CV_Fall_21_2

By Peter Radizeski The Case for Co-selling B ack in 1999, BellSouth allowed account executives to team up with partners in order to sell solutions to businesses. Partners had to bring something to the table – some value add – such as networking knowledge or other pieces of the solution. Partners had to justify their involve- ment with paperwork – the signed contract as well as a form explaining the role of the partner. BellSouth had to compensate both the AE and the partner. Carriers typically dislike doing that. Verizon Wireless for a time would co-sell OneTalk with partners. AT&T has a program that allows partners to co-sell with AT&T account executives now. Qwest often assigned a sales rep to any deal a partner quoted. Sometimes that rep would try to bigfoot the deal; other times the rep would speak with the partner on how the deal would be handled. Co-selling has embedded and flowed in telecom for all of my years, and there is more of it today than ever before. Unified communications providers are practic- ing co-selling. The partner registers the deal, the channel manager calls to gain the information including location, then an AE calls the partner to work the deal with her. In some cases, if the AE CHANNEL MANAGEMENT 64 CHANNEL V ISION | Fall 2021