Show some creativity AND Patience. Spamming is just lazy. (So are auto-DMs on twitter. Just because you can automate doesn't mean you should.)
One of the congratulations messages that came in to me was a solicitation to advertise for $15K. Not only unsolicited -- off target. And I know this person IRL.
The feeds on LinkedIn look more and more like Facebook. People if you can't separate business from personal this might explain your work/life balance issues. It also might explain why you can't get work done in a timely matter. Time Management at its core is about focus.
Recently, LinkedIn sent me a notice about only connecting to people I know. That's funny because if that was the case we would all have less than 400 connections. Also, that notice flies in the face of most users AND how LinkedIn makes money!
And what happened to discussion on LI? The groups are dead.
I examined at least 35 posts on three groups (UC Insights and Channel Partners and Telecom Professionals). Engagement is Rare!
Engagement is demonstrated mostly by Likes, rarely a comment on these groups. However, all of the posts are just headlines from articles or blog posts. It is all just click-bait. And that is annoying to everyone.
On the UC group, CommsTrader, AT&T and other corporate communicators just blast stuff here (and elsewhere) hoping for clicks and likes. CommsTrader actually tweets to the group. (His tweets post to the LI group.) It is awful.
Overall it has become nothing more than an online Rolodex (contact management tool). I think recruiters - who were the customer target for Reid Hoffman - started abusing it, but then Marketers got involved and those lazy bums ruined it for everyone.
SIDE NOTE: LinkedIn explained in memes.
]]>It isn't a sprint. It isn't about just growth. It is about steady growth and customer experience. Also, product-market/fit.
On LinkedIn this morning, there were at least 3 posts from channel managers closing business for their partners. If the channel managers are closing business, that is a better use of time than recruiting. And maybe a trainer is needed to teach sales skills and product to both channel managers and partners to keep those skills and knowledge fresh.
The other topic on LinkedIn this morning: SD-WAN. All generic info being shared under the umbrella of the vendors. This is not a good start to content marketing. This is not a good start to branding and positioning.
Seth Godin is giving a 100 day online marketing seminar. Take it!!!!
CenturyLink data centers were acquired by a group of private equity firms (Medina Capital and BC Partners) for $2.8B. This group will combine the 57 data centers with four cyber-security and data analytics portfolio companies to form Cyxtera. (Who picked that name?) The CEO of Medina Capital will be running the new firm and he used to be CEO of Terremark.
Verizon closed on the sales of their data centers (formerly Terremark) to Equinix this week. Windstream sold theirs to Tierpoint a while ago.
The divestiture of data centers by Windstream, Verizon and Centurylink does not represent a bad position for data centers. It means that the telcos didn't have the skills to leverage DCIM. The data center market is hot and growing. Inter-connection, peering, colocation and cloud computing infrastructure (IAAS, PAAS, VM, Hosting) are all in demand right now. Data center construction is growing by 8% per year.
Polycom was acquired by a PE firm. Many top execs have left. One went to Star2Star. This week the CMO went to Intermedia.Net.
]]>There are 2.5 billion smartphones on the planet now, according to Ben Evans.
"China now has 656 million internet users. Brazil trails only the US in total Facebook, Twitter and YouTube users, and the country has more mobile devices than human inhabitants." [TCrunch]
Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon are 3x the scale of WinTel. Not just giants in tech, but giants in the economy as well. More so than IBM or WinTel. [mobile is eating the world]
Machine learning and AI are getting exponentially better each year.
Facebook has between 15-20% of mobile time. And smartphone apps are 60% of all time spent online in USA.
With Amazon Alexa and Google Home (and other voice activated search), what does that do to your SEO or PPC campaigns?! POOF!
There are "nearly 3.8 billion internet users worldwide, almost 2.8 billion are active on social media." The most popular social networks "as of January 2017, based on global traffic figures for unique monthly visitors, shows: Facebook (with 1.1 billion), YouTube (with 1 billion), Twitter (with 310 million), LinkedIn (with 255 million), Pinterest (with 250 million) and Google+ (with 120 million)." [channel partners]
"Cisco and DHL, the world's largest logistics provider, estimated last year that $1.9 trillion dollars of economic value could be created by the use of IoT devices and asset tracking solutions in the global supply chain and logistics sector." [business insider]
NOAA has a new satellite "GOES-16 has four times the image resolution of the existing Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) fleet." See images here.
