PlanetOne Golf Event: In-Person Channel Networking Makes Big Comeback
CEO Ted Schuman said he's never seen this much enthusiasm in the channel for getting together.
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Chris Werpy (left, pictured with CEO Ted Schuman) joined PlanetOne as COO amid the pandemic, and just met some of his co-workers for the first time in person when the Scottsdale office reopened.
“There are people here, agents I worked on deals with in the last six months, and I get to shake their hand for the first time,” he said. “So for me, this is kind of my coming out party with PlanetOne because everything’s been virtual. On a micro level, just opening our office was such a big event for us, and now being able to host something like this with agents and vendors is fantastic.”
Werpy also said this wasn’t a one-day golf event.
“It’s a three-day conference,” he said. “We have our agents, MSPs and VARs here spending time with the vendors. And the agents like to collaborate with each other. This gives them a chance to meet and talk about what they’re doing.”
That’s Curtis Goodman, cloud specialist for Avaya‘s OneCloud portfolio (left), and Crystal Joramo, Avaya’s national partner manager for North America (right). Avaya was one of the event’s sponsors.
Joramo said it was important for Avaya to be there, and to support PlanetOne and its partners, and the turnout was “wonderful.”
“It was important for us to show up based on our relationship,” she said. “And we have an explosive amount of cloud business going on right now. We’ve got a huge pipeline building with all of the partners through PlanetOne with CCaaS and cloud. We’re having a lot of great success within our industry. I think because of the pandemic, it’s changing the way people do business. It’s been a big deal for our customers wanting to move to the cloud. There are a ton of opportunities.”
Chris MacFarland, Masergy’s chairman and CEO (right, with Schuman), was on hand, saying it’s been over a year since he saw many of those who attended the event.
“In February of last year we went 100% virtual,” he said. “So all of my operations across three continents, everybody went to a work-from-home environment, and everything worked fairly well. Just like so many people, the challenges with COVID-19 were tough. We definitely saw for a short period of time a big impact to the projects that were in flight. They got slowed down. But the last couple of quarters have been really strong, and now people are wanting to meet back in person, and travel is starting to open back up. So we can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
That’s Mark Dickey, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nitel (left), and Scott Forbush, Upstack’s chief revenue officer (right).
Christopher Trapp, Upstack‘s CEO, said this was his company’s first channel event. Last month, the company announced an initial $50 million private equity investment from Berkshire Partners. Upstack called it the largest private equity investment in the history of the agent channel.
“They’ve been a terrific partner,” he said. “They’ve invested in and around this space for decades. So we’re pretty excited about that. We’re ramping up the team and starting to deliver on what we promised our investors.”
Upstack is investing in a number of other agencies and that will continue for the foreseeable future, Trapp said.
Upstack identifies as a direct agency, transacts with several master agents and distributors, and will continue to do so.
“Our vision from the very beginning was to create the most valuable agency in the world, so that’s our plan,” Trapp said. “Over the last seven or eight months now, we’ve proven that we can attract some of the top-producing sales agents in the industry. And we’re continuing to see other like-minded agents that are excited about what we’re doing. It’s a little bit different, but I think it’s an exciting time to be in the channel.”
Dickey (pictured) said Nitel had a record year with PlanetOne during the pandemic.
“Obviously we live in a slightly different world these days, and these venues are a great place to meet partners and get closer with PlanetOne,” he sad. “I started with Nitel the January before the pandemic hit, so I expected to spend the last 18 months getting to know a lot of the partner ecosystem and the PlaneOne folks better. And that wasn’t available to us. So we’ve done the best we could with QBRs and partner meetings, and things like that via Zoom. Even though we had a record year last year, I think there’s a real pent-up demand for networking.”
As companies continue to shift to the cloud and are looking to implement cloud-centered type networks, there’s a “ton of opportunity” for everybody, Dickey said.
“And these venues not only let you continue to cultivate those long relationships, but create new ones,” he said. “I just met a couple of folks here who are in an entirely new sector that I think has emerged from all of this chaos. And these opportunities are a great way to get a chance to know what those new players are doing and how you can partner with them.”
PlanetOne execs, vendors and channel partners enjoy drinks and conversation on the golf club patio before the tournament starts.
PlanetOne executives and partners didn’t let high temperatures get in the way of their game. They played and partied on throughout the afternoon.
John Gonzales, vice president of Wireless Watchdogs’ sales and mobile strategy team, appreciated the opportunity to get back to networking in person.
