Faces of the Partner: 5 Technology Advisor Firms Scaling, Pivoting
These partner organizations are expanding their services and teams.
![Lots of businesspeople, tech advisors Lots of businesspeople, tech advisors](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt57cf3be405b539a5/6523f2289bdad930a6c24b1a/6-Lots-of-Businesspeople.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
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Name: Jolene Langford
Company: Athenium Technology Group
Position: Owner
Age of Company: Nine years
Headquarters: Sherwood, Oregon
Channel Futures: How do you describe your business to your customers?
Jolene Langford:Technology advisor.
Channel Futures: Which of your teams has expanded the most in the last year?
JL: Operations.
CF: What position was your last hire?
JL: Account support manager
CF: From a technological standpoint, where are you making the biggest investments, and where are you seeing the most opportunity?
JL: We spend the majority of our time focusing on the contact center customer and their journey to the cloud.
CF: What’s the biggest challenge you face in your business?
JL: Time spent on holding suppliers accountable for what’s in the customer contract. Getting them to fully deliver on their commitments.
CF: What’s one thing you need from your TSD partners or wished that they knew?
JL: I miss the days when partners/agents were the primary focus of the TSDs. Now it seems like the TSDs spend more time and energy making the suppliers happy. But it is the consultant’s work that brings in the customers.
CF: What’s one thing you need from your vendor partners or wish that they knew?
JL: That I won’t meet you for coffee, or sit down with you and your boss, or attend your event, unless you actually attempt to take a sincere interest in me and my business. If you can’t meet me where I’m at, I can’t open up space on my calendar for you.
Name: Richard Rodriguez
Company: ClearSync Solutions
Position: CEO
Age of Company: Two-and-a-half years
Headquarters: Houston, TX
Channel Futures: How do you describe your business to your customers?
Richard Rodriguez: In channel terms, we are a blend of an advisor and a consultancy firm. To customers, ClearSync is the bridge between the business executives and their technology personnel, and we do not focus on selling specific products groups or brands. We gain an understanding of the overall business strategy including their structure, growth plans (organic or by M&A), existing tech stack, technology in their products (IoT, security, etc.) and then create a path to support the strategy and achieve their desired outcomes.
CF: Which of your teams has expanded the most in the last year?
RR: We utilize a vetted and trusted network of contractors and/or vendors as we expand for marketing, operations, etc. Our latest increase has been in the project management area and marketing.
CF: What position was your last hire?
RR: Our investment has been aimed at marketing and getting our message out to our network and targeted verticals. We invested in the rebrand from BITS to ClearSync, new website, and the creation of our new podcast The IT Crowd. I believe our methods are different from our competitors and will enable us to invest in long-term partnerships rather than transactional business.
CF: What’s the biggest challenge you face in your business?
RR: Our challenges are similar to others in the market. Fresh lead generation, finding new talent in certain areas and continuing to see some vendors pull resources from project management and training for the end user
CF: What’s one thing you need from your TSD and vendor partners or wish that they knew?
RR: It is all about portals. I believe there is a huge gap in what vendors want/require in their portals and the TSD portals and what they can provide. My understanding is that when it comes to TSD portals, it is up to each vendor to upload their content and keep it current. Many times, in the TSD portals there are new vendors that have been added to the portfolios, but they are not listed or there is no content. There are out of date one sheets, battlecards, training materials or presentations forcing us to go to the vendor directly. Most vendors also have their own portals but they are cumbersome and then we have to keep up with even more sites, passwords, order tracking, etc. When I gather with other agencies and consultants, the frustration of the portals is an issue we can all agree on.
I understand the need as many vendors have independent agreements with agents and they utilize the portals, but if someone is aligned with a TSD they should not have to register with a portal and keep up with it.
Name: John Anderson
Company: Resource Communications Group (RCG)
Position: Partner
Age of Company: 19 years
Headquarters: Franklin, TN
Channel Futures: How long has your firm existed?
John Anderson: Since 2004, but with a completely revised business model: our Telecom Department as a Service. It was introduced between 2015-2018, so we like to say, we are a “20-year-old start-up.”
CF: How do you describe your business to your customers?
JA: The only Telecom Department as a Service. We are the only company in the channel designed and positioned as a fully-functioning telecom department for hire.
CF: Which of your teams has expanded the most in the last year?
JA: Operations, operations, operations!
CF: What position was your last hire?
JA: Our new manager over our support/corporate account specialist team.
CF: From a technological standpoint, where are you making the biggest investments, and where are you seeing the most opportunity?
JA: Our biggest investments are in the people, process, and systems needed to deliver our Telecom Department as a Service(TDaaS) offering. But, as we service our clients, their biggest technological needs seem to be: UCaaS, CCaaS and SD-WAN. And, like everyone else, we’re being leveraged to replace legacy POTs across thousands of locations.
CF: What’s the biggest challenge you face in your business?
JA: Scaling a one-of-a-kind service offering like TDaaS.
CF: What’s one thing you need from your TSD partners or wished that they knew?
JA: There’s so much change happening in the channel right now, which seems like a balance of big risks, fewer competitors but new competitive offerings and models, and (seemingly) tons of new opportunities. I wish they had a crystal ball that could tell me the future of the channel.
CF: What’s one thing you need from your vendor partners or wished that they knew?