SIDE NOTE:
That said, people who blame increased connectivity for widening ideological divides misunderstand what's going on. The world is not getting worse, nor are our divisions deepening. We've always had these problems - it's just that connectivity is bringing them to light. Racism, xenophobia, bigotry and sexism have always been there, it's just that we can see them more clearly now. This unprecedented, radical form of transparency feels scary and dark, because it forces us to look long and hard into the corners. But that's also why connectivity is so important. Billions of people are starting to speak out, and that means we are no longer able to claim ignorance, and filter out the terrible things that have happened on the watch of good people in the past. Welcome to the world as it really is, and not the way the gatekeepers used to tell us it was. It's about time. [Future Crunch 30]]]>
I know we have blurred the lines between work and life, but come on. I often wonder if that isn't a symptom of why we are so unproductive. We are always connected, constant thoughts of work results in no rest, no real down time and for a few burn out. For most, periods of unproductivity.
When you have a structured work day of 8 hours, does it make work easier to accomplish? Knowing you have to get stuff done in allotted time? Yet when you factor in the doing more with less and more and more to do (especially for sales and marketing people), that is stress that adds to unproductive.
I look at LinkedIN and wonder if people have forgotten what work is. Correlate that to sales, especially relationship building types of sales, and we wonder why sales are off. We wonder why it is hard to hit sales numbers. No one knows when to work -- or what work looks like - or what business relationships look like.
According to a survey by Microsoft, 46 percent of workers say their productivity has improved thanks to social media and social media tools.
"Research from the University of California, Irvine, shows productivity rises in the late morning around 11 a.m. and peaks between 2 and 3 p.m." [fortune]
A study by Cornerstone found that work overload was cited as a factor that decreased productivity by 68 percent of employees surveyed, who felt that the hours required to complete their work on a daily basis outnumbered the hours in their workday. [source]
A study by Cornerstone OnDemand found that 43 percent of employees surveyed feel that unscheduled interruptions by coworkers are the biggest obstacle when it comes to productivity.
Research conducted by Stanford University cites that multitasking may ultimately be decreasing our general intelligence. Multitasking gives the illusion of higher productivity, but it is hard to cut down 6 trees by swinging the axe at each only once per hour.
"A survey from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics found that most Americans actually work normal hours and get regular sleep, despite their reputation for being overtired and overworked. [QZ]
So we want to look busy and be busy, complain about being busy, but we aren't actually productive. Some of it is distractions. Some of it is Fear.
"A study lead by the University of California, Irvine, and presented at the South by Southwest panel on workplace distraction, found employees were actually happiest when performing these rote tasks. Why is busywork secretly so enjoyable? It's because completing busywork gives you a feeling of accomplishment without the corresponding stress which comes along with more challenging tasks." [fortune]
We admire busy because we confuse it with being accomplished. We don't grasp the difference between Urgent and Important.
In some cases, we know what we have to, what we should do, but we don't do it. We don't want to work that hard for success. We don't want to break our comfort zone. We don't want to risk it.
These are just observations, but I think we confuse being happy with a social media infused FOMO view of success. We dream about being a multi-millionaire - through lottery or a unicorn start-up idea - with all the toys and imagine there is no down-side and that with money all our problems go away and we are magically happy. (Does Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton look happy?) That is a dream, but that isn't our goal, which is closer to paying the bills, going on vacation, spending time with family & friends, enjoying the journey of life. That is the opposite of the millionaire dream life. Happy requires purpose and meaningful work. The problem there is meaningfulwork, Creative work, takes up time, effort and risk. OOPS!
Hugh writes, "The thing that turns a job into passion, that turns work into play, is a sense of mission."
It's like the current push to be an entrepreneur. It is everywhere, but most people do not have the skills or drive to do it. Startups fail for a variety of reasons. We have glamorized the failures - Pets.com, Friendster, Boo.com, Webvan and more. But all anyone talks about is raising money, not building a viable business - or building a company to last.
We have forgotten to focus on the goals. And to enjoy the journey as well.
Managing more sales is part time management and part reflection.
]]>The Conference Group laid off channel people. NgenX discontinued their agent program (and laid off channel personnel.)
Broadsoft lost Jeffrey Pearl and Mike Wilkinson.
Frontier and Charter are laying off as they work through integrations.
Some of the job loss is Synergy - that marketing term for redundant jobs after mergers and acquisitions.
