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In the book Marketing Outrageously by Jon Spoelstra, in Chapter 13, Jon writes about radio and TV advertising. Basically, you need to dominate a show or a channel to gain market share. Spoelstra doesn't talk about market share. He thinks it's about your brand being considered socially acceptable. PR firms want you to do Frequency and Reach. In other words, branding - get your name in front as many people as possible. Spoelstra's strategy is that you should dominate the show that targets your demographic. When you dominate a show, you create the impression that you are socially acceptable and ingrain yourself on the audience (your demographic).

I believe he is right. When you look at TMC portals, one company owns each category. Seth Godin in The Dip talks about being Best in the World. But it's up to you to define that world. That's what the Chris Anderson's Long Tail and Niche Marketing is all about. The way to be Best of Breed is to dominate a Niche that you create. That is what Whole Foods and Starbucks did -- established a Blue Ocean Strategy; that is, these companies stake out a new, uncontested category to dominate.

Most companies do not need millions to be successful. They need thousands. And they can narrow their focus to the best 1000 prospects to get that number. But like Vonage they want to hit everyone. It's expensive and doesn't pay off. Because it's expensive. Do you want to be Toyota or Lexus or Porsche? I want to be Porsche. 

What is your demographic? Don't know? Okay. What target market are you attracting and how can you dominate it in some way? If you are a Telecom Company and you are dominating your space, maybe you should talk to TMC or me about what slice of the market you want to own and we can devise a plan where you work to own that niche. That's the way to go. Be a sharpshooter not a scatter shot.

Former SBC chief Ed Whitacre is going to be the next Chairman of GM. Huh? According to Bloomberg, Whitacre is doing his patriotic duty and loves the challenge. Rich Tehrani thinks that Whitacre was a strategist. He dismantled the regulatory landscape, fought off (and then ate) is competitors, and turned a local Bell back into Ma Bell after numerous acquisitions that have never been integrated. (AT&T still acts like 7 different companies to anyone that has to work with them).

So how successful will an insider monopolist from SBC be at a dying auto maker? Well, less debt to deal with. Inside political track, which is the only way he plays the game. He didn't really understand the Internet and probably doesn't understand the auto industry either. 

His "partners" at SBC (authorized sales agents) are much like dealerships, who should expect the worse, since every company SBC bought tightened the screws to the agents. 

Rich writes, "For too many years GM had lousy management and created cars that for lack of a better word sucked. Americans ran away from Detroit automobiles like AT&T ran away from VoIP in the nineties." Rich, SBC (now called the new AT&T) isn't exactly known for being innovative either. No VoIP. Compete on price. Long installation intervals. Bad billing. What exactly is Whitacre going to bring to the new GM? From what I can see having dealt with all the Bell companies over the last 10 years, he was a lousy cheif exec except that he could put deals together. So what? GM is selling parts and Whitacre knew as much about internal organization and integration as Level3 execs. 

This is also the guy whose company allegedly helped the NSA wiretap the nation. I guess this is his thanks, since Crazy Ivan at VZ is still busy.

Who is my choice? How Elon Musk? How about someone from P&G or Unilever? 

Success is measured a number of different ways, but make a big, hulking, inflexible, non-innovative tech company isn't what I would consider a success. GM needs fast, flexible thinking; innovation; reach out to dealers and workers; and a huge re-branding campaign (which might be the only thing Whitacre is capable of: re-branding GM as the new GM with the same crap as before).

SUMMARY:

GM needs a creative thinker that is flexible and industry knowledgeable. Someone who can bring new partners and ideas to execution quickly, because mergers and acquisitions are not going to be the solution for GM.

GM has two prime missions: convincing people to buy its cars; making cars people want to buy despite the state of GM.

Unfortunately, the government once again shows that change has not come to Washington as they pick a crony instead of the right person - something we have seen too much of during these times of re-invention and government intervention.

The financial activity in the ITSP sector that I am seeing leads me to believe that the ITSP sector is taking off.

• Cypress buying up Reignmaker assets.
• Telesphere got $15M for expansion.
• XCast collecting a $2.7M investment.
• Forbes publishes an article titled The Value of VoIP.

