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“Peter possesses a keen sense and insight for turning telecom services and products into customers and dollars. He is passionate about this industry, his work and the people he serves. Visit his site, read his blog and sign up for his newsletter at marketingideaguy.com and you will discover what makes Peter a sought after marketing consultant.”

Cynthia de Lorenzi, CEO, Patriot Computer Group
5 Prospecting Ideas
On Rad's Radar
Friday, 16 July 2010 07:01

Steve Cadley, the Salesologist from Cadley Consulting, and I discuss 5 prospecting ideas for businesses. The first key step is to define who your target is. It might be beneficial to make a list of the top 50 companies that you would like to be your customer. 

Next, clarify the value that your service will bring to that prospect. That value should be tied into the target market. 

Performing these two steps helps you disqualify prospects and to create a laser beam of an elevator pitch.

Then you are ready to use the 5 tips for prospecting: LinkedIn, social networks search, Google Alerts, Classified Ads, and the old fashioned door knocking and cold calling.

Remember that people buy from people and they buy emotively. 

Do some research on your prospects to be better informed.
Read more... [5 Prospecting Ideas]
 
Things are Round and Round
On Rad's Radar
Thursday, 15 July 2010 06:04
As one door closes, right? Well, WISPA is putting together a deal with DirecTV so that it's mainly residential wireless ISP base can grab some cash switching people from cable TV and Internet to fixed wireless internet access and satellite TV - kind of a cut the cable promotion. 

It used to be that independent ISP's had to worry mainly about the ILEC, but in the residential (consumer) market, the worry is cable - Comcast, Cox, TWC, BrightHouse, CableVision and Charter.

The funny thing is that some of the MSO's are collapsing their wholesale division. Just like the ILEC's, the MSO's don't really want someone else to own the customer. So even as Charter opens up its wholesale cable modem program to FISPA members, I have to wonder how long it will be in existence.

Channel Partners Expo in Boston in 2008 when the cable guys were all lined up on a panel handing out crumbs of info about their newly developed channel program, all anyone wanted to know was how much commission and would there be an added spiff. What the agents in attendance did not hear was how this was just a test. Spin ahead 2 years to see that the cable guys are in fact cancelling contracts and consolidating with a few master agents. 

First the ILEC's get you. Then the MSO's get you. Telecom is all about short term gains and not understanding that "Partner" means for now. You aren't Mr. Right, you are Mr. Right Now. What can you do for me now?

It's worse than dating, except that less chance of catching an STD in telecom. But it may sink your company when you bet on commissions that don't get paid because of a change in program.
Read more... [Things are Round and Round]
 
So You Want Agents to Sell Your Stuff
On Rad's Radar
Wednesday, 14 July 2010 09:57

Many companies come to me for Channel Consulting. Either they have an Indirect sales channel that isn't working or they want to start using that free sales team called the indirect agent.

The Indirect Sales Channel has appeal because they don't have a recurring cost until they sell something. No salary, benefits, office furniture, lease, car allowance, cell phone, utilities, etc.

However, you do have to have Channel Management and Support. 

You also have to choose your agents carefully. Having hundreds of agents is expensive to manage and Pareto's Rule applies everywhere. (It's 20% of your agents will bring in about 80% of your deals.)

Sales is still sales even Indirectly.  Agents have to have a Passion, Enthusiasm or at least a Belief that your product or service will benefit their customer.

That's the other pitfall. Agents want to own the customer. And they want to get paid a commission for as long as the customer is using your service. (Or they will turf them).