Some of it is due to companies just not marketing clearly or correctly.
Who is your target customer? How do they benefit from your services? Why should they buy from you and not someone else?
These are basic questions that many companies just can't answer.
And while they flounder to figure it out, there are companies buying market share and taking mind share (Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google, Slack to name a few).
And admittedly some of it is that people just have not gained any extra skills. With all the books, blogs, online courses, even taking in just one of those per quarter will help you improve and grow. And when that happens you get more valuable. You should be investing in yourself.
Do you have the skills necessary for 2020?
Today, the average Person watches 5 hours of TV Each Day! My friend pointed out: "If you live to 96 and watch 4 hours of tv a day, that is 16 years watching TV ... 16 years of your life!" Think what you could learn or change if you just took 30 minutes a day for reading, learning or volunteering or whatever.
I saw this article today in the Telegraph: The importance of job satisfaction. "The work you do impacts everything else you do in life. Not only does it enable you to earn the money you need to provide for yourself and your family, take a holiday, buy a house... a job also allows you to feel you are part of something."
For some you just need the paycheck, but if you treat the job search like a marketing campaign, you can win a job you want. BTW, it isn't the company, so much it is the boss you are working for that is the chief factor.
If you haven't done so, connect with me on LinkedIn. And check their job board regularly, while also reaching out to your network. But please don't say you are looking. Be specific. What job titles will apply, what size company, geography, etc. The more specific you are, the more salience happens. (That means that when I hear it, I will immediately think of your name!)
]]>First up, Blue Coat is selling itself to Symantec for $4.65 Billion. The cyber-security software company was going to go public via an IPO, but chose the private sale route, which seemed a safer bet for the PE firm, Bain Capital, that bought Blue Coat in 2015 for $2.4B and financed acquisitions to bolster the product portfolio to annual revenues of $598 Million. Blue Coat lost $289 million in those same 12 months. Good deal for Symantec, who sold its Veritas data storage unit to the Carlyle Group for $7.4 billion earlier this year.
BitTitan, the cloud services enablement specialist, has announced that it has closed a $15 million round of Series A financing led by TVC Capital, according to Channel Vision mag.
Speaking of IPO, twilio filed for one. VoIP Logic has an interesting take on it here.
Two Rhode Island based IT firms merge. "Carousel Industries, a leader in communication and network technologies, professional and managed services and cloud solutions, today announced its intent to acquire Atrion, Inc., a leading IT services firm specializing in security, productivity and collaboration, unified communications, networking, applications and integrations and data center solutions." This kind of PR is annoying to me because no one - even with 1300 employees - can be a "leader" in every aspect of IT and comms. And most mergers don't even come close to 1+ 1 = 3. Rarely do you get 1+1=2. It is usually 1+1=1.
Now for the big news: Microsoft is buying LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in cash. I have no idea why everyone is calling this a real-time comms project. The adoption of Slack changed everything. You can see it in how other projects have pivoted or added features, like containers, groupware, video and voice calling.
To me this seems more like a continuation of efforts to be a portal for employees that Sharepoint started. As Microsoft works on Sharepoint revisions (to look more like Slack?), they have to be thinking of ways to compete with Facebook and the myriad social networks that are taking up eyeballs, video and chatting away from telcos and enterprise communication systems.
Slack's loudest benefit is the reduction in email, which means less time people spend in Outlook. Cisco Spark will have people doing everything from a single GUI (in theory). That means Office365 is just one of the integrated services.
Do you need MS Office suite if your resume is on LinkedIn, docs are shared on a collab platform, databases are in the cloud, and contacts are on your phone?
No one wants Windows 10 and its all seeing activity tracking. Add that to LinkedIn and MS will know an awful lot about a lot of people. Almost as much as Google and Facebook know.
Microsoft has tried this before with acquisitions of Lync, Yammer and Skype. It takes them years to get the integration right (if at all). Remember, they bought Skype in 2011 for $8.2B and didn't really get the integration until 2014.
Maybe this is their new mobile strategy... LinkedIn, a clunky platform for resumes and social networking that as of late has many users frustrated and disappointed. Will we see Lync integration in LinkedIn soon? Click to email, call, chat, video anyone in your network? Oh, won't that be fun from a noise stand point.
They just dumped Nokia and took a huge write off on that mess. Have they made any money yet on Skype?
