Why Telegration

“It’s Better Here.” From the beginning, that’s what our customers and agents alike say about Telegration. We’re different – and better – as a telecom value added solu-tion provider because we take an unbiased and objective approach to building the best business communications services for our customers. Our support team members are trained to solve your problems and help you make the right decisions. We do every-thing better because we have the best:

• Providers – Telegration works with a wide range of premier providers of voice, Inter-net, data, mobility, cable, and cloud ser-vices to meet all local and national telecom-munications needs, no matter how diverse or complex

• Process – Unrivaled back office support and proven processes eliminate the typical inefficiencies and hassles associated with placing orders, tracking, provisioning, and billing

• People – One-of-a-kind service and sup-port for customers and agents built on close, personal relationships by people who take pride in their work and really care

IN THIS

“What’s the NEXT action?” Denis Raue President

Making the best action choic-es is key to success in busi-ness. Telegration continues to make improvements in our processes and increasing our responsibilities of our em-ployees every day. The key to getting things done is to make

sure all things are defined and written down and then making the best choices and defin-ing the next action necessary to complete our tasks. Our current tasks list we review monthly in our department review sessions currently include:

Executive Mgt -11

Customer Service -17

Channel Support Team – 12

Commissions -10

Programming -13

Sales Engineering Team -13

Mobility -7

Enterprise Deals – 6

Finance -12

Technology – 9

Retention – 18

Marketing -22

These action items continue to evolve and get replaced with new ones of course. High-lights of our current action items include hiring an intern in the fall as part of the Chal-lenge Detroit Program Telegration is spon-soring in 2014, create a commissions touch point in our agent onboarding program, certify our CSM’s and Service personnel in CTP, and developing a referral partner pro-gram for VAR’s. Our team of employees of course have monthly reports to deliver, cus-

tomer and agent calls to return, orders and quotes to process, emails to act on, agendas for meetings to complete and training to par-take in. In order for our employees to get things done and stay stress free, they have to stay on top of their game.

Our challenge as a company is to make sure all employees organize all of their tasks and complete their action items on a daily basis. It takes commitment to act quickly and make the correct decisions to each item that makes their inbox, knock out their daily lists of actions to do including commitments to agents and other members of the team. It is possible to get things done by reviewing everything weekly including project folders, lists of action items, lists of calls, list of waiting for others, reviewing projects to determine the “next action item” and mak-ing the best “next action” decisions to be completed. Projects take even more im-portance when they make our executive review lists in every department where our leaders must continually review the status of projects and push the next actions to move the project forward until completion. Our leaders and employees must review their action items weekly and incorporate daily actions and lists to get them done and con-tinue an upward career path and fulfillment at work.

Getting stuff done is what challenges us all, not only in the business world, but at home and in our personal life as too. We develop our goals for our company through the pow-er of positive outcome focus to improve our company with action items. All action ideas and tasks that need to be done must be recorded and added to our “personal inbox-es” to get done. It takes the power of collec-tive habit to follow our processes to get things done. The Power of the next action keeps us moving forward -without procrasti-nation- but with personal accountability to completing our individual action items makes for a great culture to achieve a great volume of work. It is built on habit. It is built upon getting things done. It becomes stress free and rewarding to get it all done when following the process.

It begins with continuing to ask the same question everyday-

“What’s the next action?”

GM Brief

Update p.

CSM p.

SE p.

Service p.

p. 12

Upcoming Events p. 14

By David Sebestyen

As a pure-play IT cloud partner, I often am

asked about the best cloud solutions tele-

com agents should sell to get their cloud

compute practice off the ground. Hosted

PBX and the like have been easy entry points

into selling cloud for some telecom agents,

but many are finding these "telecom exten-

sions" provide neither a platform nor a path

that leads to building a cloud computing

practice. Closing this gap to the compute

side is very high on most agents' priority

lists.

So, how do you jump-start your cloud com-

puting practice? First, you need to first de-

fine what "the best" cloud product or solu-

tion means to you. For my company, it has

always been about delivering those products

and services that provide the highest value

to the client while nurturing and protecting

the long-term relationship by staying ahead

of the rapidly changing technology curve and

thus remaining in the forefront of the cli-

ent's mind as the "go-to person" for technol-

ogy. In other words, it means being a strate-

gic business adviser who consults with exec-

utive management on business transfor-

mation via technology as opposed to a per-

son who peddles technology products or

services — either as a middleman or as a

service provider.

GENERAL MANAGER BRIEF DAN WILLIAMSON, GM AND VP OF SALES

Dear Valued Partners,

After a brutal winter here in Michigan the first quarter has come to a close and we welcome the spring selling season. The cold weather didn’t slow our production down as we posted a 20% increase in NMR over the same period in Q1-2013. Our cable plays are staying consistent and we showed a nice uptick in MPLS and Hosted PBX sales. Our main focus in 2014 is to show the agent community our value in the Mobility, Hosted PBX and Cloud application markets. We are investing time and resources to better support your opportunities in these areas, take ad-vantage of it!

