I work for a VAR (value added reseller) and for the most part I freaking love it. We are a tech company that specializes in public sector sales. So, the small independent resellers that attempt to compete with CDW-G and GovConnection by offering amazing customer service and knowledgable consultation, because we can't always compete on price alone. That's what you look for. My job is to keep up on the latest everything, work directly with the manufacturers to get special pricing for my customers, and keep customers informed about what's out there and how I think it may meet their need. HP has been doing to selling-through-partners-rather-than-direct-to-customers thing the longest, then Lenovo, and now Dell is creating a partner channel that utilizes independent resellers. So there's plenty of opportunity out there.

I personally loathe sales, especially to the K12 market because the tight funding pretty much forces many school districts to base their purchasing entirely on price and not on where you can trust you will be taken the best care of and always get what will be the best value for the longest time. And you essentially end up fighting tooth and nail for a 3% commission on someone's annual $10K purchase. Luckily I'm not on the sales team that does cold calls and that kind of thing, I'm an account specialist and get to just take care of a handful of established accounts with great care. I'm allowed to respectfully decline when an RFP comes through that I know will require a lot of work but is unlikely to be won. I love being helpful and going to bat for schools, but I'm not all that interested in the selling things to people aspect.

Hopefully this has shed some light on exactly I do and you can decide whether or not it sounds interesting to you. Your time in higher ed IT makes you perfect for the job and if you actually enjoy reaching out to people and convincing them that what you can offer them is totally amaze balls, you'll do even better than me!