On Rad's Radar? - training Archives

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.

SIP Trunking Deployment Lessons by XO

2011-07-13T18:57:27Z

XO has hired Ronan Keenan to handle their corporate social media, like the @XOComm twitter account. They put together quite the resource for SIP Trunking Deployment at Storify: SIP trunking implementation resources including videos, presentations and documents by Steve Carter, who is the SIP Product Manager at XO.

He narrates a detailed video about SIP Trunking: Learn the Steps to a Smooth Enterprise SIP Trunk Implementation. Good info for Agents to use to learn on their own at their own pace.

Top 3 Things Affecting Your Agency

2011-06-01T16:18:54Z

Your telecom agency has seen some changes over the last 10 years for certain, but the industry is in another state of change. What three things can affect your Agency?

1. Commission changes. They happen often, even without M&A.

2. Your biggest carrier gets acquired (and that destroys your business plan). Just as bad is that you lose your largest client (and the associated commission stream).

3. You fail to add new services or service providers to your toolbox. This means you cannot add more revenue from your customer base -- and you can't go after a new vertical.

The concept is to adjust your sail to the changing winds of our industry. It's a challenge because it means almost constant change. Many business folks are head down all the time; and by the time they pick their head up they are wondering what happened?!

Traditional telecom is shrinking. Landlines are shrinking. Broadband, cellular and voice are flat markets with little growth. It's all take-away business now, meaning moving from carrier to carrier. Unless you want to be a quote machine, you will need to become familiar with terms like UC, Managed Services and Cloud. Or you face losing prospects, clients, commissions and sub-agents. This also means that you will have to talk to new service providers (like GreenAppX, InContact or NetWolves) or dive deep into traditional carriers who are delivering new services, like TWC and XO. (TWC bought Navisite to get into Cloud. XO has been a hosting (old name for cloud) provider since it was Nextlink.)

A final thought:Certification. Today, the customer is looking for a Trusted Advisor that they can bring in to help them through this tech transition to attain more efficiency, productivity, and flexibility (mobility) for the business.. Certification helps to demonstrate that you are serious about your profession. That you are disciplined. That you studied, spent time on, have a base of knowledge of a your subject matter.

To sum it up, you just have to set the sail anew. Trying to do business the same old way won't work much longer.

Karin Fields at Microcorp says "Invest in Yourself."

VoIP Security Best Practices

2011-04-21T17:49:31Z

There has been much talk lately about VoIP security.

The FCC has a page to warn consumers and businesses alike about Voicemail hacks. (The FCC calls it Voice Mail Fraud but it's really about hacking the voicemail system to enable toll fraud.) This actually happened to me a few weeks ago. I never go into my vmail system because I get all my vmail as email. Remind your users. Or change it yourselves.

This article about the 7 Types of VoIP Fraud is pretty interesting.

The Internet Telephony Service Providers' Association has developed some guidelines for secure deployment of IP-PBX. [PDF].

I know that you think you know it all and that you have the master genius in your NOC. However, everyone can use a reminder. Furthermore, most companies do not have documented processes and procedures or things like a checklist (which would include demonstrating voicemail and making them change the password on Day 2). This results in practices that have holes. Holes get exploited. Exploits cost you customers and money.

Another reason to develop procedure documents: it helps with scale. As you grow, you will have the processes written by the personnel that were most familiar with the procedure. McDonald's isn't successful because they have great fries. McDonalds is successful because they have systems and procedures in place that any $7 per hour person can perform. They don't need a chef or a cook. They just need someone who can follow directions off a laminated card. That is the secret to the success of McD's.

The Inexpensive Cloud

2011-04-21T14:20:11Z

Image via Wikipedia

Amazon Web Services including EC2 is down today. When Gmail has any failure my twitter stream goes nuts. Facebook collapses often.

There is one thing people should keep in mind: Building Resiliency and Survivability into a Cloud Platform is not cheap.

For Agents, used to selling TDM with five nines reliability, moving to VoIP with less than that will be a shock, especially when they find out after the first outage.