That being said, Telegration is on track to eclipse all benchmarks set in 2013. This would include, Company Revenues, NMR Sold and Wireless Revenue Sold. The Management Team at Telegration again would like to thank all our agents for their contributions to our success throughout 2013.

We appreciate all the great work and efforts to date put forth by our partners. We are starting off 2014 in the right direc-tion.

Upcoming Events-2014

2014 Traverse City Cloud Council Event – Dates: July 9th -10th

2014 Telegration Golf Annual Invita-tional – Date: August 18th

2014 Channel Partners New Orleans – Dates: September 8th- 10th

2014 Telegration Agent Holiday Awards Reception – Date: December 5th

2014 WWJ News Radio Campaign –Telegration and Sponsor Business Travelers Forecast

Top Projects/Areas of Concentration-Q2

Headcount by Department- Client

Retention/Engineering/Finance/Marketing

• New Hosted PBX Design and Implemen-tation – (TGN HQ)

• Employee Certification Requirements – Comcast

• WWJ Radio Campaigns (Cloud Services Message)

• Cloud Evaluation Assessment and Selling Strategies (Creation)

• Agent “Touch Point” Process – (Improved Onboarding-New Partners)

WELCOME NEW AGENTS TO THE TELEGRATION FAMILY:

BEZALU COMPUTER

CCI SOUTH

CONVERGENT SOLUTIONS

CULINETWORK

DIRECT TEXAS TV

GALAXY COMMUNICATIONS

INTEGRA SYSTEMS

KINETIX

MICRO INFINITY SERVICES

PENN TELECOM

QUBIT NETWORKS

TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE GROUP

TELVERSITY

THE AVANT SOLUTION

WORKSIGHTED INC.

TOP NEW MONTHLY REVENUE

PRODUCERS IN 2014:

We appreciate the outstanding sales efforts by your organizations to date!

S24 #1

BREAKTHROUGH #2

CHOICETEL #3

TELECOMM PROFESSIONALS #4

MAKANNAH GROUP #5

US NETWORK #6

SUNTEL SERVICES #7

C3 #8

ALIGNED #9

KANDU COMMUNICATIONS #10

Better People! Better Processes! Better Providers!

A Decision Framework

You may have identified hosted email as a foot in the cloud computing door. While hosted email has its advantages, what you really need is a solid framework through which to evaluate any solution that you may wish to represent. Any new solution set will require a significant investment of time, money and effort in order for you to develop a differentiating level of expertise in the space. So, you must avoid knee-jerk entries and initiatives that amount to nothing more than following the crowd. Instead, consider solutions that fulfill as many of the following four core criteria as

possible:

Reaches across all industries. A horizontal solution helps you avoid having to develop a vertical specialty or expertise, which, while absolutely necessary, takes much longer, requires more resources and is, therefore, not part of a realistic "phase one" plan.

Is easily understood and needed by most businesses. This criterion is essential for scaling. It also is helpful for the solution to present a potential crossover sale with your core network services offer.

Causes little or no business disruption. Busi-ness disruption is possible with any IT ser-vice, but ideally you want the first cloud sale to your client to have very low probability of disrupting its employees. This criterion sin-gle-handedly makes hosted email a less de-sirable entry point.

Solves a core business problem that keeps decision makers up at night while aligning you with the client's internal or external IT people. This is all-important because it posi-tions you correctly and achieves significant customer mindshare with the first cloud sale, which is a prerequisite for a successful long-term cloud practice.

In summary, you want a cloud service that:

1. gets clients’ critical business assets/data in the cloud in some fashion — all with little effect on the client’s day-to-day business

2. places you into the valued position of “trusted technology adviser"

3. offers your client a solution they did not quite know existed — at least with the feature set, capabilities and business benefits you provide

4. has the potential to organically grow in both scale and monthly recurring reve-nue (MRR) without additional sales

Marketing

Update Jeremi Hunter VP of Sales & Marketing

“Telegration

What is marketing to an organization? What is the purpose or goal?

Marketing performs an experience en-hancement role as well as providing oppor-tunities for customers to co-create personal value, through participation in the brand. It makes more profit for the organization as well as creating a customer relationship as well as with our agents.

