Latest / Partnerships Unraveled / 078 - Ashley Rowland of Technology Advisor Alliance - The Telecom Channel and Tips for Agents

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078 - Ashley Rowland of Technology Advisor Alliance - The Telecom Channel and Tips for Agents · Partnerships Unraveled

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries about the channel and partnerships on a weekly basis.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: My name is Efe and I will be your host in this episode.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to announce our special guest, Ashley.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Ashley, how are you doing?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Hey, Efe, I'm doing great how are you?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I'm doing great.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I'm doing great.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah thank you for asking, so I'm excited for our conversation today.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I think we're going to discuss about the Telecom channel and maybe the tips and tricks for the agents, the technology advisors there are many terms for it and talk a little bit about technology service distributors as well.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Ashley, could you please give us an introduction?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Who are you and what do you do?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Sure, my pleasure.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: My name is Ashley Rowland, I'm a mom and a wife and while my companies are based in the United States, I'm currently living in Portugal.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I've co-founded and I co-own two businesses with my husband, Ryan.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: The first is the Technology Advisor Alliance, which is a platform of crowdsourced firsthand experience info and advice for agents or technology advisors and MSPs.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: The other business is our agent business, Adaptive Advisors, where we broker the sale of solutions from hundreds of different suppliers to businesses of all sizes so that they don't have to deal with the quota-bearing sales reps and also spend so many resources figuring out what solutions will make their businesses run most efficiently.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: We'll do that legwork and we have deep relationships with the suppliers, and it results in a much better technology purchasing experience and outcome for customers.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: That was a long-winded version.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast is because I think you're doing a lot to educate, like other agents in the telecom space, and helping them build their business or helping them tackle some of the challenges that they may be facing with the suppliers or the TSDs.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: And yeah, as you mentioned, I think, like you used to be, you used to work at direct telecom sales and then you left there and you created your own technology advisor.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: You created an education platform to help all the other agents and you also published two books to help the agents to avoid the pitfalls that you encountered in your own business, in your own career.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: So maybe let's start about that.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: So what are the most common mistakes you see new agents make in the field?
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, great question.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: As you mentioned, I came from direct sales.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I was at Comcast where I was a heavy hitting sales rep P-Club sales rep and then, when I started the technology advisory business, you know, I knew I could sell the same solutions I was selling at Comcast.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: You know, plus all the solutions that I sometimes lost to competitors that that should be easy right For a good sales rep.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Um, but it it really wasn't.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Um, when we started our business, we were super surprised at how nuanced the industry was and just how many roadblocks we hit.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: So you asked, like, what are the common mistakes?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: You know, one of the biggest decisions you have to make in this role is which TSD, which is the technology solutions distributor, formerly known as master agent, so which one of those to partner with, formerly known as master agent, so which one of those to partner with.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And the TST is extremely important because they handle the contracts with the suppliers in our industry, so that you know if you're an agent and you find a customer and that customer needs a solution.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: You don't have to go reach out directly to all these providers, go through legal, make an agreement right.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Your TST already has that, along with an abundance of tools, resources.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: You know a whole bunch of things to aid you in running your business.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: So when I sell a solution from a supplier to a customer, the customer will pay their bill directly to the supplier and then the supplier will pay the TSD and the TSD keeps a small cut of that commission and then they turn around and they pay me the rest.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Rather than get tens or hundreds of commission deposits from providers directly, I'm just getting that one larger commission payment every month from the TSD.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: It's well worth it.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: So in our side of the business the major TSDs are Intellisys, avant, talaris, sandler and there are a handful of boutique others.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: But it's really difficult to decide what's important to you when choosing a TSD before you've spent much time in the business.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: It's also impossible to know what each of these TSDs does really well and what they're lacking without any firsthand experience.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: And they definitely all do something really well and they all lack in some respect.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: So, um, you know.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: The other thing is you might only know one or two other agents when you get started.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Such was the case with me and um, the other agent I knew positioned himself as a TSD and said that I would get a better cut going through him than I would by going directly to one of the big TSDs.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Well, this, uh, this turned out to be a complete lie, unfortunately, and by signing up under that other agent, not only did he get to take a percentage of my commission and delay me getting paid, but now all my deals through that major TSD that I sent through his business, those are all tagged to him.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: So my deals are not even in my name, and that took us over a year to figure out.