Getting New Blood: Distancing from Telecom?

The agent channel’s association with telecom is both a blessing and a curse.

On one hand, partners benefit from being experts on such a complex topic as telecom. As the tired old adage goes, where there’s mystery there’s money, or something like that.

For Marko Spremo, who built a VAR-turned-agency, the transformation process wasn’t difficult because of the required technology know-how. The biggest hill to climb was grasping the process.

“It was inconceivable to think about how hard it was to get something done from the carrier side. And most everyone that’s become an agent came from the carrier. They knew those challenges. So outside looking in, they used to say the line, ‘If you can make fog on a mirror, you can get into this industry.’ There may not be that many barriers to entry, but you must have experience to be successful,” said Spremo, who now serves as vice president of sales strategy at Bluewave Technology Group.

On the other hand, many technology advisors bristle at the label of a telecom broker, saying they can offer their customers many more services than circuits. Moreover, emphasizing other parts of the portfolio could help bring in that elusive young talent.

For example, Top Sped Data Communications vice president of technology Allan Jaffe pointed to cybersecurity. Sure, Gen Z might not want to be telecom brokers, but what about a cybersecurity consultant?

“Cybersecurity is a huge deal today. There’s a lot of reporting out there that it’s a good job to get, and you don’t necessarily have to have a college degree to get cybersecurity training,” Jaffe said. “And I do think that some of that is attractive to people who may have grown up as gamers and used to being in a setting like a SOC.”