Channel Partners Expo Blog

With an economic recovery comes the return of heavy competition. Are you ready? Enough already about the gloomy economy – we need to look toward the future. At the upcoming Channel Partners Conference & Expo, March 1-3, in Las Vegas, channel expert Janet Schijns, vice president of global channels at Motorola, will lead a general session that will arm your business with the knowledge needed to make a difference when customers start spending again.

The session, “Top 10 Ways to Prosper from an Economic Recovery,” will explore unique strategies like social CRM, emerging solutions positioning, services strategies for profit, compelling green initiatives, competitive pricing strategies and managed services. Economic recoveries offer endless opportunities to channel firms that have the right plans in place to succeed. The latest recovery will bring with it more and new forms of competition requiring a change in your plan to prosper for the future.

Bring an open mind and an open notebook and prepare to pay close attention as Schijns shares her unique perspective on how to profit in the channel!

Click here to find out more about the speaker for this session and others at the show!

Click here to register!

We all want to know what our peers are up to. What kinds of problems are they facing? What do they are the killer apps of today? How have they been successful in certain areas? How do they juggle all of their back-office responsibilities? Well, here’s your chance to find out.

At the upcoming Channel Partners Conference & Expo, March 1-3, in Las Vegas, PHONE+ will be offering its third Peer-To-Peer Networking Mixer.

This free two-hour event, sponsored by PlanetOne Communications, will enable you to meet your peers in a vendor-neutral environment – NO VENDORS OR MASTER AGENTS ALLOWED. The mixer will feature a one-hour speed networking period followed by a one-hour roundtable session.

Last year’s event was great! The room was abuzz with productive conversation. The exclusive mixer was definitely the place to be.

So, come get to know other independent agents, share information about vendors, discuss common business concerns, find potential partners based on skill, product or geography, and begin friendships that can help you in 2010 and beyond.

Previous participants have found this forum – created by agents for agents – to be a must-attend part of the Channel Partners Conference & Expo experience. Space is limited so you must register in advance to attend this event. Registration ends Feb. 19, so register now!

Click here to register.

We’ve all been pinching pennies lately, right? Well, here’s your chance to save 8,000 of them.

If you’re not already registered for the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, March 1-3, in Las Vegas, you need to get on it. Early-bird registration ends Friday – so why not take advantage of your chance to save $80 over the on-site registration price? Here are just a few things you could get for that $80 that could make your visit to Vegas even better:

• A cab ride from the Mandalay Bay to anywhere on the strip and back (and maybe even back again, if you change your mind)
• Admission for four adults to the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay
• 320 pulls on a quarter slot machine
• About 10 drinks at the rumjungle nightclub at Mandalay Bay during “happy hour” between 3 and 7 p.m.
• 16 hands of $5 Black Jack
• Lunch for three or four of your friends at Red, White & Blue at Mandalay Bay. I highly recommend the French Onion Soup -- $80? That’s a lot of soup!

Anyway, you get the point. Eighty bucks is 80 bucks. And while the true value is in the educational agenda and expo hall time you’ll be receiving at the show, why not save a little money in the process?

Just take a look at everything you can expect to receive when you register for the Conference & Expo package:

• Access to all education presentations, which includes three standard tracks, three expanded 90-minute workshops, the Telecom Agency 101 bonus pre-conference workshop AND three one-hour featured sessions
• Access to the exclusive industry report, Telecom Agent Key Issues Study by Gartner Inc
• A copy of the Conference Manual
• Access to the Exhibit Hall where you can take part in networking functions and meetings with vendors
• Access to all Vendor Presentations
• Access to the first-ever Partner Pub Crawl
• Access to the Hair of the Dog Continental Breakfast

Click here to register for a discounted price – only through Friday, Jan. 29! And be sure to let us know what you think of that soup!

If you’re coming to the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, March 1-3, in Las Vegas, there is a really good reason to set an early wake-up call on Day 1 – a new workshop entitled, “Telecom Agency 101 - Best Practices for New Telecom Agents.”

Whether you're considering becoming an agent, just getting started or looking for best practices advice, this workshop is for you. It will address the basics, such as how to choose suppliers, the ins and outs of contract negotiations, how to process orders and much more. Tutorial presentations will be followed by a Q&A panel featuring successful telecom agents.

