's key architectures -- and why the Sovereign-branded approach is the best option. "Our architects talk to each other about selling business value," he said.