Webinar Transcript

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00:01 Dan Baldwin: Hello, this is Dan Baldwin again, Telecom Association Executive Director. We are now at our 3rd shooter, Mike Burns. He is the owner of A+ Conferencing, a veteran in the industry. Mike, thanks for being involved in our white label conferencing shootout. Go ahead and tell us what we need to know. Mike, you ready?

Mike Burns: I am ready. Thanks. Thanks for that introduction Dan, I appreciate it. Hello everyone. I’m Mike Burns, President of A+ Conferencing in Houston, Texas. Thanks so much for attending our little webinar and the opportunity to talk about A+ Conferencing and our master agent program, our white label reseller program, and why you should consider A+ as one of your vendors of choice.

01:01 I want to talk a little bit about our background. I’ve been in the conferencing industry for over 40 years in telecom and 25 years in teleconferencing. I started out with Southwestern Bell and AT&T for 11 years and then I bridged over and got into the conferencing industry.

I also had another business, TeleSystems Marketing that was a call center business as well that operated for 23 years. So, we know conferencing. We love conferencing. And we specialize wholesale conferencing.

One of the most important points about us is we specialize in wholesale conferencing. Also, we have our own bridging platform, so we have been buying conference bridges for about 25 years. We stay up with the current technology. Right now we have both SIP and TDM bridges, and we also have our own network. So we have bridges deployed around the country. We stay tuned into the technology, and we can offer many, many solutions to your customers.

02:03 We also have an experienced operator staff. So, for those high-touch calls, operator assisted calls, investor relation calls, we can handle those for you as well.

Now, I want to run through some of the products and services that we have. We probably have many of the products and services that the other vendors have as well, but we’ve tried to add on to those and expand upon those.

Like I mentioned, we have the reservationless audio conferencing. We also have operator assisted and event calls. In fact we offer 3 alternatives. We have basic starter package that’s called Start Web Share, pretty inexpensive, and you can get it by the minute or you can get it flat rate unlimited usage basis. So, that one is the good one. It has all the features of the others, but it is very inexpensive. Very competitive.

DB: Mike, is that what we’re using right now?

MB: We actually are using Start Visuals, the next line I just brought up. Start Visuals is the IBM product. It used to be the old Web Dialogues product. IBM bought them. And we private labeled it. We gave it a generic name so a reseller or an agent can use our generic package, but if a reseller wants to private label that or white label it in their own name, that’s no problem. We can do that.

03:13 We can do that for all these services I might mention. Everything you see here, every product and service, can be branded with your own name.

DB: But, what you are saying is you have multiple flavors of web conferencing. This one we are on now, the Start Visuals/IBM one and the previous one you showed us?

MB: Right, Start Web Share is more of an introductory, somebody just getting started that wants the basics and does not want to pay a lot. The Start Visuals is a more advanced product with a backing of IBM, the huge world-wide network of IBM, etc., and it’s more expensive than Start Web Share. Good question.

I might mention we also offer WebEx and Microsoft Live Meeting. We have a few people that want those. They want to use our audio, but they want to stay on the WebEx platform, and we can do the for them.

03:57 In the area of video, we have Start Video, which is our desktop video conferencing product. This is all done over the web. You can use either VoIP audio over the web, or you can use our conference bridges for a full quality audio experience. This also is available on a flat rate basis and soon to be available on a per minute, pay as you go basis as well. Very, very competitive rates I might add.

At Start Video you can get up to 18 videos on your screen, and then you run out of real estate, but of course it gobbles up a lot of bandwidth. Really you can 6- 8, 10 videos is ideal.

04:45 We also have another service. It’s called Team Collaboration. It’s a fast service software in the cloud. This allows the users to do project management. So they can get on a URL, on a site like this. They can input their calendars, all their information. They can store their files. And they can actually work towards completion of a project. They can be anywhere in the world working on this over the web.

They also can launch a conference call or a web conference at will, and it works out very well. So this is relatively new. It’s been out for about 6 months, and we call it Start Team.

We have another service that is a little bit away from conferencing to a certain degree, but we do sell a video e-mail service. It’s an excellent tool to use for prospecting and communicating with your clients, colleagues and vendors.

05:45 It enables you to record a video using your web cam, imbed that into your e-mails and then broadcast those out. So when somebody gets an email it has a link on it that says, “Please watch my video,” and this is a great tool to use in prospecting. I send it out. I use it quite often.

And people, you get notification when somebody watches your video and who watches your video, and then you can contact them for follow-up to close. So that’s a very interesting service that we offer.

Okay, next in the short time I’m allotted, I want to go over the master agent program briefly, and then also what we call our private label or white labeled reseller program.

With a master agent program, basically the main difference is you are selling the A+ brand. So everything is A+ branded. You get a very low buy rate. You can set whatever sell rates you want by account. So if you want to sell something at 5 cents, maybe you have somebody else who is not shopping and you want to sell them at 12 cents a minute, that’s fine, no problem. So you set your own buy rate and you determine your own margins.

06:50 Our commissions are paid twice monthly. So, you get one right after the 1st and right after the 15th. We want to bring you in almost like you’re an employee and you get a regular paycheck, twice every month receive compensation.

We also have an excellent training program. We can train you on all the products and services, and also how to sell, how to do telemarketing, produce scripting for telemarketing, and how to do the video e-mailing, some of those special features for prospecting, we can train you on how to do that.

We also do complete customer service, billing, technical support, everything that you need is at your fingers. We have about 25 people on staff, and they are all here for you to contact. Basically what we want you to do is sell, and we do all the rest.

07:50 Now, our white label program, the main difference again is you’re not selling the A+ brand. You’re selling your brand. Like you see, put your logo here. Everything is branded.