For VAR's, who have been running their own servers, and like visitors to Vegas who tell me they are up money, will tell you about never having any down time, moving customers to the Cloud, where you lack control and transparency, will be unsettling.

Everything breaks or burns out - that's the nature of commodities (and servers, power supplies, hard drives and NIC's ARE commodities). Outages will occur. The Cloud Provider has to provide updates (honest updates) - and the Channel will need to communicate with the customer. It will just be a shock the first time.

Let's just say that a cloud provider doing less than $8M in revenue is not going to have the finance or propensity to design in high-tech security, survivability, and resiliency, because it will be just too expensive. (This might explain why the finance industry is taking slow steps toward cloud use).

Let me explain. Security is a full-time job. Administering password management is just one aspect. The network gear is expensive - IDS, firewall, router, switch, etc. And in redundancy?! Twice or four times as expensive. (Two per data center as a back up and two data centers equals 4.) Add monitoring all those parts. Then securing the data, encrypting it, backing it up, off-site storage, etc. Not only expensive, but a challenge to manage.

And for Cloud Communications providers, dual data centers is more expensive when you consider that the softswitch is $250K and rides on a blade server (x2 for redundancy at each data center). Plus other gear like SBC's which aren't cheap either.

Even Google and Amazon can't keep everything up and running. Even these two don't have enough survivability and failover built-in to takeover after an outage.

This will be a problem for Agents selling Cloud. Agents and Customers will have to come to grips with the fact that the Era of Five-9's is ending. Luckily, consumers are so used to dropped calls and other glitches on the Internet, that perhaps this will lighten the blow. (Much like how inferior cellphone call quality allowed VoIP to take hold).

VARs are Replacing Agents

2011-04-03T13:35:04Z

In an article in Channel Partners magazine, Master Agents discuss how all their future growth will come from VAR's. Carriers are chasing VAR's for any growth in Channel numbers. Where does that leave the Agents?

Well, Agents can partner with VAR's to be the telecom provisioning department. Or Agents can start getting uncomfortable or irrelevant.

Exam the fact that most Agents do not want to sell cellular. Part of it is the commission structure. Part of it is that Agents are at a disadvantage selling cell phones - in available models, discounts, and plans. But the top two cellcos want the Channel to sell mobility because they don't want to be phone companies. That's an impasse.

Look at Hosted PBX. Agents ignore it for the most part. I was surprised that my panel on SIP Trunking at the CP Expo about adding value to the SIP sale ended up being about the fact that Agents have to get used to the idea of selling SIP. What? Five years after the first SIP panel, Agents still have to be convinced that SIP is taking over? Wake up, people!

And when you do sell it, you sell it as a cheap replacement for PRI. Deep sigh!

Then there is the whole IP, Internet, Cloud situation. The Internet is not a fad. Broadband sales are growing at 1% a year. That means you have to start taking on other forms of revenue - and most of that revenue will be ATTACHED to the Cloud.

Agents typically have only sold to on the WAN side of the demarc. VAR's typically take the LAN side of the demark, except when they also host servers and applications (like MS Exchange) for clients, but that has been mainly on-premise servers until recently.

VAR's typically touch more Layers of the OSI Model than Agents. Agents sell at Layer 2 (transport) or Layer 3 (Internet Access). Rarely do Agents do cabling (Layer 1) or apps (Layer 7). VAR's however touch Layers 1, 2, 3 and 7.

The scenario playing out today reminds me of when Agents only sold LD and they would ride that into the sunset. It looks like we will see that again. With commission changes, channel structure changes and product changes, something has to give.

Here are some suggestions for the Agents:

First, Get your CTP certification!
Start networking with Microsoft, IBM, Cisco and HP partners. Even Xerox and Ricoh dealers.
Plan on spending at least 90 minutes per week online learning about services that your favorite carriers are offering. It's time to expand your knowledge and your own portfolio.(TCA has monthly webinars and so do most of the carriers.)
Join the local technology association to learn about any new cloud providers that you can get to know and become comfortable with.
Get used to the idea of being uncomfortable. Growth only happens when we are outside our comfort zone.
Attend a conference or two to meet potential partners or providers or just to get some deeper knowledge.
If you are stuck, call me.