“It’s the beginning of the new normal,” he said. “Rekindling old relationships is the first thing. I’m meeting new people out here, and it’s just having fun at the end of the day and everything else falls in line when it comes to business.”
People are getting a little tired of web meetings and webinars, and wanted to get out, Gonzales said.
“Thank goodness nothing really changed,” he said. “The technology we all sell has surpassed where we needed to be and we had the biggest numbers we’ve ever had. Right now, it’s really good to be out here seeing everybody.
A caravan of golf carts heads out to the course at the start of shotgun scramble.
Adam and Allen Wills are co-founders of Tecvine. Adam said getting back with PlanetOne, and its partners and vendors, has been a “long time coming.”
“I think you can see the excitement in the air,” he said. “People are just ready to get back at it. We’ve traveled a few times to meet with clients, but I think things are really starting to pick up and I think everybody’s ready, clients included, to meet in person.”
Allen Wills said the pandemic created new opportunities for Tecvine.
“Year to year, we’ve had roughly 35% growth,” he said. “I think things have changed just in terms of just buying habits. There was definitely some projects put on hold, but you can see the actual digital transformation is coming. It was delayed, but we’re excited about 2021, this year and going into the future.”
Left to right, Ben Hensley, senior account executive with TierPoint; Gregg Williams and Dan Duke with Network Integration; and Justin Mortensen, channel manager at PlanetOne, won golf clubs after the tournament.
Brian Perdue, national channel manager at Zayo (left), won a football signed by ESPN’s Chris Berman; and Paul Wroten, president and CEO of NSi, won a a jersey signed by baseball great Pete Rose. Werpy (center) celebrated the winners.
Brian Perdue, national channel manager at Zayo (left), won a football signed by ESPN’s Chris Berman; and Paul Wroten, president and CEO of NSi, won a a jersey signed by baseball great Pete Rose. Werpy (center) celebrated the winners.
This week’s PlanetOne kickoff golf event in Scottsdale, Arizona, proved in-person channel networking and socializing are back in a big way.
The channel networking event took place at Gainey Ranch Golf Club. It drew more than 150 people, with 100 of them hitting the links. For many vendors, master agents and partners, this was the first opportunity to get together since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This summer, PlanetOne will launch Sentient, a new solution that remains shrouded in secrecy. Signs posted at the event said it will offer “amplified business intelligence” powered by PlanetOne.
Unprecedented Enthusiasm
Ted Schuman, PlanetOne’s CEO, said he hasn’t seen this much enthusiasm for getting together in the channel in 29 years.
PlanetOne’s Ted Schuman
“We have people reacquainted who haven’t seen each other in 18-20 months,” he said. “It’s the enthusiasm for getting the band back together. We ordinarily would run a contest and offer incentives to participate in an event like this. We just picked a date and threw it out on two emails. And 72 hours later we had a field of 100 golfers from all over the country flying in. I hope that’s a great indication of how Channel Partners Conference & Expo‘s attendance will be in November.”
PlanetOne has been 100% operational and reopened its Scottsdale office a month-and-a-half ago, Schuman said.
“It was so exciting to be reunited, to put the lightning back in the bottle that had been missing over the previous 14-15 months,” he said. “So as easy as this was to pull together, I think we need a PlanetOne golf tour around the country. I would expect more tournaments around the country to give people a reason to get out and have some fun, and rekindle the relationships that this industry was built on.”
Virtual No Substitute for In-Person
During the pandemic, PlanetOne and its partners “finally consumed and ate what we’ve been selling for years,” Schuman said.
“Just think of all the icons that are now in your lower toolbar that weren’t there a year ago,” he said. “And it’s all the collaborative platforms that we’re all using every day, whether it’s Teams or 8×8, or RingCentral or Zoom, or whatever your platform of choice is. But however good it is, it’s an average substitute for what you’re seeing right now. The channel was started on relationships and built on relationships, and continues to thrive and grow on the strength of those relationships. Here today, there are 20 year-plus relationships built on trust and respect. And needless to say they’re just a tad bit excited to get out.”
Schuman said everybody’s anxious to hit the road.
“The new norm is probably going to be some kind of hybrid version of what we used to do,” he said. “But as long as I’m the CEO of PlanetOne, these kinds of events will continue to happen.”
Scroll through our slideshow above for highlights from the event, and more comments from PlanetOne and its partners. We expect you’ll see a lot of people you know. And a special thanks to WhiteFox Marketing for supplying some of the pictures.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Edward Gately or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
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