Last week, I wrote about adding questions to your sales conversations regarding 1) Redundancy, 2) Circuit Monitoring, and 3) Network Security. I hope you tried this and had some successful sales conversations. This week I challenge you with three new products to sell.
4. ShoreTel phone systems
When Telarus bought VXSuite in 2015, we also bought their ShoreTel dealership. This allows us to source hardware, provide technical assistance, and take over maintenance agreements. This is important because telecom agents come across orphan ShoreTel customers all the time. Now our partners have the chance to become, through Telarus, the ShoreTel partner of record and 1) Make money on the ShoreTel hardware and associated service agreements; and 2) Ensure future cloud seats purchases go through you.
ShoreTel is also the only phone system provider that allows you to sell both premise and cloud hosted seats at the same time, to the same customer. Mix and match any way your customer wants, without forcing them to undergo a wholesale forklift to the cloud. There is a lot of money to be made in providing baby steps.
5. Skype for Business SIP Trunking
Every time you hear a customer using Skype for Business as their phone system, you need to ask them about becoming their SIP trunking provider. As a Telarus agent, you have access to several marquee TCP (round-trip) SIP trunking providers that enable their phone system to make calls onto the PSTN. These providers include Level 3, Windstream, CenturyLink, and Intelipeer.
6. PCI Service Compliance (Hardware, Audit, Breach Insurance)
The second you learn a customer has machines that process credit cards, you need to think “EarthLink.” They are the one provider in our portfolio that has made a clear and direct claim on the multi-location retail space. They recently purchased Boston Retail Partners (now called “Enhanced PCI Compliance Solutions”) to provide PCI service, chip readers, audits, and even insurance to ensure your clients are covered in the event of a breach.
Outside of EarthLink, PCI service consulting is expensive and disjointed. Working with EarthLink enables you to provide the network, with multiple access methods, SDN (VeloCloud), and PCI service compliance that customers need to protect the most valuable asset of their business: The ability to collect other people’s money.
Last week we started with these questions for your sales conversations:
What is your redundancy plan?
Would you like me to add free circuit monitoring to all of your circuits?
What is your plan to handle a hacker who successfully compromises your network?
As you are in the meeting with the customer, determine which questions are right to ask. The three from last week are universal. This week’s questions are more specific — what kind of phone system do they have and do they take credit cards:
Do you currently use a ShoreTel phone system?
Are you using Skype for Business as your phone system?
If you are processing credit cards, how do you ensure you are meeting PCI service compliance?
Add these three questions to your sales conversations, and let me know the responses. Remember, you are the trusted advisor to your customer. They look to you for advice on what services they should consider.
