This testimonial for ANPI by an RLEC is worth listening to just to understand the thinking behind moving to cloud comms. Try at least the first 90 seconds.

Seth Godin’s blog today describes not a pyramid, but a Frustum. Seth uses the music business as the example, but it is the telecom industry today. There are no winners. There are lots and lots and lots of providers doing the exact same thing.

And in channel building, it isn’t about getting 450 partners, because truthfully it will be 45 that make you all the money. The other 405 are overhead.

Developing a strategic plan means not only describing the product, the outcome, the target market, but what success looks like. Often we just have a nebulous revenue number in mind or hundreds of millions.

Everything is a race to raise millions, be a unicorn, cash out big. It is the new lottery system. It isn’t reality.

At the end of the day, what is the business strategy? What is the Why? What is the exit strategy – or are you building a business built to last?

I notice that every channel exec and every telecom exec says that the reason that things are off – or they are not growing as much – is because sales people can’t sell. While I understand that telecom selling has not kept up with the times, I also think that the providers, the execs, the marketers have done a crappy job of telling the story.

Throwing words like Hosted PBX, Cloud, IOT, SDN at the marketplace is nonsense. It’s inside baseball jargon that doesn’t mean anything to the buyers. No one is searching for hosted pbx on Google. The fact that we have gone through so many terms – Hosted VoIP, Hosted PBX, UC, Hosted UC, UCaaS – just goes to show that we don’t know what the f we are selling. A new acronym is not going to move the needle. A new story will. Plain language will. Talking about Solutions, Business Outcomes, take-aways, not features and products. (More here)

Selling needs to change. But so does all the friction in buying and selling telecom. No one makes it easy.

And speaking of friction, AT&T is pushing its IPFLEX, scaring customers with the noise that all the copper is being retired, basically forcing people to transition to IPFLEX from TDM PRIs. However, you can’t run faxes on it – still! IPFLEX is just a SIP Trunk — like oh so many providers offer in much the same way. There still needs to be a pipe. But either way, it is simply pushing a Product, not delivering a Solution. It is fear, friction, frustration.

I guess I have been beating the same drum over the last three blog posts. A little repetitive, but maybe we need to hear it more than once, in a couple of different ways, before we realize that this blog is in fact a mirror for you.

Tags: att, hosted pbx, marketing, sellecom, seth, sip trunking, strategy, UC
Related tags: hosted, business, selling, telecom, ipflex, providers

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Is There Any Telecom Disruption? – Sep 22, 2015

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End of Year Summary (Tidbits part 2426) – Dec 31, 2015

Cloud Comms On the Rise – Dec 28, 2015

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What the Studies About UC Say – Aug 25, 2015

Where is the VoIP Market is Going? – May 11, 2015

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ITEXPO just ended in Fort Lauderdale, where it was for quite a few years. (The Miami Beach Convention Center is being renovated.) Here are a few things I saw at ITEXPO:

SD-WAN is a better term than SDN (software defined network) and dynamic bandwidth is a better way to talk about it to your customers.

The data center is a pivotal part of any network – VoIP, Enterprise or Service Provider. Improvements to the data center are coming from NFV, SDN and companies like Fiber Mountain and Rackspace.

After the acquisition and absorption of FreePBX, Sangoma looks a lot like Digium. The two had booths next to each other and the similarities were startling.

You knew you were in the ITEXPO hall by all of the desk phones on display. (The room lacking the phones was the IOT expo.)

In my open source panel discussion, one comment that I liked was that the Bell-Heads are retiring (finally), hence why open source is being adopted.

I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but many people that were in telecom have fled. Quite a few went to cloud providers, but a good number have left the industry altogether.

One discussion at the dinner Monday night centered on the sudden drop in demand for desk phones when selling UCaaS. Seems folks would rather have a Plantronics bluetooth headset and the softphones. Also, users want to be able to turn up the UC fast, which CAN be done with apps/softphones, and not with desk phones (or number porting).

From the API panel, a few points were made. (1) The value in Business Process Improvement (BPI) is in the removal of friction. Remove friction from sales, from paperwork, from data entry, from support, from implementation. (2) The API lets the information (data) be free. (3) The biggest companies have ecosystems powered by APIs – Google, Apple, Amazon, Salesforce.

