By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email
Well 24-hours after the big, "huh, what just happened" moment of realizing the only semi agent friendly RBOC just got bought by a somewhat unknown RBOC, I've had a chance to speak with a couple TA members who have an opinion about CenturyLink and what it means for telecom agents and channel partners that CenturyTel has purchased, merged or otherwise taken over Qwest.
The document you see to the right was emailed to me by a TA member who said CenturyLink gave it to him at the Channel Partner show in Vegas last month.
I read through it and it seems like they have a program or want one if they spent enough money to have a booth at the show. I actually remember stopping by their booth not because I recognized them but because they were promoting a SMS text marketing solution called Moblitzer I thought was interesting.
I spoke with one TA master agent vendor member at length yesterday who said he was a CenturyLink agent by way of Embarq and Sprint. (Sprint was bought by Embarq which was bought by CenturyTel.)
I asked if he liked the CenturyLink agent program and he shared the following which I've paraphrased:
"They don't really have their own agent program so much as they have what they got when they took over Embarq which was pretty much the old Sprint wire-line business. The program still allows you to sell in the old Embarq footprint but not really in the CenturyTel footprint."
"They kind of rolled out an agent program so we could sell services in the CenturyTel CLEC footprint but the prices were way off the market to the point where it was not even close to being sellable."
The agent I spoke to was not concerned about getting paid from CenturyTel on his Embarq base for the rest of 2010. He did not suggest at any point of our conversation that CenturyTel was on the cutting edge of knowing what an agent is or how an agent needs to be taken care of. You actually kind of get that when you read the CenturyTel document above. It seems well intentioned but it also seems like it might have been written by a consultant trying to explain to a CenturyTel executive what an agent is.
I was able to exchange emails with a CenturyLink manager who appears to head up their channel program. We have a tentative appointment to speak on the phone next week. I'll let you know what he says.
What Dan Thinks so Far...
From all the press releases and analysis I've read so far, CenturyTel wants more business revenue to offset the residential land-line business that's a great cash cow but that's going away none the less. CenturyTel sees that Qwest has "got it going on" when it comes to closing business accounts. This is good news for whomever brings business accounts to Qwest.
The big immediate financial windfall for the owners of the new merged company though seems to be the $650 million they think they'll save over the next several years through combined efficiencies of some sort. I interpret this as meaning "layoffs" or agent cut-backs to save all that commission.
Whether you're a Qwest employee or a Qwest agent, now's a good time to be associated in any way possible with "new money" coming in every month. For agents that means being aligned with a powerful Qwest master agent. I can't give advise to W-2 types since the layoff grinder is what made me convert to permanent 1099 status myself.
What Do You Think?
Please post your own comments and analysis below.
Im wondering if they are going to maintain the agent and direct rep program that Qwest was notorious for, paying bot the indirect and direct rep full commissions for collaboratively closing deals? it seemed to be an unsustainable practice to me but they were doing it for years.
Posted by: Robert Stevens | 04/26/2010 at 08:50 AM
In regards to the moblitzer offering, I completed their online form twice, called three times with no response. My last attempt was today and now they say they are not accepting new agents. So will see what masters I can find that have this product available
Posted by: Barb reyff | 01/10/2012 at 11:49 AM