I work for a company that buys a lot of enterprise gear. Here is what buying it looks like, if you've never done it before.
Let's say you have your eye on a storage array. You know it's going to cost a bundle but it's exactly what you need and want to know how much to budget for buying one. So you call the company who makes it and ask for a price. They tell you, "Sorry, but we don't sell directly to end users, you have to buy our gear through an authorized vendor." So you ask for a list of their vendors. "Sorry, but we don't give out that information. You could try googling our name for some?"
Once you locate a reseller, you call them up and ask them how much it costs to buy the storage array. "I'm sorry, I don't have the pricing in front of me but do you have time on Wednesday for a 1 hour phone call?" You ask, why can't you just give me a price over the phone? "Well, we want to get to know you and we need to make sure that this solution is the one that fits your needs. Plus we can tell you all about the product and answer any questions you might have." Fine, let's schedule a phone call.
Wednesday rolls around and the phone rings. On the line is your "Account Manager" (salescritter), an Integration Engineer (salescritter who can sometimes answer technical questions), the Account Manager's manager, and possibly a trainee for any of the above. Because whenever there's a scheduled phone meeting, it's never just one person on the other end, it's a whole team. "Why don't you start by telling us about the problem you're trying to solve and by the way, all other parts of your infrastructure that we could possibly sell you solutions for?" So you answer their questions, as diplomatically as you can. Once that's done, if you're _lucky_, you will sit through a 30-minute long sales pitch on the product you already fully intend to buy, if the price is right. If you are unlucky, they will try to schedule a follow-up phone call and webex for it.
As the hour-long phone call is clearly starting to wind down, you grit your teeth and ask, hopefully, how much does this thing actually cost? "I can see your a down-to-brass-tacks kind of guy so I'll tell you what, I'll send you a detailed quote sometime early next week, okay? Great!"
_Two weeks_ later, you get the quote. At this point you are so tired of the resller people and their delays and empty platitudes, you just want to get the damn thing on order before your spending window closes. To your surprise, once they actually have the check in hand, they move a lot quicker and ship the unit more or less immediately.
The thing is, if you offer a product in the enterprise space and _don't_ go through this complicated dog-and-pony show for every customer, they won't buy from you because they won't see you as a serious vendor.
I hate it all.