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Hitting the Multilocation Mark
By
Tara
Seals
PROFILE
BullsEye Telecom is celebrating the channel with an en-
hanced focus on enabling partners’ businesses in a swiftly
evolving technology landscape – especially when it comes
to multilocation customers.
More than 90 percent of new customer acquisitions
for the company comes from its sales partners, and chan-
nel recruitment growth has increased by an average of 11
percent in the last two years, thanks to an ongoing strat-
egy of investing heavily into its channel program. BullsEye
also has increased the size of the channel management
team to north of 10, which is the highest it’s been in the
company’s history.
As part of BullsEye’s core commitment to its sales
partners, Brian Babich recently moved into a new role
with the company as vice president of channel sales.
The 22-year telecom veteran, who has served in both
direct and channel leadership roles at BullsEye, has ad-
vanced some of the organization’s most complex sales
through partners. It’s a move that’s in line with the
Michigan-based company’s continued leadership in the
enterprise multilocation telecom space.
Through the company’s strategic partnership program,
it has implemented business strategy sessions that help
partners determine their goals and then develop a road-
map to achieving them.
Part of this strategy also includes offering relevant training
in flexible ways. Rather than simply hosting live webinars, for
instance, the company will record those events and then make
them available on-demand or via a podcast for partners to
listen to on their own, at a time that’s convenient.
“We want to cater to our partners and their time,”
Babich said. “We want to get the information out and craft
impactful stories in different ways.”
The company’s multilocation blueprint, meanwhile,
outlines BullsEye’s four-step process to help these enter-
prises simplify and manage their telecom footprints. Bulls-
Eye’s mantra for these customers is “consolidate, optimize,
contain and evolve.”
“This blueprint breaks down how partners can effec-
tively manage and advance multilocation opportunities,”
Babich said. “It is really popular with our partners, even
among the veterans. As it helps them navigate through
the sale with confidence.”
He added, “Typically, large enterprises don’t have
a good handle on their inventory. So there’s a lot of
potential waste – which is a powerful starting point
for us to make an impact. From there we can discuss
a strategy for moving from POTS lines; and there are
a lot of huge customers out there with store locations
still on POTS.”
The problem, of course, is that POTS lines are rising in
cost, and they could be shut down by the LEC, continued
Babich. “These customers have the opportunity to lever-
age the functionality of VoIP to combat this situation. We
present them with a strategy to evolve to this capability.
Through our VoIP solution, we offer a great product based
on our owned-and-operated soft switch.”
BullsEye also will manage the installation and per-
form a VoIP-readiness test to support optimal perfor-
mance and generally mitigate any billing and operational
issues that may sometimes be a potential concern of
having lost a carrier.
As the company remains steady in its focus on the
channel and its continued growth, Babich sees great un-
tapped potential in the non-traditional agent space.
“Our multilocation blueprint strategy has started to
resonate well with more value-added resellers (VARs) and
managed services providers (MSPs), helping them achieve
greater penetration in their existing base,” said Babich.
“We’re focused on the future while enhancing what we
have, with fresh leadership.”
To allow for the different partner business models
represented in the program, participants can choose
from three compensation profiles, on a deal-by-deal ba-
sis: gaining commission upfront, in a residual program or
a mix of the two.
“Our partners are the soul of what we do,” Babich
said. “I could not be more excited to see where things
go, as we continue to grow and be the ideal partner for
multilocation businesses.”
o
BullsEye looks to channel for success with the
distributed enterprise
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THE CHANNEL MANAGER’S
PLAYBOOK