Invest in Yourself, Enjoy the Returns

David Byrd : Raven Call
David Byrd
David Byrd is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer for Raven Guru Marketing. Previously, he was the CMO and EVP of Sales for CloudRoute. Prior to CloudRoute, He was CMO at ANPI, CMO & EVP of Sales at Broadvox, VP of channels and Alliances for Telcordia and Director of eBusiness development with i2 Technologies.He has also held executive positions with Planet Hollywood Online, Hewlett-Packard, Tandem Computers, Sprint and Ericsson.
| Raven Guru Marketing http://www.ravenguru.com/

Invest in Yourself, Enjoy the Returns

In an industry where acronyms and obscure terms are prevalent and created every day, Unified Communications is just the latest in a long line of telecommunication solutions that VARs, agents and integrators need to adopt. Consequently, the requirement to recreate themselves again is rapidly approaching, if not past. Recently, while on an IP related panel during IT EXPO, an audience member stated that his customer base was not transitioning to IP communications and he saw no need to promote it nor any of the related technologies. “Wow!” was my reaction. Who were his customers? What industries did they represent? When had they last upgraded their communications or IT infrastructure? I wanted to ask a lot of questions but since I was one of the IP community experts the audience had come to hear, I and others, could only respond with a knowingly nod that his world was about to change.

The vision you have for your customers business is just as important as the one you create for yours. Too many mission statements are focused on your success and not the success of your customers. Therefore, it is important that you look ahead and identify what enhancements, products or services will improve areas of their business. It is your responsibility as a trusted partner to invest in understanding new technologies and solutions so that you can accurately inform your customers of fads or real and beneficial changes.

UC and devices and applications that support mobility are much more than fads. However, deployment scenarios and productivity gains vary from business to business and industry to industry. With few exceptions, your customers will need your assistance to establish what, when and how they will adapt to these solution areas.

Earlier this week 3 million tablets were sold over four days. The world is rapidly approaching 100 million tablets sold. Although, this represents a very small percentage of the global population (7 billion), it is significant for a product area that is less than five years old. Given the demand for tablets, what then is your recommendation to incorporating its usage within the business? Without understanding its capabilities, the existing business infrastructure, operational practices, goals and such, you cannot offer a useful recommendation.

Your customers may not be demanding IP communications, UC, mobility or BYOD but you should be offering relevant advice and forward looking proposals. Broadvox created its VAR Partner Program because implementing VoIP / SIP Trunking requires more experience and skill than most SMBs have within house. And as we have added hosted IP PBXs and UC to our portfolio the importance of your role increases.

Rest assured that learning new things and improving your value to your customers and prospects will be a good investment.

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