TA's Week-in-Review email Newsletter Video Transcript for 5/29/9

Good agents don’t let nice customers sign bad “one way” agreements when a “two way” option exists. That’s why TA endorses the PAETEC customer agreement – and any other provider agreement that protects the customer as much as it protects the service provider.

Hi, I’m Dan Baldwin, Telecom Association ("TA") founder and executive director. I’m also an active telecom agent and channel partner.

More on one way contracts in a minute.

First, it’s been a busy week for TA as we’re still on the road. This week we were in the Phoenix/Scottsdale metro area.

We spent a half a day with Rob Goble and his great staff at 80 plus employees at Venicom. Those of you who have been around since the mid nineties know Venicom as the big master agent that was one of the first if not the first to get into wireless in a big way about five years ago.

Well “big” is the best word that describes Venicom now. They’ve got a palatial office in a building that they own by the airport in Scottsdale with scads of employees and staff everywhere. We shot lots of video and hope to have the Venicom vendor video profile published for you shortly.

The bottom line with Venicom is they’re an experienced master agent with the resources to do big projects. If you’re a provider that needs an experienced master for a special project give Rob or Steve Goble a call.

After leaving Venicom I met with four TA vendor prospects. Phoenix seems to be awash in telecom companies.

I met with Telesphere, Planet One, Sparkplug and Andiamo Telecom. Especially noteworthy in these visits was Telesphere and Planetone.

When I ran into Telesphere at a recent tradeshow and learned that they do hosted VoIP I figured, “Oh, I guess I know what you do.” Well I’m glad I met with Dean Jordan, Telesphere’s channel guru, because he shared with me that while Telesphere is in the hosted VoIP category they have a plan for multilocation businesses which may put them in a league of their own.

We hope to have them come on board as a vendor soon so we can tell you a lot more about them. And while Telesphere’s based in Scottsdale their office looks like it might be from the set of LA law – really nice!

And speaking of really nice offices, the next time you’re in Phoenix or Scottsdale you have got to go by and see Ted Schuman at his Planet One office. Talk about a friendly office – it looks like a sports bar where Ted is both the owner and head bartender surrounded by a plenty of helpful staff.

Planet One was a TA vendor many years ago and we’re looking forward to having them back on board. Ted has a great story to share with the TA audience and we’re glad to hand him the microphone.

Sparkplug is a Phoenix based fixed wireless provider in a half a dozen different markets. I met with their channel chief Morgan Brown who’s a smart young guy coming out of the IT consulting field. For those of you who’ve never sold fixed wireless you absolutely need to start proposing it.

Fixed wireless providerss are like CLECs in that they all have a limited footprint that they offer service in but they have a terrific solution in those footprints in that they can serve their customers with wired and wireless solutions.

I turned on to fixed wireless a year and a half ago after I lost a nice 3 meg dedicated Internet access order to Color Broadband out of Los Angeles. I strongly suggest that propose fixed wireless as an option with any wired DIA deal you do.

Like I said, Morgan seems like a smart guy so if you need a redundant solution in Arizona or their other markets give him a call at Sparkplug.net. Tell him “TA sent you”.

Morgan’s also going to help TA knit together a list of fixed wireless providers across the country so TA members have a quick and easy reference guide. We look forward to having Sparkplug come on board as a vendor this year or next.

Our final visit in the Phoenix Scottsdale telecom kingdom was with Mike Maurer at Andiamo Telecom. While Planet One’s got the sports bar office, Andiamo’s got Mike Maurer – an actual minor league baseball player in his first life. I pitcher I believe.

After baseball, Mike’s investing his second life helping Andiamo add local Arizona dial tone solutions to Andiamo’s prepaid and long distance solutions. If you’re looking for a local provider in Phoenix, Tucson or Yuma Arizona give Mike at Andiamo a call – he might even sign an autograph for you.

Next week we’re going to be in Seattle and Portland visiting with TA vendors CTG3, XO, New Edge Networks and a hot vendor prospect Integra Telecom. After that we’re off the road for two weeks so we can actually publish all the video we’ve collected before finishing our Spring road show visiting Denver and Salt Lake City the week of June 22nd. If you’re in Colorado or Utah and you want to get some free video coverage from TA please get in contact with me so I can get you on my calendar for that visit.

In the late Summer/ early Fall we expect to hit the road again to visit all the interesting telecom vendors with our video cameras East of the Mississippi.

