TeleSource President and CEO Ronnie Bice today announces a key expansion to his leadership team with the addition of Marty Leavengood, a seasoned channel executive who has spent almost two decades working with business local phone company giants Sprint, Embarq and most recently CenturyLink, the phone company based in Monroe, Louisiana that provides voice, Internet and data network services to business customers across 33 states. CenturyLink is the business phone service company that is in the process of acquiring Qwest.
For those of you not full familiar with TeleSource, they are a master agency based in Charlotte, North Carolina that specializes in telecom expense management for large multi-location businesses spread across multiple local exchange phone company ("LEC") operating areas. As such they've developed an in house expertise for being able to efficiently and cost effectively work with all the local phone companies including AT&T and Verizon in addition to the ones mentioned above on behalf of their multi-location corporate clients and telecom agent channel partners.
If you're a telecom or IT decision maker for a multi-location business or you're a equipment VAR ("value added reseller") or computer network systems integrator that works with multi-location businesses and you need a telecom network consulting and management company that can audit, order, install, manage and report on voice, Internet and data services from any or all of the local business phone companies throughout the US then you owe it to yourself to get to know TeleSource.
Click here to view a profile of TeleSource that Telecom Association did just a couple months ago.
To help TA's 3,800 members understand how the addition of Marty Leavengood to the TeleSource leadership team helps TeleSources business customers and channel partners, TA recorded the following 10-minute interview with Marty.
Click here to download the MP3 of the recording.
Click the following audio player to listen to the recording on your computer now.
Following is a rough transcription of the interview for those of you who wish to scan while they listen.
Dan Baldwin: Hello, this is Dan Baldwin and today I'm speaking with Marty Leavengood. The new chief operating officer for TeleSource Communications out of Charlotte, North Carolina. They are big telecom expense management company and a master agency for Sprint, Embarq, Century Link and others.
Marty, you've got a very unique background. Can you tell us what you've been doing since you got out of school and what makes you so impressive that Ronnie thought to hire you?
Marty Leavengood: Well, I sure try. After about 11 years of working in the aerospace industry I realized that it was probably a good place to be from rather than in. And so in 1993, I joined Sprint as a network design engineer as they were getting ready to really start dealing in to the world of IP and internet. And it happened to be some stuff in my prior background had allowed.
After going through the ranks with engineering titles and management and all of that I got into sales, ultimately working my way to the office or level within both Sprint and Embarq for direct field sales side. Then about four years ago as we span off from Sprint and we become Embarq. I was asked to take a special assignment reporting directly to our president of business markets to head up a new, kind of a new division which was entitled Strategic Alliance and Alternate Channels. And the primary focus was basically business development of not only indirect program that would really start opening up the agency capabilities for at the time the Embarq Company. But also, to find the right partners to strike strategic alliances with, so that we could better augment our solutions to come up with better ways to provide solutions to the clients that we were trying to attack in the business space.
DB: Oh, that's great. So, in the past several years you've really been able to take a look at the channels market place and say, now here's the old kind of agent, here's the new kind of non-traditional agents since you've got a really clear vision on how to go act to this different, channels.
ML: I think so. We're coming from the Sprint background where we had an extensive partner program focus mostly on the long distance back in the 90's and then expanding into some of the data products into the early 2000's. Kind of what, what was so interesting to me was the way the industry for utilizing partners and agency have changed. We were starting to see that they were much more integrated into what a carrier would need. They could become a much more valued asset in an account once they started bringing more services to their customer
So, take TeleSource for instance, one of the things that had attracted me to them was then assets that they possessed which included not only Telecom Expense Management Software. Extensive agent programs they've established over several years. They had a presence with national accounts. They were offering managed services to some of their higher and strategic clients. And then, augmenting all of that was a call center presence that has been used to not only do sales but operational supports of all the things I just described. So, it was really all of those types of assets together that made me highly interested in joining up with TeleSource.
DB: And that's interesting that you described your strategic background because quite a few of the master agencies in the industry are actually hiring people that, you know, they call them COO's or they call them chief strategy officers or something different.
What are the different strategies that you're going to be looking at to move TeleSource forward? I mean, I know TeleSource is huge the local phone companies such as Sprint, Embarq and CenturyLink. How is your abilities are going to help TeleSource out?
