Following the news of CenturyLink buying Level3 and C-Link dumping its data center business on a coalition of PE Firms. (There are also many other deals, read here.) The rumors once again prove true with Windstream doing an all-stock deal to acquire EarthLink (value $1.1B.) Nice graphic of the synergies. I guess WIND had to do something while its rival, C-Link, got bigger by eating Level3. And buying EarthLink was cheap. It gives them fiber – from old CLECs that ELNK bought: Deltacom, IFN, One Comm and Choice – as well as the New Edge Networks nationwide DSL network. It gives WIND a retail vertical that maybe they can focus on. It does not fill in gaps in the Western USA and does provide some overlap in the Eastern USA — if ELNK can provide accurate fiber maps (if not call me I have them!).

One interesting deal is Oracle wanting to buy NetSuite. “Oracle said in a statement on Saturday that holders of 53 percent of unaffiliated NetSuite shares agreed to tender their shares by the deadline of Friday. The deal will be completed on Monday, Oracle said. Oracle offered to buy NetSuite in July for $109 a share in response to challenges from rival enterprise software companies like Workday and Salesforce that have popular cloud-based software products.”

Oracle is mish-mash of acquisitions (Acme Packet?). No idea what the strategy is there other than to sell up and down the stack to every sector of business on the globe. You? We have something for you. And for you and you and you!

How LinkedIn Drove a Wedge Between Microsoft and Salesforce. The value of the data on LinkedIn made for a bloody fight. Worth the read on NYT.

Facebook reported $7.01 billion in revenue, up 56 percent year-over-year, and quarterly profit nearly tripled to $2.38 billion.
The company saw $6.82 billion in ad revenue, roughly 84 percent of which stemmed from mobile. What’s next for FB? The telecom gear industry! “Facebook announced a piece of network equipment known as an optical switch, which it calls Voyager. In geek-speak, this is the first “white box” transponder and routing device for Open Packet DWDM optical networks.”

I like this ad about the Lemonade Stand, because it is the opposite of what most entrepreneurs do.

Most founders would run in the house and try to make iced tea to sell to the people who ask for it. That is not a good strategy. Be like the kids: Sell your lemonade! Say No to the iced tea.

When you have enough bandwidth, add a new product (the iced tea). But give an honest effort to selling the lemonade before adding a new product or tweaking your lemonade into Arnold Palmers.

• Only 13% of customers believe a salesperson can undertsand their needss. 
• 55% of the people making their living in sales don’t have the right skills to be successful.
• Sales has changed in the last 5 years in almost every way. The funnel has flipped.

Most salespeople don’t have a script. They don’t take notes. They wing it. How is that working for your company?

Most people do not listen actively; they listen to respond. In sales, that is puking on your prospect.

Many people in sales and marketing think talking about their company and products (and awards) is necessary. So is a business card and brochure – because those items have closed business!

Understanding what selling/sales is like today is a big step for management to improve sales efforts. (The other step is recruiting successfully and coaching their salespeople.) Sales has been turned upside down due to the Internet.

How long does it take for a salesperson to be successful? Stats say 10 months!

Join me for a session on sales and management to develop a solid foundation for sales in your company.

The one hour long presentation will be on November 8th 2016 at Noon Eastern.

There is so much activity going on, I can’t keep up.
IN M&A:

• FPL got bought by Crown Castle
• Rumor that Windstream is looking to buy Earthlink 
• CenturyLink is buying Level3.
• CenturyLink just sold off its data center business that was a combo of Qwest Cyber Centers and SAVVIS to a group of PE firms for $2.15B in cash and C-Link keeps a minority stake worth $150M in the new company. CL bought Savvis for $2.5B in 2011.

In FCC news:
FCC set a new privacy policy for user data. ISPs have one year to adopt the new rules.

IN OTHER:
Interesting factoids:

• Windstream’s market capitalization is about $653 million.
• EarthLink is about $572 million.
• Windstream had $4.76 billion in long-term debt.
• Earthlink had $466 Million in debt.
• Windstream spun a lot of network assets off to CS&L and sold the data center biz to Tierpoint.
• Windstream has a bit over $5B in annual revenues; EarthLink just dropped below $1B.

Fiber vs Wireless

FTTH is expensive and many companies are looking at Licensed fixed wireless as well as 5G to solve these problems. (See HERE and Mobile eating world).

MVNO

Meanwhile Comcast and Charter (Charter owns Bright House and TWC now and is branded as Spectrum) are getting into the MVNO business. They will both rely heavily on their wi-fi network and the back-up will be VZW. VZW bought spectrum from SpectrumCo that was co-owned by the 4 MSOs mentioned here. That deal gave the MSOs the option for a good rate at MVNO, which they are now taking. The Timing is kind of awful. MVNOs are opening and closing as the price war between the Big 4 doesn’t leave much room for anyone else. (MVNO means that they are a cellular reseller.)

There are a bunch of sales stats HERE and at HUBSPOT.

30-50% of sales goes to the vendor that responds first.

80% of sales require Follow-up calls after the meeting. 44% of sales reps give up after just 1 follow up call.

Email is almost 40X better at acquiring new customers than Facebook or twitter.

Salespeople who actively seek out and exploit referrals earn 4 to 5 times more than those that do not.

Are you actively managing and coaching your salespeople to success? Do you know how?

Jump on this webinar and get a foundation to work from.

The one hour long presentation will be on November 8th 2016 at Noon Eastern.