When they reach the conference bridge, the greeting is in your name. We do custom greeting. Also, when you get customer service, that’s in your name. They never hear or see the A+ brand. So everything it totally branded. And, we can send you call detail records and you can do the billing, or we can do the billing for you on your behalf. Again, the same great training.

We also, either with a master agent or with a private label program, give you a complete set of free demo accounts so that you can use those. We also can use those with your customers. If you need more than one or two, those are available, and those are completely free to you. It’s about a $250.00 a month value.

08:50 Also, we have Cliff on our staff who is excellent in doing any of these technical demos. So, you really don’t have to be completely up-to-speed on web conferencing or desktop video conferencing. Cliff can do all those demos for you. Even if you are a private-labeled reseller, he will do those as if he were a member of your staff.

The other important thing about the private label or the white branding is that you build equity in your own brand, so that if you ever wanted to move off of us and go somewhere else or buy a conference bridge and start your own facilities-based service, you can do that very easily.

So, one of the most important slides to us is why should you be partnering with A+? Number 1, we have over 25 years in the wholesale conferencing business. We have that dedicated staff of employees working to make you successful.

09:50 This is a very important next point. You have no channel conflict. We do not have any feet on the street. We do not have any outside sales people. The channel master agents and the resellers are our most important salesmen because they are our only salesmen.

So, you will have no channel conflict. Over the past 25 years, and we have always had this philosophy from day 1, if we have any kind of conflict like somebody just calls us off our website and you’ve been working with them, that sort of thing, the decision, the winner always goes to the agent or to the channel. We believe it’s a strong partnership.

We know how to do conferencing. Sometimes we’re not the greatest salesman or running sales people, so we want to partner with experts that are experts in sales and can telemarket, can do web marketing, can go out and knock on doors. We want to make you the most successful salesperson and make you a tremendous revenue stream.

10:50 We have some of our agents that are making over $200,000 a year, and they do it year after year after year. So, you can be very successful in this business. Even though the prices have come down, we have multiple pricing strategies, multiple solutions for you to sell. We do not have any long-term contracts, so everything is month-to-month. Very easy to sell against some of the big boys.

Also, when you join us there are no minimums, no quotas, no upfront costs. So, we are not going to be calling you every quarter and saying, “You didn’t meet your quota. We’re going to snatch your customers away from you. You have to start over.” This is really up to you to make this a success, and you are not hamstrung by a bunch of regulations and quotas, etc.,

12:40 Another thing here at A+. We really have no unnecessary charges for basic services. Adding pin codes, doing recordings, customizing your audio features, etc., those are all just added with the normal price of the calls. So, you won’t be surprised by any heavy fees added in.

The last thing I wanted to mention before we go to questions is that we try to provide any solution the customer may need. We just don’t have one set of conferencing services. So we also buy, sell and maintain conference bridges, and we do that because we have a lot of people that come to us, especially enterprise customers, that have been paying fortunes to service providers and they want to take possession or ownership of their own conference bridge.

So, about 2 years ago me and a couple of other fellows bought out the assets of a provider and so we have the source code. We’re developing new software releases. We have been selling conference bridges, leasing conference bridges, and maintaining bridges. So, if that ever comes up to you, I don’t think some of these other folks will be selling them a conference bridge, but we want to provide them a solution whatever they need.

13:05 With that, I thank you for listening, and we would love to work with you. We would love for you to give us a call. Give me a call personally. I would love to work with you. Dan, that’s it.

DB: Great, Mike. I do have 2 questions myself. If you have a reseller or an agent that is doing the co-labeling, and they sign up an account that has multiple divisions and the division wants to divvy up their bill by account code or something, if they are a wholesale partner or a co-label partner, whatever customer screen that they dial into to get that information, does it also have the co-label or the resale brand? Or do they have to get it by you sending them a spreadsheet and then they doctor up the spreadsheet?

14:00 MB: No, it’s very simple, Dan. They actually only see the co-labeling on the bill. The whole thing is totally private labeled in their name all the way through the process, and on the bill it just says, it has their logo, their name, everything as large as they want it. At the bottom it just says, billing services provided by A+ conferencing. Please remit your payment to P.O. Box so-and-so, or use your credit card. We take all major credits cards.

So that’s the only place, and the benefit of that co-branding is we do all the billing, all the collecting, all the remitting, and then remit the commissions twice a month to the reseller at no cost. They don’t have to pay any billing costs. Whereas if we have to send call records to the reseller and they do the billing, sometimes there are costs. Another example is where they want us to do the billing for them in their name without the co-brand, then there are costs associated with that.

15:05 DB: Okay, yes, that was my 2nd question. If they are a pure reseller but they don’t want to send out the bills, or they don’t want to set up their own merchant account credit card, you can go ahead and provide that assistance for a reasonable fee.

MB: Right, exactly, and it’s very reasonable. It’s so much a bill, and then they add on postage, but it’s’ very cost-effective for them. Then they really don’t have to do anything but just bring in the accounts.

DB: Right. Now, if they are a co-labeled agent, then there is a web page that they have and it has the agent’s label on it and then your label on it? And then you do that at no charge?

MB: Yes, basically that’s right. We are pretty flexible, Dan, and that’s another part of A+ that we believe in. We believe in making our resellers and our agents happy. Just ask if there is something you want see. We are very flexible in making you happy. We have all sorts of combinations.

DB: Great. Super. Alright, well those were my 2 questions. I don’t know if anybody else has any questions. Okay, Mike. Well, what I am going to do is I’ll go ahead and stop the video right now….

To take advantage of this white label audio/web conference calling solution for your telecom agency or VAR equipment customers please contact Mike Burns at 888-239-3969 or mikeb@nwpros.com.

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