On Rad's Radar? - expo Archives

Channel Manager Best Practices

2012-02-17T17:10:58Z

On Tuesday, March 27 at 11:30AM PT, the Technology Channel Association (TCA) will hold the first ever Channel Managers Best Practices Forum at the Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

TCA's mission is channel education. The TCA holds monthly webinars for members and has developed a Certified telecom Professional program. In Vegas, the TCA will be holding our 5th Channel Chief Summit alongside this Channel Managers forum. With this event, channel managers will have the opportunity to network and learn from their peers. Four Rock Star Channel Managers will discuss some of their best practices such as:

Balancing 80/20

Maximizing the MMR of the Agent

What is your #1 job responsibility?

How do you balance agent business interest with corporate interest?

Internal relationships

Setting Agent expectations

Lunch will be provided!*

The 4 Channel Manager Rock Stars chosen by TCA members are:

Charles Lomond of Airespring

Crystal Farley of Megapath

Sherrie Hiller at Telepacific

Chris Schubert of Telnes Broadband

Space is limited. Register today!

(*Most of the ticket cost is the lunch from Caesars.)

Enchanting Keynote at Parallels Summit 2012

2012-02-16T17:05:07Z

Guy Kawasaki was the keynote yesterday morning for the Parallels Summit 2012 in Orlando. (Vodka bar was open at 8:20 AM!)

Guy talked about the key points from his book,Enchantment .

One is You Must be Likable. Richard Branson of Virgin is likable. He has a real smile- a Duchenne smile. A Duchenne smile leads to crow's feet. One factor in being likable is to accept others, no matter the color, politics, religion, looks, tattoos, etc. Have a YES Attitude. How can you help other people?

The second point was to Achieve Trustworthiness. In sales, people have to Like you and Trust you to buy from you.

Amazon, Zappos, and Nordstrom have established Trust, because they give customers trust first (with their return policy).

Guy spoke about Bakers. Be a Baker, not an Eater. Bakers know they can always bake more. Bakers are more trustworthy than eaters.

A way to gain trust: Agree on something. Start with that.

Point 3 was Do Something DICEE - Deep Intelligent Complete Empower Elegant

Enchant people with great stuff.

What goes into the ecosystem: software, docs, support, installation, webinars, follow-up, and more for a complete and total product system. More importantly a great customer experience (UX).

LIKE, TRUST, DICEE and LAUNCH.

Launch your product by Telling a Story. Guy says, "Plant many seeds." In other words, tell lots of people, because you have no idea how it will TIP.

Enchant the Influencers. You just don't always know who they are. kawasaki suggested reading Influence by Robert Cialdini. A point in that book was to Invoke Reciprocation. "I know you would do this for me."

Guy says that SXSW was what made Twitter tip (not the A-Listers who use it today).

When telling your story, stop talking tech - calories, MB's, CPU, etc. It's not about calories, but how many miles I have to run to burn it off. It's not how many GB's, but the number of songs or customer records or whatever that it will hold.

Kawasaki gave the example of My Key by Ford, which allows parents to program the car via the key they give their teenager - how loud the stereo can go and how fast the car can go. Great story. Good UX (user experience or benefits).

Another Point: Overcome Resistance by Re-Positioning the Story or by providing Social Proof. For the iPod, social proof was the white earbuds.

Sell the Dream, not the tech. What will it do? What will it be like to own it and use it? Use the technology to Enchant the audience. Social media is a way to enchant by providing value, information, insight, assistance. Social media also means fast, flat and frequent.

3 Pillars: Trust, Quality and Likability.

In the break-out session with Guy, he was asked about the commodity business (like web hosting, since we were at Parallels show. Parallels is a control panel for web hosting companies.) "If you truly believe it is a Commodity that you sell, You Lose." If YOU don't believe that there is something Unique or Valuable about your product -- or that the client is better off with YOUR service -- get out of the game. You can't win. Bah-bye!

Two images to look at: HERE and THERE. If you need help figuring out how to market in a hyper-competitive space, call my office at (813) 963-5884.

5 Tips for Speakers

2012-02-08T22:54:00Z

I'm not the best speaker. I'm still nervous and anxious before every talk, even when moderating. But I prepare for every talk - whether I am a moderator, panelist, keynote, trainer, or co-host. Here are some things that speakers do wrong:

1. Relying on PowerPoint. When technical difficulties occur as they often do, speakers are not prepared to talk without the slides, the crutch. Be ready to talk without a microphone and without the projector.

2. Don't read me the slides! I have been reading since I was 4. I don't need you to read me the slides. I need you to tell why that slide was included in the first place.