According to the MS CEO, it is all about the professional network meeting the professional network: "Think about it: How people find jobs, build skills, sell, market and get work done and ultimately find success requires a connected professional world. It requires a vibrant network that brings together a professional's information in LinkedIn's public network with the information in Office 365 and Dynamics."
Even this LinkedIn fan boy isn't sure what Microsoft is doing with Azure, Xbox, Win10 because he is on Chrome. The way I see it, LinkedIn in two years becomes integrated into Outlook, Office365, Win10, Sharepoint and Dynamics. Some of that will look like Salesforce and data.com (although Salesforce got a deal on Jigsaw in 2010.) The social graph adds a piece that MS doesn't currently have.
It will be interesting to see how Lynda.com is utilized by the combined entity. Will that become a tile on Win10 and Xbox? Probably. The deal slides are on Scrbd.
For segments of the marketplace this Microsoft centric move will make sense. Others will turn to Google for Work or Facebook for Work - or an IBM suite if they ever resurrect Lotus Notes & Domino into a true competitor for enterprise. Spark may take some of this. Add Apache Open Office to Spark and what do you need MS for?
What will also happen is that another online Rolodex will make some headway in this space, the same way that Snapchat took from the other social apps.
A bunch of investors are going to look at this and push more transactions. Facebook and Google hardly ever play follower, but they might shop for an online resume platform like JibberJobber - or a jobs board like Indeed or Monster to put some pressure on Microsoft and LinkedIn. If nothing else, that type of data can only add to the social graph that both of them have. This creates an opportunity for someone because there is a window of about two years before this integrates. We live in a first mover marketplace.
$26 Billion in cash, like money is nothing. Will this be a bigger debacle than Nokia?
]]>People have a shortage of time, because we have to do way more per day to keep above water. Social media is an admitted time suck (see Hubspot story; or the nextweb post; or this article about social ruining your life; and wired's social is a waste of time.) So why would a business social network make it more noisy; more of a time suck?
Discussion is missing in many of the groups. I belong to the maximum allowed - 50 - and very few have posts that are anything but links. For a SOCIAL network, the social is gone. Now LinkedIn is just a broadcast medium, but is ANYONE LISTENING?
The Pulse is that anyone can publish anything. And much of it is just press releases or other pitches. You couldn't curate the Pulse? Or like Reddit have articles voted up or down?
If you are going to copy another social network, why Facebook? Because of the numbers? Those numbers indicate that LI stinks in most categories. And these numbers show that engagement and reach are down.
Here are some ideas:
Not every Liked update should show up. Have a share button. Because people like everything, which floods my feed with stupid sh!t. Important Note: That results in me not liking the person liking all that stupid stuff.
I have had to go back to an egg timer for social media with 10 to 15 minute intervals to jump in and jump out. See more time management tips here.
FROM LINKEDIN: Some videos may automatically start to play with the sound muted when you scroll down your LinkedIn newsfeed. To disable auto-play for all videos:
Move your cursor over your profile photo on the top right corner of your LinkedIn homepage and click Privacy & Settings from the dropdown. Under Basics, scroll to Auto-play videos and click Change. Click the toggle to change the setting to No. Click Close.
]]>UC&C transitions closer to Workflow platform as task management is added to the UC&C system from Cisco:
Channel Vision magazine reports, "Redbooth has announced an integration with Cisco Spark to unite task-centric Redbooth workspaces and communications-centric Cisco Spark rooms. Through this integration, users can now work simultaneously in both Redbooth and Cisco Spark to seamlessly communicate and collaborate."
The premise of Spark is that it will be so integrated with the software that an enterprise uses that a user will only have to work in the Spark window all day instead of bouncing between browser tabs or application windows.
Velocloud is now powering Mettel's SD-WAN solution. It is going to be huge for CLECs and channel partners. Not just powering MPLS, but offering a layer of network management, security and continuity to the new network environment that is a mixed bag of DIA, MPLS, and broadband trying to connect to SaaS, AWS, data centers and offices. It deployed correctly, SD-WAN could be the competitive edge that CLECs and OTT cloud service providers need.