You need to ask yourself:

  1. What is your company's pitch to Agents? Why should they sell your stuff?
  2. What's your special sauce? (Why you and not your competitor?)
  3. Where's the value in selling your services (besides the "added revenue")?
  4. Why would the Agent's client base want your service?
  5. What do Agents get out of this? (Or how much do agents get paid for selling this?)
The other side of the coin is what does your channel support look like.
  • Is there training about your service?
  • Is there technical and sales training?
  • Is there a demo account available?
  • What's the USP?
  • What collateral do you have ready?
  • How will the Agent get quotes, contracts, SLA's and other paperwork?
  • How will the Agent know that his leads won't be used by the direct team?
  • How do you handle Channel Conflict?
  • What will the provisioning process look like? How will the client and agent be kept informed during this process?
  • How will the Agent know his commissions?
  • Is there an Escalation list?
  • What does the Back Office look like?
Just a few of the things to think about as you decide to design an Indirect Channel. Contact me if you need help working through these issues.
Read more... [So You Want Agents to Sell Your Stuff]
 
Should You Blog?
On Rad's Radar
Wednesday, 14 July 2010 09:16

A colleague asked me this morning about blogging. Here is some basic info.

  1. How does this tie to my website? Is it a separate domain or just a page on my site? You can add blogging software like Wordpress to your website as a sub-domain (blog.domain.com) or use a folder (domain.com/blog) to re-direct to an external blog like wordpress.org or blogger.
  2. How often do I need to blog? At least twice a week to get readers and noticed by search engine spiders.
  3. What do I blog about? Is it topic related? Pick 5 keywords that you want to be an expert in and blog about them (and only them).
  4. Do I need a special name for my blog? You can because headlines are important, but the coloring and logo should be similar to your website.
  5. How much time do I allocate weekly to do this?  A researched thought piece can take between 2-4 hours (like this post). I can write faster, shorter pieces that take about an hour.
  6. Do I need to link it to LinkedIn (or other social network)? You don't have to link anything. But you can use the LinkedIn status window to let people know when a new blog post was published.
  7. I don't have a Twitter account - do I need one? No. You don't need twitter unless you want more distractions and noise - and one more way for people to find you.
  8. How much time to I need to allow to set this up? You can set up blogger or wordpress.org in about an hour. It could take a day to add Wordpress to your domain.
  9. How do I know if people are following me? You can have people read the blog via feedburner (now owned by Google). That means they sign up to get each post as an email. People can read it via RSS in a reader or in something like Google Wave. You can add Google Analytics or a counter to see how many people hit your blog, but does the number really matter? As long as I get the occasional comment and email, I'm happy. For me, blogging is an outlet and a way to talk about the Industry. It's also an excellent source of leads and SEO on keywords I blog about.
  10. Will it cost me anything? Wordpress software is free. Having a Ninja set it up (like CR8 Marketing) will cost you a little money. The real cost is in time. Weekly time to write the content.
  11. Are there any risks? Yes, not blogging means that you are irrelevantsmile Joking. But content is king, so how will people find you if you don't create content? You can be the most promiscuous networker with thousands of contacts across the social netscape, but does anyone know what you are an expert in? As Seth Godin says, What's your superpower?
The other reason to blog is to be Generous. Giving away your knowledge helps people. Some will buy from you. Many will not but will use your info anyway. So what?
Read more... [Should You Blog?]
 
Never Vote Incumbent
On Rad's Radar
Monday, 12 July 2010 11:15

As long as I am ranting, I figured I would hit on Incumbents. I don't mean the ILEC's, although most of them don't care a wit about their customers. I'm talking about career politicians. We breed them in the US like a rare dog. 

Think about this: Why would someone spend $24 million to be governor? Rick Scott is using his own money to win the race in Florida. Where did Scott get that money? From founding and running HCA. WHo is HCA? The holder of the largest fine ever in Medicare fraud. Why would he spend so many of his own millions for a job that pays $133,000? 

Why raise and spend over $40M for a primary run for US Senator? Well, because if you win there is a very likely chance you will die in that office. (See Jessie Helms and Robert Byrd). A stat I saw said that there is only a 2% churn in Congress. Telcos wish for that kind of churn.

One reason you need all that money is so that you can bury your critics, shout down your opponents, and craft a story about how you are not a fraud or a quitter or a flip-flopper. 

There's no truth. There's only talking points. The media is either lazy or overworked (or both). So they take talking points for content. Hence, why we get the same buzz answer for everything in this country.