3. Have some emotion. Tired or hungover is no way to present. Energetic or passionate is preferable, but at least speak up and into the microphone.

4. Respect the audience's time. Yes it is your time to speak - and you have something (hopefully prepared) to say - but remember that the audience likely paid money to be there. It has to be valuable; not just your talking points.

5. Tell a story or be Engaging. This speaks for itself. If everyone is heads down on their phones, take the hint. (They aren't all tweeting about how profound you are.)

Is it tweet worthy? Have you said anything worth tweeting? Not the ultimate test, but certainly some gauge of audience reaction is social media.

In the end, would you want to listen to you?

In a previous post I mention that teaching is part entertainment. That may not be what you signed up for (to be an entertainer), and I am not saying be Jack Benny, but your points will come across better if you present them well.

Social Media Channel Integration

2012-02-07T22:38:51Z

An ITEXPO panel on Wed. discussed social media integration in the contact center. Sanjay Popli of LiveOps, Manuel Ramirez of Avaya, and Alex Quilici of YouMail spent 45 minutes talking about social media and call centers.

There are five steps a company needs to take to implement social media strategy in a contact center.

Monitor social channels
Decide on Relevance
Assign employees to tasks
Establish Policies
Design procedure for interacting with the rest of the Org

The contact center could be monitoring for leads, complaints or opportunities on social media platforms. These platforms can include twitter, Facebook, Google+, Yahoo groups, forums, LinkedIn or any of the other thousands of online communities and networks that exist.

It is a way for call center to move from a cost center to a revenue center. Not just by following up on sales leads, but by preserving the brand and reputation of the company.

One item that all panelists agreed upon was that the time for response from a company has shrunk from a day to an hour. It's about speed now.

Another reminder from the panel is that conversations about your service and brand ARE indeeed taking place online (like on DSLReports and GetSatisfaction.com). Ignore it at your own peril.

Monitoring or Listening also includes finding out where your customers are hanging out online. Go where they are.

A final note was that previously most online commenters were anonymous. Today, about 70% are very traceable. That means you can identify them and interact with them. There are many books written about creating raving fans out of disgruntled customers. It is possible online as well.

Educating the Channel with Certifications

2012-02-07T22:19:20Z

One of the panels last week at ITEXPO was titled Educating the Channel with Certifications. When you consider that as a founding board member and current VP of the Technology Channel Association, education is a primary objective, this topic was relevant. The panelists were Louis Haynor, CSO at Alteva, and Jim Riley of Apptix. I didn't know that Apptix was an agent of Alteva and had been through their certification program. Surprise! (The other surprise was the video cameras that Alteva had brought in to record the panel. No, I didn't sign a release. I am waiting on royalties.)

Alteva's cert program is really a sales program that consists of product training and the Sandler method of sales. Haynor did point out that agents need to know about the product but more importantly to sell Hosted UC, you have to re-think how you sell services. The certification helps with that. It is not a one-time program; it is continuing education.

The TCA has a certification called the Certified Telecom Professional. It is a baseline education program with a 100-question exam on a two hour timer. It is a challenge, daunting enough that many telecom veterans have anxiety about not passing it.

Haynor spoke about charging - $350 - for the training because otherwise it doesn't have value. It made me think that at $199 for the CTP, it is time to raise the price.

Riley spoke about the value of the cert being that there is economic impact on the Channel, the Carrier and the Customer. While there was agreement that education is vital to cloud and managed services adoption in the marketplace, I couldn't get any concrete examples out of the panel. It's a principle we can agree upon, but apparently can't quantify.

Since on-boarding is integral to a positive customer experience, I asked if that was touched on in the cert. It isn't because Alteva has a team for that. However, properly setting customer expectations is part of the on-boarding process. Many agents and VAR's want to be the conduit to the customer and want to be the one providing the timelines to the customer to manage and coordinate the deployment and on-boarding of the workforce. It seems to me that this should be a part of the training. Haynor said that at this stage, agents are more like referral partners or lead generation. Alteva sales people will close the deal. Smoothstone and other carriers have a similar take. I would suggest that if I paid $350 for training and spent the two days taking it that at the end I should be able to prospect, complete the sale and be involved with the on-boarding.

It is transferrable knowledge though. Alteva is Broadsoft based, so with that training, agents should be able to sell any Broadsoft Hosted PBX service via the Sandler sales process.

Day 3 at ITEXPO

2012-02-03T02:43:17Z

An eclectic mix at dinner at The Forge tonight. Greg Nielsen at Data Foundry who is celebrating both being a nominee for Austin 40 Under 40 and selling out the 1st phase of floor space in Texas 1.