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: The other super common mistake that agents like myself make is thinking that you have to know everything about every vendor.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: I can't tell you the number of hours I spent accepting meetings with different vendors, cause when you first start you're like oh, that's cool, I've never sold rapid scale, I've never sold whatever it is.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Um, so you, you take a meeting with a channel rep and they tell you all about their company and you fill your head with all these facts.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Um, I mean all those vendors I met with my first year, I probably haven't sold 95% of them.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: So I think in the first, you know, the first year, when you first get started, you should spend most of your time just talking to customers or talking to prospects and trying to get people to want to work with you and the value that you bring.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: And then the last mistake.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: I could probably go on forever because there's so many.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: The last one that's really important is just growing for the sake of growing.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of scope creep in our industry, which what I mean by that is you might see a competitor of yours doing something or marketing themselves in a certain way and you're like, oh, what a great idea, I should do that too, and that's just simply a distraction that throws you off course.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: That's just simply a distraction that throws you off course.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: If you stick to what you're already good at, you know what you already know how to sell, you know you'll start building your base faster.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: And if you try to do everything and keep up with someone else, it's just going to slow you down.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So, like I said, I could go on, but yeah, those are some of the major mistakes people make.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I want to focus on the first bit, I think how to select a TSD as an agent because it is essential, like when you're starting out, you need to pick one of those TSDs and it can be a little hard sometimes to decide what to pick.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: How do they work?
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: How do they provide value to you as an agent?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: And I think you also recently made a LinkedIn post about a certain TSD that caught a lot of attention.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: It was specifically about ScanSource and they launched a customer-facing subsidiary called Nuco that will transact as an agent through Intellisys.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: So how I understood your post was maybe you were a bit hesitant about it, you were not a big fan of this move because the TSDs they can basically take advantage of the information from their partner base, from their agent base, and farm it.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: So I think, how might this pose a threat for the small agents and how can they protect their businesses?
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe could you share your thoughts around it.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Sure, well, because of the Technology Advisor Alliance, I just know too much, right, like that's the problem, and through our platform, I regularly communicate with hundreds of my peers that are sharing their experiences, their thoughts, you know, and information, and there was a lot of discussion about NUCCA within our group, co.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Within our group, um, it was also in the news, but it wasn't really being talked about by the channel as a whole, just like a lot of closed door private discussions, messages, whispering calls, whatever, mainly grievances, right, um, among people of all roles of the channel vendors, agents, whatever, um.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: So my goal in talking about on LinkedIn is just to offer a, a sober, cogent reaction to the news of this and, you know, bring to light topics that potentially affect our community and agents of the channel in general, right?
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: So this gave Intellisys and the other TSDs a chance to respond, and they did, which I was impressed by.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I actually had a chance to speak with Mike Bauer directly and he was just so kind to me and he even thanked me for making the post.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: We live in an era when it's hard to trust people, right?
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Everyone's selling something and it's just kind of a weird time.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: But the more I understand this, the more I understand, I guess, the reasoning behind NUCO, I get it much better.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: I think the reaction to the NUCO news was so heated because several years ago, intellisys said they would never do this.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: They drew a line in the sand, if you will.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Well, a lot has changed in the last few years.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Right, pe firms realize how lucrative our industry is and they've gotten involved and, as you know, you can do a lot of things with a lot of money, right?
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: So there's super agencies were now created We've got Blue Wave and Upstack, to name a couple of them and what was happening to Intellisys was that Intellisys had given millions of dollars in loans to agents to help them build their businesses, supported them over the years, and you know, then the agent now has this option to sell their book out to one of these super agencies.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: This wasn't something that existed before, and so I know Intellisys lost a lot of their top partners who sold their book and retired, and I mean this was hurting Intellisys' business.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: So I just think, ultimately, you know, the more I learn about it, the less threatened I am by the news and, as an agent, we should want our TSDs to be profitable, Not greedy, but profitable, and I mean really I'm rooting for Intellisys.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: I think they can pull it off in a way that doesn't hurt the agents and actually helps the channel.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember seeing in the comments some people from Intel trying to explain how it works.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distant to all of the conversation and that's why I have you as a guest, but I think it's an interesting topic overall.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that I think you know too much because of the Technology Advisor Alliance.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: So you are the founder of Technology Advisor Alliance.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: So you are the founder of Technology Advisor Alliance.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Could you tell us a little bit more about what made you start this community?