2014 Events:

2014 North American Auto Show – Date: January 15th 1-4pm

2014 Channel Partners Vegas – Dates: February 26th-28th

2014 Traverse City Cloud Council Event – Dates: July 9th -10th

2014 Telegration Golf Annual Invita-tional – Dates: August 18th

2014 Channel Partners New Orleans – Dates: September 8th- 10th

2014 Telegration Agent Holiday Awards Reception – Dates: December 5th

Sporting Events:

Tigers – Time Frame March- September 2014

Redwings – Time Frame January-April 2014

Lions Tickets – Time Frame September – December 2014

Content Syndication:

2014 I-Agent and TA Blasts – Promote and send monthly and quarterly

2014 Unique Agent Training with Dine & Dash

2014 Non-Producers Program

2014 Appointment Setting and Lead Lists

As I read a lot of articles about Marketing and how it has evolved and changed it is important to stay with the times and the current trends of the market. One article in particular that I thinks is of great value is:

Five Core Marketing Functions –

A Business Organization Blueprint

BY ANDREW STEIN

Like trying to understand an electrical cir-cuit board without the schematic, it’s hard to keep up with the complexity and im-portance of the five core marketing func-tions without a reminder from time to time.

And, with the daily hype around the tacti-cal effort, tools, and constantly changing environment of social media, it’s easy to lose sight of the five core marketing func-tions.

As a corporate advisor and successful turn-around CMO, I regularly discuss the big picture as I guide CEOs and executives in building sustainable organizations for the long-term.

If you are a marketing leader, CMO, VP of Marketing, or Director of marketing, and you haven’t read at least a dozen articles in the past 3 months about how “Social Me-dia has changed or replaced marketing,” then you might either be incredibly busy or already understand the foundational five core marketing functions.

Importance of Core Marketing Functions

The five core marketing functions are every bit as important as R&D, operations, and finance – and by many accounts, even more critical to the business. Think back to business school and recall what you learned. Or, review your most recent busi-ness failure. Was there enough horsepow-er behind marketing? Were the marketing basics of creating value, capturing value and building programs and plans for sus-taining value put in place before the social media trigger was pulled?

To understand these core marketing func-tions, one has to relax and clear their mind of the day to day frenzy of delivering on tactical activities and all the pressures of every other executive’s demands on the marketing function in your organization. To do so, will allow this blog post to give you insight as to how you might need to organ-ize for success.

5. So what are the best cloud services to get your cloud computing practice off the ground — or boost an existing prac-tice? My one-size-fits-most answer is data protection.

Data Protection Defined

Data protection goes far beyond data back-up to include five components:

1. Online Backup. Raw data is backed up offsite (with or without an optional onsite component). Multiple versions and retention periods exist. Data is restorable from the cloud in the event of partial or local loss, or full-scale dis-aster. A wide spectrum of solutions exist with varying viability.

2. Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS). Data is replicated to the cloud as entire servers/virtual machines — with or without retention — and can be brought online in the cloud with varying recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) or shipped back wholesale for on-premises recovery.

3. Continuity of Operations (COOP). Data is synced and runs on live servers that function as “warm spares," with varying RTOs and RPOs. Ease of accessibility to work off remote location varies. COOP is extended with the integration of ad-ditional technologies to reduce risk against any single point of failure in an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud solution. This hedges against all forms of cloud provider failure and is part of the emerging cloud assurance space.

4. File Virtualization. With advanced fea-ture sets designed for business and enterprise, files are synced and shared between locations, on and off private and public clouds, and securely made available to and from any device, any-where. Primary stores can be on-premises or in the cloud.

5. Email Protection. Mail relay, disaster recovery and continuity for email, email filtering and security, compliance ar-chiving and related services.

Data Protection Benefits

As you can see, the data protection space is both wide and deep, fits all four core criteria of our evaluation framework and includes solutions that can be designed and integrat-ed to address a vast array of real challenges that your clients face today. Even more im-portantly, this solution category constitutes

Do it now – relax and breathe deep before you proceed to read.

Oh, yes – you will find social media’s perva-sive role described in context of the Five Core Marketing Functions at the very end. That way its tactical potential can be inte-grated into the structure of these functions more effectively.

Recognizing this fact helps to understand the value of organizational roles differenti-ated from specific tactical activities. A mod-el I created many years ago and have suc-cessfully used in technology companies

looks like this:

The Five Core Marketing Functions:

Corporate Marketing

This function has global marketing domain to set and enforce brand standards, define global infrastructure for public relations (PR), investor relations, advertising, corpo-rate communications, event strategies, user group community programs and production synergies across all marketing. Operates on an annual corporate marketing plan calen-dar assembled from editorial, PR, product roadmap, and other coordinated calendars to deliver on milestones and objectives.

Strategic Marketing

This function sets strategies for growth, assesses competitive landscape, works with engineering and product management to perform gap analysis, performs make vs. buy analysis, proposes and performs due diligence for merger and acquisition (M&A) targets, creates, develops and manages partner programs, manages key relation-ships to support technical, business, and other strategic needs. Strategic marketing operates on an opportunity-based calendar.