The seminars begin on Monday, March 1, at 9 a.m. and run until 11:45 a.m. Here’s a sneak peek at the sessions:

Beginner’s Basics

• Before you can hit the ground running, there are a slew of decisions to be made and processes to be set in place. This session will cover the key things you need to know to get started.
• Speaker: Greg Howard, Founder, US Telecom Group

Choosing Suppliers

• When it comes to choosing suppliers, the catalog of vendors can be quite overwhelming. This session will help you uncover ways to size up the various market players and decide whether to work with a carrier, a reseller or a master agent.
• Speaker: Dan Vidal, Managing Director, Telecom Advisors

Agent Agreements

• After carefully selecting the providers you will represent comes the tedious, yet singularly important, task of negotiating contracts. This session will cover the finer points of negotiating agent agreements.
• Speaker: Greg Taylor, Attorney, Technology Law Group LLC

Filling the Funnel

• Understanding and knowing how to explain the agent value proposition is a skill that every agent must perfect in order to land customers. This session will touch on the basics of lead-generation and prospecting.
• Speaker: David Goodwin, Principle & Co-founder, ATC

Getting Paid

• Ultimately, agents are in the business for “pay day,” but there are many possible compensation models in the marketplace that can impact your cash flow. This session will help you better understand how to get paid and how to track commissions.

Colleague Q&A

• After a morning of tutorial sessions, please join us for a Q&A where you can ask fellow agents about their humble beginnings and best practices of today. Whether you seek clarification from one of the tutorials or are interested in another aspect of the business, bring your questions and issues to this panel of experts for some advice.
• Moderator: Khali Henderson, Editor, PHONE+

Click here to learn more about the speakers for this workshop and other educational sessions at the show! Click here to register!

Conferencing technologies are helping businesses get work done despite the new economic realities. Be it audio, Web or video conferencing, partners can help their customers save money and optimize collaboration with the ultimate benefit of improving their own positions as trusted advisers.

If you want to learn more about how you can take advantage of the growing sales opportunities in the conferencing market, you should definitely take part in the conferencing track at the upcoming Channel Partners Conference & Expo, March 1-3, in Las Vegas. Here are the featured sessions:

The Business Case for Selling Conferencing
Companies today are searching for new ways to cut costs while still maintaining reliable and effective business communications. Conferencing and collaboration offers one way to help your customers achieve this goal. But it’s also a great way to shore up your channel sales business. Channel partners will share case studies about the integration of conferencing into their sales portfolios and how it can increase profitability, customer retention and competitive advantage.

Desktop Video Conferencing for Dummies
If you’ve ever wondered how to effectively deploy desktop video conferencing solutions for your own use and also for your current and prospective customers, this is the session for you. Come see how implementing this technology can increase revenue, improve efficiency and enhance customer satisfaction. There will also be a demo of a multiparty desktop video conference call to walk attendees through the process and answer any questions about capabilities or even troubleshooting.

Click here to find out about the speakers for these two great sessions!

These sessions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the opportunities that will be covered in this show’s educational agenda. We hope you’ll join us to learn more!

Click here to register!

Everyone is talking about the cloud. But for channel partners, the only thing that’s of interest is how to make money selling it. The Cloud Services Track at the upcoming Spring 2010 Channel Partners Conference & Expo will offer some frank advice about selling hosted IP telephony as an entry point and the potential for cloud-based computing.

Sessions in this track will include:

• Making the Move to Cloud-Based Telephony

Channel partners exploring cloud-based delivery models can look to hosted IP telephony as an entry point. A panel of experts will discuss the state-of-the-art technologies and strategies for successful implementations. For more information on the speakers for this panel, click here.

• Exploring Opportunities in Cloud Computing

There has been a lot of hype surrounding cloud computing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a real revenue-generator for the channel. The right vendor partners and careful attention to customer buying triggers can put you on the path. This session will explore the opportunities and challenges for partners to get into this emerging space. For more information on the speakers for this panel, click here.

Be sure to check out these great sessions where you will have an opportunity to meet the speakers that will make selling cloud services a reality for you!

Click here to register!

Convergence of voice and data technologies and the emergence of alternate delivery models make this a transformative time for the communications channel. Join your peers as we kick off the Spring 2010 Channel Partners Conference & Expo with an industry address that sets the stage for transformation – what’s going on in technology and service delivery that partners need to understand and embrace? This address will explore the trends in technology and service delivery, set expectations for the future and examine what channel partners must do to stay ahead of the curve.

The general session, “Exploring Channel Transformation,” will happen on Monday, March 1, from 1:15 – 2:15 p.m. Speaker Speaker Tiffani Bova, vice president, research for Gartner Inc., also will discuss some of the key findings of a recent PHONE+/Gartner study on telecom agent key issues. The full report, which analyzes critical issues such as the economy’s effects on telecom agents, agent priorities for 2010 and how the agent’s value proposition is changing, is available exclusively to Conference & Expo Package attendees only.

Both this high-profile session and the exclusive report should be on your list for things not to miss at the Channel Partners show in March.

Check out the agenda now for complete details.

Click here to register!