My cranky b@stard pal Antony Francis from Head of Lettuce Media who is on my Social Media Strategy panel at 9 am tomorrow.

Melanie Sunahara of Cbeyond was quizzing Greg on Data Foundy and GigaNews, while chatting with Mike Grossman from Netwolves about the Channel. Grossman has a new position in Biz Dev with Netwolves.

Anthony Jett from IIS Group spent the evening talking M+A and Hosted VOIP.

Good food, good conversation. It's why I like ITEXPO. Off to Mangos!

ITEXPO Day 2

2012-02-01T17:18:50Z

Rooms have been full here at the Miami Beach Convention Center for Day 2 of ITEXPO. Stop by my session on Channel Certification at 2:30.

Day 1 at ITEXPO

2012-02-01T05:31:06Z

I had a couple of good conversations today. One was with Greg Plum who has embarked on a new chapter in his career at StartMeeting.com. Plum is exciting about building the channel for this start-up conferencing company for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he believes that StartMeeting.com will be a disruptor, a serious game changer in the conference space. They offer conferencing - audio and web - like so many others, right? It is HD audio though. There is file and desktop sharing. We'll see. The launch is at the channel show in Vegas.

I met with ONYX today. ONYX is a distributor of value added products - like Grandstream IP phones and Digium - to Latin America. Headquartered in Miami, ONYX is turning a corner, realizing that Education and Local will be the keys for growth.

On the Local side, ONYX has offices in four Latin America countries now. A local presence is needed for distribution and support and a local presence. ONYX has plans to open offices in every country in Latin America.

The second key is education. With 20 years of experience, ONYX is rolling out how-to videos on its products, developing a knowledge base, and offering product and know-how training to its VAR's and others on IP-PBX, IP Phones and Asterisk - in Spanish too.

A final note about ONYX is that it migrated its back office computer systems to the cloud in order to utilize tablet based access for real-time inventory and more. Accessing the back office over an Android smartphone or tablet is speed to market.

Globecomm was next up to discuss their TEMPO product - a managed platform for streaming video specifically for Fortune 5000 companies. Analytics and whatnot are included in the platform. For corporate training and webcasts.

Look for me in Miami Beach Next Week

2012-01-26T17:59:23Z

Next week is ITEXPO East 2012 in Miami Beach at the convention center. I arrive around 11 AM on Tuesday for Editor's Day. There are a number of all-day events going on Tuesday like InsightPRM's Sales Management training and the Avaya seminar.

Not surprisingly, most of the buzz around the show is on Startup Camp Comms, which is Thursday at 4 PM with keynote from Sir terry Matthews, founder of MITEL. Four start-ups will be pitching as well.

I have 5 slots this time.

Wed. night on the show floor at the CVX Expo stage, three agents - Dan Vidal, Josh Anderson and myself (fueled with cocktails) will answer questions from Martin Vilaboy, Editor-in-Chief of Channel Vision magazine about issues facing the Channel. Consolidation, Competition, Commissions, Cloud, UC, and the decline of the PSTN. The fun starts at 6:30. Straight from the Shooters: Candid Conversations on Issues Facing the Channel. Details here.

Wed. at 11 AM, I moderate the panel, Social Media Channel Integration, about contact centers integrating social media into the work station in room B210. The discussion will be about business drivers for social media; 4 steps to utilize social media in the enterprise; and hurdles to incorporating SM in the contact center.

At 2:30 on Wed., in room B116, I will be moderating a panel titled Educating the Channel with Industry Standard Certifications. It's a topic that is close to me because the TCA, which I helped found, is all about educating the Channel and rolled out a certification program last year. This will be a good conversation about how we need to education the sales channels as well as the marketplace in order to sell services like UC, Cloud and managed services.

The fun panel will be on Friday morning at 9 AM: Does Your Business Have a Social Media Strategy? Chief Head of Lettuce Antony Francis is an old pal, who likes to get cranky with me, so this panel will rock. You will leave with more info than you thought possible at 9 AM on a Friday in room B210.

At Noon on Friday catch me at the 4GWE session about Fixed Wireless as a wireline replacement (in room A109). Do you think fixed wireless can replace copper?

Look for my tweets from @radinfo and say HI if you see me.

Are You Going to ITEXPO?

2011-12-28T18:48:18Z

It's just about a month away from ITEXPO East 2012 that starts January 29, 2012. The Lowes Hotel is already sold out in Miami Beach.