Social media helps to disseminate some information - like about the oil spill (and here). But a majority of people not only don't pay attention to government (which is a huge problem). 125M voted in the 2008 Presidential election. It sounds like a record to me. (121M in 2004.)  

The other issue is status quo. People say they want change, but really they fear it. That's why political marketing is all about FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). 

I say never vote for the incumbent. One term in office is plenty. Let them go get a job!
Read more... [Never Vote Incumbent]
 
Seriously, More iPhone
On Rad's Radar
Monday, 12 July 2010 11:05

This country has some major issues not the least of which the media gets bogged done in buzz marketing. Why else would there be a week's worth of "news" about LeBron leaving Cleveland for Miami. A week! That's almost more coverage than we give to any of the folloeing:

homelessness in America, either war in the MidEast, any DC scandal, certainly more face time than the problems injured soldiers are facing, hello? the oil that is still spilling, and in Tampa 2 police officers shot dead got less press than LeBron. WTH?

And then there's the flipping iPhone. I can't stand the amount of press this gadget gets. Seriously, is this ALL we have to talk about besides CLOUD? Maybe we should get more informed people in the media.

Again this week we are back to "When will VZW get the iPhone?" [Dallas BizJournal] And PC Mag says that exclusivity is hurting Apple. How? There are hundreds of articles a week about the exclusivity, the 4th version, the network, blah, blah, barf. How does that kind of press hurt Apple?

Will VZW sell more iPhones? Of course, but not why you think. The AT&T iPhone is GSM. That won't work on VZW's CDMA network. So everyone that wants to switch will need to buy a new one.

If people really hated AT&T's network, they would jail-break the phone and move to T-Mobile. And if this was a niche at all, there would be Google Ads for people doing this.

We are watching the fall of civilization live on twitter, RSS, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Read more... [Seriously, More iPhone]
 
Is There Profit In VoIP?
On Rad's Radar
Thursday, 08 July 2010 01:57
A few of my clients are self-funded without any serious debt. When I send out news - like Vocalocity raised $3.45M for a total of $97M - the first question that gets emailed backed to me is: "Aren't they profitable?"  It certainly doesn't look that way!

On a call after the Broadsoft IPO, there was shock that Broadsoft has not had made money yet. How is that possible when you have a majority of the market share?

There are so many companies in the VoIP space. Thousands really. I don't any have a sizeable customer base. In fact, it kind of reminds me of the dial-up days when there were about 7000 ISP's, but many of those were VISP (virtual) with less than 1000 subscribers, using the modem pools of someone else. We see that today, because much of the ITSP's have wholesale and retail operations. Why? Because retail is the hard part.

Don't get me wrong, buying, setting up and maintaining a softswitch is a real technical challenge (moreso than many realize), but the real hurdle is the retail game: selling the service to customers, provisioning the service, and the cash flow issues with the hardware (IAD, POE switch and handsets).

Maybe that's where all the money goes: hardware. In a 20 handset deal, the upfront cash is about $4500. Turn up 300 lines and you have probably spent $270,000 (at 4 to 1 handsets to lines). That's not including other hard costs like licensing, LNP porting charges, E-911 billing, and labor for the tech to install the gear and turn up the service. Even more money if the LAN needs to be cabled. Even more for trouble-shooting any install or LAN issues.

Despite its legal history, it took Vonage a long time to reach profitability, because consumer VoIP is low ARPU but high PITA. Wholesale VoIP is low margin too. All these low margin models mean that there will be a need to seek funding, since the business model isn't providing enough cash to keep growing. 

I'm shocked that so many VoIP companies are still getting additional funding, especially on the mobile VoIP front, in this economic climate. Maybe the VC's don't want to flush their earlier investments down the drain. Or maybe there is a hope that there will be consolidation soon, like in the rural ILEC business. 

The FCC's report says that 13% of the lines in use in 2008 were VoIP, but that includes FiOS, U-Verse, and cable company services. That leaves a big chunk to be grabbed IF all lines are going IP.   Does that also mean that a lot more money will need to be funnelled into VoIP companies?
Read more... [Is There Profit In VoIP?]
 
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