In the network space, NITEL has a database to view "Over 500,000 fiber-lit, CLEC buildings" due to its "Partnerships with over 130 providers to provide network agnostic last-mile access". Having a fiber lit building list is good IF it was used for prospecting but it isn't. It is mainly used to determine install times or what carrier to quote. CLECs are starting to publish their LIT building lists. TWC, too. You would think they would want that data available in as many places as possible to sell deeper into LIT premises. Not hidden behind a subscription service like NEF or Geo-Tel. Veterans in telecom would rather have a LIT building than manage a fiber construction project that can take 6 months or more.
NITEL hired a new channel chief too. Congrats Michael Masini.
Charter is retiring the Time Warner Cable Brand. It confused people - TWC, twtc, Time-Warner. Now it will all be New Charter. "Charter will continue to be led by Tom Rutledge, serving as chairman, president and CEO. Charter's board will have 13 directors, including seven independent directors, two designated by Bright House's owner Advance/Newhouse, and three designated by Liberty Broadband (including John Malone and Greg Maffei)."
Congressional IT desk warns representatives of ransomware threats - and bans Yahoo Mail from Congress. How will these Congress Critters get mail now? Oh, right - AOL.
The LinkedIn password breach was 117 million records, according to ARS. Have you changed your password recently?
Fitbit acquires "wearable payment assets" from startup Coin, from ARS.
TelePacific Communcations receives the Women in the Channel's first ever Platinum Sponsorship Award 2016. TelePacific is a sponsor of TCA since its founding as well as a sponsor of WIC since its inception too. (Thanks, TPAC!)
Congrats to CRN Women of the Channel friends of mine: Karin Fields and Trish Kapos of master agency Microcorp; Hilary Gadda of TelePacific; Caitlin Clark-Zigmond at CoreDial; Brittani Von Roden of VAR Dynamics/CloudPlus; and to the rest of the winners as well!
In broadband, the cable modem is beating anything telco. Cable is winning 1M to 11k net new adds in 1Q16.
AT&T will be laying off between 50K and 80K workers in the next 5 years. It is trying to retrain some. AT&T will follow VZ into the OTT video arena. AT&T purchased Quickplay before launching its DIRECTV streaming service, according to Telecompetitor.
That's a wrap.
]]>Saw stats that Vonage has 514,000 business seats.
"Birch recently announced the addition of 80,000 buildings to its Metro-Fiber network in November 2015." I wonder which cable provider they signed a wholesale agreement.
"Broadvoice brings its significant growth trajectory to the initiative: It serves more than 200,000 customers, with its business segment growing by 125% in 2015 alone." [CV mag]
In the same press release, "The company recently signed its first national master agent, Sandler Partners, giving it an increased footprint of 3,000 technology sales partners across the country." 3K partners with one master agency? That would mean that master has the entire attendee list of Channel Partners Expo in Vegas with signed agreements in its CRM.
Windstream is raising rates on sub-$1500 accounts - to make them profitable - or to shed them? Apparently shedding some of them according to CRN.
from my LinkedIn feed today*, here's a some stats about AWS:
*I don't know who to attribute it to because I lost it in the feed, which is an absolute mess and has no search function.
Sears is closing 50 stores. Wal-Mart is closing 154 stores in the US. Macys is closing stores. Do you see a trend here? What happens to shopping when it is mostly online/virtual? What happens to malls? And most important what happens to JOBS?
]]>Cbeyond's former VP, Jeff Uphues is now at Liquid Web, doing what he did for Cbeyond after they acquired MaximumASP.
MegaPath's former President and channel friend, Dan Foster, is now at TUUL, "changing how companies communicate in the new mobile economy".
EarthLink's last channel chief, Sherri Turpin, is now CEO at ZVRS, a video relay service based in Tampa Bay (near me).
Voxox just let their VP of Dealers go. Lots of musical chairs. Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date, folks.And nurture your network now -- you never know when you will need it.
]]>Many companies are going through change -- mostly M&A change which isn't the change I mean. EarthLink and Cbeyond were going through very public change - like Dell, Microsoft and others.
Sangoma will be going through big changes after buying FreePBX as they transition from a hardware vendor to a service provider. The same thing that occurred at ShoreTel when they bought M5.
The industry has been morphing for a few years - some more reluctantly than others. But I think that the next couple of years, the companies that embrace change, indeed have a culture of that embraces change will be the most competitive.
The customers of ours are looking to be competitive, flexible, efficient and productive. Our job is to enable that through technology that we provide.
But to do that, YOU - the service provider - have to be flexible, innovative, take risks, fail, try stuff, learn, try again, keep smiling. More Google like or even like Sonic.net.
