A lot of the hesitancy to jump into the AT&T program in the past has been because of their upfront payment status. Their new mission is to double the channel production over the next three years; they knew that the only way to do that would be to go to a residual compensation model. AT&T has created three tiers of residual programs, the three tiers consists of 16%, 14% and 12%. This means that if you’re a bronze level partner at 12% it makes sense to move to Telarus, as we have a 16% program. If you’ve ever tried to become an AT&T partner in the past, you probably got a thirty page contract. This was something else that stopped a lot of agents from wanting to join the AT&T program. The good news is that this process is going away and you can now access the 16% residual with a one-time MRC upfront right out of the gate with Telarus. The other key part is that if you sold previous AT&T business and it’s up for renewal you can now renew that and get the 16% residual. This is a huge component to the channel because there are a lot of partners who have sold deals over the years who didn’t renew because they were either not going to get paid on it, or they were going to be paid very little. These partners either moved the business or just ignored it, but now you can get paid on all of that residual business.
Compensation was not the only thing that AT&T needed to change, here a few more things they have made changes to:
- Far Fewer AT&T only accounts
- Deal Registration process to open opportunities (No Direct Salesforce engagement involved in approval)
- Full dual compensation with Direct Salesforce in AT&T Opportunity Accounts (no hit for Channel Integration)
You might be wondering what products you can sell with AT&T. The easiest way to sum it up would be to say you can sell all of AT&T’s strategic and mobility services. This includes their IoT suite which is very strong. Coming in late 2018, they’ll have the five gigabit fixed wireless solutions.
In-House Resources
In the past, Telarus has not had resources around AT&T. Moving forward, we will be creating a specific business unit within Telarus. When you have a quote request you’ll still go through the normal process with your PSMs to get access and they will be able to quote some of the easier products. Anytime it’s a larger project or a specialized product, the PSMs will be able to reach out to the AT&T business unit. This team will be led by Paul McGuire who has been with CarrierSales for over a decade and is also a former AT&T employee. Brad Kunze, a former AT&T sales engineer, has been hired, both Brad and Paul make up the wireline side of this business unit. The wireless side of the business unit will be led by Tiffany Wolf who has a team who can help with quotes and contracts. Tiffany and her team are great if you have a larger mobility deal and you need help working through it.