Product Management

This function is the owner of the product and its long-term strategy (multi-release through end-of-life) and current direction

(next release), articulates innovation such that it can be built and marketed. Defines and communicates initial positioning and messaging, pricing strategies, commerciali-zation strategies, go-to-market strategies and competitive positioning. This function works in a cross-functional team with sales, marketing, product development, R&D, engineering and operations functions to achieve pre- and post-launch results. Prod-uct management operates on a product-lifecycle calendar.

Product Marketing

This function builds and drives launch plans for products and service offerings, refines raw positioning and messaging (received from Product Managers in MRDs) into crisp value propositions, drives tactics for prod-uct and services sales training programs. Product marketing operates on a product-lifecycle calendar.

Field Marketing

This function’s modus operandi is to exe-cute, execute, execute… marketing pro-grams and campaigns that have a singular focus of lead generation and driving oppor-tunities through the pipeline. Operates under a quarterly calendar. This function has dotted-line or direct matrix reporting to the divisional or geographically distributed organizations.

Channel Update Heather Conaway, Manager of Channel Support

As Telegration’s partner sales increase, the Channel Support Team continues to adapt and learn new carriers to meet the chal-lenge. In 2014, the Channel Support team will have considerable amount of training that will be needed to learn all the carrier’s products and processes. Some of these carriers are:

AT&T Fiber Broadband Process

AT&T Mobility

Hosted PBX Carriers and their process-es with assessments for the partner opportunity.

Here are a few of our 2014 Initiatives to improve our level of support for you!

Certified Telecommunications Professional Program

Certified Cable Professional Program

More on site visits with our partners with carrier

specific trainings.

a highly strategic sale that can jump-start or grow your cloud computing business, offer-ing many benefits beyond solving your cli-ents' essential needs. These include:

1. An easy cloud compute conversa-tion. Data protection can be plugged easily into any network services inquiry. In contrast, it would not be a natural extension of the ongoing conversation about an MPLS network to bring up virtual desktops.

Low to no impact on user population. Data protection, in most cases, constitutes a solu-tion set that has almost no end-user impact, but it is critical to decision makers. There is less opportunity to disrupt day-to-day busi-ness and create client perception issues. The solutions are non-invasive, but establish the client in the cloud, providing a strong beach-head. Compare this to hosted email, which is very likely to have end-user and decision-maker pain for little return. Plus, hosted email is not even a gateway into the rest of the cloud computing world; strictly speaking, hosted email is a free-standing SaaS app. Clients routinely adopt one SaaS app and do not do anything else in the cloud for years. In contrast, field experience proves that data protection easily leads to other cloud sales.

Varied entry points. Each of the five legs of the data protection space is appropriate for any client with little dependence on the client's size or point in the cloud adoption process. Data protection can be up-sold and cross-sold to any client regardless of where the client has its IT infrastructure — onsite, in a colocation facility, or partially or fully in the cloud.

Built-in multiplier. Data protection is one of very few solution categories that features an aggressive built-in multiplier. Commissions always go up rather than down because data always grows; both the solution and the resulting MRR grow organically without hav-ing to reengage the client.

Aligns with IT resources. Most people re-sponsible for IT put data protection high on their priority list. Traditional legacy data protection methods rely on human interven-tion and on software prone to known issues that can corrupt or lose data. Often times, malfunctions cannot even be discovered until your client has a disaster and the data cannot be restored. Technologists as well as financial and executive decision makers rec-ognize data protection as critical. Decision makers tend to be highly interested in new ways to solve this core business problem and to remove themselves from the respon-

Improve our Response Time and Communi-cations with our partners.

As always we welcome feedback! If you have any comments/suggestions please email alliancesupport@telegration.net

Promotion Announcement of :

Marjorie DeBenedetti as Channel Support Manager Team Leader.

I am very pleased to announce the promo-tion of Marjorie DeBenedetti to Channel Support Manager Team Leader for Telegra-tion. Marjorie has been with our company since 2005 as an Administrative Assistant. During her time with Telegration, Marjorie has also held the position of Channel Sup-port Manager and Executive Assistant to the President.

Her performance in sales has shown consid-erable growth over the last few years and she continues to increase sales results. Marjorie is known for her ability to be a team player and overcomes problems dur-ing challenging times. In her new position, Marjorie will be responsible for developing training schedules with various carriers, track partner sales and report CSM sales results, identify areas for training/improvement as well as be a day to day resource for the CSM team.

Please join us in congratulating Marjorie on her promotion and wish her continued suc-cess in our company.

Provider Spotlight

Q2 Spiffs

Provider Spotlight

Q2 Spiffs

sibility.