Although there have been analysts who think that IP Lines will slow down, I have to think that in the economic reality we are facing, the distributed workforce, the tele-worker, and the mobility of employees, more and more lines will move to VoIP. For cost savings as well as productivity reasons. 

If lines do slow down it will be due to the following reasons:

• layoffs - less employees = less lines needed
• mobility means less landlines needed
• email, social networks, IM/chat, texting is replacing phone calls.
• over all trend for less phone calls.

There are so many reasons for small and medium businesses (and self-employed persons) to migrate to VoIP that I don't see it being stagnant for long. 

Who to go with?
The one issue is the share number of VoIP Providers (with little differentiation) makes the decision difficult for the business owner. 

Premise versus Hosted
The premise hardware guys are selling their gear as if it was hosted at your site. Many business owners aren't familiar with having such a significant communication service outsourced (off property). It's a strange concept to wrap your head around. Plus there may be changes like cabling and handsets that go with the move that represents too much change for the business owner in today's hectic marketplace.

Blinking Light Syndrome
For productivity to be affected positively at the office by VoIP, the way workers answer and use the phone might have to change. Call park being the biggest one. (But some providers have this solved). Still change is tough.

VoIP Providers Themselves
Many of the people selling VoIP pitch the cost savings. Wrong! There will be changes, so it needs to start with a conversation about how the business operates and uses the current phone system. It takes longer but it is the best approach. Looking at the bill and shaving points off it hasn't been highly successful for CLEC's, who have spent billions to make millions. 

The other side of the ITSP coin is the unclear marketing message. So many companies in the VOIP space do not have an elevator pitch, a positioning statement, or a dumbed-down way of explaining what they do/provide. It makes it hard to market.

And lastly the confusion over what an ITSP is. Here in Tampa I have listened as one ITSP knocks another. That doesn't help at all, especially when the sales person doing it has clue none anyway. The ocean has to be raised witha discussion about why buying Voice over FiOS is not as advantageous for the business owner as Hosted PBX. 

Case studies like Forbes' article will certainly help sell more lines.

When selling VoIP, the conversation should be about productivity, reliability, and security not cost savings. In a poll, VZB "was the surprise top finisher in Infonetics Research's first North America Business VoIP Services Leadership Matrix in both IP Centrex (hosted IP services) and IP connectivity, Infonetics said today."  Main factor: reliability and financial security of VZ. NGT, 8x8, and Cbeyond were next in the poll. "Comcast is moving up fast on hosted VoIP (IP Centrex) services." ITSP need to get a move on.

AireSpring launched an ad campaign tying in the latest Star Trek movie. The COO, Daniel Lonstein, is dressed up like Spock. Very creative ad.

Jon Arnold writes, "This year's MetaSwitch Forum provided a host of proof points that service providers of all stripes can stay competitive so long as they deploy the right technology and have the right vision for serving their customers."

Time and again, the pitch is about the company and the technology. Look at automobile reviews: It isn't about the engine size, it's about the 0-60. Telecommunications needs to do the same thing.

When Aastra talks about its AastraLink Pro 160, it should be about Asterisk. The story should be similar to the Aastra CT handset story. When anyone talks about the iPhone, do they mention that it only works on GSM or do they spend time talking about all the neat things they can do with it?  Same lesson.  I think that gadgets, handsets, phones and softphones can drive VoIP penetration, if they were easy to use (which they are), easy to add apps to, and did cool, useful things (for the consumer).

Take this example: "a food-service equipment innovator, Henny Penny, has deployed several Cisco Unified Communications solutions to improve customer service, streamline operations and enhance employee collaboration. ... Cisco Unified Contact Center Express and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express solutions are helping Henny Penny realize their business goals of getting their customers' issues solved more quickly and more simply than in the past."  The press release is kind of repetitive and vague. It should have said that Henny Penny used Cisco Unified Contact Center Express and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express in order to improve first call resolution, which has a direct impact on Henny Penny's bottom line. In addition, both the employee and the customer have seen an increase in satisfaction. Cisco's platform is a tool. The goal is to reduce costs by resolving customer service in one call, while improving customer satisfaction. This is what UC is all about. In fact, if you ever talk to John C. Kelly, Regional Vice President of Sales, North America, at Altitude Software, that's all that he is trying to accomplish for his clients - first call resolution. It's the goal of contact centers.