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know if community is the right word, and maybe how are other agents benefiting from being a part of this alliance?
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Totally Well co-founded with my husband.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: We do everything together.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: We're like annoyingly cute.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I guess we want to spend all our time together and our businesses and all of that.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: So yeah, so he and I co-founded it event.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Got a little bit out of seeing the presentations but then we bumped into an agent, you know, in the hallway and, like, learned a lot of things from having that discussion with a peer.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And then we bumped into another peer and then we bumped into another peer and when we went home we reflected on the whole event.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: We're like, wow, like the best part about that event was, you know, talking to this person, this person, this person who happened to be our peers or competitors.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Right, it made the whole trip worth it.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: And we're like, why do we have to wait for the next event to communicate with our peers?
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I think in the MSP world, communities are super common and then in the agent world it's not no one's doing it.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: So we're really the only community that is all peers that doesn't have TSD oversight or vendor oversight, because we don't allow TSDs or vendors in our community.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: So the TIA Technology Advisor Alliance it's home to agents, it's home to MSPs who want to network, learn from each other, address challenges, propagate best practices and support each other.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: It's much more than content and resources.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: It's really a safe place, since there's no vendors or TSDs, and it's a place to really take your business to the next level.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: By tapping into what other people have already figured out, we're less than two years old and as of today, april 5th 2024, we've got 152 members, with about 93 of those logging into our platform via desktop or mobile every single day.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: So it's become an essential asset for many people and we're just we're so excited to grow it.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that initiative, to be honest, and I will put a link of your LinkedIn in the description of this podcast and maybe a link to Technology Advisory Alliance.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: So if anyone's interested, please go check it out.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: But what I'm curious to hear is, uh, I think, like what are the most common challenges that you hear, uh, from the agents who are part of the alliance?
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Or maybe what are some really hot topics?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: What are the conversations really about?
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm curious to hear great question question.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: I can't give details right, but I mean the common challenges.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: I mean people want to talk about getting leads, keeping customers, choosing vendors and you know, knowing what that experience will be like without having ever worked with a certain vendor.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Well, your peers worked with them before so they can tell you.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: There's TSD issues, there's commission issues.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: There's TSD issues.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: There's commission issues.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: There's channel conflict.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: You know this vendor, you know, cut me out of the deal and went directly to my customer.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: It's unfortunate how often those things happen, but without the community, without a place to talk about it, with other agents, you know those things just get brushed under the rug.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: They have for years and years and years and you know I'm actually shocked at how many times it happens.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: So these are some of the common issues but, yeah, there are many, many topics that people are actively helping each other with.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like in the channel, what's something that's really important is honesty and trust.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: So I think the reason why I asked that question is to kind of maybe to the suppliers or the TSDs who are listening, to make them understand what do these agents care about?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: How to become the preferred vendor or the TSD?
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: So you mentioned something about, for example, getting leads, acquiring new customers.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I think that's also one of the challenges that I hear from agents or smaller channel partners that acquiring new customers bit.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, how are you seeing or maybe let me ask this question so when agents are picking for a supplier, what are they looking for?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, that is an awesome question.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: So the things that people are looking for in a vendor are they want someone that's easy to do business with.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: They want someone that'll take care of their customer.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: They want someone that'll take care of their customer and they want someone, like you said, that they can trust, someone that they know is not going to go around them or you know ago, and I was expecting people to say, like you know, someone that pays the most.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: You know that's not, that's not even in the top three.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: You know they want.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: They just want people.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: They just want vendors that will take care of their customers.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, yeah, yeah, I fully agree.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: And also we are now seeing every major vendor out there going down the market and targeting SMBs and you also work really closely with the smaller channel partners, the agents who serve that SMB segment.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: So how can vendors attract those agents to be able to serve that SMB segment better?
