Images: TBI's Big Event — Partners Get New Loyalty Program, Google Chrome Partnership
The new loyalty program rewards partners earlier on in their growth journey than other distributors do, said TBI.
![Verizon Verizon](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt138e04b779f95016/652430ee96824a5ce5cfc0f3/IMG_3853-1-e1649270193690-1024x768-1.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Attendees gathered in foggy downtown Chicago on Tuesday morning for the conference. TBI hosted the event at Swissotel Chicago.
TBI suppliers, partners and employees listened to educational sessions, vendor presentations and various Q&As.
(Photo courtesy of TBI)
TBI president Geoff Shepstone offered opening remarks during the Tuesday morning keynote session. TBI is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Shepstone founded the technology services distributor in 1991. He explained that the company has taken a consistent approach to growth over the last three decades.
“We’ve always grown organically. We’ve never taken on any debt to grow the company. We’ve always just reinvested it.”
Shepstone and other TBI executives have gone on the record stating that they will not accept a private equity investment in order to remain completely independent.
(Photo courtesy of TBI)
Legendary Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak sat down for a candid conversation with TBI senior vice president of strategic sales Mike Onystok.
Wozniak gave a no-holds barred interview about how he founded Apple, his thoughts on current technological trends and his love of pranks.
Wozniak shared that he never wanted to be a manager. That’s one of the reasons why he wanted to stay at Hewlett-Packard as a loyal engineer. However, he said Steve Jobs convinced him that he could start his own company and remain an engineer. In addition, HP turned down his design for a personal computer.
(Photo courtesy of TBI)
Wozniak signed copies of the autobiographical book “iWoz” that he co-authored with Gina Smith.
(Photo courtesy of TBI)
Adam Knudsen shared that TBI’s back office has grown to 80 people.
TBI SVP of sales Brandon Smith; vice president of partner and supplier experience, Samantha Zuniga; and director of partner success Michelle Tamras, broke down the new PGA Club for partners.
Partners in the diamond tier drive more than $1 million with TBI in billed monthly recurring revenue. Ruby partners earn more than $750,000, sapphire $500,000s and finally, emerald at 250,000.
In addition, TBI is offering 100% pass-through on incentives for these members.
Michael Caralis, vice president of Verizon Business markets, shared his vision for the company’s partner program.
Caralis told agents that he has made it his mission to be an advocate for the channel within Verizon. To that end, Verizon has been expanding its channel program and adding more channel managers.
“I’m responsible for 800 employees and a $2 billion P&L. And I am here to work for you to make us better,” he said.
Caralis also hyped up opportunities around fixed wireless.
TBI solution engineer Justin Foxwood said partners were selling fixed wireless when he started in the channel more than a dozen years ago. However, he said the line of sight between rooftop data transmitters had always limited how well the technology worked. Now 5G has led to a resurgence in fixed wireless.
“You now have multiple avenues to pull and send data to. It just so happened that 5G has come along and [boosted] this hipster technology,” Foxwood told Channel Futures.
Craig Schlagbaum, Comcast Business senior vice president of indirect channels, said the channel is growing more and more prominent within Comcast.
Schlagbaum, who is leading of Comcast’s and Masergy’s channels, said indirect sales now account for $1 billion out of Comcast Business’ $9 billion annual revenue. The acquisition of channel-focused Masergy played a role in the increase.
Comcast Business has partnered with TBI for 11 years.
“The channel is vitally important for our success, and we’re going to continue to drive it significantly,” Schlagbaum told partners.
Partners networked with vendors between sessions.
Eric Ludwig co-founded Rise Technology Advisors with Ed Wu in October 2021. They both had been working in CDW’s integrated technology services practice for more than a decade before departing amicably to start an agency.
Ludwig told Channel Futures that he sees big opportunities for partners to help customers integrate “adjacent” technologies. For example, he said customers have been consuming essentially the same forms of telecommunication offerings over the years but recently have adopted services like CRM, IT service management and workforce management. Ludwig said partners can help customers integrate those adjacent technologies.
“Clients need those different types of technologies to work together. And I think we’re uniquely positioned to help them make those determinations,” he said.
Nigel Ziyad (right) is the CEO of Ziyad Technical Resource Consulting, a full-service reseller and consultancy. His wife Patricia Husband (left) works part-time as a data guru for the firm.
They enjoyed lunch in between sessions.
TBI recently earned a unique status with Google as one of two technology services distributors to deliver its Chrome contact center ecosystem.