Another example is this Voxeo press release, which can help Human Resources departments with task resolution (like Self-service benefits enrollment, Job hotlines, Employee surveys and Employee notification messages) and efficiency especially now with job screening. These are concrete examples of what Voxeo IVR can provide. No tech talk. Just end user benefit.

The last example today will be Sprint's UC announcement.  SIP trunking over Global MPLS network. Yawn! The release did mention Sprint's 3 global partners: Cisco for mobile integration; IBM Sametime Unified Telephony; and Microsoft's OCS 2007 R2. The only case study: Sprint's internal deployment of unified communications and its $6 million annual cost savings, visit www.sprint.com/whitepapers.

When trying to market or sell UC, forget all that tech talk and tell a story about the customer. It's all about the customer. Their pain. Your solution.

AT&T has a strange website up called AT&T Investing in America.  Adweek has an article about the campaign around the website.

The website invites Americans to share their inspiring stories. "As a member of corporate America, we share in the responsibility to help America through today's economic challenges by investing in areas -- such as AT&T's broadband infrastructure, clean energy, and our communities -- that will again promote economic growth and prosperity," said AT&T rep Jenny Bridges.

I'm just back from a three day seminar on Internet Marketing. Panels were on pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, affiliate marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and search engine marketing (SEM). What did I take-away?

1. Telecom is a space that affiliate marketers thrive in. (So does MLM).
2. Content is king. Nothing beats great content.
3. Social media is about interaction.

So social media expert, Chris Brogan, blogs about Michael Goodspeed being wronged by YouTube. Since Google owns YouTube, this is the beginning of Google becomes the Evil Empire.  I've been watching this happen for a while. When GrandCentral was upgrading to Googel Voice in waves it was a bitchfest on Twitter because people had to wait. *gasp*. They had to wait like 10 days to get access to an upgrade to a free service. WTH?

I just don't understand the issue with entitlement in this world.

It's like the people who have sued Google when Google makes changes to its algorithms, causing their business to fall off. Or when Google started charging for Google Apps and Gmail for businesses. People were not  happy. (What will they do when Google Voice comes off Beta and has a price tag? Voice has a cost).

I now understand why businesses fail: lack of common sense; lack of business sense; no knowledge of business or contract law; and entitlement.

Google, YouTube, Flickr, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Twitter, and Facebook are free to use. If your account gets deleted like Goodspeed's did, it is a bad day. You have back ups, right? But is Google evil because the account was deleted? I don't think so.

If you base your business on a free software platform and that company changes something, you better have plan B. What if the government decides to take ARPANet back for government use only? Or Net Neutrality policy fails so that you only get content form your ISP?  No more INternet as we no it. What then? You better have a Plan B.

I understand that Goodspeed is upset his account was suspended, but it happened on Thursday, March 26th. It's only the 31st. Google isn't set up for customer support to consumers on its free services.

And he forewarned people that this could happen. How did he know?

When twitter is slow, people complain all day. There's a Facebook group titled I will not pay to use Facebook - Keep it free. I just don't understand the mentality. It costs big dollars to provide these platforms and keep them running. And to do it for free is unheard of until the Internet came along. It's the Generation of Entitlement - and it is annoying. No one owes you anything.

If you are a carrier or a Master Agent, do you need more agents or do you need to give a lift to the ones you have?

There's a sales management theorem that when you use Pareto's Principle, you should spend you time with the Top 20% of your sales force not the bottom 20%. Why? Because the people bringing 80% of your sales are the ones you want to keep happy. Also, the more efficient and less bumpy you can make the sales process for them, the better for all the sales team, but especially the top dogs.

If you have a bunch of agents who signed up, what are you doing with them? Is your Channel Manager talking with them? What's he saying? The more you know about their business, the bigger the opportunity for you to actually work together.

Knowing the goals and strategy of your agents can help you target training, leads, case studies, white papers, and tips to them. The more relevant, the better.

Right now, I would be looking to add value to my agent channel. How?

