Telarus: What Did You Think of the "Lunch & Learn"?

This independent blog is being published by Telecom Association and Dan Baldwin. (I was the guy at the event doing the video taping). I'm in the process of writing my own thoughts on the event but before I post them, I (and every one else) am interested in your thoughts.

If you were at the event today, what do did you think?

Why did you attend?

Did the event meet your expectations?

Are you interested in attending additional similar events?

What kind of content or motivations get you to such events?

Please post your thoughts below.

Advoda: Summary of 2nd Annual "Agent Day"

I've visited with many agents and sub agents over the past year and I must say that Ron Dunworth and Hilary Fox of Advoda are making a very strong claim to the title "best back office" for a telecom master agency.


I first met with Ron and Hilary earlier this year on a trip to Denver to see other TA vendor members. I was quite amazed at their operation and published the following in an earlier TA post:


"The Advoda meeting was one of the most eye-opening for me. In addition to being one of Qwest's biggest Colorado master agents and a master agent for TMC, they've got something really special going on with their enterprise customer facing, multi-vendor project management tool. 


While many agents focus on small customers, Advoda appears to focus on the needs of enterprise customers and their need to constantly be informed about the status of hundreds of MACD ("move, add, change, disconnect") orders in play at any one time. 


Advoda has 15 employees in their office with three computer monitors each that seem to do nothing but ensure everything is known, managed, monitored and reported about every order in process - kind of how NASA would do telecom project management. An extremely impressive operation!"


Well what I saw at their office in the Spring was confirmed by the Advoda vendors and agents I met at their second annual "Agent Day" yesterday. Advoda's vendors and agent partners see what I saw for the first time last Spring - a unique master agent offering in "their bullet-proof back office". 


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY?  As an agent myself, I'm attracted to master agencies that are peers and can be mentors. When you meet Ron and Hillary, your first impression is "I want these two to be my sales manager". In speaking with the two of them about their own mid-market and enterprise deals, you can't help but think, "I want to sell like they sell." While many master agencies take pride in the claim that they have no "house accounts" that also might signal they have no in-house closing expertise. Ron and Hilary have the confidence, experience and back-office necessary to close any deal of any size anywhere. That's a powerful message.


Click the following images to view TA's first three videos from Advoda's 2nd "Agent Day". We'll have the rest of the videos rolling out next week.




Ron and Hilary's "Welcome Message" to TA Members







Blake Wetzel, Qwest VP Sales on the Qwest / Advoda Relationship







Bill Ward, FRII President and CEO on the FRII / Advoda Relationship







Were you at the Advoda event? Please click "Comments" below and leave you thoughts on the event.

Intelisys: Day Three "Fun Day" Summary

After a full day on Thursday of 17 vendor presentations and a mini-trade fair with what looked to close to 30 vendor tabletops, Friday was the "fun day".

The events guests choose to spend the day golfing, on a wine train, on a wine bus tour or what Nancy and I choose, a private cooking demonstration, a four course lunch with a three-course wine pairing, and a private tour of the Culinary Institute of America, the previous Christian Brother's Winery in stunning St. Helena, California.

Click the video below to view the beginning of our private cooking demonstration, our terrific lunch and a tour snippet through their training kitchen.

After our bus ride back to the Meritage and a much needed nap it was time for the reception and dinner featuring awards and honors for the 24 "Year One" members and Cancun trip winners from Intelisys' "Club TPC".

Click the video below to see Jay Bradley welcoming guests with a video showcasing the ten-year anniversary of the annual Intelisys celebration. You'll also see footage of the great dance band that kept everyone moving. The video ends with a not-to-be-missed exclusive from Travis Deatherage of Solstice Multimedia (spouse of Copper Conferencing channel manager Sarah Deatherage) forecasting future market dominance in the multimedia arena.

Saturday morning greeted everyone with a warm sunny day to nurse big heads, search for fast-food to settle stomachs and day dream about the 11th annual Intelisys Channel Connect in just 11 and a half months as we all headed home.

Intelisys: Day Two "Super Vendor" Summary Day

(Scroll down to watch "video snippets" from the day's events)

Wow! That was a full day.

Intelisys bills itself as the master agent for "high performing agents" and I can personally attest to the fact that that's who I met at today's "vendor marathon" day. But before recapping all the vendor presentations (seventeen 15-minute presentations in all) I must take a moment to say that the most impressive thing about Intelesis is not so much the quality of their vendors (sure, they're great) but the quality of their agents.

I went out of my way to ask agents I met, "How did you get started, how are you selling and what are you selling?" I met three kinds of agents. The ones that have been doing it 20 years and have amassed 500 plus accounts and a score of employees. Those that have done it since 2001 and have half that. And I met a couple who've only just begun but have quite the fire in the belly. I didn't meet a single part-timer.

