So I gave my talk today about Net-Heads versus Bell-heads at CVX (Channel Vision Expo). There is a shift happening in the telecom world. Not only is the world of IT and the world of Telecom blending, but technology is becoming even more pervasive in the business world. More technology means more problems and much more support is needed. But it also means opportunity for agents.

Seth Godin says that Linchpins make the complex simple. That's the opportunity: make the complex simple.

As Agents, we have to stop asking for the bill and start asking intelligient open-ended questions that gets the prospect talking about not just the telco services and the phone system, but how the business uses software, applications and data. As an Agent, you want to chase after not just the Total Telecom Budget but a chunk of the IT budget too!

You may not get it all at once, but you sell a SIP Trunk as the first step towards that goal.

To do that, you will have to learn new skills in sales and in technology.
Managed Hosting and The Cloud are both application driven. You have to know something about how hosting and The Cloud work. Then you have to learn about the prospects' business and how the business uses applications.

There's a lot of buzz about Cloud, SAAS, UC, FMC and SIP Trunking. These are the new products to replace Long Distance, PRI and Integrated T1. In time you will know these services like you do T1's.

You have been selling Broadband for a while. That gives your clients access to The Cloud, to Apps, to their Data, which is what they really want. They aren't buying Broadband. Customers are buying access to email, Facebook, Google, even bing. As real-time applications are placed on the network, you get to add more bandwidth and/or QOS (quality of service). When you learn it, you can sell SAAS, backup, firewall/security, redundant access, and so much more. Oh, yes, there is so much opportunity.