Reactions Abound over Master Agent Rebranding Debate

Partners are sharing their ideas – and pushback – over the movement to rebrand master agents.

The industry has been discussing this topic in some form or other over the last year, but the conversation took a more serious bent this month when Channel Futures posted its article “Do Master Agents Need a New Name?” The sources in the column agreed that “master agent” is at best an outdated term that doesn’t reflect the business model it tries to describe. At worst, it’s offensive.

Channel Futures followed that up with an exploration of the term “technology services distributor,” which many companies unsuccessfully tried to adopt a few years ago.

Then Eclipse Telecom CEO Dave Dyson dropped the mic in a column arguing for the retirement of the term master agent.

“Allow me to be a little less of all of those things and say the time to end the master/sub titles was 20 years ago. Each day that goes by where we still use these terms is one too many,” Dyson wrote. “I know I am taking what may seem like an incredibly controversial stance here, so let me take you through my rationale. (For the record, I have many controversial opinions: I am against cancer, in favor of puppies, and think that people could stand to be a little nicer to one another).”

Dyson invited LinkedIn followers to share their thoughts with him, and multiple partners chimed in. You can click on the picture to view Dyson’s comment thread.

Source: LinkedIn

Although plenty of folks expressed their enthusiasm for a name change, not everyone seems so excited. And they made their thoughts known.

“Absolutely ridiculous to say master agent is racist. Leave it the way it is,” one commenter wrote.

Check out some of the most interesting comments people have produced in the slide show above.