Back in the day, the Holy Grail for contact center was single call resolution, which was almost impossible because of organizational silos, walled gardens of data and software project management. Today, those obstacles are slowly disappearing.

Customer Experience will be the chief differentiation. If 420 carriers are selling BSFT, the one that provides the best CX or UX will win. (No one stands out yet).

Hotels and convention centers have to get better at wi-fi.

Trade shows are still the best way to meet people face to face which is still the foundation for relationships, an element required for sales.

Tags: API, app, BPaaS, BPI, broadsoft, call center, customer service, data center, SDN, UC, UX
Related tags: phones, itexpo, center, better

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Uh Oh, Microsoft is Closing the Gaps – Jan 15, 2016

Collision of Titans – Nov 23, 2015

Telecom Disruption – Jan 24, 2016

Is Mobile the Answer for UC? – Oct 09, 2015

As A Service – Oct 09, 2015

The Next Step in UCaaS – Aug 27, 2014

The Latest in VoIP Updates – Sep 19, 2011

Broadsoft’s UCaaS Predictions – Jan 21, 2016

Is There Anything Impressive About VoIP? – Jan 11, 2016

Cisco to Spark Some BroadCloud Competition – Dec 28, 2015

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Sponsored by Apex Technology Services, a leading IT Services company

ITEXPO just ended in Fort Lauderdale, where it was for quite a few years. (The Miami Beach Convention Center is being renovated.) Here are a few things I saw at ITEXPO:

SD-WAN is a better term than SDN (software defined network) and dynamic bandwidth is a better way to talk about it to your customers.

The data center is a pivotal part of any network – VoIP, Enterprise or Service Provider. Improvements to the data center are coming from NFV, SDN and companies like Fiber Mountain and Rackspace.

After the acquisition and absorption of FreePBX, Sangoma looks a lot like Digium. The two had booths next to each other and the similarities were startling.

You knew you were in the ITEXPO hall by all of the desk phones on display. (The room lacking the phones was the IOT expo.)

In my open source panel discussion, one comment that I liked was that the Bell-Heads are retiring (finally), hence why open source is being adopted.

I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but many people that were in telecom have fled. Quite a few went to cloud providers, but a good number have left the industry altogether.

One discussion at the dinner Monday night centered on the sudden drop in demand for desk phones when selling UCaaS. Seems folks would rather have a Plantronics bluetooth headset and the softphones. Also, users want to be able to turn up the UC fast, which CAN be done with apps/softphones, and not with desk phones (or number porting).

From the API panel, a few points were made. (1) The value in Business Process Improvement (BPI) is in the removal of friction. Remove friction from sales, from paperwork, from data entry, from support, from implementation. (2) The API lets the information (data) be free. (3) The biggest companies have ecosystems powered by APIs – Google, Apple, Amazon, Salesforce.

Back in the day, the Holy Grail for contact center was single call resolution, which was almost impossible because of organizational silos, walled gardens of data and software project management. Today, those obstacles are slowly disappearing.

Customer Experience will be the chief differentiation. If 420 carriers are selling BSFT, the one that provides the best CX or UX will win. (No one stands out yet).

Hotels and convention centers have to get better at wi-fi.

Trade shows are still the best way to meet people face to face which is still the foundation for relationships, an element required for sales.

Tags: API, app, BPaaS, BPI, broadsoft, call center, customer service, data center, SDN, UC, UX
Related tags: phones, itexpo, center, better

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Related Entries

Uh Oh, Microsoft is Closing the Gaps – Jan 15, 2016

Collision of Titans – Nov 23, 2015

Telecom Disruption – Jan 24, 2016

Is Mobile the Answer for UC? – Oct 09, 2015

As A Service – Oct 09, 2015

The Next Step in UCaaS – Aug 27, 2014

The Latest in VoIP Updates – Sep 19, 2011

Broadsoft’s UCaaS Predictions – Jan 21, 2016

Is There Anything Impressive About VoIP? – Jan 11, 2016

Cisco to Spark Some BroadCloud Competition – Dec 28, 2015

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Copyright On Rad’s Radar?