TBI channel partners can sell Chrome OS devices that complement a select group of 10 Google-validated CCaaS vendors. Jim Wolande, who leads TBI’s VAR sales and strategy, said the VAR community is embracing convergence and cloud-based products.
“I think it’s additional revenue and a stickier long tail on owning the clients,” Wolande told Channel Futures.
In the meantime, Google is establishing itself as a non-competitor to CCaaS vendors by emphasizing its operating system as a complement to offerings from companies like 8×8 and Five9.
“Google’s vision at the end is great because they want more devices on the endpoint,” Wolande said.
Contact-center-as-a-service provider Genesys accepted an award as TBI’s top CCaaS supplier.
They posed with TBI vice president of marketing Anna Devine (far left) and TBI senior vice president of strategic partnerships Scott Whalen (far right).
Verizon joined the ranks of TBI’s top supplier awardees.
Moreover, Verizon earned TBI’s Mobility Supplier of the Year honors.
Craig Schlagbaum’s crew took home honors as one of TBI’s Top Suppliers of the Year.
In addition, Comcast Business (which recently acquired Masergy) won SD-WAN Supplier of the Year.
Unified-communications as-a-service provider RingCentral took home TBI’s award for top UCaaS supplier.
Spectrum joined the elite list of vendors recognized by TBI.
The AT&T channel team accepted the Top Supplier award from TBI.
In addition, AT&T partner MetTel won the award for Aggregation Partner of the Year.
The AT&T channel team accepted the Top Supplier award from TBI.
In addition, AT&T partner MetTel won the award for Aggregation Partner of the Year.
TBI’s BIG EVENT — TBI is giving back more money to its partners to reward them for growth and loyalty.
The Chicago-based tech services distributor unveiled a loyalty program for its partners on Tuesday. The “PGA Club” recognizes four tiers of partners based on the amount of annual recurring revenue they drive with TBI. The tiers offer graduated market development funds (MDF) that come directly from the company. Partners will earn MDF relative to the revenue they drove the previous year with TBI: 10% for the diamond and ruby tiers, 5% for the sapphire tier and 3% for emerald.
TBI executives said the technology services distributor is new to having a loyalty program, compared to other TSBs/TSDs that have already been offering it. However, Brandon Smith, who recently joined TBI as senior vice president of sales, said the PGA Club differs in its accessibility to newer partners.
TBI’s Brandon Smith
“For a lot of our competitors, you have to wait until you’re all the way up to the very top to start getting revenues back in your pocket. I talked to a lot of partners – some that are just beginning and some that right in the middle – and they want that extra incentive to go to the next level,” Smith told the event’s partner audience.
TBI shared these updates at its Big Event in Chicago, which it hosted in-person for the first time since 2019.
Executives also touched on how the distributor is positioning itself and its partners in their sales motion. Marketplaces and the idea of automating the sales process have gained traction in the channel over the last two years. TBI has worked to build a digital, “transactional” element to sales with its OnDemand sales enablement portal, which includes the CableFinder serviceability tool. However, Adam Knudsen, vice president of operations, said the human element matters just as much as automation. TBI’s back office has grown to 80 people, who play a role in helping partners fulfill deals that need extra care.
TBI’s Adam Knudsen
“If something is large and complex, we want to have our humans handle that for you,” Knudsen told Channel Futures.
Eric Ludwig recently co-founded Rise Technology Advisors, an advisory firm which has partnered with TBI. He agreed with Knudsen that automation needs to team with human expertise during the sales process.
Rise Technology Advisors’ Eric Ludwig
“I’m all about automation where and when applicable. Decisions are made based on data, not in place of the data; it’s one piece of a puzzle. At the end of the day, when you’re relying on an advisory business, the data is the data; somebody has to help analyze it,” Ludwig told Channel Futures. “If a client has an issue, somebody needs to pick up a phone and be that client advocate. Automation doesn’t do that. AI doesn’t do that. A set of inputs and outputs simply does not do that.”
For example, a tool like CableFinder saves the adviser and the customer time by discovering all the available cable points. But the customer needs the partner to contextualize that data based on the customer’s needs. For example, does the customer need the connection for backup or a primary network? Do they require a certain level up-speed bandwidth, which might rule out coax?
“All of those things require a person to be involved in interpreting what the analytics will give you. I don’t think that’s going away. And clients really do value that, as do partners like me from distributors like TBI,” Ludwig said.
Scroll through the images above to see highlights from the TBI Big Event.
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