If you have not yet considered data protec-tion, now is the time to align yourself with cloud service providers that specialize in this space. Look past one-trick providers to those that carry a suite of services that work to-gether. And, be sure to consider factors such as pedigree and longevity and technology edge; there is a wide variance in solution viability, installed base, financial stability and support infrastructure. In addition, team with select IT partners or an industry group that can help provide the expert analysis, assessment and solution design skills re-quired to architect a complete data protec-tion solution for your clients. A data protec-tion sale is the best foundation for a thriving cloud computing practice.

David Sebestyen is a founder of Skyrope, a managed IT services provider, and a manag-ing director of Cloud Taskforce, a consortium of services providers including Skyrope that have joined forces to acts as clients' advo-cates in the cloud. Cloud Taskforce also is a member of the Agent Alliance. Sebeystyen has nearly 20 years of experience in technol-ogy services with a focus on business devel-opment, design, implementation manage-ment and account management. Twitter: @cloudtaskforce LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davesebestyen

Everything you need from one provider: Telegration

Today’s telecom environment is complex. The good news is Telegration makes it easy with integrated business communication solutions that can combine the telecom technologies and services you need – from long distance and local voice service, Inter-net, VoIP, mobility, to data, cable, and the cloud.

No matter how large or complex your busi-ness communications needs may be, Telegration’s experienced support team can analyze your situation and create a solution with the best technologies and the best rates.

The real challenge for all of us will be the next era change in our industry for Telegra-tion to make the changes needed to become a “Technology Solution Provider” and transi-tioning to selling “Cloud Services”. We’ve identified our better providers to prepare for 2014 and trained internally and prepared for the challenge. I am confident that we will make it happen again to meet the next era of telecommunications change in our indus-try.

Channel Update Marjorie DeBenedetti, Channel Support Manag-er Team Leader

First Communications was founded in 1998 and has expanded its network and solution offerings over the last five years as a result of strong growth and acquisitions. Their network is focused on the Midwest Lata’s of Akron, OH., Chicago, IL., Cleveland, OH., Dayton, OH., Grand Rapids, MI., Lansing, MI., and Youngstown, OH.

Telegration, Inc. works closely with our First Communications Channel Manager Bob Adams. We have a long standing profes-sional relationship with Bob. Bob Adams is always available to get on a call, come to our HQ in Clawson or assist our agents and keeps his arms around our team here.

First Communications has advanced tech-nology solutions that are reliable and se-cure. They offer a wide range of products and services to meet the demand of their business customers. Their product portfolio includes: Ethernet, MPLS, SIP Trunking, Voice, Internet, Data Center, Managed Ser-vices, and Cloud Services.

With so many providers out there, what makes First Communications stand out from the rest?

Over 40% of their organization is dedicated to Network Customer Engineering, manag-ing and monitoring their proprietary net-work.

The average industry tenure of First Com-munication is over 15 years of telecom and technology experience.

First Communications has customized tech-nology solutions based on all customers current and future IT needs.

First Communications provides its’ custom-ers with a team of dedicated, highly trained and empowered specialists to ensure a Five – Star service delivery experience.

First Communications is committed to providing their valued clients with the best customer service in the industry, because they will not be successful if customers are not satisfied with their services and sup-port.

Here is what to expect from First Communi-cations.

24/7/365 Support Team Network Manage-ment Center

Available by phone or ticket at all times

Take responsibility for the services we pro-vide function as intended

Empower their employees to make deci-sions on the customer’s behalf and to make good on their commitments First Communication support staff is locally based and in close proximity to upper man-agement, and their team will strive to be accessible if needed.

For more information on garnering the ad-vantages of a provider with a competitive portfolio, contact your Telegration team at 800-TEL-GRTN

Channel Update Noelle Lia. Channel Support Manager

Time Warner Cable Business Class is pleased to announce the availability of Session Initi-ation Protocol (SIP) trunks to the Partner Channel in all TWC markets (excluding the legacy New Wave and Insight areas of the Midwest and Hawaii). SIP trunks offer cus-tomers an economical trunk interface for their IP PBX equipment with scalable capaci-ty from 6 to 60 call paths, (a.k.a. concurrent call sessions) and up to 200 call paths in the near future. With SIP trunks, TWCBC great-ly enhances its voice trunk portfolio and furthers its ability to offer customers scala-ble, flexible, and cost-effective, voice ser-vices. A full list of included features is be-low.

Provisioned over their extensive fiber-rich IP network, TWCBC SIP trunks include dedi-cated bandwidth for the voice calls, so a customer’s voice traffic no longer competes for bandwidth with the data service.

The target market for this offering includes NEW TWCBC voice prospects that have approximately 25 to 250 employees, have a qualifying IP PBX, require a scalable voice trunk solution and need from 6 to 60 call paths. Existing TWCBC voice customers (BCP or PRI) desiring migration to a SIP trunk solution will be evaluated on an ICB basis.

