What Makes a Good Vendor?

Having worked in Channel Sales for 20+ years, I have had many varied experiences with my Channel Partners.  I have seen people produce many, many thousands of dollars in sales, consistently year after year and make tons of money with my programs.  I have also seen the opposite end of the scale, Channel Partners who sign a marketing agreement and either never produce a single sale, or close but a few sales over the years.

So what is it in a Channel Sales group that drives an “Independent Sales Agent” to use one supplier over another?  I have my ideas which I try to run with faithfully with my team of Agents, but I’m really curious what you think?

The most important item I have found over the years, required to even get an Agent on board, is a good, meaningful Product.  Without a marketable product, there’s no reason to sign an agency agreement in the first place.  So let’s assume for this discussion we have a great product…….

A good Channel Team will drive more sales

After product, IMO, Responsiveness is the next most important reason to choose one supplier over another.  If an Agent sends in a quote request, and has it returned within the same day, they have a  GREAT Supplier to work with.  As the time to return a quote extends itself, it exponentially reduces the opportunity to close a sale.  I’ve heard of sales agents waiting days to get sales quotes, only to be told when they do present it to the customer, the prospect has already selected another vendor and has an install date scheduled……..ouch!

(As this is my #1 important trait, for the record, my team at Granite Telecom turns simple, non-complex quotes around in 24 hours or less)

Relationship is a vital cog in any partnership.  I try to be as involved in my agents sales efforts as possible and do my best to contact them at a minimum, once every 3 weeks by phone or email, with in person visits every 6 months.  Covering the entire United States and Canada, visiting even this often is a challenge.  For more regional reps, a monthly stop by would be great to cultivate the relationship with your Channel Partner.

Customer Experience or Service runs a close 4^th.  If your company can provide a top notch customer experience to the sales agent’s customers, you’ll have a better retention rate, meaning long term residuals, which is the name of the game in agency sales.

I have loads of other components I think fit in somewhere, just not sure where to list them?  There’s “financial stability of your company”, “price”, “sales ability”, “promotions”, “SPIF’s”, “commissions”, “flexibility” and many more……

I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on how these components line up when you’re choosing a supplier…..maybe all of my fellow Channel Managers can learn a thing or two from our sales agents?

Technology Reflection 2013

As 2013 comes to an end, we all have a couple of slow weeks to close that last big sale before the Holidays, wrap up our loose ends in the office, and plan for a great start to 2014.  By reflecting on what went well this past year, and reviewing those challenges that didn’t quite go the way we hoped, achieving a quick jump out of the gate for next year is possible.

One thing we have seen over the past couple of years is a quantum leap in new technology.  Cell phones are changing by the day, from the iPhone5 to the Galaxy 4, the iPad has developed into the 2^nd generation iPad Mini and iPad Air, and wireless and cloud IT services have skyrocketed.  

Technology Adoption Graph

So how do we decide on our business plan to incorporate the changing technologies?  Do we jump right in with the newest equipment, or do we sit back and wait for the kinks to get worked out?  That’s a great question. If you’ve been in sales or marketing, I’m sure you seen some variation of the graph to the right.  Some people are “Innovators”, some are “Early Adopters”, some are in the “Majority” and still others are “Laggards” when it comes to adopting new ideas and products.

A small percentage of the population falls into the early and late stages of technology, but 68% of the market falls into the “Majority” phase.  This is the market that successful businesses typically target.  While some companies are “Innovators” (think Apple), many of the Fortune 100 companies adopt their business plans to focus on winning the “Early Adopter” market. 

So how does this affect your business?  Working in a Channel Sales management role, I often see my Partner’s dealing with changes in their product sets from their vendors.  Many providers simply eliminate older technology and change their compensation plan to drive Agents to their newer technologies.  After all, a good sales person will take about 5 minutes to break down a new comp plan and sell what makes them the most money.  I know I do…......but does the sales person make more money selling new, unproven technology?

If I had a $1 for every time someone told me the following statement, I’d be a very wealthy person and would probably be retired :

“ I don’t sell your company’s type of services anymore.  My customers don’t have a need for that any longer”.  

Wow!……..that would be a powerful statement if it were actually true.

Selling the new technology is certainly flashy and gives the appearance to your prospects that your company is on the “Leading Edge”.  The problem is, focusing on the new technology being pushed by your provider can effectively limit your prospect bucket.  As 68% of businesses don’t adopt new technology right away, according to the “Adoption Graph”, you’ve immediately reduced your market to 32% by thinking this way.  In order to avoid this issue, I recommend to my Partners to consider switching to another vendor for their current product set, while integrating the new technology via their existing vendor who is targeting the “Early Adopters”.  By incorporating this process into a business plan, you’ve effectively maintained your prospect bucket at nearly 100%, meaning almost every company you talk to can buy something from you.

By offering the newest and greatest products through one vendor and older, more proven technology through a 2^nd, 3^rd, or 4^th vendor, you have a more complete product line and can meet a variety of customer challenges.  This will ultimately lead to more sales.  I can’ think of the last time I visited a car dealer who sold only one model, nor does Walmart carry only one brand of TV’s.  Why would you limit your agency’s portfolio by eliminating a product set used by 68% of businesses.

During these last couple weeks of 2013, take the time to reflect on your product portfolio and determine if it makes sense to try and hit all sections of the “Adoption Graph”.  You may see it helps make 2014 a better year!