Sponsored by Apex Technology Services, a leading IT Services company

Channel Vision Expo is collocated with ITEXPO. This year MSP Expo was also collocated and Microcorp’s Partner learning experience was down the street. (Telarus had an event the week before and Metro Connect for carrier execs was in Miami Beach the same week. It was Telecom week in South Florida, although I didn’t see Sam Levine and a few other agents I usually run into. But I got to have dinner with Lenny Chesal of Host.Net twice!!!)

Anyway, what are the take aways from all that telecom.

Voicebase won IDEA Showcase. Voicebase is a cool concept doing real-time voice transcription and analytics. (They will probably get acquired by a shell corp owned by a three letter agency.) Voice to text companies used to be a staple at these shows, but they were all acquired. Voice to text is still a customer want, especially for doctors and lawyers. Remember Dragon Speak?

Windstream is in the throes of re-organization. For many that means RIF (reduction in force or layoffs). It turns out that it also means that WIND is no longer selling their Metaswitch Hosted PBX service. It was replaced by Hosted Avaya and MITEL. And they are calling that UCaaS. Who’s idea was that? [I’ll rant about the difference between built for cloud and hosted later.]

Microcorp is celebrating 30 years in business as a master agency!! Congrats!

PGI is a conferencing company (UC&C as they say). But just so agents understand how much money is in conferencing, PGI was acquired by private equity for one BILLION dollars!

UC provider, Panterra, has a Slack killer, according to CEO Artie Chang. It is integrated with their Smartbox app, which is a file sharing app. Panterra has contact center functions with analytics. Lots of features at Panterra, but maybe too many for a partner to fully grasp and sell.

At least two more UCaaS providers popped up at ITEXPO – one with a Broadsoft and a Metaswitch; and one using proprietary software – so the number may be closer to 3000 Hosted VoIP providersin the US!!

Star2Star is huge, the 7th largest UCaaS provider, according to Star2Star. 400,000 endpoints. I’m skeptical because their INC5000 numbers are always different from their verbal.

RapidScale is white labeling cloud services to cable companies. So is VAR Dynamics.

3CX re-vamped and then re-launched its partner program.

SD-WAN was a hyped up topic. So was IOT. But there are still phone vendors boothing it. No one has a Polycom problem, except Polycom. More phone vendors entering the market at a time when desk phones are disappearing. I heard some frightening stats about how the popularity of apps and softphones over desk phones. Maybe that means VoIP Providers can stop being phone distributors and start talking about there too-many-to-list features.

Level3 is now offering managed Skype for Business for 500+ seats and above.

There was a booth: Workforce as a Service. We might have gone too far with the AASes.

I do have to say that one theme I keep hearing from channel managers and execs is that channel partners don’t ask the right questions. We agents don’t sell solutions; we sell product; we sell on price. I get that we don’t sell the way you want, but maybe you should be an agent for a week and see how it is today in the real world on the street without the salary and benefits.

The one thing I see over and over is that customers just want what they have cheaper and that telecom is just below a root canal over what they want to have done to them. Implementation, porting, delivering on time — the telecom hassle keeps going up. Even the amount of paperwork that needs to be signed is crazy. (Mortgages are now e-signature, why can’t you folks in supposed technology get on the bandwagon?)

You haven’t even delivered a SIP trunk that can be used for fax yet!!! But you have added a ton of others features that one person may be excited about some day. Thanks!

So yeah it would be nice to have a conversation about business goals and pain points, etc. And when that happens I love it. But usually the grog of the daily grind prevents that from happening.

Tags: channel managers, channel partners, level3, microcorp, sales, selling, windstream
Related tags: phone vendors, hosted, telecom, partner, channel, business

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Channel Sales Enablement Part 5 – Oct 08, 2013

Channel Sales Enablement: Part 2 – Jun 30, 2013

Selling Direct is Different Than Channel Sales – Apr 16, 2013

Sales is Transitioning, Are Salespeople? – Jul 17, 2015

Are You Offering Solutions or Products? – Jun 26, 2015

What Business Model Should the VAR Examine? – Mar 30, 2015

Sales Math and Measuring What Matters – Feb 18, 2015

Channel, Sales and a Chat with a Master Agent – Oct 15, 2014

Running Out of Salespeople – Apr 07, 2014

Channel Sales Enablement Part 4: Obstacles – Aug 07, 2013

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Copyright On Rad’s Radar?