I am moderating 4 sessions this time. Here they are:

2/1/2012 @ 11:00-11:45am - TRACK: Customer Engagement -- "Social Media Channel Integration"

2/1/2012 @ 2:30-3:15pm - TRACK: Next Gen Service Provider -- "Educating the Channel with Industry Standard Certifications"

2/3/2012 @ 9:00-9:45am - TRACK: Customer Engagement -- "Does Your Business Have a Social Media Strategy?"

At 4GWE on Friday the 3rd at Noon, I will be moderating "Wireless Access Open For Business" where we will be discussing fixed wireless as a last mile access choice. Then we will have an open discussion, kind of an Un-Conference.

You can register for ITEXPO or MSP World or Cloud Comm Summit for $99 until 12/31/11. You can register for 4GWE here. CVX for Agents and VAR's is no charge.

Asterisk workshop on the 31st is free (with any registration).

Julius Knapp, Chief of the Office of Engineering and Tech at the FCC, will be one of the keynotes.

Another keynote is Terry Matthews, chairman of Wesley Clover, MITEL, Newbridge and Counterpath.

Let me know if you are attending so we can meet up for coffee or for the Gathering Dinner.

It's Monday So Lots Happened

2011-10-17T17:21:24Z

Polycom bought Vivu, a video collaboration company, to help Polycom push it's Presence gear. Video, video, video. Yet I never have video calls or video call requests. To me, I wish you would work on the phone part. Give me a great looking phone that is easy to use and where the voice quality is awesome. Can you do that? Not really.

All the companies in this space are running to the Video. Why? Deployment and usage are challenging enough without trying to hook up video and make myself presentable. Fax over IP and HD Voice are still just a promise - and video conferencing off platform doesn't work.

It's kind of like talking about Cloud or UC, you are hoping for a stock bump or a PR bump.

Folks are at the Broadsoft show today being introduced by a 3D presentation. Then they will be peppered with alcohol to dull their senses so they can listen to BSFT talk about Video Conferencing (iLinc acquisition) through BroadWorks (Don't get your own; Buy more licenses from us!). Then I'm sure it will be about Mobility and Integration from the vendors that ponied up big $$$ to pitch their wares.

The one thing that gets lost in all this: there are too many VoIP Providers in the marketplace (over 1100 in the US alone). All of them are still trying to figure out how to sell more seats! Sure, they can sell SIP trunks but that is low margin commodity business. Hosted PBX is a higher margin (if sold correctly) business that is about to heat up as the cable giants - Comcast and Cox - roll it out nationwide and give away access in the sale. How does a Hosted PBX provider who doesn't own a network compete then?

And selling UC&C (unified comm and collab) mixed with video is a specialized sale. First, you need a base of Hosted PBX clients and a set procedure for deployment and on-boarding customers. Then you can have a process to upsell or chase a specialized market.

Meanwhile, we are all waiting for the FCC to make some decision on both USF Reform and Inter-Carrier Compensation. ICC will actually change the VoIP market a little. Not that anyone noticed, but the TRA is now a requirement for Inter-Connected VoIP Providers. Why not utilize the video and collaboration components to solve TRA and Communications for Disabilities? Then at least you would have a hot button.

I was going to rant about USF Reform -- like how we should kill the whole program -- like that would ever happen -- because spending tax money to outfit rural areas with broadband is kind of crazy, in my opinion. And its only 15 million Americans. How many will actually buy broadband? Maybe 67%? So 10 million? At a cost of 15% of the bill every month? That's crazy.

Anyway, on to M2M. Sprint is big in Machine-to-Machine wireless solutions and "has targeted four high-growth segments as the umbrella focus of its M2M development activities and offerings: Connected Transportation; Connected Meters, Sensors & Alarms; Connected Machines, Screens & Things; and Connected Personal Devices." [pr] Meanwhile, Sprint is hoping the iPhone bouys up their subscribers.

VZ is getting into home energy monitoring and testing 3G/4G networks nationwide. I'm sure that it will be an unbiased study of the 3G/4G world (MetroPCS, AT&T, T-Mobile, Cricket, Sprint and VZW).

And in another blow to privacy, VZW "has made a change in its privacy policy that clears the nation's largest wireless carrier to track its subscribers' Web browsing, location and app usage habits," according to the LA Times.

Did you know there is such a thing as Hardware-as-a-Service? Chartec and Outreach offer it in a partnership.

NTS/XFONE grabbed 1800 cable customers in West Texas from Reach Broadband.

ABRY Partners bought data center company XAND, who is either a hosting company or a data center infrastructure company. To tell you the truth, the way these press releases describe the companies involved, I know two things: (1) the PR firm has no clue what they are talking about; (2) the marketing department or firm has no clue what they are talking about either. Keep It Simple!