Now on to our feature story BAD, One-Way Contracts after a shout out to our vendor of the week, Total Call International / OPEX.

Most of you know OPEX as the company that specialized in switched long distance and 800 toll free orders over the past 10 years. OPEX set up special links that telecom agents could put on their websites to automatically collect and process these orders. OPEX made it big by being on some of the biggest long distance pricing engines on the Internet like Cognigen & Lower My Bills.

Well that OPEX is still around and still specializing in switched long distance and Toll Free. The only difference is now OPEX is part of Total Call International. I visited with Total Call’s Jeffrey Kapner a couple weeks ago in their downtown LA office. He wants me to make sure all our TA members know that the OPEX they love is still doing switched long distance & toll free through customized portals so bring that business on.

Total Call OPEX is also into dedicated T-1s, DS3s and OC3s. They are coming online with the Master Stream online quoting service so make sure you take them up on their current T-1 quote challenge. I actually quoted 3 T1s through them myself this week for one of my own call centers and the prices they quoted were very aggressive.

For more information about Total Call / OPEX scroll down and watch the interview I did with Jeff last week. Thanks again to Total Call / OPEX being our vendor of the week.

Finally, bad one way contracts. Or should I say one way contacts are bad because I can’t say any one way contracts are good.

What’s a “one way” contract? If you read our feature article to the left of me you’ll see it’s a customer agreement the carrier expects your customer to sign that says the carrier can pretty much change any part of the agreement – especially what the customer is expected to pay during the course of the agreement – and the customer is required to accept the carrier contract changes without the ability to make any changes themselves or being able to get out of the agreement.

Now this is obviously a good deal for the carrier as it protects their margins no matter what happens but it’s kind of like selling ice water in hell. If you’re the only ice water vendor in hell then I guess you think that the thirsty folks will sign on the one-way line.

Well I’m here to tell you that there are vendors out there that have decent two-way contracts and PAETEC is one of them and that’s why after 14 years TA is making its first official vendor endorsement. TA endorses the PAETEC two-way customer agreement – and TA is prepared to endorse other carrier agreements that are properly two-way.

While many providers are actually following the one-way lead and making their own agreements more one-way than they already are, a few carriers are following PAETEC’s example in the two-way direction.

As an agent myself I applaud PAETEC and am currently leading with PAETEC on all my own prospect and customer proposals when there’s a choice between a PAETEC two-way agreement option and any other carrier’s one-way agreement option.

For the record, as an agent I almost always offer my prospects three choices, any one of the three being a good decision but I generally add, “But of the three, I would pick this one if I were you and here’s why …”

My customers love the “three and one” recommendation I make because that’s really what they expect out of me as an independent telecom consultant broker.

Now don’t get me wrong all you providers out there that push one-way contract on agents and customers. I have nothing against you protecting your margins and staying in business so you can consistently pay out agent commissions. I’m all in favor of me getting paid.

But what I’m first and foremost in favor of is telling my customers and prospects what I’d do in their shoes - and that’s keep all options open as much as possible at all times – and that’s what a two-way contract does.

So those of you vendors out there in telecom land that are looking for a competitive edge, you should strongly consider making your agreements more in line with the golden rule.

In additional to PAETEC I want to applaud and give a shout out to TNCI which recently announced that they are able to provide a business downturn clause to customers that need one in this nasty recession we’re all currently enjoying so much. My understanding is that PAETEC also has a business downturn addendum available.

Business downturn addendums allow customers to amend the terms of their agreement with a provider in the event that the customer experiences a documented business downturn where they can no longer afford the carrier volume or price commitment the agreement bind them to.

So PAETEC and TNCI, “thumbs up” from Dan Baldwin and TA. For all you other providers that want your “customer friendliness” publically proclaimed, please let me know what customer fair and friendly provisions you have – namely a clear two-way clause and even a business downturn clause.

Well that’s it for me this week. Thanks again to Total Call OPEX, our vendor of the week; Venicom, our Scottsdale TA vendor travel host this past week and to CTG3, XO and New Edge our TA vendor travel hosts this coming week.

Don’t forget, if you want TA to visit you in Colorado or Utah the week of June 22nd make sure you give me a call so I can get you on the calendar.

Have a great week, sell lots of stuff and look out for one way contracts!

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Questions about this? Dan Baldwin, Dan@TelecomAssociation.com 951-251-5155 www.TelecomAssociation.com