JA: We have a different responsibility to our clients, more so than a broker/TEM/trusted advisor, etc. We play a “middle-management” role, acting as the outsourced/virtual telecom director, engineering team, AP team, etc. This requires we approach vendors as the client, and not as a “partner” in the traditional sense. This can frustrate the vendor and us, until they learn our model better.
Name: Todd Gorringe
Company: Elite Telecom Solutions
Position: Co-founder
Age of Company: 11 years
Headquarters: Salt Lake City, Utah
CF: How do you describe your business to your customers?
Todd Gorringe: Technology advisor.
CF: Which of your teams has expanded the most in the last year? What position was your last hire?
TG: Sales.
CF: From a technological standpoint, where are you making the biggest investments, and where are you seeing the most opportunity?
TG: AI, security, cloud.
CF: What’s the biggest challenge you face in your business?
TG: Employee management, commission issues, channel conflict.
CF: What’s one thing you need from your TSD partners or wished that they knew?
TG: We need the TSDs to bring value to the partnership. It has become very transactional, commissions are hard to get support on, and there is very little they do for their cut. It seems they can help with events or other ancillary items, but we need someone to come to the table who understands our business and can bring real value.
CF: What’s one thing you need from your vendor partners or wished that they knew?
TG: Respect our rules of engagement. We want to be included in the sales process, and not just used as a lead generator. It seems like they quickly forget why they have the deal in the first place.
Name: David Goodwin
Company: Advanced Technology Consulting (ATC)
Position: Managing Partner
Age of Company: 23 years
Headquarters: Liberty Township, OH
CF: How do you describe your business to your customers?
David Goodwin: Consulting firm.
CF: Which of your teams has expanded the most in the last year?
DG: Consulting (our Delta team), hospitality IT, operations and customer service (our Super Support team).
CF: What position was your last hire?
DG: Consulting (Delta Team).
CF: From a technological standpoint, where are you making the biggest investments, and where are you seeing the most opportunity? Cybersecurity and CCaaS.
CF: What’s the biggest challenge you face in your business? Scaling –think culture, people, tools, cash flow, etc. We have to scale in a way that doesn’t negatively impact the reputation we have built with our current and prospective clients, vendors and partners.
CF: What’s one thing you need from your TSD partners or wished that they knew?
DG: The more MDFs (marketing development funds) we get from them or their vendors, the more events we can host to open new doors.
CF: What’s one thing you need from your vendor partners or wished that they knew?
DG: The more time we spend running down pricing, responses, issues and commissions from the vendors, the less time we spend bringing new opportunities their way.
Name: David Goodwin
Company: Advanced Technology Consulting (ATC)
Position: Managing Partner
Age of Company: 23 years
Headquarters: Liberty Township, OH
CF: How do you describe your business to your customers?
David Goodwin: Consulting firm.
CF: Which of your teams has expanded the most in the last year?
DG: Consulting (our Delta team), hospitality IT, operations and customer service (our Super Support team).
CF: What position was your last hire?
DG: Consulting (Delta Team).
CF: From a technological standpoint, where are you making the biggest investments, and where are you seeing the most opportunity? Cybersecurity and CCaaS.
CF: What’s the biggest challenge you face in your business? Scaling –think culture, people, tools, cash flow, etc. We have to scale in a way that doesn’t negatively impact the reputation we have built with our current and prospective clients, vendors and partners.
CF: What’s one thing you need from your TSD partners or wished that they knew?
DG: The more MDFs (marketing development funds) we get from them or their vendors, the more events we can host to open new doors.
CF: What’s one thing you need from your vendor partners or wished that they knew?
DG: The more time we spend running down pricing, responses, issues and commissions from the vendors, the less time we spend bringing new opportunities their way.
Leading partners in the technology advisor channel are working to build teams, expand their market visibility and provide deeper services to their customers.
Channel Futures in May commenced a series on the shifting demographics of the channel titled “Faces of the Partner.” The series currently focuses on the technology advisor community. These partners, colloquially known as agents, source vendor-managed, as-a-service, offerings to their customers and earn a residual income from supplier referrals. First we read about new technology advisors who have arrived on the scene in the last two years. Then the spotlight shone on partners who chose to sell their business, retire or transition in some other way.
Now Channel Futures is focusing on the agents who are in the prime of their careers. They’re no longer newcomers, but they aren’t leaving any time soon. These companies have moved past the struggle to establish their base of recurring revenue and are eyeing ways to scale. Many of them have reached the conclusion that in order to scale, they must build teams.
Staff expansion looks different for each of these partners. Some of them are making a push in marketing. Others are investing more in their sales teams. For others, it’s all about the backend, with hires in operations and account management.
Some of these partners differ strikingly from one another. One can see that in how they brand themselves to the end user. A couple describe themselves to customers as technology advisors. One takes the consultant moniker. Another calls itself a telecom department as a service provider.
There’s also diversity in the types of technology these partners view as their specialization, from POTS replacement to contact center to cybersecurity to AI.
But despite their differences, these partners also registered similar pain points. Getting on the same page with vendors, both in pre-sales and post-sales, represents an ever-present problem for many partners. And the investment many partners are making in building their own operations teams represents the professional services gaps that exist between them and their increasingly rationalized vendor partners.
To get the full picture on these partners and the challenges they face, read about them in the five images above.
Or check out the article on new technology advisors and retiring technology advisors.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email James Anderson or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
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