By Dan Baldwin, Editor
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About two years ago I was on a trip to Denver to meet with Braun Mincher, an original TA member just getting back into the business after a 5-year sabbatical, when, at Braun's suggestion, I called on John Scarborough and Jeffrey Pearl, co-founders and managing partners of IP5280 because I was interested in meeting all the "movers and shakers" in the Denver telecom market.
Now most of the folks I called on during that trip were agents or master agents so it was interesting to visit with John and Jeffrey in their office because they were not agents but a modern "VoIP version" of the sort of "turn & burn" business-to-business sales office similar to the sort that I originally learned to sell business long distance in back in 1990.
They had cubicles for sales people and white boards to show which of the outside sales reps were coming anywhere close to their quota of calls, appointments or sales. While in their office they demonstrated their killer "High Definition Voice" customer presentation to sell their hosted VoIP solution using a Polycom phone with a desktop video screen. The whole experience was a lot like what I imagined it was like in a Cbeyond sales office - sell or die!
At the time, I suggested that if they were interested in joining TA as a TA vendor member in order to teach agents their canned VoIP sales pitch they would probably be pretty successful as many agents two years ago (and even now) don't have anywhere near as good a VoIP sales pitch as these two guys had.
The one other thing that stood out about John & Jeffrey was that in spite of it being a fairly warm day in Denver, they both wore full suits and ties with cuff links to boot.
Now I haven't worn cuff links since my wedding and I no longer own a tie that I'm brave enough to wear in public. When I mentioned that Californians do business without ties their response was, "Well this is just how we roll!"
Indeed!
And now MegaPath (the Platinum Equity fueled juggernaut that has merged with Covad and Speakeasy as well) has bought IP5280 and likely the suits and cuff links were thrown in on the deal.
Well I say good for John and Jeffrey and, "Congratulations!" While MegaPath has been a TA vendor member for several years they've never offered to buy Telecom Association.
Maybe I should go out an buy a tie.
But Why Would MegaPath Buy IP5280?
I hope like heck that John & Jeffrey got a wheelbarrow full of
I may certainly be wrong but I was kind of under the impression that IP5280 was a switchless reseller of someone else's Broadsoft switch. If that's true then IP5280 was primarily a good VoIP sales machine. Is that why MP bought IP5280 - to get a couple great hosted VoIP sales trainers in John & Jeff? Maybe so - but I thought that MegaPath bought Speakeasy because of Speakeasy's ability to sell hosted VoIP.
But even if IP5280 had their own network I was not under the impression MP needed more network or switch facilities.
My guess (and I'm sure I'm wrong) is that MP got a screaming deal on some IP5280 fire sale assets. I mean if the price is right every thing's a good deal, right?
If someone else has a better explanation or any inside scoop on this deal can you please leave a comment or send me an email?
P.S. I think I'm a pretty good sales person and I own two decent telecom sales blogs. MP can have it all for $10 million dollars and I'll even throw in those cuff links I wore at my wedding!
Dan, thanks for picking up the news of IP5280 becoming a part of the MegaPath family. The reality is that standalone VoIP providers can’t scale fast enough to seize the opportunity in front of us! the industry is changing faster than ever, and as we all know, voice is now another app in the cloud. Gone are the days where a business buys voice service from a traditional bell. MegaPath’s financial strength, breath of Ethernet, MPLS and network capabilities, let alone SSL and hosted VoIP are redefining the industry – we are happy to be a part of it – cufflinks and all!
Posted by: John Scarborough | 01/27/2012 at 12:21 PM