Channel Outlaws

We’re concluding Channel Outlaws’ first season with a two-part interview starring our own Rick Dellar, who co-founded Intelisys in 1994 with his longtime friend Rick Sheldon. In Part One, Rick takes us through the evolution of Intelisys as he sees it - how it went from a fairly standard telecom agency run by three guys named Rick, to the most successful business of its kind in the world in just over 20 years. And yes, I did say “three” guys named Rick, because originally there was a third founder of Intelisys ... and that third founder was also named Rick.  Dellar tells us the story of this third Rick - why they partnered originally, why Dellar and Sheldon eventually decided it was necessary to part ways with the third Rick, what it’s like when you absolutely have to have those tough business conversations, and why you really should never put them off. We also talk about the evolution of the trusted advisor model, the ONE question to ask when hiring sales reps, and what it was like for Rick and Rick when they

Today’s guest is David Weisenberg, the co-founder of PCM.  David and his partner Bob Matthews had decades of telecom experience between them when they started PCM in 2001. . . And today, they have around five hundred clients, yet only two full-time employees, and that’s by design. This show has touched on the 7-step sales process in the past, but today David and I really explore how it applies to our industry in particular, and how selling cloud services, with its whiteboards and sales engineers, alters one’s approach to that process. We also talk about David’s concentration on enterprise deals: How they’re different from an SMB deal, how to prepare for those high-stakes meetings, and how to be choosy about clients. We talk about lessons learned from growing up in an entrepreneurial family, cloud training at Super 9, life with a master agent, and much more.

Today’s guest is Natasha Royer Coons of TeraNova. Teranova is that rare bird of the channel, straddling the line between Supplier Partner and Sales Partner. And on today’s episode we talk to Natasha about her company’s unique evolution. Natasha’s specialty is mobility. Once the red-headed stepchild of the technology world, now mobility can no longer be ignored. And Natasha has discovered how to turn it into a profit center and a Trojan Horse, and she also dispels the myth that it’s a headache to manage. We talk about the new Smart SIM technology, why it’s a game-changer in the mobility space, and how it’s just the tip of the iceberg in the burgeoning field of IoT. We discuss sales training, email disasters, hard-earned entrepreneurial lessons, and much more… Here on Channel Outlaws.

Today’s guest is Matthew Toth of Collaborative Communications Consulting, better known as C3. Matthew started C3 in 2008 ... and he and I talk about what it’s like trying to launch a business in the harshest of economic conditions, and with only one client. We also talk about selling SD-WAN, a subject near and dear to Matthew. He reveals how he approaches SD-WAN deals, how he ties them into security, and how you can tell if it’s “Real Deal SD-WAN” you’re looking at, or a cheap knock-off. Plus, Matthew is currently staffing like crazy at C3, and not from the telecom side. C3 really knows how to throw networking events, but it wasn’t always that way. Matthew had to learn the hard way how to generate real ROI from throwing rockstar events. We talk about running your business scared, hiring on talent rather than location, and much more … Hope you enjoy this podcast.  

Today’s guest is Ed Terry, co-founder ETA and VoxNet.   Ed started out his entrepreneurial journey with ETA selling PBX’s. ETA evolved over the years into a fully functional cloud and telecom technology consultancy.   Along the way, Ed and his partners also started a telecom carrier (CLEC) called VoxNet to supplement his consultancy.   That's right, he vertically integrated.  He’ll explain why he thought that was a good move and how you can do it too. Ed also explains his "patented" tool for measuring risk and opportunity that hasn’t failed him yet. It’s the part of the episode that earned us the “Explicit Language” tag. Ed gives us networking tips, buyer empathy tips, award-winning company culture tips and much more. Hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I did.

Our guest today is 20-year channel veteran, Tiffani Bova.  She started her career as a card carrying channel sales rep and sales manager. She also logged ten years at Gartner, focusing on sales best practices in the channel.  And today she’s the “Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist” at Salesforce. Wayne Gretzky once said that he doesn’t skate to where the puck is, he skates to where it’s gonna be, and today I talk to Tiffani about how to apply that strategy to the convergence of hardware and carrier and cloud technologies. Also, Tiffani reveals her “outside-in” approach to channel sales, and how channel sales pros can benefit from looking beyond the end-user. We talk about the best way to transition channel sales reps into selling new types of services and products as well as when and how to cut bait on those who can't make the change. . . And we discuss big data in sales, social selling, purple cows, and much more. 