1. Seminar with a tax specialist right now.
2. Seminar with a Financial Planner about IRA and the market
3. Seminar with a sales trainer for improvement in Consultative Selling

What? None of this has to do with telecom, you say? No kidding. But it shows that you value them as business people and want them to be successful. Sure. You could give them more webinars on MPLS or whatever the new acronymn is for cloud-based WAN connections, but are you really adding value? Do you know the Kawasaki 10-20-30 Rule? Do you survey your channel anonymously to get feedback on any training you give -

• one week later what do they remember;
• was it valuable time spent;
• what can they directly apply;
• any clients in the database that might be a fit now?
• do you know how to pitch the service/product?
• do you know who we target? and why?
• have you looked at your notes since the call?
• is working with you "easy & enjoyable"?

A couple of years ago, one carrier asked me what they could do to make working with them easier. Since I am rather direct, I answered explaining about the poor follow up. Sadly, it was never addressed. If you are going to drop the coin on a channel, don't set it up for failure.

As we head into Channel Partners Expo in Vegas, carriers and master agents will be looking for new agents and visiting with old ones.

• What are you specifically looking for in your next agent?
• What questions will I ask a prospective agent?
• Are we a quoting machine or lowest priced carrier?
• Does the agent already have a carrier like us? If so, why is he looking?

And I know some of you are thinking, "We just want to sign up agents!" Sure, but it isn't about numbers. It's about Enrolling partners into your Program." (or maybe it is just a Numbers Game - lots of agents, thousands of quotes, hope for the best, why aren't they selling my stuff?).

Right now, wholesale VoIP providers are looking for me to help them train their customers to sell more SIP trunking and Hosted PBX. They want their client ITSP's to be more successful. If you are a VOIP company and you have 75+ partners, is that a successful channel? Not unless 15 of those partners are selling a deal every week.

I'm not saying don't add new agents. I'm saying look at your current agents and figure out how to make them more successful so that they can create more revenue for you. It is a partnership after all.

I moderated a SIP trunking panel at Microcorp's event in Atlanta in Sept. of 2008. The result was that the carriers were pushing SIP Trunking as a cost savings replacement for PRI. There was no differentiation among the 4 carriers - whose names I will not print. So then I am at the IT Expo in Miami for the Reseller panel on SIP Trunking titled "The Service Provider Perspective" hoping for something different. It was different. I was bored to tears by the middle of the 3rd presenter.It was one commercial after another about the company and how they could save money.  It was a shame too, because it was a packed room with people eager for some meat. (Lots of notepads and pens poised).

I know I run negative, but wouldn't they have been better served to engage the audience? How about starting with a question: "Has anyone heard of BandTel? Can you tell me what you have heard?  Really. Well, that is somewhat roight but here's the rest of that story. ....  " Then one minute later: "Do you know where our sweet spot is to our resellers?"

There were four carriers up there. Not one talked about productivity, benefits, sweet spot, differentiation, or interoperability.

Productivity: If you are a Broadsoft based ITSP, your SIP trunk allows you to provide Broadsoft Anywhere and API-based software to your customer as a SIP overlay on the trunk. That is a huge deal.  It adds much value to a what a PRI can do for the customer PLUS it extends the life of the PBX while adding missing features as an overlay.

Benefits: the advantage of SIP and SIP endpoints like a softphone. A SIP trunk can extend the PBX to remote sites.

Differentiation: I'm not sure anyone in telecom with a VP of Marketing title understands that term or knows who Jack Trout is. (Trout and Al Reis wrote the book on Positioning in 1981).

Interoperability: PRI is a time tested standard and SIPconnect (SIP Trunk) is just a SIP Forum recommendation for a specification that contains numerous RFC's. This allows for various interpretations of the configuration. The IP-PBX interface must be checked for interoperability with the carrier's switch. Not every IP-PBX card can work with every SIP trunk unfortunately. There is also the necessity for high-quality Internet access for the SIP trunk to work reliably.

One other issue I have is that it is sold on price. The costs are much lower than PRI. There is still a port needed. there is still an access line needed unless it is all over going to be carried over the Internet, in which case, the quality will likely be sketchy. Even the long distance rates are cheaper, even though the costs to th ecarrier aren't much different from TDM LD rates.  Go figure.

The revenue side is mentioned because PRI is TDM and can fetch higher revenue than anything with IP in its name. IP means cheap, which means less revenue. Less top revenue for the service providers books, less ARPU, and less commissions for agent or sales guy selling SIP Trunking. All with the extra headaches of inter-op.