Several makes and models of IP-PBXs have

The key to our cloud success will be in teach-ing folks how to sell the cloud and develop-ing our People, Processes and relationships with our Cloud Providers. I encourage all of us to master our sales pitches as the era we are entering is one about getting in the door as customers start to make long term deci-sions on making selections of their “Technology Solution Providers”. I am confi-dent that the Telegration Sales Support teams will master this and assist our agents to the cloud.

2014 State Of the Union

Company Awards Event

been pre-approved for operability with TWCBC SIP Trunk service. Manufacturers of preapproved IP-PBXs include: 3CX, Aastra, Allworx, Asterisk, Avaya, Cisco, Cisco/Linksys, Digium, Fonality, InnoMedia, IPTel.org, Microsoft, Nortel/Avaya, Pingtel, ShoreTel and SIPfoundry. For a full listing of pre-approved IP-PBX’s contact your Telegra-

tion Team.

SIP Trunks are priced per concurrent call session at competitive rates. Customers are offered monthly recurring rates based on a contract term.

For more information reach out to your Telegration team for a quote!

SIP Trunk features

Concurrent Call Sessions (CCS): Choose from 6-60 (6-23 for DOCSIS) concur-rent call paths with additions available in single call path increments.

Trunk Overflow: Enables re-routing of inbound calls when the primary trunk is busy.

Alternate Routing: Allows you to re-route calls to a new destination when a location becomes inaccessible.

Unlimited Calling Plan Pricing: Pro-vides unlimited local calling with bun-dle and term discounts.

On-Demand Capacity: Purchase capaci-ty based on the number of concurrent calls that you make.

Caller ID: Displays the name and num-ber of the calling party for inbound calls.

On-Demand Analysis Reports: Tracks day-of-week and time-of-day usage, as well as top ten highest calls.

Outbound Long Distance Packages: Choose from plans with up to 10,000 MOU per month.

Inbound/Outbound Call Blocking: Blocks various call types that generate additional charges (e.g., collect calls, 900 numbers and international calls).

Calling Name and Number Delivery: Displays the name and number of your business to recipients of outbound calls placed by your business.

Channel Update Maria Perisi, Channel Support Manager

SIP Trunking Solution Sales

Telegration and nexVortex have teamed up to make SIP Trunking easy. Learn about the value proposition of bring your own broad-band SIP Trunking, popular SIP Trunking applications, and SIP Trunking solution sales. Join us on Thursday, April 24h at 2pm EST to learn more.

Learn More

Do you know that according to the latest market research, by 2015, SIP trunking will overtake T1s as the preferred connection type among North American Enterprises?

Learn more about creating value with SIP Trunking solutions in our next webinar.

This 20 minute webinar session includes:

SIP Trunking Value Proposition

Business cases for TDM migration

SIP Trunking value for multi-site appli-cations

Moving the PBX into the data center

Popular SIP Trunking Applications

Thursday, April 24th at 2pm EST

About nexVortex, Inc.

nexVortex is an IP Communications Service Provider specializing in SIP Trunking ser-vices, conferencing, and other VoIP solu-tions for business. nexVortex is an UNCOM-MON company delivering Uncommon Ser-vice while excelling through technical Know-How and an unbending Commitment to our customers. Our mission is to provide our customers with the IP knowledge, services, and capabilities they need to improve their business communications easily and afford-

ably. For more information, visit nexvor-tex.com and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Q1 Trends and Overview

Brandon Burchard. VP of Business Development

So spring is in the air or at least the calen-dar shows its spring, but the snow is still falling and there is still ice on the lake if you take a short drive north…so how could it be spring?!? I am not sure what to believe some days about the seasons we are expe-riencing or the direction of the industry we all find ourselves in. I find that many part-ners and reps in our industry are feeling the same way when we talk about emerging technologies like cloud services, SIP trunk-ing, and Hosted PBX. There are still many nay-sayers that do not want embrace change, or just have a hard time believing that these new technologies are going to replace the way we have done things for a hundred years.

My point is regardless of what the calendar tells you or the latest market research is predicting; the old saying “the proof is in the pudding” still holds true at this time in our industry. As we continue to educate and market the emerging technologies I find it interesting when I take a look back at Q1 and see what our customers are actually buying and how the providers are doing with their new services.

The first three months have shown a few trends that began last year and are continu-ing into 2014. The first trend and a large majority of our Q1 sales are BIG bandwidth and redundant Internet pipes. Businesses are buying more bandwidth that ever be-fore. T1’s are finally dead and a majority of businesses are moving to Ethernet technol-ogy as soon as it become available to them. This transition is happening as fast as DSL replaced dial up and I am sure the Cloud has something to do with it.