Today’s guest is Brett Harney, co-founder of Corporate Technologies Group. Once a traditional telecom agent, Brett has pivoted recently, creating a booming niche in Hosted Voice and other cloud-related technologies. We talk today about Brett’s innovative approach to client consultations where he uses a specific type of software that differentiates CTG from their competitors and currently makes the biggest profitability impact on his business. Brett is at the forefront when it comes to partnering with VARs. We talk about how he does it, the struggles he faces, and the types of conversations that are beneficial in maintaining a strong Agent-VAR relationship. And we talk about ROI-based marketing: something that Brett does very well. He utilizes three agencies currently, doing everything from direct response lead generation to educational content marketing, and it’s working. We also talk about CRM’s, blogging, Snowflake Culture, and much more…

Today’s guest is sales & startup guru Sean Sheppard, founder of GrowthX and GrowthX Academy.  As the channel continues its hyper-growth, channel sales professionals look to penetrate enterprise accounts and scale through hiring new sales reps.  And there’s no better expert in the world at training sales reps to sell to enterprise accounts than Sean.   He started his career selling for a large VAR, and he’s been moving upstream ever since.  In 2016, one publication voted him a top 20 sales influencer in the world, and in 2017 another voted him the #2 online sales-influencer worldwide. Why?   Sean created an entire academy dedicated to rapidly training new sales reps and has learned to speak “fluent millennial” over the years. We talk about selling to technology buyers, what’s changed over the last decade, and what the "blocking and tackling" of sales means today. We discuss the secret to finding, training and supporting millennials in the sales world.  And of course, we discuss the do's and don'ts of selli

Today’s guest is Mark Prudell, co-owner of Broadband Consultants, a telecom agency offering Internet, voice, and managed network services covering all networking technologies. Mark is a unique Channel Outlaw who is zigging while everyone else zags. And he doesn’t apologize for it…. Together with his business partner Mark Radford, he is strategically NOT jumping into the cloud arena but is instead doubling down on connectivity and broadband.  And this double-down is paying off for him big time. For the last 9 years, Mark has put together a vast network of lead generation partners and sub-agents who drive him leads through various platforms both online and off.  As a result, he’s acquired thousands of customers over the years and takes pride in the fact that absolutely no lead is too small for him to answer the phone and provide the optimal solution for. In today’s episode, we talk about how they create differentiation through their speed of response, and create solutions through process and scale.  And we talk

Today we have a different kind of guest on the show. Brandon Knight is the Cloud Evangelist at Intelisys, and he’s here to share his rich history of crushing it in channel sales from every angle: as a channel sales professional, a cloud supplier, a venture capitalist and now a distributor. He’s been in consulting and sales for over 30 years with some of the biggest brands in the world including American Express, Travelers, Humana, Merck, Colgate, Clorox, Toyota, Lexus, Walgreens, Berkshire Hathaway and more. He was the leader of customer service for Sprint PCS where his division won the JD Powers award for loyalty & retention in his market three years in a row. At Humana he led the #1 sales team nationwide for AEP sales. As an entrepreneur, Brandon started, founded and sold Elite Management Group.  In the VC world, he led numerous turnarounds for Novation Companies, a technology focused venture capital firm. Brandon came from humble beginnings and was an extreme introvert as a child. . . but not anymore.

In this episode, I talk with Tricia Ward who runs NSG and Onward Communications, a Portland based technology advisor for cloud and communications services. In 2011, Tricia beat out thousands of other channel sales professionals to become the first to bill $1M monthly with Intelisys (at the time, a seemingly impossible task).   By destroying this barrier, Tricia became the Chuck Yeager of the Channel: The first Platinum Partner at Intelisys, making the impossible seem possible for so many in channel ales. And 6 years later, she’s still flying at 1,000 mile per hour. In today’s episode, Tricia tells us her origin story, where she learned the specific art of rhetoric that she still uses in sales meetings today. She reveals her views on rejection and failure, and how she bounces back every time. And we talk about her methods for training sales reps to prepare them for the high stakes world of enterprise sales. Also we talk about women in the channel, the hottest technology to sell today, Chuck Yeager, Elon Musk,

Mike Oliver started SOLUS Network Solutions, a brokerage of telecommunications and cloud services and cost management solutions, in 2001. With well over 450 active customer accounts, Mike does an amazing job of managing these accounts with only 6 employees, and a new business partner who focuses on sales. Not your typical sales person in the channel, Mike is more of a technical guy, focusing heavily on the technology that drives his solutions.  But you don’t grow to this size and scale without building some serious sales skills, which he did when he broke into the industry over 30 years ago. Mike wears his heart on his sleeve and shares his professional journey of how he’s grown both personally and professionally to become an industry leader.   We talk about the training he received 30 years ago and still uses today.  He shares the software and process he uses to manage over 450+ customers and prospects with only 6 employees. We also go deep into the mentoring he received throughout his career and the learnin

Steve Gerhardt is the CEO of D&M Enterprise Group, a cloud services concierge company focused on enterprise clients throughout the United States. Steve is a true icon in the industry.  He’s been paying his dues in the channel since 2001 with D&M and is seeing the results of it today in a big way.  Ask any veteran supplier channel manager and they’ll tell you a good Steve Gerhardt war story.  He makes that big of an impression and is that demanding. And the results don’t lie. He's in a 3-person race right now to become Intelisys’ first Double Platinum Partner. This means that in a few months, he’ll be billing over $2M per month with Intelisys. That puts D&M Enterprise Group in the top 1% of 1% of all trusted advisors in the channel.   And that’s not by accident. Steve was a traditional telecom agent for decades and has successfully made the pivot to cloud services in the last few years.   Today he focuses almost entirely on the enterprise space and serves many well known brands such as Lehman Broth

