Qwest Blog by TA

"Everybody Loves Chris (Ancell)" or "Why Agents Aren't Worried (too much)"

 Posted 4/23/10
By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email

Well this afternoon Qwest had their first conference call with all their telecom agent business channel partners and pretty much said what was expected, "It's too early to know for sure exactly what's going to happen about anything."

I spoke to a couple more TA members that are Qwest master agents and one theme is being repeated quite a bit, "CenturyTel really wanted the Qwest business sales machine and they're putting Chris Ancell in charge of anything that has to do with business sales for the merged company." Chris is mentioned quite positively in this Phone Plus article by Kelly Teal.

I don't know Chris personally but it sounds like he must be pretty well respected and smart to boot to have so many master agents suggest that there will be not agent blood running in the streets so long as Chris is in charge.

That's not to say though that there won't be unpleasantness down the road. During the conference call today one agent tried to press the Qwest executives on the call as to whether they would endorse the idea of residual commissions being paid to agents moving forward as opposed to switching back to single up-front commissions like what is received from the AT&T and Verizon agent programs.

The Qwest execs on the conference seemed to go out of the way to state they had no way of assuring the agents on the line that they could make it go one way or another.

When I asked a master agent I know this afternoon if he thought residual commissions would revert to up-front he said "no" but added that renewals might not be as lucrative.  Most the experienced agents I'm talking too are more pragmatic than concerned. 

What's the Bottom Line?  Everyone gets what they can control. 

Selling CLEC services in a semi-monopoly environment is never pretty for an agent. In many instances it's not like there's a lot of options for the customer as to which provider they're going to get service from. AT&T and Verizon know that - which is likely why they don't pay "evergreen commissions" to agents. They probably think, "Why pay an agent forever for bringing us a customer that we would have gotten anyway?"

Fortunately in the enterprise business space, the "national CLECs" are becoming the agent's best backup plan. With enough QoS enabled bandwidth, the up and coming unified communications providers like Smoothstone, Telesphere and other similar companies can get more and more of the "old business" from the "big 3" phone companies by paying the agents a handsome residual.

The other trump card for telecom agents and channel partners? TEM or "telecom expense management". By working through a TEM solution provider to make a large multilocation customer's telecom management experience more peaceful, many telecom agents are working with TA vendors that have robust, carrier-agnostic TEM packages that charge a customer a reasonable management fee for managing whatever carrier is best for the customer in any part of the company. Multilocation solution providers like TeleSource, Entelegent, Granite, BullsEye, NewEdge and others allow agents to keep earning money for making their customers happy no matter who the customer is doing business with.

The TA agent members I'm talking to know that Qwest (and likely CenturyTel) know all this. While agents can be treated poorly in some instances in the short run, agents in the future will have greater choices for the customer not fewer choices. Most everyone I've talked to expect Chris Ancell to split the difference in making the owners of the merged company happy without killing the golden goose of channel revenue now or in the future.

What Do You Think?

Please post your comments below.

CenturyLink Has a Partner Program - Does Anyone Like It?

   Posted 4/23/10
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.

Premier Qwest Master Agent Five Star Joins TA

 Posted 4/23/10
By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email

With Qwest sucking up all the air with their big merger announcement, now's a good time to find out who the biggest and best Qwest master agents are. Following is a video interview I did with Roy Tanner and Matt Miclette of Five Star Communications last month at the Channel Partners trade show in Las Vegas.

Five Star has been a master agency that's been flying under the radar for most of us but they're pretty well known in Qwest circles. Now they want to be known in your telecom agent and channel partner circle. 

So please watch the video and then let Five Star know what it's going to take to get your business.

Need Some Advice From "Mr. Qwest"? Call Dave...

Posted 4/22/10
By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email

You can tell what a man's passions are by checking out what he does in his spare time. Apparently Dave Laskowski, the Managing Partner of CTG3 writes a blog about Qwest. Seriously!

Dave likes Qwest so much that he actually owns two Qwest agencies, CTG3 and Bandwidth Builders.  CTG3 I believe is mostly Qwest business products and Bandwidth Builders is mostly Qwest residential products. I am under the impression that Dave might be the only Qwest master agest that can provide distributors like independent ISPs access to Qwest residential products like DSL.

Got telecom agent or channel partner questions about Qwest? 

Worried about the Qwest merger with CenturyTel / CenturyLink?

Ask Dave Laskowski, "Mr. Qwest" at [email protected], 425-458-4070 or check out his Qwest blog.

TA Launches Independent "Qwest Partner Group" on Facebook

 Posted 4/22/10
By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email

To give telecom agents and channel partners who are interested in the Qwest Business Partner Program an independent to go to communicate with one another TA has created a private "Qwest Partner Group" by TA on Facebook.

Click here to go to the "Qwest Partner Group" by TA on Facebook.  Any on is welcome to join the group and read the posts. Any member can post comments. Well behaved members that use professional language to express themselves can post more than once.

Check it out. It's for you!

Qwest Merges With CenturyTel. Good News for Agents?

Posted 4/22/10
By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email

Must be something in the water. Two weeks ago it's MegaPath & Covad. Today it's Qwest & CenturyTel merging. Why? Probably for the same reasons quoted about the MegaPath/Covad merger - bigger is better.

What will it mean for agents? Hopefully nothing bad. Qwest's program for telecom agents and channel partners is outstanding when compared to AT&T or Verizon in that Qwest appears to embrace agents and pay reasonable residual commissions.

I don't know a thing about CenturyTel or their program for telecom agents or channel partners. When I go to their business website there appears to be no mention of a partner program. That's not a good sign.

But what do you think? Any TA members out there with an informed opinion about CenturyTel and what effect the merger will have on the Qwest partner program?

Please leave a comment below.