It seems like it time for another webinar on How to Sell Hosted PBX. Folks have been asking for HPBX Sales Training for a couple of months. So I put a webinar on the calendar for Friday, October 30, 2015 at Noon Eastern time.

Today, the buyers of Hosted PBX (or UCaaS) are different than 4 years ago. Many buyers have some experience with HPBX/UCaaS. Some do not. All will still need education from YOU!

You can sell it like a SIP Trunk, but that won’t be pretty.

Learn to sell it like a professional on Oct. 30.

A couple of different options this time. Register now!

Purchase the paperback book to accompany the training at a special price!

Is Cold Calling dead? This article suggests it is.

This article explains how to effectively cold email. (There is a pop-up that you have to wrestle with on this Hubspot site to close.) Email marketing effectiveness is about the Headline, Sender name and copy. ATTENTION quick!

Then Relevance. Is that message relevant to the reader? Since you can segment lists and other fine tuning, you should be sending messages that are very relevant – that resonate well with – the reader.

The author uses an animated gif. You can use an embedded video or Vine.

You have to be 2 things today: Creative and Persistent.

Using the phone is tough because, well, voicemail and millenials do not pick up the phone. Here is an article on
5 ways to get people to pick up the phone.

Cold Calling has always been a challenge. Moreso now because sales is becoming INBOUND (instead of OUTBOUND). The Buyer’s journey has changed. Indeed, even the buyers have changed.

Social Selling is surpassing Cold Calling. The key is that you have to have a relevant message (benefit statement) for the buyer to get their attention. It is all about THEM.

Cold Calling alone will not make your numbers. You need to network face to face – at chamber events; association functions; everywhere that a prospect hangs out. And give value first — not just puke on them or push your business card into their palm.

And use your online networks – Meetup, LinkedIn, twitter, et al.

Cold calling isn’t dead; it is just much harder.

Clean sheets. Brand new socks. That new car smell.

All sensory triggers, the anticipation, the first time.

70% of software implementations fail to meet expectations.

Most buyers shopping for Hosted PBX have already used it – and are unhappy with the quality (which they blame on the provider).

OTT VoIP churns every 12 months and the cost of a lead is almost $200 for a 7-seat average deal.

That is not a sustainable model.

How do you add the anticipation, the excitement?

Churn happens due to customer expectation. You have to get better at setting that.

Word of mouth, social media, churn = a brand disaster.

Everyone wants to book revenue/sales – doesn’t matter if it is good or bad. Think wisely because one is short term thinking – and one is about building to last.

Extra: The tension between what is promised and what is delivered by @gapingvoid.

After AT&T bought DirecTV we saw immediate cellular/TV bundles roll out. That wasn’t why they acquired the DBS (direct broadcast satellite) company. AT&T is saving $17 per U-Verse TV customer (about 5.8 million of them) using the content deals that DTV had. That is roughly $100 mill per month in savings that can go to paying off the acquisition debt. AT&T and VZ were about tied for telco TV subs at 5.5 million. As we saw when Frontier purchased some FiOS assets in 2009, the cost of delivering content competitively was impossible. Frontier all but shut down FiOS TV. Now we know: DTV gets content $17 per subscriber cheaper than the telcos. That is the result of scale and market share leverage.

“At least one billion dollars should be available to carriers interested in bidding in the upcoming Connect America Fund reverse auction, according to an analysis made by Telecompetitor based on data provided by the FCC.”

CAF is the Connect America Fund for rural broadband. It was in trials. ILECs were fighting WISPA over some of it. ILECs then turned their backs on it. All gestures because in the end they – AT&T, VZ, WInd, C-Link, Frontier – took the billions (over 5 years) offered.

FCC Releases Price Data in $40 Billion Special Access Market [PDF] Note: this data is from 2013-2014 when the FCC required Fortune 5000 and carriers to report special access pricing. “Individuals wanting to review the data had to submit a request and their identities were made public.” So I guess it isn’t that public yet.

“Special access services include such offerings as circuit-based dedicated services including DS1s and DS3s and packet-based dedicated services including Ethernet, according to the FCC. Competitive carriers describe special access as a critical wholesale service that enables them to connect the last portion or “mile” of their networks to businesses via the local, high-capacity connections controlled by AT&T, Verizon and other incumbent telephone companies.” [cponline]