Copper Phone Lines – End of the Road or Just the Beginning?

As the Bell companies continue to migrate their service focus away from their legacy copper networks, pushing new technologies like FIOS, Ethernet, fiber, satellite, and wireless, are businesses witnessing the end of an era?

Copper lines are in every neighborhood

Copper phone lines have been around since the invention of the telephone in the late 1800’s.  Alexander Graham Bell is credited with designing the first electromagnetic  telephone in 1876.  Copper lines have been in use ever since.  The number of copper lines in the United States peaked at 186 million in 2000.  Since then, more than 100 million lines have been replaced with newer technologies.

Today, the legacy copper network is expensive for the incumbent local carriers to maintain, and they continue to move resources out of the copper network and into the new transport methods.  The copper wire gets wet during storms and corrodes, causing outages and requiring constant repairs.  But what happens to us, the consumer, who has relied on “copper” to form the backbone of our national communications networks for the last 130 years?

Manholes can be a disaster for a repair tech

The decision by the bell companies to reduce their support structure for their legacy networks has opened a door of opportunity for a few wholesalers to enter the market and offer consolidated billing services, discounted rates, and an exceptional customer experience.  While it’s common to hit an IVR platform, and be placed in a call queue for up to 20 minutes when calling your local phone companies, using a wholesaler can deliver calls answered by a live person, within as little as 8 seconds, 24x7x365.

Another benefit delivered by these wholesale providers is the ability to consolidate billing across traditional company boundaries.  If you own a 

multi-location business, and have offices in Verizon territory in the northeast, locations in AT&T’s footprint in the south, and others in Centurylink’s territory in the northwest,  you now have the capability to combine all these locations on to a single invoice, with a single point of contact for all your moves, adds, changes, new installs, billing questions, etc.  The service comes with an online web portal, providing your business with unmatched visibility to your services, circuit inventories, repair tickets, adds, changes, and installs.

As the wholesalers work through agreements with the various bell operating companies, switching your services to one of their platforms is as simple as signing a “Letter of Authorization” or “LOA”, and having an electronic transfer occur.  The lines physically remain on the Bell network, with only the customer service and billing functions being moved.

The best part of all is because of the massive buying volumes the wholesalers bring to the market, among all these benefits comes the best one of all, a reduction in price of up to 30% off tariffed rates.

If you are interested in learning how to take advantage of a wholesale arrangement for your business, please reach out to me @davehanron on Twitter or email me at dave@davehanron.com and I’ll be happy to assist you.

100MB, 10GB, 2 TB? Where Does It End?

 

Bandwidth, speed, RAM, CPU’s, storage, backup, video, mobile, wireless…..bluetooth……crazy isn’t it?

We have evolved so quickly with our technology that the communications industry is in full acceleration mode.  A mere 20 years or so ago, dial-up internet was being born.  The US Postal Service was delivering free disks to us offering programs like “150 Hours Free” of dial-up internet from companies like Delphi, AOL, Prodigy, Earthlink, Ziplink, UUNET, NetZero, and Juno. 

Only a few years ago, DSL was the new trend for businesses and homeowners.  DSL provided a major upgrade over the 9600 “Baud” or “Bd” available on dial-up modems.  DSL is still available today and can reach speeds of 7MB or faster.

To jump forward, T1.5, DS-3, OC1, OC3, coax, FIOS, fiber, Ethernet over copper “EoC”, and Ethernet over Coax provide loads of bandwidth options in today’s market.  The need for bandwidth is growing so quickly, cellular technology, once thought of as the answer to our needs, is having a hard time keeping up.  With the onset of 3G, 4G, now 5G devices, cell network providers are struggling to meeting the needs of cellular users.  Many cell providers are currently deploying “hot-spots” where they provide a land based bandwidth option to off load some of the traffic on their cellular network.  

Remember these types of ads?

To utilize all this bandwidth come new devices.  No longer do we buy the “10MB computer for $5999”.  Now we have laptops with 1TB hard drives and 5GB of RAM, tablets, smartphones, iPads, iTouchs, Droids, Kindles, and even desktops.

While the improvement in peripheral equipment has been incredible, this has led to a need for even more powerful back office processing…..namely the onset of the “Cloud” technology.  The advantage of the “Cloud provides IT departments the capability to maintain enterprise level processing equipment with little or no CAPEX expenses.  The Cloud providers are in the business of providing state-of-the art equipment and security to private companies. With the click of a mouse, a company's IT Director can increase servers, add RAM, double storage space and many more conveniences.

Today’s cloud providers maintain secure, state-of-the-art data centers across the United States and provide inherent redundancy for your data.  It’s nearly impossible to keep up with the advances in technology and bandwidth today.  For a private company, technology is quickly passing by the capabilities of the average IT staff.  The cost of constantly upgrading in-house equipment, increasing bandwidth, staffing, security, power, backup, etc is heading beyond the reasonable expectations for any company but those in the Fortune 100. 

So where are we heading?  I’m guessing we’ve all got some great ideas and some good speculation?  I’d enjoying hearing your thought and having my readers participate in the discussion…..any comments, thoughts?

If you’re looking for direction or advice on your networking or processing needs, please drop me an email at dave@davehanron.com or reach out to me via Twitter @DaveHanron and I’ll be happy to help.