TA Expo Blog

TA Attending UC Strategies Summit to Partner with Enterprise Equipment Vendors

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

As many of you know, when I'm wearing my agent hat, I work as a sub-agent through ATEL Communications in San Diego with Andrew Cohen and Steve Handelman. I like working through ATEL because as a "brick and mortar" telecom agency that started out as a NEC business phone equipment dealer over 25 years ago, ATEL is the prototype sort of telecom and technology agency that all the network service vendors want to hook up with.

Anyway, about a month ago, Steve asked me if Telecom Association was planning on being at the "UC Summit" in La Jolla. He basically said, "If you want to be where the bigger equipment vendors like Cisco, Avaya, NEC and such are getting together with their distributors to talk about network service solutions or 'unified communications', this is it!"

Big telecom and technology equipment vendors? Network service distribution? Multi-location? Say no more, I'm there!

Click here to see the agenda and who's going to be there. I'm basically there to let them all know that TA has 3,800 network services distributors across the country that couldn't be more interested in helping them all get their "unified communications" solutions into multi-location businesses from coast to coast.

Let me know if you want me to ask anyone any specific questions. I'll be blogging my way through the three days to let you know what's going on.

Post any questions you have at http://www.Facebook.com/TelecomAssociation or email them to me at [email protected]. 

 

top Telarus Agents Share Success Tips at Telarus Agent Expo

How have success metrics changes over the past couple years?

In two years of covering the annual Telarus Agent Expo I've learned that Telarus fosters an environment that causes their top agents to share some of their best secrets with other Telarus agents. This is obviously one of the big draws that cause such a good turnout at Telarus' annual Agent Expo. It also tends to get a higher than average attendance rate to Telarus' weekly agent training calls.

This year Telarus had Tim O'Rourke of TelePointe Communications, Gala Gorman of Go To Telecom, Steve Roy of TelecomBuyer.us and Jeff Ott of Total Carrier Solutions all take the stage to share with their peers.

Click the video below to hear what they talked about. (It may take up to a minute to start since it's a large video. The wait is worth it though)

Following are some notes from the video.

0:00 - Telarus President Adam Edwards' introduction. He mentions that Tim is an expert in renewals, that Gala and her partner Charlie Frangos recently closed a $30,000 and a $60,000 deal, that Steve Roy is called on by Goldman Sachs to educate their private equity teams about the telecom industry and that Jeff Ott had recently closed a $80,000 RespOrg deal, a $100,000 tyco deal and a third text messaging deal almost as large.

2:00 - Jeff Ott shares how he targets $30,000 plus accounts by writing R.F.P.s or "requests for proposals" for prospects at about $200 per hour. the other panelists also offer their ideas on this topic.

27:00 - Tim shares how he is able to generate most of his new business from his existing customers.

30:00 - All discuss successful tactics for how telecom agents and channel partners can generate more business working with referral partner like IT VARs and others.

41:00 - All discuss tactics for renewing expiring contracts in a challenged pricing environment.

45:00 - Comments about successfully asking for referrals. Jeff gives a "thank you" shout out to successful tactic he learned from Tony Robbins. 

47:30 - Additional comments about tactics successfully employed by telecom agents and channel partners to recruit and maintain lead partners.

58:30 - Jeff Ott comments on the importance of continuing to train yourself to be the expert your customer needs and expects you to be especially "during the cut".

The audio on the video is not the best but the content is priceless. I strongly urge you to assign yourself to watch the whole video over a working lunch. Nothing will keep you more energized and more productive than hearing from successful agents that "it's not impossible" to succeed, "this is how I've done it" and these are the "lessons learned".

What success stories do you have to share?

Posted 3/14/2010 by:

Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director

951-251-5155
[email protected] 

Dan Sterling Tells Telarus Agent Expo Why Nuvox Loves the Windstream Deal (w/Video)

"I was worried, but I'm not worried now"

Windstream VP of Dealer Sales Dan Sterling tells the Telarus Agent Expo audience why he went from slightly concerned to very happy when he learned that Windstream (an "old-fashioned" residential copper-based carrier with tons of cash but declining revenues) would be purchasing NuVox, a business based CLEC.