As sales flips from outbound - like we have been doing for years - to inbound, your organization has to change with it. Dialing for Dollars is more like dialing for dimes. The ROI is inversely proportional to the frustration.
Internet Access, Voice, cellular, TV - buyers know where to get them. These have become Salient Sales -- you have to be top of mind when the current service breaks or comes up for renewal. Drip Marketing and relationship building are the main methods to being there when the door opens. How many do either well? Damn few.
Inbound means content marketing, which is time consuming - and the pay off is NOT even close to immediate, especially for generic mass merchandising.
"Westcon Group is running a series of vertical sales enablement workshops to support its partners with tools and expertise to sell more effectively into vertical markets," according to reports. This is the way of the future: Specialists. In many professionals, the way to profit is to specialize. Now it comes to our segment.
We live in a market where Layer 7 (apps) is more valuable than the network (layer 1 on the OSI Model). Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple have a higher market cap than the RBOCs. Everything is flipping. The whole Dumb Pipe scare of a couple of years ago is indeed happening. Maybe because everyone that wants Internet access has it -- and has it in multiple ways - cell phone, home, work, library, free wi-fi. There are still a bunch of folks (about 35%) not on the Internet. That is remarkable.
CompTIA and others talk about the trend: the Nexus of Forces (cloud, mobility, social and big data). Data is at the Core, but you have to participate in the other 4 in some way to stay relevant -- at least in a single vertical. Panterra and EarthLink are. Are you?
Again, it is about being flexible. Not many service provider skate where the puck is going. They chase after it, behind the Duopoly and end up with the task of the guy at the circus following the elephants.
In 2011, I wrote to EarthLink about chasing retail and using their AX platform as a way to bundle better around security. I blogged it and sent them a strategy slide deck. I only say this because 4 years later they are doing it. And 4 years later most everyone else did NOT. Heed this advice NOW. We have no idea how much longer the runway is.
We are in the Connection Economy (according to both Seth Godin and Gary Vee). It will change the way we sell (and what we sell). Seth Godin explains that VISA and Mastercard are nothing more than connection platforms for payments. Square and Paypal are taking advantage of that.
Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb are just public examples of digital sharing powered by smartphones, apps, ubiquitous broadband, and the economy.
These are visible examples of the shift happening. Is it happening in your company?
Treehouse Interactive asks, "How are you making the partner experience better?"
It appears that the channel is being pursued by more companies today than ever before. Look how many vendors master agencies have - way more than ever before. However, the partners will need training, deal registrations and engagement with emails and web content. These are not the things that SPs are good at themselves - and now they have to assist their partners with this!
These shifts are happening now. The culture of complacency that most of us revel in has to shift to a culture of change. Or not. You can always ride it out.
]]>Garrett Smith left VoIP Supply to start his own company, Pitch + Pivot in Buffalo.
XO has named a new Channel head. Bill Hooper has been named Vice President of the XO Business Partner Channel after working at CenturyLink, MCI and WilTel. Hooper replaces Shane McNamara.
Tom Gorey, who used to head up channel at XO as well is now at Integra.
Michael Jerich left Level3 for Intelepeer. He was running the channel at Global Crossing before the merger and assumed the role at L3.
Kirk Horton is now running / starting up the partner business of IPR Secure, an IT company. Horton was previously at TELX, where the sales - both direct and indirect - had a shake up last year.
Joe Schiavone is just one of the few personnel changes that occurred last year at FreedomVoice. Schiavone is now running the channel program at Voxox. Tristan Barnum of Switchvox fame is VP of Marketing there.
Justin Chugg did the opposite of many people; he went from master agent (Telarus) to service provider (Vocal IP Networx). Quite a few went from SP to Master, where the pressure is different.
Many other people have changed jobs. Many companies - Broadvox, ANPI, Broadsoft to name a few - have changed out numerous personnel. To even say personnel sounds funny to me, since I think of employees as talent. It takes talent to build and grow a business.
Some of that talent has something important: domain knowledge. They know all the things that are the duct tape that keep business processes running - things that are rarely written down or recorded anywhere.
As all these personnel changes happen, I have to think about sports. Were the Tampa Bay Lightning better off after the Marty St. Louis trade? No. They traded A Team scoring talent for B Team. Is that what you are doing? Sure, you have VP's, Directors, Managers and worker bees, but is it an A Team?
