Education
SMB Nation Sponsored VoIP Workshop
Monday, September 20
2:30 – 3:45 p.m.
LIVE! A 60-Minute Complete Hosted VoIP Implementation
Watch a REAL-TIME presentation illustrating how to:
- become a hosted VoIP Provider
- sell the customer
- order equipment
- configure the softswitch
- configure the local phones/switch/ outer, and
- invoice the customer
This session will help you see that becoming your own “phone company” is easier than you think, as we actually complete the entire process LIVE during the session. Eliminate the perceived barriers of technology, partnering or business difficulties and realize your consulting practice can duplicate this model. The speaker in this session has been successful in selling and implementing hosted VoIP solutions for five years. Watch as he shares his experience. Leave ready to start your hosted VoIP practice!
Speaker: Daniel Williams, President, Xpedeus
4 – 5:15 p.m.
Your Success Pathway in the Cloud With the Pocket MBA
Turning the tools and talking faster doesn’t work to increase your income in a cloud world (sorry). Elevating your game with additional education is the GAME in a cloud world. Your investment in your intellectual capital will allow you to sell much more efficiently and effectively. Can you hold your own in the corner office with a small business owner as you sell voice and data services? Hear from Aspen University’s School of Technology Dean Harry Brelsford as he details the new 16-week Pocket MBA certificate. This is the MBA for the “rest of us.”
Speaker: Harry Brelsford, CEO, SMB Nation
5:30 – 6:45 p.m.
How to Sell VoIP in SMB – Overcoming FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)!
It's just the start of the SMB VoIP revolution and you're unarmed to capitalize on the opportunity. Already early results show that data network professionals, while extremely excited about VoIP, DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SELL VoIP! (CAPS LOCK ON). This session will allow you to overcome your great challenge to successfully adding VoIP as a consulting offering to your SMB customers. If you plan to ride the VoIP wave, do not miss this session.
IP Telephony, SIP, QoS, VLANs, and unified communications are common everyday terms for the tech savvy, but to the average business owner their meanings are lost. What features do businesses care about? Can VoIP really save SMBs money? And is the quality there yet? Learn what small businesses really care about from two of the most trusted names for quality, reliable VoIP Services. See live demos of the wow features that thrill the average small business owner and learn how you can easily demo, sell and deliver a reliable, affordable service. Come away with a plan to add monthly recurring VoIP revenue to your existing portfolio and for wowing your current clientele.
Additional content includes:
- Small business misconceptions of VoIP and the challenges they create when prospecting, including key objections that small business bring up.
- Positioning IP telephony with a small business owner in a way that maps to their key business objectives and in terms they can understand
- Proposing in a way that emphasizes the value of your company and the solution you are providing.
- Closing tactics and dispelling the FUD that TDM resellers plant in the minds of small businesses.
Speakers: Matt Wass de Czege, Global Marketing Manager - Small Business, Cisco
Matt Wilson, Director of Product Management - Voice Services, New Global Telecom
Tuesday, September 21
8:30 – 9:45 a.m.
Best Practices SMB VoIP Panel
This is truly a case of “ignore the rest and learn from the best.” We’ve put together the “best team” (to borrow a term from an old IBM partner program) to share insights into life as a VoIP-er. Topics will range from “BusinessSpeak” to “GeekSpeak” and all of your questions will be answered. At one place, at one time, you can rapidly absorb best practices in the SMB VoIP space.
Speakers: Harry Brelsford, CEO, SMB Nation; Chris Bangs, Director of Telephonation, SMB Nation; Jay Weiss, Founder, ComputerHMO
10 – 11:15 a.m.
NEC & IBM Present an Enterprise-Cass Unified Communication Solution
Software-based voice communications is a mission critical application that, when tightly integrated with core business applications, can empower organizations to automate business processes, relieve labor-intensive activities and maximize efficiency across any business. Hear how NEC and IBM bring together a strong integrated solution for SMBs that offers an enterprise-class platform to extend offerings, services and loyalty to their customers. NEC and IBM will demo this solution which utilizes self-management autonomics; a solution integrated framework; easy application installation and configuration; and automated remote management and administration in an all-in-one-box solution.
Speaker: Gary Gordon, Portfolio Manager for Core Solutions, NEC Corporation of America
12:30 – 1:45 p.m.
Keynote Lunch - Telepresence: The Next Great Frontier?
Telepresence is certainly not new. The Enterprise’s James T. Kirk has been using it since the ‘60s to effectively communicate across the galaxy with friends and foes alike. However, telepresence has not proliferated on a grand scale for the normal human being and certainly not in every business. One cannot deny the value telepresence brings to the business world. The ability to meet face-to-face across great divides, collaborate with disparate offices and do so without travel or hassle has been the promise. Is now the time for telepresence?
Speaker: Clinton Gatewood, Vice President, Corporate Development, Vu Telepresence
2 – 3:15 p.m.
SMB Vendor Roundtable
Pogo had it right when he said, “I’ve met the enemy and he is us.” Truth be told, the data+voice opportunity in SMB is a three-legged stool that includes the vendor ecosystem. This is your chance to embrace the product and services vendors supporting VoIP in the SMB segment and extend your industry relationships. Please attend this session to ask product road map questions.
Speakers: Various
3:30 – 4:45 p.m.
Paths for Transforming Your IT Consultancy Into a Successful VoIP Provider
Walk a mile in the shoes of a seasoned SMB technology consultant who successfully integrated VoIP offerings into his long-established data networking consulting/reseller practice. The speaker has a compelling story to share with a consistent outcome: own the ENTIRE SMB STACK at the customer site. You can learn the pathways to implementing VoIP at your SMB customer sites — each with its own costs, risks and benefits. Bring your questions and leave armed to become an SMB VoIP-er and start enjoying recurring revenue.
Speaker: Daniel Williams, President, Xpedeus
5 – 6:15 p.m.
Unified Communications in the Cloud
Communications has been delivered as a service in some form or another throughout history. PSTN is a service in the cloud that was originally delivered via switchboard, then a large telecom switch and now a smaller and more feature rich soft switch does the heavy lifting. The breadth and depth of the type of communication service organizations are consuming is rapidly evolving. However, VoIP is not going to do it. Unified communications that blends the best commercial services with a nice taste of consumer-focused technology is what is being demanded in the marketplace … and is extremely hard for any focused IT group to deliver. That’s where hosted service providers come to play.
Speaker: Bob Barnes, Executive Vice President, Sales, Marketing and Business Development, CallTower
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