Dave Dyson is the of CEO Eclipse.  Based in Chicago, Eclipse is a leading technology lifecycle consulting and management company in the United States. He started Eclipse in 2009 with a business partner and has grown it to the point where today he focuses almost entirely on enterprise clients in the $100M - $5B range. During this journey, Dave has made some dramatic personal transformations in how he approaches sales and business and he’s since incorporated that into the DNA of Eclipse.  And the results are astounding. As he scales, he focuses heavily on hiring Millennial employees and has some unique methods of hiring and retaining them. We talk about Dave’s tips and tricks to throwing effective events without huge budgets, utilizing company culture to hire the best employees, profitability strategies, drinking beer and throwing axes, and much, much more.  Dave currently lives in Chicago with his favorite person in the world, Mara.

Dan Passacantilli founded Blue Front Technology Group in 2001. Blue Front is a technology advisory company with offices in Boston, New York and one coming soon to Fort Lauderdale. Dan comes from, what was once, the very tough streets of Boston’s Little Italy.  He’s had a lot of ups and downs in his professional life in the technology world where he was an agent “before it was cool”.   We talk about how it took him four years of persistence and hustle to finally win his largest client to date.  Dan reveals what he looks for today in hiring a salesperson in this industry.  We talk a lot about his ADHD and how he turned that form a crippling weakness into a powerful strength today. Dan has learned to leverage the resources around him for growth and has become an expert at it.  We also talk about customer retention strategies, using comedy in business, reading people, dressing for success and so much more. Dan currently lives in Boston, MA with his wife and 2 children.

Mary Anne Schafer is an icon in the industry, starting her company SMI Corporation 28 years ago when the channel was still in its infancy.  As the industry morphed numerous times, she evolved with it each step of the way with an efficiency that would make Darwin proud.  That’s because she understands macro-technology trends at a deep level, and has an unrivaled innate sense of timing. Mary Anne leveraged the training she received from the corporate world, and entered the wild west of the channel, before it had a name.  She has focused on white glove service, allowing her to maintain some client relationships for the entire span of her 28 year career, while still managing to close large new clients. In this episode we discuss her “anti-sales” approach, her mindset while talking with high-status clients, the right way to leverage carriers, hiring solutions engineers, the future of the industry, and much more.

Mike Miller heads the cloud and carrier division for Sidepath, a huge IT solutions provider located in Southern California. A 20 year veteran of the industry, Mike grew up with a love for sales, and has methodically hustled and honed his sales skills since childhood, always seeking an edge to achieve more. And he’s paid his dues to the sales Gods, from selling women’s shoes, to bellhopping for a living, and he took important lessons from each gig that he still applies today in selling multi-million dollar deals. You’ll learn what he learned. Today Mike is one of the top sales people in the channel and is helping Sidepath make the transition to cloud and carrier services, something very few VARs have figured out how to do. Specifically he is crushing it with UCaaS and he talks about how in this podcast. We talk about everything from conversations he’s having with technology leaders today, to selling new applications like Facebook Workplace, to gaining a competitive edge each morning by utilizing unique morn

Patrick Wefers is the owner of Infinium Communications, a telecom and cloud technology advisory company located in Loomis, CA, doing business throughout the United States.   Patrick left a high paying job at a large carrier to start his business almost a decade ago .  Since he was a project manager there, not a salesperson, he started his business with no clients in the pipeline and had to partner with VARs to get his business off the ground.  He still thrives from this model today and is considered one of the foremost leaders in the industry on telecom agents partnering with VARs.   Patrick has won numerous industry awards and sits on the board of several industry organizations.  He lives with his wife and thirteen year old son in Lincoln, CA.

Chris Checksfield is the co-founder of Net7 Solutions, a cloud and connectivity technology advisory company with clients across the United States.  He left the corporate world 4 years ago to start Net7 Solutions with his best friend Cary Stallings, where they’ve since grown it rapidly by partnering with VARs and focusing relentlessly on customer satisfaction. Chris is a “millennial”, a generation only now beginning to make waves in the channel.  Net7 recently won the Channel Partners 360 degree award by being known for creating creative solutions for complex customer problems.  Chris currently lives in Franklin Massachusetts  with his wife and 3 children.

Angie Tocco is the cofounder of LanYap Networks, a certified woman owned business and a provider of strategic telecom and cloud solutions for mid-sized and enterprise level companies.   Angie has rapidly built a telecom and cloud agency and achieved Intelisys’ highest award based upon a strong business partnership, a strategic sub-hiring strategy, and old fashioned hard work and grit.  She discusses how executive coaching has changed her business.  And she reveals the finer details of how she started and runs the telecom channel charity Telecom for Change. Angie currently lives in Cave Creek, Arizona where LanYap Networks and Telecom for Change are based.