ML: Well, I hope my exposure to that side of the business will bring some value and we'll be able to deepen the already long track record that Ronnie and the team have had was success. I think a couple of other things that I'll be able to bring will be some exposure to some of the more enhance technologies that will be out there. The convergence of wireless and wire line services that we're all starting to see happen. Some of the software and some of the additional professional services that are out there.
Things like exposure to data centers and how do you get in to the hosted environment. Things that we are looking at also on the carrier side. I think a lot of them are now starting to get to a maturity level where you're going to see them provided by lots of different types of companies and lots of different sizes and as long as they can provide some type of value add and give the client a reason to go with a solution provided by maybe someone like a TeleSource as opposed to a primary carrier. I think those are the types of things that I would see people focusing in on. So, it's going to be a wide variety of things Dan, everything from the wireless and wire line pieces of what a network may look like to all of the things that enable it which would include any type of hosted VoIP applications or additional software that will make companies more effective.
DB: Great. Well, last question. If you just won the lottery of half a million dollars and decided that you're going to set up your own independent agency, how would you set that agency up? What markets would you go after? And how would you position yourself for a success over the next five years?
ML: I did take a look at what it would take to set up an organization that I felt would be one that would be successful going in to the future and was studying stuff like that when I start talking with Ronnie and we decide to join forces with TeleSource. I think it does get to the point where you've got to have more than just one tool in your bag. So, simply being an agent for a carrier is a way to make a living but I don't know if it's a way that over the next four to five years if you really going to be able to sustain any type of continued growth.
Now, you may have to put some other offerings in your bag and again, back to wireless and wire line type of integration is clearly something to be looking at. But I think you've also going to try to understand how can you pull other people in to help you. How can you build some strategic alliances? I know, one of the buzz words in the hardware manufacturing area is the use of eco systems and how do you combine all of these different people or partnerships together to form something that really becomes a value add with a client that you're working on?
I think those are the types of things I would have tried to figure out a way to cobble together these relationships were it will be much, much, easier to go in to a going concern. A business that's in need of some type of transformation or just ideas on how to become more effective. Bring to them not only the product services and skills that I may have been able to do myself but also pull in strategic partners who would be able to round it all out.
DB: All right, this is Dan Baldwin. We've been talking to Marty Leavengood the new chief operating officer for TeleSource. Marty, for our audience who not totally familiar with TeleSource, why don't we use this opportunity to share with them. I know that TeleSource is not a carrier but a master agent and an expert at telecom expense management. I just went to the Channel Partners expo. A big learning point at the show was, as an agent, you have to have a reason to talk to your customers every single day and through the Telecom Expense Management Software that TeleSource has, TeleSource is an ideal partner to help agents do just that. What do we need to know about TeleSource in addition to what I've just said?
ML: Well, I think a couple of things that would be important to know would be that we do have a top flight software package that helps customers see their expenses for telecom wireless, wire line, Internet , data, long distance, you name it and they can have a mechanism by which they can manage to take a look at measure how good they are doing in controlling their expense. TeleSource has access to many, many carriers. The ability to integrate everything into a one stop shop.
We also offer professional services in areas where we can do voice, Internet and data monitoring. We can also take on on responsibility for "adds, moves and changes" types of functions for people all around the country. We have some national accounts that we take care of. So it really gets in to not only a labor professional services type of aspect that we offer. We clearly have the sales capabilities and the project management to support any type of activities that will be going on and software and some of the customized things that we can do from a hosted perspective, I think we round out a pretty nice portfolio that we're looking forward to take in the market.
DB: Great. And just to be clear with our audience. These software tools, these online portals, while they're available for the agent to take a look at their base, they're really for the end user to see what's going on in a multi-carrier environment.
ML: That's right. And we have both. We have a software package that would be more for the end-user client to help them manage their business. We also have a software program that we have developed that allows our agents to effectively manage their base of customers. To be able to look at all the offerings that are out there for a customer to choose from. How to take a look at a vendor price promotion and figure out what would be the best thing to put in front of a client to get that sale.
DB: Super. This is Dan Baldwin. We've been talking to Marty Leavengood. Marty, anything we forgot to talk about today?
ML: No, I think we've covered it all. Appreciate you're having me on.
DB: Great. And we look forward to talking to you again soon
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