The next trend that is finally becoming mainstream is SIP services that are replac-ing TDM POTS. The FCC, AT&T, and Verizon helped motivate many business to finally consider making the transition with their announcement of the TDM network getting shut down by 2020. These type of events always seem to help our business drive new technology the same way hurricanes help businesses consider disaster recovery plans. The last trend I want to highlight would be around managed or Hosted PBX that is

starting to become mainstream, however there has been no earth shattering event that is forcing businesses to make the tran-sition. There are plenty of options from premises based vendors like Avaya, Shoretel, and Cisco and many businesses still use the phone the same way they did 20 years ago. As we start to measure the benefits of hosted providers we are learning what types of businesses will make the switch and also learning that some will ride out there existing systems until the lights go out.

The trends we see at Telegration here in Michigan can be much different than the trends we see with our partners in LA just like the weather…so regardless of the latest Gartner report or provider presentation that tells you about the billions of dollars you are missing out on; we need to ask our customers where the next trend will be and listen to their pain points and business needs to find the right solution. Bandwidth was king in Q1 here at Telegration and I am excited to see what the next several months will produce. Is it time for the Cloud and summer weather? Only time will tell so stay tuned…

New Provider Spotlight

Craig Goins. Sales Engineering Team Leader

Telegration is pleased to announce that

Comlink has been added to our portfolio of providers, below is an overview of their products and services and network map.

With DATACENTERS that host clients resid-ing in over 100 countries, COMLINK is a leading provider of CLOUD SERVICES, dedi-cated and virtual private servers, storage, and colocation all CONNECTED over a pri-vate, protected Ethernet backbone with bandwidths up to 100Gb. Using our private fiber network and multiple certified data-centers (HIPAA, SSAE 16, PCI) strategically located, COMLINK can provide your busi-ness with redundant (Hot) servers, granular

backup and restore capabilities, and a true dis-aster recovery and business continuity plan.

COMLINK also provides leading edge ser-vices such as MPLS, Optical Wave, Ethernet, DS1, DS3, OCx, and DSL. COMLINK offers the

premier neutral Access and Local Tandem in Michigan. In addition COMLINK offers an array of Voice services; PRI, SIP, Long Dis-tance, Conferencing and Hosted VoIP.

Products and Services

Cloud Services

Comlink has taken a redundant approach enabling our customers to protect all appli-cations running in our cloud with cost effec-tive replicated infrastructure. As you’re on premise servers age, migrate them seam-lessly to the cloud using state of the art migration tools from Veeam. Accelerate time to deployment by instantly provision-ing new replicated servers and storage to-gether. From Assessment to implementa-tion to management, our certified profes-sionals will get you where you want to be.

Cloud Servers - Managed private and hybrid cloud servers with an audited environment, service level agreements and cost effective replacements, to on premise servers.

Dedicated Servers - Managed or un-managed with high availability, proac-tive support and redundant infrastruc-ture to eliminate server downtime.

DataCenter – Customize a secure and cost effective solution to fit your needs; from just needing a cabinet, uninterruptable power and internet, to completely managed with unlimited 24/7/365 support.

Network Services

MPLS

Virtual Ethernet (VES/VPLS)

Internet Access

Ethernet over Copper – Up to 15Mbps

Private Line – T1 to 100 Gbps fiber

Optical Wave

Private Fiber Builds

24/7/365 NMC Support

Voice Services

Hosted PBX/Phones

Authorized Polycom Provider

SIP Trunks

PRI

Integrated Voice & Data (PRI/SIP/Analog)

Voice Conferencing

Network Map

COMLINK’s rapidly expanding fiber optic network is headquartered in Michigan and extends throughout the Midwest; with over 5,500 miles of fiber and metro rings extend-ing throughout the areas major markets. COMLINK’s Network Management Center is manned 24X7x365 to ensure the security of our network, the reliability of our services, and satisfaction for our clients.

Contact your Telegration Sales Engineer for more information on Comlink or to set up a training with your Comlink team.

Fisher Thoughts

Andrew Fisher, Senior Sales Engineer

Everyone knows that Cloud Storage is the future!

The price of internet connections continues to decrease. 3% of businesses are using complete cloud storage, today. Only 8% of businesses have plans to implant cloud solutions. This leaves us 89% of the busi-ness that need our help! How do we posi-tion ourselves to be a true of value to your customers?

First providing our clients, a vision of how they can move to a cloud solution. Most customers are going to want to take baby steps. Starting clients with a solution of how can back up there servers to a Cloud solution. This is a great baby step. This Baby Step will be a giant step in your true value to your client. When your client be-comes a cloud client, they will be a cloud client for life. Clients believe that it is very difficult to move to from one cloud environ-ment to another cloud in environment. Your client will become locked into your solution.

Telegration and The Cloud Task Force has solutions that will allow your customer to back up their data to the cloud and not impact their day to day operation!

Let Telegration show you some of these solutions!