Sterling assured the Telarus agent audience that he'd been told by everyone at Windstream with an opinion that "they want us to be and stay very aggressive".

Click the video below to view and hear Dan's comments to Telarus' top agents.

Click video above to hear Dan Sterling's address to Telarus Agent Expo audience

While a buy-out of a nimble business CLEC by a copper residential LEC might seem a bit scary to the CLEC's agents (not to mention the CLEC's employees), with the comments from Dan Sterling and the address from John Leach (in a prior post) suggest to me that Windstream agents have a unique opportunity to sell (and get paid on) more service than was ever previously possible in Windstream's 16 Southeastern state footprint.

We'll have to wait and see if actually Windstream becomes like NuVox. We'll know when we see a remake of the following "It's a NuVox Thing" video starring Joh Leach and the Windstream board.

Click here to see all NoVox' YouTube videos. 

The best one is the video that "kinda" explains SIP. You gotta watch!

Posted 3/12/2010 by:

Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director

951-251-5155
[email protected] 

Windstream Execs Showcase Special Differences at Telarus Agent Expo

Are all "copper-in-the-ground" phone companies the same? Apparently not!

Like their company name might suggest, John Leach and his fellow Windstream executives delivered some fresh air to Telarus' top agents last month. When you consider all the "me too" vendor presentations you can drown in at a trade show, it's refreshing to hear a presentation that showcases something quite different than all the other presentations. While I believe Telarus is Windstream's biggest or oldest master agent, other TA vendor master agents for Windstream include Telecom Brokerage Inc. out of Illinois, World Telecom Group out of California and MicroCorp out of Georgia.

Windstream (a Southeast "RLEC" that recently acquired Nuvox) did just that with their presentation delivered by Jason Dishon RVP Sales, John Leach Sr. VP Sales and crowd favorite Chris Shubert Dealer Manager.

Windstream, it seems, owns quite a bit of copper in the ground in many rural parts of the country that telecom agents might otherwise not be able to sell in. (Many "monopoly ILECs" are notoriously agent hostile to the idea of paying commissions.) 

John Leach, Windream's new SVP of Sales (who recently came over from PAETEC), says that Windstream isn't like other copper-based LECs who find themselves in a slow death-spiral. Leach suggests that Windstream is quite enlightened to the partner channel and is embracing partners as a way to transform Windstream into the dynamic selling machine of the future that it wants to be.

But don't take my word for it. Scroll down below and listen to Jason, John and Chris speak for themselves. Their message is clear, "We are THE PHONE COMPANY in our footprint. Sell with us or sell against us BUT WE'RE NOT GOING TO LOOSE".

As a simple (getting older) sales guy, I like it when the vendor spells out their market value simply like that.

Sales VP Jason Dishon Likes Telarus' Sales Figures 

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Senior VP John Leach Explains the Windstream Vision

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  Telarus' Favorite Agent Manager  Chris Shubert 

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Windstream's Presentation to Telarus Top Agents

0:00 - 1:40  Telarus President Adam Edwards' comments about the Windstream relationship

1:40 - 4:56  Windstream Sales VP Jason Dishon comments on Telarus & Windstream successes

4:56 - 15:00 Windstream  Sr. VP John Leach discusses Windstream's marketplace advantages

15:00 - 47:07  Windstream Dealer Manager Chris Shubert shares Windstream product sales strategies

If you watch no other part of this video, make sure you watch the 10 minutes by John Leach. The opening by Telarus president Adam Edwards is also good in how is showcases the Telarus/Nuvox/windstream history. Also talk to your Windstream agent manager to learn why your Windstream opportunity is different from others.

Posted 3/10/2010 by:

Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director

951-251-5155
[email protected]