MVNO and Name Changes

2011-10-03T18:35:12Z

Here at COMPTEL there have been some announcements. The big one is that Sprint has signed up two new MVNO's - XO and Easton Telecom. Easton Telecom is a reseller CLEC that has contracts with 100+ carriers (according to its PR). The interesting move comes from XO whose interim CEO inked an MVNO deal with Sprint. The email I received this morning had the headline: Will We Get the iPhone? Quick answer: not any time soon. MVNO means hadnset fulfillment from a third party like Telispire.

At the same time, Sprint is re-announcing its integration with Broadsoft, which it has been touting since last February. From experience, maybe they just now released some marketing collateral on it.

In the name chjange game, Covad has been re-named Megapath Wholesale.

Intellifiber is re-launching as Intellifiber, a PAETEC fiber services company. Intellifiber was a CavTel asset when Paetec bought them.

Why Attend ITEXPO?

2011-09-14T06:10:21Z

So at most ITEXPO's, we try to put together a dinner where we invite everyone to come have dinner and meet someone new. (It is a dutch treat sometimes, but TMC's Anthony Graffeo picked up the tab Monday night.) Great connections have been made here. Nothing like sharing a meal and conversation with someone new.

Great presenters and content going on all the time. (Yes, some presenters could prepare better and get rid of the PowerPoint crutch, but overall.)

Pictures tell the story. See a bunch more here:

I Think I'm Allergic to Power Point

2011-09-13T15:18:42Z

Using slides with the Guy Kawasaki method of presentation - big font, just keywords versus reading me the word document that you call a slide.

Even in a keynote, the speaker (a senior VP) read the slides in between commercials. I hope you don't present this way to bankers and VC's.

I get the fear of speaking part, but if you tell a story in place of stuffing tons of data or tidbits into the preso, the audience will be very appreciative.

Thomas Howe is presenting at the Cloud Communications Summit this week. Check him out because he knows his stuff. That EMBRASE group is bringing you Robert Metcalfe on Wed. at the Startup Camp @ITEXPO.

We have Social CRM Expo here in Austin (I'm moderating two panels in that track Wed.). One thing about Social Media is to ENGAGE your audience. Speakers should remember that. Do you watch Big Bang Theory on CBS? Sheldon learns that spouting off info to a classroom will end badly. Why? Teaching requires entertainment. It is the responsibility of the presenter to garner the attention of the audience members. I'm not the best speaker, but I try hard each time to give the audience a take-away. I aim to improve with each session. I listen to feedback, so if you think I suck, tell me. Thanks.

What To Do in Austin Next Week

2011-09-06T17:19:38Z

Next week is the first time the ITEXPO West will be in Austin, TX. It's my first time in Austin (or Texas for that matter).

Once again, ITEXPO will be the home to a lot of great content. This time I am moderating two panels under the Social CRM Expo. Top 10 Tips for Online Marketing on Wed. at 2 PM with Shawan Vercher, Kyle Flaherty and Rusty Shelton. Then at 3 PM, Does Your Business have a Social Media Strategy? with Ronan Keane, Mike Langford, Simon Salt and Sanjay Popli. Following those 2 must attend sessions is the networking reception followed by Startup Camp from EMBRACE, where Robert Metcalfe will be the keynote address. Awesome! (I hope you registered for it already!)

There are many sessions going on at the same time all week. Check your program carefully or you will miss some good content and speakers.

The emphasis this year was to bring in more C-level presenters as well as some experts from outside telecom (like on my panels for instance). The CMO Summit on Tuesday night is for C-level execs to learn about branding and online marketing while mingling with their peers. (Be warned: no substitutes - CEO, CMO, President or VP of Marketing only!)

Another C-level networking opportunity is the Cloud Communications Summit, where EMBRASE has assembled a C-level cast of speakers plus a Social Networking Lunch & M&A Keynote.

The Channel Vision Expo will be happening on the show floor - a good place to learn how to sell this cloudy stuff. (Build it and they will come is a broken myth; you have to sell this stuff.)

Besides selling Cloud Comm, you have to on-board the customer properly. Katie Butcher at B-Lynk will be moderating an all-female panel of experts on on-boarding Hosted PBX customers.

If you can only make one day, make it Wed. Startup Camp, my sessions and the party!

Looking for the Gathering Over a Meal? That's Monday night. Looking to have a coffee and talk about the Industry, social media or your business? Email me or find me in the press room. See you in Austin!