Partner and Prosper
As the industry transitions from traditional TDM to more cloud-based services, agents who are slow to adapt may risk losing a significant market share.
For those resistant to change, partnering may be the simplest solution. The key is finding strong, trustworthy partners whose skill sets can be utilized to benefit both our customers and our companies.
For example, LanYap Networks partners with TeraNova Consulting Group on a regular basis for all our wireless needs. We recently had a longtime customer approach us to help them save money on their wireless spend, which exceeded $185,000 monthly. The catch was that they wanted to keep their current carrier.
This is business that we would have declined in the past; it’s out of our wheelhouse and felt like too much work with little potential for carrier compensation. Instead we decided to enlist the experts and reached out to Natasha Royer Coons at TeraNova.
Natasha and crew quickly went to work and we now have a very happy customer. Monthly wireless billing is down to $120,000, we have a reoccurring revenue stream and the customer was able to keep their carrier of choice. Not bad for business we almost passed on!
We could not possibly be subject matter experts on every product available, nor would we want to be. It is a far better use of our time and resources to partner with peers who are already well-versed in their core business and leverage their expertise in order to better serve our customers.
It is in every agent’s best interest to make a sale as sticky as possible in today’s competitive marketplace. Venturing outside of our comfort zone and enlisting the help of a partner with a different niche specialty has served to make us more valuable to our customers, and both companies made sales we might have missed otherwise. It’s a win-win.
Angie Tocco is the co-founder of LanYap Networks, a Phoenix-based company with nationwide WBENC certification. After decades spent working for quota-driven companies, Tocco and her business partner Laura Dashney have found great success by shifting the focus from sales to service. They were honored as Intelisys’s top growth partner of 2012. Tocco has won numerous internal and carrier awards for sales, customer service and customer retention. Her more than 30 years of experience and extensive knowledge have earned her multiple-term positions on several carrier advisory councils. She is also a member of the 2013-14 Channel Partners Advisory Board.