As for "How are they selling?" Two-thirds reported serious reliance on existing customers and referral partners but a full third had W-2 sales people under quota. As to "What are they selling?" The answer is data, Internet access and dial-tone. I did not find as many agents as I hoped to find selling add-ons like managed services, conferencing or one-offs like merchant services. Most reported that they're just too busy taking care of their base with renewals or circuit add-ons.

As to their vision of the future, most acknowledged concerns about encroachment into network services from their current lead partners (interconnects, applications guys & IT vendors) but they did not feel it was an immediate threat as most of their lead partners were pretty busy just attending to their own primary businesses.

What secrets were learned? Doing more for existing customers was the "success theme of the day". Most of the successful agents I spoke to were not so much interested in calling their existing customers to sell them one-off services so much as calling them to make sure they were happy with whatever they'd already been sold. Agents doing this regularly reported getting extra business and referrals to for their core business services of dial tone, data and Internet access.

Bottom line? Minority stuff is still minority stuff. The big idea is to contact your existing base to see what they want and then sell them whatever they ask for - and introduce them to new lines and opportunities like conferencing and enhanced/managed services.

The other big idea(s)? Doing more for bigger clients. One vendor flat out said, "On the direct side we're done selling to customers that spend less that $1,000 per month. Feel free to sell to them yourselves - but on the direct side, we're done. Similarly, an up and coming agent I spoke to said, "I've got 80 customers but I've determined that 25 are the sort that I want more of." Not that he's going to abandon the 55 that don't make him as much money, he just isn't going to expend resources pulling in anything other than companies that look like his "top 25".

As well, vendor after vendor started out their presentations with, "We're looking to attack the upper mid-market and enterprise customers." While it used to take $500 a month or more in telecom spend to attract an agent now it looks like it's going to take a $5,000 a month spend to attract agent marketing dollars at least.

Another big idea? SIP trunks. As more vendors and agents move towards larger, multi-location prospects they encounter a need to provide services that give free inter-office calling and work with the new IP equipment platforms. Hello SIP trunks.

Lastly? Managed services and business applications. While the 17 vendors all had 15 minutes to speak, none of them could go more than 4 minutes without saying "managed services" or "business applications" a half-dozen times. What are managed services? Anything business customers can rent or subscribe to that allows businesses to have to hire one less IT employee.

What are business applications? Any software package an employee accesses to perform their job function. Fewer businesses seem to be interested in paying for employees that manage internal systems as opposed to generate new revenue. Business customers do seem to be interested in paying agents whatever's necessary to get business admin funtions accomplished short of hiring an employee and incurring the overhead that comes with that.

In summary. If you're an agent out there that is a serious full-timer but you feel like you need serious support you should should look into working with Intelisys. Sure there are a lot of great master agents to work with but appears to be the favorite of quite a few high performing agents. You should investigate why that is.

So those are all the secrets and observations you missed if you were not here. Following are video snippets to give you the flavor of the show.

Video Snippets

Jay Bradley & Mike McKinney kick off the "agent only" round table. This was a very cool hour as no vendors were in the room and it was just the Intelisys agents "peer-to-peer" sharing.

Michael Tighe of T-Squared Networks on why he likes Intelisys

Kris Richards of Insight Technology on why he likes Intelisys

Jonathan Watkins of Digital Planet Communications on Intelisys

Colombo DiSalvatore of C4 Communications on why he's with Intelisys

Intelisys President Jay Bradley Inviting TA Members to Next Year's Event

Craig Schlagbaum of Level 3 on the Importance of Managed Services. Click here for more information about the MSP show he references in the video.

Dan Harper of PAETEC on their upgraded Equipment For Services ("EFS") solution providing for "free Allworx phones".

Jay Bradley Pulls the $1,000 Winning Name & Business Fair "Walk-around"

Intelisys: First Night Welcome Reception

Nancy & I got to the Channel Connect resort here in Napa with enough time to unpack & grab a bite to eat before the opening reception at 8pm. A very nice affair with probably 200 of the almost 400 registered guests in attendance.

Click the video below to see a quick walk around. The crowd doubled about 30 minutes after I shot this video.

We spent time mixing and mingling with the guests - many we recognized as agents but did not know they were with Intelisys. Everyone was in a party mood.

I spent some time speaking to one of Intelisys' founders Rick Sheldon. I didn't know until this evening that we had similar starts in the industry, selling local California LATA via dialers for 15 cents per minute against Pacific Bell's 30 cents per minute back in the early 1990s. Always nice to find some guys as old as myself still selling after 20 years.

I also spent time talking to InterCall's Brad Dupee and MegaPath's Ross Anderson about the evolution of telecom into the managed services industry. There seems to be general consensus that migrating to managed services is the best way to get away from the whole problem of telecom being viewed as a commodity.

Tomorrow it's a day of vendor presentations in a wine cellar while the honored guests (our spouses) enjoy wine tasting in downtown Napa.