Good luck!

BTW, growth doesn't mean adding cable providers to just stave off the reality. You need to get deeper into IP, Apps, Cloud and the customer's total IT and telecom spend.

A Look at B-Lynk

2011-03-18T17:01:27Z

A short talk with entrepreneur Katie Butcher who founded B-Lynk a year ago. We talk about her business (training for Broadsoft and Broadworks products to VoIP providers); and about launching her business a year later. It's great to see another successful woman in telecom. Congrats, Katie!

Level3 Channel Update

2011-02-16T22:24:09Z

Yesterday on its partner call, Level3 rolled out Level 3 Business Partner University. Most carriers that I have spoken with understand that educating the Channel is the key to revenue growth. "This training platform was designed to make these self-service modules easier to use with the information that you need to successfully sell Level 3 services - all at your own pace.

MPLS, SIP, Cloud, UC, Convergence - all of these changes are coming at VAR's and Agents at a time when they are still trying to survive the recent economic onslaught.

At the TCA, education is our main mission. Every month we have at least one peer to peer call to share, teach and learn. These calls are well received, which leads me to believe that Agents are looking for quality education opportunities.

Level3 is not the only carrier with a university program. Megapath has been doing MPLS University for a couple of years. Level3's will include modules around DIA & HSIP; TDM Voice; SIP Trunking; and MPLS VPN. Each module will have a test with a passing grade of 80%. This will be part of a soon to launch certificate program. It will be interesting to see how that works.

TCA Announces Agent Education Series

2011-01-28T19:35:22Z

The TCA (Technology Channel Association) is a trade association for the Indirect Channel. It's prime mission is education. The TCA has been holding monthly peer-to-peer webinars, allowing members to teach members about various topics and services (since April of 2009). These webinars are archived for our membership.

In 2011, with the launch of the Certified Telecom Professional program, TCA is kicking up the education. This is what the calendar looks like forthe first half of 2011 so far:

In February, we will be having 2 calls. One will be an Open call about Best Practices of Agents. Later in the month we will be holding one on EoC (Ethernet over Copper) with a product specialist from XO.

In March, we will be Talking Collocation with COLOTRAQ's Sr. Sourcing Consultant, Brandon Peccoralo, and Chris Palermo of Global Communication Networks Inc. moderated by Khali Henderson of Channel Partners.

Back by popular demand in April is the Best Practices Round Table for Channel Managers. We did this in 2009 and it was hit, since there isn't a forum for channel managers to swap tips and ideas. TCA is glad to facilitate that.

May brings a webinar about the Equipment Services Program that both carriers and master agents are now rolling out to the Channel. For example, TBI is now a national ADTRAN VAR and PAETEC bought the Avaya VAR. It should be a good call about adding a revenue stream via some hardware.

In June, the topic is What is SIP over MPLS? This will be a panel of our carriers who now offer this service including XO.

In addition, at the Channel Partners Expo in Vegas, there will a 2-hour class for the CTP cert on Sunday. [Please note that you must be a TCA member and you must be registered for the CTP program; both of which you can do at the door. A big thank you goes out to Channel Partners, Khali and Virgo for helping us put this together. In 2 hours, you can join TCA, sign up for the CTP, and get go over the material.]

The Winds of Change on The Channel

2011-01-20T20:38:31Z

The last six months has seen many channels at the Channel Chief level at XO, Level3, MegaPath, and other carriers. Also, the M&A has resulted in a tumulus time for The Channel. Qwest and CentruyLink. Embarq and CenturyTel. New Edge Networks with One Comm. and Deltacom. CavTel and PAETEC. And on and on.

Meanwhile, the buzz of mobility and Cloud probably has you up at night. Shifting to selling cell phones and this thing called Cloud while wondering if your commission streams are going to stop or decrease or change is stressful.

Even the TCA is changing things up by introducing a certification program. Just one more thing for you to think about.

It seems like the carriers have ramped up the communication to the agents this past year too. So many notices of training, promotions, new services and the reminders that go along with it. How much time can you spend on training when the prices are dropping and you have to sell more to make less??

