6. Randy Jeter, ARG

The commissions agents use to build books of business are shrinking. Even UCaaS commissions, which helped lift partners through the COVID-19 pandemic, are dropping. Agencies are scrambling to build practices and teams around profitable technologies like contact center and cybersecurity, but not all of them possess the necessary resources and expertise. Vendors, by many accounts, continue to perform poorly on customer support, forcing partners to make operational investments. Some agents even report that channel conflict is worsening.

ARG chief strategy officer Randy Jeter has returned to the partner side of the channel at what he says is just the right time. More than 15 years ago, Jeter was president of Premiere Worldwide, a fast growing agency that was racking up awards from Intelisys and looking to scale. However, Jeter said he felt the limitations of the agent model at the time. He made waves for writing in a blog that if the channel wanted to become “indispensable,” it would need to buck the stereotype that agents always sold on price. If the industry were to truly grow, agents would need to evolve into “true full-service brokers.” 

But the shift wasn’t occurring as Jeter saw it. Partners simply weren’t selling advanced services.

“The biggest issue that I had fundamentally was that the space wasn’t ready, because the space was really only selling circuits,” Jeter told Channel Futures. “It wasn’t selling SD-WAN, it wasn’t selling UCaaS, it wasn’t selling cloud, and it wasn’t selling apps. It wasn’t selling any of the things that I felt like you needed in order to get into the channel and build a long-term profitable business.”

Learn more about how Jeter navigated the situation and why that’s relevant to agents going forward.