Verizon, Reseller Partners Talk Channel Integration, Fixed Wireless Sales
Partners say Verizon is working harder than ever to align its direct sales teams with the channel.
![Verizon Channel Road Show Verizon Channel Road Show](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt0a619b665f1c17c4/65241df311c6ce3382f471d9/5-1.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Verizon
Mark Tina, Verizon’s vice president of business sales, gave the keynote speech. Tina oversees midmarket sales in the Eastern region.
The Verizon channel team poses with Mark Tina.
Sarah Marsh, Verizon’s director of channel strategy and sales enablement, said Verizon’s partner program features bi-directional leads. In other words, the Verizon sales team can bring the partner into a deal, and the partner can bring Verizon into a deal.
Marsh said the majority of leads are coming from Verizon’s side.
“Whoever has a relationship with the customer is what’s important,” said Shannon Calvert, vice president of channel enablement. “We want to make it a parity. We love giving the leads to the partners. And we love the fact that the relationship is so strong that they give back to Verizon as well.”
Marsh said Verizon sales teams can access a partner-finder tool that connects them to firms whose bundled solutions meet the needs of the customer. For example, a partner with a hybrid work bundle might bring the extra services and products the Verizon direct sales team needs.
“A lot of these partners are building very unique bundles that customers can then implement around specific solutions. So our sales teams love it, because it’s really the easy button for them. And our partners bring so much value to their customers,” Marsh said.
Wendy Taccetta in 2020 took the position of Verizon’s senior vice president of small business and channel chief.
During her tenure she has championed integration between direct sales and channel partners, as well as wireless and wireline.
She said the national roadshow reflects Verizon’s commitment to partners.
“There is no substitute for meeting with our partners face to face, talking about our customers’ needs and creating tailored solutions together. These events have proven to be extremely productive and valuable experiences for both our sales teams and our valued partners,” Taccetta said.
Marsh said customers are more and more looking for flexibility and simplicity in the way they purchase technology.
And for most of them, she said digital transformation plans have accelerated as a result of the pandemic.
“So many companies had to get their employees home. It accelerated the migration to the cloud for many companies and governments,” she said. “With the acceleration of business transformation, customers are looking for simplicity to make that happen. How can you make it happen quickly and easily, and with little resources on their side?”
She said channel partners play a key role in bringing the simplicity and flexibility.
“Enabling partners who are experts in this space, but who are also really agile in helping to deploy unique solutions and innovate and stay ahead of the curve has really been critical for us in meeting customers of all sizes and all industries,” Marsh said.
Douglas Kerl is president and CEO of Masters Telecom, which has has partnered with Verizon since its the VAR’s inception in 2008.
Kerl said his firm historically relied on Verizon exclusively for wireline. However, the portfolio has shifted to 80% wireless and 20% wireline.
He said the company uses its experience in telecom to sell Verizon’s hosted business phone system, One Talk. It also focuses on fixed wireless access as an LTE failover solution. Furthermore, the company also provide POTS line replacement.
Kerl worked as a senior business development manager in the channel division at BellSouth before AT&T bought it years ago.
Kerl said the arrival of 5G has turned fixed wireless access (FWA) into a huge opportunity for customers and partners. He said many customers are considering using fixed wireless access as their primary internet solution.
Those customers, Kerl said, tend to be small-to-medium businesses. They also include enterprise customers with many small locations. Some of them are nationwide companies that decided to go with FWA at every single location. Kerl said that approach won’t work for offices in remote areas that require a more traditional connection. Customers on dedicated fiber will also likely stick with that route unless FWA proves more cost-effective, Kerl said.
Do the customers who deploy FWA also tend to deploy SD-WAN?
Kerl said that relationship is starting to emerge.
“A couple of the customers we’ve seen go down that [FWA] route were on the more of the legacy MPLS networks and are in the process of looking at migrating to SD-WAN, but I see a big opportunity down the road,” he said.
The Verizon team poses to celebrate the event.
Verizon hosted the event at its Innovation Center in Boston.
Verizon hosted the event at its Innovation Center in Boston.
Verizon reseller partners say collaboration between them and the carrier’s direct sales teams is growing.
The carrier recently concluded the Boston portion of its nationwide National Elite VAR Roadshow. The events, which will be in Utah, California and North Carolina later this year, bring Verizon personnel from global enterprise, public sector, midmarket and SMB sales teams from the Verizon Business Group to meet top resellers.
The partners attending the roadshow included Connected Solutions Group, CTS Mobility, Industrial Networking Solutions, Mobility CG, and Source Inc.
Sarah Marsh is Verizon’s director of channel strategy and sales enablement. She said the events allow the Verizon sales team to understand the unique strengths of different partners.
Verizon Business Group’s Sarah Marsh
“I think this is something that really makes Verizon Partner Network so unique, because we really drive collaboration between our direct sellers and our partners,” Marsh told Channel Futures.
In many cases, the resellers bring additional services and products into the fold that Verizon sales teams find useful. On the other hand, Verizon brings much needed leads and sales muscle.
Verizon Reseller-Direct Sales Partnerships
“Most of these VARs don’t have huge sales organization on their own,” Marsh said. “So to be able to leverage the Verizon sales team, pitching their solutions to customers across the country, is a tremendous value-add. It’s really a force multiplier partners.”
Douglas Kerl, president and CEO of Masters Telecom, said Verizon maintains a close tight relationship between its sales people and its exclusive resellers.
“Every year it’s getting better and better with the teams there,” Kerl told Channel Futures. “Especially, a lot more of the traditional wireline folks are able to work with us very closely. And then for the wireless teams, they really encourage the relationships because the wireless folks have several products, and they need help in areas to help facilitate sales as well as add-on products and services outside the Verizon umbrella.”
Scroll through the 14 images above to learn more about the roadshow and Verizon’s channel integration strategy.
You can also read about Verizon’s Q2 earnings.
Event photos courtesy Verizon
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