Then there's all that talk about social media. Should you be tweeting and facebooking and what do you do with that mess on LinkedIn? Should I be blogging? About what?

All those changes in a year. Amazing, huh? And I didn't mention Hosted PBX, UC, HD Voice, SIP over MPLS, Managed Security, UTM and the rest of the alphabet soup that tumbled our way via email, social media, webinars and news. What's an Agent to do?

Change is a constant. Don't bury your head in the sand. Schedule 20 minutes a week to read up on the changes. Take some quiet time to evaluate your business. Working smarter is a prerequisite for success today, but that doesn't preclude working harder too. Take time at CVX or CP to talk to other agents. It's the best part of the shows. (If you are a TCA member, you can network with other agents on our listserv or on a conference call.)

A Brief Talk with XO's Tom Gorey

2010-12-27T18:59:48Z

Here's the last interview of 2010 with Tom Gorey, Vice President Channel Strategy & Development at XO Communications. Gorey is an active member of TCA. He and I have had a few chats this year about educating the Channel and its importance for the future of Agents and VAR's.

1. What is one change that you have noticed in the Channel thus far in 2010?

Gorey: Everyone's looking at the VAR channel, yet no one knows how to engage the VARs effectively (outside the few that have mature business practices in telecom).

2. The Channel Partners are experiencing the shift from TDM to all-IP. Do you think that the Channel learns better peer-to-peer or from carrier training?

Gorey: The channel learns best with quality training from technical experts. The key issue is peer to peer is too often the semi informed leading people that may or may not have the prerequisites to absorb accurate information. You can't become an expert if your teacher is not technically accurate. [True but some corporate trainers aren't subject matter experts either].

3. How do you foresee TCA's certification program affecting (if at all) the Channel?

Gorey: In general, I am a proponent of any programs that generally raise the ability of channel members to provide higher quality experiences to clients. This step can be a piece of that puzzle. But in order to be effective, it needs to have a program benefit to those that invest. Happy clients stay with their suppliers, and make great references.

The TCA has already announced that five independent agents have become certified. Congratulations to Ben Henkels of Communication Management Partners; Dave Wallace of Aligned Communications; Evan M. Gillman of Transit Broker; Yvonne Fry of Lines of Communication; and Jeff Sumner of Corporate Technologies Group.

Sadly, I am still trying to finish my book, so I have not taken the test yet. Soon I tell you. Soon. Happy New Year!

Contract Termination Class

2010-12-17T20:27:02Z

A mandatory webinar on ETF, Contract Termination and Shortfall Charges today. The ILEC starts out by blaming tariffs for the clunky processes that require Agents to spend so much time and effort every single move, add, change and even upgrade. (One question was, "Do you even want more revenue from the customer? [Because you don't act like it!]). I agree.

Blaming tariff for anything is utter bull. Most of your product offerings are NOT even tariffed, like Metro Ethernet, MPLS and MIS.

A Pricing Guide is not a tariff. A pricing guide is just that: a guide that details the product description, options and pricing.

What is a Traiff? A tariff is a pricing guide that has been submitted to the FCC for Inter-LATA services and to the state PUC/PSC for Intra-LATA services. These tariffs can be changed at any time since tariffs are for transparency and fair competition; hence, rubber stamped by FCC and PSC/PUC. So blaming the tariff is crap! Change it. It is within your power.

Tariff is what you use to avoid helping the customer. Tariff is what you use to screw the customer.

These merged entities also have not fully integrated the divisions, so there is the "Oops! That was a Company S contract not a Company A, so no direct upgrade."

I have heard that there isn't fiber available at a customer location that has a lit fiber services (DS3, OC-x, MetrE) from Company B, but the combined company can't use that fiber. HUH?! This is the exact kind of behavior that will be the downfall of the Too-Large-Too-Fail. Too Large to Do Business With in a meaningful way is what it is becoming.

I understand what a contract is. I understand that my interpreting a contract is me pretending to be a lawyer, which will likely land me in trouble despite the stressing on th ewebinar that I understand contract terms. If you would write a contract in plain English, I could do that. But you don't because you have 300 lawyers lying around trying to prove that they are smart and deserve their paycheck.