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: I know the answer to this one because I sell SMB segment better.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, I know the answer to this one because I sell SMB.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: The thing about SMB is you need to go fast, right, the deal sizes are smaller, so you just need to sell more of them.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: So vendors who are looking to attract and enable SMB partners, they need to make everything about working with them easy.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: So, from registering a deal to quoting services, to anything and everything, if you get any feedback that your process is complicated, I say strip it down, start over, you know.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Build it again with the input of actual partners, you know, agents or MSPs.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Let me give you an example of two cable companies in the U S.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: So the first is Comcast business.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: They're hands down the worst in terms of ease of use, you know.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: And quoting S and B services, you know these are small sales.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: We're talking about a hundred dollars to $500 MRC.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: It should take me minutes to figure out the price and then give that price to the customer.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: But Comcast has like a 407, I'm not even kidding 407 page promo document and then a multi-tab spreadsheet that that they just use to grossly overcomplicate the process.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure if, like the team involved in deciding the promos is working on job security or or what the master plan to all of this is.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: But you know, if a customer asks me for internet service and they want to see a few speeds in pricing, I have to dive into this spreadsheet with complicated promos.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: You know where, if they add this ancillary product that the customer doesn't need or this ancillary product, it makes the price lower.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: And then you add on equipment fees.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, and then I have to tell them the price is that amount for 12 months, and then month 13 through 24, it goes to this and month 24 through the price.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I'm just exhausted explaining it Right.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: So imagine the time it takes to quote a simple deal Um, whereas there's a similar cable company here in the U S?
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Um that doesn't overlap territory with Comcast.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I wish they did, but they're called Spectrum and they're just the opposite.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: There's no contracts with Spectrum SMB.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: The pricing is what it is.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: They don't fake on extra products that the customer doesn't need or want.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: So when I see an opportunity, as in a Spectrum territory, I let out a big sigh of relief.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: When it's in Comcast territory, I just feel the anxiety come over me because I know quoting it is going to take 20 times longer than it should.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: So for anyone out there who's looking to attract SMB customers, easy and fast is just the name of the game.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I fully agree with that messaging Because, also, when I talk to vendors, I think something that I see that's often being done wrong is they have maybe an enterprise channel strategy and they kind of like skinny it up and then make it fit for SMB.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: But I think it's not that easy.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I think it's a whole different approach and I would say the one thing that's most important make it fit for SMB, but I think it's not that easy.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I think it's a whole different approach and I would say the one thing that's most important for a SMB channel strategy is ease of doing business, because these channel partners or these agents, maybe one man teams, maybe one person teams them say, or maybe they have an average partner has about eight to 12 employees, right, or maybe they have an average partner has about eight to 12 employees, right, and so it's really important for a vendor to be easy to sell and easy to work with.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I fully agree with that messaging.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Ashley, we always ask our guests to invite the next guest on the podcast.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Who do you think we should have next?
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay, I would definitely have.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Can I give you two Can?
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I give you two ideas.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Sure yeah.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Why not?
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: So I have two friends that are absolute rock stars.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: They both work in agencies.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: The first is Mary Tom Hofer.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: She's in charge of operations for her company, cairo State of Communications, based in the United States.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: She is so knowledgeable, fights super hard for her customers, just interacts with vendors all the time, so she knows relationships and vendors better than anyone in our industry.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: So I would definitely invite Mary Tom.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: The other person, I would definitely invite Taylor Vossler.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: So she's also in operations and marketing for her, her agency, which is C3 technology advisors.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Um, taylor is gosh, she, she, she is.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I would, I would, I would hire her if I could, in a heartbeat.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: She's so knowledgeable.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: I mean same things that I said about Mary Tom.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: They're both in operations, they've got marketing mindsets, but I think they would be two amazing guests.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Maybe you can even have them on together.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Who knows?
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Sure, why not?
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Well, mary and Tyler, if you are listening, I'll be reaching out to you and thank you so much for your time, ashley.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Today we discussed about the Telecom Channel, the agents, some tips and tricks for agents and the TSDs, and, yeah, thank you for your time and, once again, I will leave Ashley's LinkedIn in the description and also a link to Technology Advisor Alliance.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: If you're interested, please reach out to her.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Any last words, ashley?
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: It's been really fun chatting with you, so I'm available anytime.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Look forward to helping you guys out and seeing you guys succeed as well.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Perfect, thanks so much.