Channel Vision Expo is collocated with ITEXPO. This year MSP Expo was also collocated and Microcorp’s Partner learning experience was down the street. (Telarus had an event the week before and Metro Connect for carrier execs was in Miami Beach the same week. It was Telecom week in South Florida, although I didn’t see Sam Levine and a few other agents I usually run into. But I got to have dinner with Lenny Chesal of Host.Net twice!!!)

Anyway, what are the take aways from all that telecom.

Voicebase won IDEA Showcase. Voicebase is a cool concept doing real-time voice transcription and analytics. (They will probably get acquired by a shell corp owned by a three letter agency.) Voice to text companies used to be a staple at these shows, but they were all acquired. Voice to text is still a customer want, especially for doctors and lawyers. Remember Dragon Speak?

Windstream is in the throes of re-organization. For many that means RIF (reduction in force or layoffs). It turns out that it also means that WIND is no longer selling their Metaswitch Hosted PBX service. It was replaced by Hosted Avaya and MITEL. And they are calling that UCaaS. Who’s idea was that? [I’ll rant about the difference between built for cloud and hosted later.]

Microcorp is celebrating 30 years in business as a master agency!! Congrats!

PGI is a conferencing company (UC&C as they say). But just so agents understand how much money is in conferencing, PGI was acquired by private equity for one BILLION dollars!

UC provider, Panterra, has a Slack killer, according to CEO Artie Chang. It is integrated with their Smartbox app, which is a file sharing app. Panterra has contact center functions with analytics. Lots of features at Panterra, but maybe too many for a partner to fully grasp and sell.

At least two more UCaaS providers popped up at ITEXPO – one with a Broadsoft and a Metaswitch; and one using proprietary software – so the number may be closer to 3000 Hosted VoIP providersin the US!!

Star2Star is huge, the 7th largest UCaaS provider, according to Star2Star. 400,000 endpoints. I’m skeptical because their INC5000 numbers are always different from their verbal.

RapidScale is white labeling cloud services to cable companies. So is VAR Dynamics.

3CX re-vamped and then re-launched its partner program.

SD-WAN was a hyped up topic. So was IOT. But there are still phone vendors boothing it. No one has a Polycom problem, except Polycom. More phone vendors entering the market at a time when desk phones are disappearing. I heard some frightening stats about how the popularity of apps and softphones over desk phones. Maybe that means VoIP Providers can stop being phone distributors and start talking about there too-many-to-list features.

Level3 is now offering managed Skype for Business for 500+ seats and above.

There was a booth: Workforce as a Service. We might have gone too far with the AASes.

I do have to say that one theme I keep hearing from channel managers and execs is that channel partners don’t ask the right questions. We agents don’t sell solutions; we sell product; we sell on price. I get that we don’t sell the way you want, but maybe you should be an agent for a week and see how it is today in the real world on the street without the salary and benefits.

The one thing I see over and over is that customers just want what they have cheaper and that telecom is just below a root canal over what they want to have done to them. Implementation, porting, delivering on time — the telecom hassle keeps going up. Even the amount of paperwork that needs to be signed is crazy. (Mortgages are now e-signature, why can’t you folks in supposed technology get on the bandwagon?)

You haven’t even delivered a SIP trunk that can be used for fax yet!!! But you have added a ton of others features that one person may be excited about some day. Thanks!

So yeah it would be nice to have a conversation about business goals and pain points, etc. And when that happens I love it. But usually the grog of the daily grind prevents that from happening.

Tags: channel managers, channel partners, level3, microcorp, sales, selling, windstream
Related tags: phone vendors, hosted, telecom, partner, channel, business

Follow me:

Twitter Profile

Related Entries

Channel Sales Enablement Part 5 – Oct 08, 2013

Channel Sales Enablement: Part 2 – Jun 30, 2013

Selling Direct is Different Than Channel Sales – Apr 16, 2013

Sales is Transitioning, Are Salespeople? – Jul 17, 2015

Are You Offering Solutions or Products? – Jun 26, 2015

What Business Model Should the VAR Examine? – Mar 30, 2015

Sales Math and Measuring What Matters – Feb 18, 2015

Channel, Sales and a Chat with a Master Agent – Oct 15, 2014

Running Out of Salespeople – Apr 07, 2014

Channel Sales Enablement Part 4: Obstacles – Aug 07, 2013

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Copyright On Rad’s Radar?