Consumers may not have many choices for broadband. Even many businesses don't have a choice in broadband, but as the Cloud and Hosted PBX grow, businesses will outgrow broadband and need services that are competitive. Those will be the customers you lose. And as stated on the call, once you lose them, they are not coming back.

As for an Agent, does he want to sell the ILEC service with all the carnival tricks and one-time pay-out? Or does he want to sell a CLEC service that has ongoing commissions, less rules, and easier paperwork?

Why You Should Get Certified

2010-11-30T18:59:31Z

The TCA's Certified Telecom Professional Program has officially launched. (See here). It costs $199 to take the exam. Why should you?

One reason: Differentiation.

Why do people take any certification? Mainly to differentiate their knowledge from the hundreds of others running around in the marketplace.

I'm going to use it against other agents, against direct sales folks, VAR's, etc. I know my stuff but unless it's a referral how will the prospect know that I am better at my job than anyone else in the mix? Being Certified. Get certified and get ahead of the pack!

Net-Head Talking Coming Up

2010-09-07T19:13:47Z

At ChannelVision Expo, I will be presenting Bell-Head versus Net-Head. I have been discussing that here and in Internet Telephony magazine since January 2009. I will be touching on that in a session titled Upselling SIP Trunking at CVX, where we talk about SIP Trunking just being a stepping stone to the water fall of IP Communications. (You know that buzz word: UC?)

So this is draft one of the talk slides:

There is certainly still money to be made selling POTS, DSL, T1, and cellular services - commodities all of them - but to make money in the future will need to understand and embrace IP - Metro Ethernet, Waves, Hosted PBX, SAAS, UC, and everything CLOUD. At least, in my opinion.

The Upselling SIP Trunking session is with the following: David Byrd VP, Sales & Marketing at Broadvox; Scott Wharton, CEO of Vidtel; Steve Vickers, President of Newport Audio and Video (an actual agent!); and Joseph Gillette, President & CEO at Stage 2 (a hosted VoIP company).

Sales Effectiveness Review

2010-08-27T18:57:01Z

According to a study of IT executives by Forrester, only 15% of executives believe that their meetings with salespeople are valuable and live up to their expectations. Reasons given according to the report:

Business leaders (24%) don't believe salespeople are knowledgeable about their specific business.

Only 34% of buying executives said salespeople understand their roles and responsibilities.

Only 38% feel that reps are prepared to answer their questions.

That's not effective sales!

As we move from Bell-Head (TDM) to Net-Head services (IP Comm), this problem will exaserbate. By that, I mean, where will companies find knowledgeable salespeople to sell IP Communications and related products?

I'm a firm believer in hiring based on Attitude because you can't train friendly. But you can train people about your services and sales skills. Enthusem for selling and your services: no, you can't train that either.

If your company sells Managed Services, SIP Trunking, Hosted PBX, DIA and maybe a couple of other things, how does the salesperson know what to sell and to who? Training. (You can get that training at ITEXPO with these free workshops from MegaPath, Phone.com, Ingate - or from RAd-INFO, INc. who can customize training for your company.)

In a similar report from McKinsley Quarterly, "B2B customers say they care most about product and price, but what they really want is a great sales experience. ...Sales reps should know their products or services intimately and how their offering compares with those of their competitors. Customers need information on exactly how a product or service will make a difference to their businesses. And while they may say price is one of their biggest concerns, a satisfying sales experience is ultimately more important."

With all that salespeople have to do today: learn the services, do some of that online social stuff, check email, paperwork, prospecting, lead gen, follow up and then account management, when is their time with that quota weighing you down? It's a difficult balance. It also means that the cost of sales will be increasing for many companies -- at about the time competition increases and price pressure forces lower overall revenue. (See GMail adds Voice as an example of both competitive and pricing pressure).

Athletes have coaches to reach their potential. Salespeople need them to. There is no such thing as a natural born salesperson. Like a lawyer or doctor, there are skills to be learned, honed and re-trained on. That's if you want to be an effective salesperson in this marketplace.

BTW, this goes for Agents as well as Salespeople.