This is where TA archives all the information we publish about our master agent vendor members. While the content is about TA's master agents the blog is not by the master agents. Content is contributed by all TA members.
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.
Posted 3/23/10 By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email
Ever try to keep track of everything, all at once, all the time? Ever try to juggle too many plates with no help? It's tough, especially when "everything" is always changing and the bits of information are scattered all over the Internet.
Telecom agents and channel partners understand this problem too well when it comes to keeping track of voice and data circuit pricing and promos for their business customers.
Telarus is doing a great job of helping their agents though with their new one-page product matrix. Click the image below to check it out!
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.
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".
when you have a moment, please energize us with one of your success stories.
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.
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 ofIllinois, World Telecom Group out of California and