Does this team foster winning results or do they just go through the motions?
Hey, remember to keep your contact info in LinkedIn current!
]]>Personal Brand:
is your reputation.
It's Trust.
You need Trust to sell.
You need Trust to get hired.
Telecom is a small industry.
"Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room" - Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com
"It's important to build a personal brand because it's the only thing you're going to have. Your reputation online, and in the new business world is pretty much the game, so you've got to be a good person. You can't hide anything, and more importantly, you've got to be out there at some level." - Gary Vaynerchuk, Author of Crush it!
]]>As this blog explains, everyone who received the email - 5% of 200M is 10M people! - would share it onliine. It reminds me of the Shift Happens video - due to the large number, is it really that special?
It's a numbers game. We feel special from recognition and winning and the mini-celebrity of it all. But as I tell my clients at the end of the day that activity better help you achieve a goal.
]]>There are different types of salespeople. Whale Hunters, farmers, transactional, good ones, bad ones, mediocre ones. Some companies grade the sales people as A, B, C. Taking a small group of A players to create a Sales SWAT team to take a product to market is a good idea. B and C teams can refer business to the "Closers" in the SWAT team. The compensation plan will have to be adjusted accordingly to provide for this type of sales structure.
Why a SWAT team? Let's look at the FTT market. The tower companies are merging together. SBA just dropped $1.45 billion to grab 3252 towers from TowerCo. SBA's revenue from 15,000 towers comes from mainly 3 companies: Sprint at 27%, while T-Mobile and VZW make up about 30-35% of the revenue. There are not a lot of cellcos in the US.
AT&T, VZW, Sprint, T-Mobile, Clearwire, Cricket/Leap, US Cellular, C Spire (formerly Cellular South), MetroPCS and nTelos make up the majority of the revenue. A bunch of rural cellcos make up the minority. That's why a SWAT team is a good idea. You know who the players are. You know that the sales interval is nearing its end. By that, I mean, that being the second fiber provider to a tower is way less profitable - and as contracts expire, it becomes a bidding war, which is even less profitable. So you want to be the first and hopefully sole fiber provider to a tower. The window is closing on this opportunity as cable companies, ILEC's, and regional fiber companies are all chasing this business. A SWAT team allows you to put the best people on it, give them a goal, a focus, and let them get to it.
Selling this focused to a small pool of prospects is more like selling for Boeing or Honeywell or a defense contractor. Boeing has a limited number of customers - airlines and friendly air forces. Boeing only has a few chances every 4 or 5 years to sell its planes. The Boeing's sales team spends a lot of time doing research on a prospect and even more preparing the sales presentation. READ: PREPARATION! What does a Police SWAT team do? Practice, Prepare, and Practice.
What does a typical telecom salesperson do? Run around chasing low hanging fruit. No practice. No prep. I see it time and again. On a tele-seminar last week, a sales guy was looking for a silver bullet. Is there a new way to prospect? Not really. Sure you can use LinkedIn to search for prospects, it is an easy way to kill an hour or so per day. However, the sales guy isn't doing research now, so would he want to do it in LinkedIn? Not likely.
I think more companies will establish Sales SWAT teams, especially for specialized services or product launches to get traction in the marketplace.
When I look at the Channel, I see carriers trying to find that perfect partner. Without knowing the skill set (like CCIE, MCA or CCISP) or specialty of a telecom agency, how would the carrier being able to help them specialize or provide them the service offerings (and accompanying marketing assistance) that would make for a successful partnership? For example, as a telecom agent, I mainly sell to service providers and mainly sell Internet bandwidth and transport. No matter how many times I tell that to carriers, they still try to get me to sell whatever the organization is pushing that quarter. What a waste of time.
Want a Channel SWAT Team? Look at the Agency's client base, history of sales, examine what offerings can be added to get stickier to that base, and make it about the Agency and its customers, not the carrier comp plan or what the C-Suite promised Wall Street.
When Cbeyond decided to go all-in on Cloud, it took a while to realize that they had to change more than the brochure. They had to change the sales force and th executive team. Cloud is not TDM. Cloud is not an Integrated Access Solution. If you want change - like to stop being a T1 slinger - you need to change culture, personnel, compensation plans, and your way of thinking. The whole company can't change overnight, but changes can be made incrementally with something like a Sales SWAT Team.
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