Increasing

Revenue the Traditional Way

George Aldea, Senior Sales Engineer

Fiber sales are booming at Telegration. During recent sales calls clients are asking for more…”More Internet bandwidth, More bandwidth connecting additional sites to their wan, and More employees! Business-es seem to be hiring more people, finally! The theme here is a very positive one for our industry. I know we are looking to sell more cloud services (and we are) but we are also seeing a big uptick in our IP net-working sales results/ funnel.

I find it interesting that we rarely quote a simple T1 for a site on a MPLS network or to the Internet. After sitting in recent meetings with clients we are seeing the change in market direction? Bandwidth is now being driven by applications in the cloud! It is apparent that clients are adopting cloud based services in rapid man-ner instead of rushing out to build new servers on their sites. For example, car dealerships are now adopting their CRM companies cloud based services instead of having to maintain servers in house. These CRM companies like ADP are working with us and clients to set up the best networking topography possible. Also, instead of sim-ple point to point networks connecting back to a host site on the dealerships network, we are seeing large fiber based Internet services being deployed at all the dealer-ships locations. ADP is providing a secure firewall in their service offering. For those who still want to maintain IRON on site (cool speak for servers), we have deployed large fiber Metro E networks connecting their locations.

Another great vertical is medical care and especially nursing home/rehab centers. These businesses have some aging infra-structure but with ERM (Electronic Medical Records) being deployed both on premise and cloud solutions, we are seeing large data networks being deployed with redun-dancy included. Yes redundancy… this all means more revenue in our pockets.

As Telegration continues to increase sales,

Customer Service continues to add new

people to the Service Department to meet

the demand. Our most recent additions are

Joel Eifert and Margaret Shephard. Both

people have a very strong background in

AT&T service experience and we are de-

lighted to have them on our team. It has

been an eye opener for them to work with

other providers and to see our Telegration

attitude in action that works on behalf of

you and your customers no matter what!

Justin Jones has progressed to a full time

Order Fulfillment role but is a little more

diversified. He also assists with some Chan-

nel Sales Managers and Marketing tasks.

The ramp-up process at Telegration is truly

a challenge for new people as there is a

tremendous amount of training needed to

learn all the carrier’s products and process-

es.

Our 2014 Initiatives to Improve our Service

to You!

Add more Customer Service Reps to

the Department. We will be hiring

another Rep soon.

Improve our Response Time and Com-

munications with our agents and cus-

tomers.

Improve Project Management to pro-

vide the smoothest installations possi-

ble and assist with Repair requests

with the best diagnostic skills possible.

Become fully certified on all providers

and trained for the move to Hosted

Cloud technologies.

Develop more professional documentation

and systems to deliver the information

My advice is try and be inclusive during the

sales process with your client’s VARS, CRM

and EMR providers. We have found having

them at the table with us to be very benefi-

cial in closing the large network deals.

Good Selling!

Acquiring New Customers

Dan Fell, Corporate Account Manager

Acquiring new customers is costly, so it’s

often more cost-effective to sell additional

products and services to an existing cus-

tomer than chase after new prospects. In

field service organizations, getting existing

customers to renew their service contracts

is vital to a healthy business. A high renewal

rate requires both excellent customer ser-

vice and the technology to manage contract

renewals and ensure customer satisfaction.

There are several strategies a field service

organization can use to bolster its renewal

rates and customer service levels, but coor-

dinating these methods requires a sophisti-

cated system with alerts and activity sched-

uling. At the basic level, a service provider

should combine its service system and a

customer relationship management (CRM)

solution together in order to leverage time-

ly renewal communications and improve

contract management.

A lot of companies have a contract manage-

ment tool within the organization, which

helps with evaluating which renewals are

coming up, understanding their net profita-

bility and making sure the retention rate of

their contract renewals is high. Here are a

few ways that contract management soft-

ware can enhance your service.

Improving customer service communica-

tions: A software system makes it possible

to use automation to improve workflow,

such as scheduling a sequence of renewal

activities for the customer service or con-

tract management team. This makes sure

that sales representatives follow up in a

timely fashion with customer requests and

key contacts. Contacting customers at ap-

propriate intervals provides time to answer

any questions they have about their con-

tract renewal and helps them understand

their service options.

Analyzing contract profitability:

While it may be preferable to sell a renewal

instead of a new service, some contracts

may prove unprofitable. Key to effective

contract management is having visibility

into contract profitability analysis. It’s im-

portant that when looking at the upcoming

renewals you can understand which con-

tracts are profitable and which will need to

be adjusted prior to renewing the service

agreement.

Providing additional sales opportunities:

Once a good contract management system

is in place, a field service organization can

train its renewal or sales staff to upsell re-

newals with optional add-ons. This allows

the company to get more value out of the

contract by charging for extra tweaks or add

-ons, and to provide enhanced, tailored

customer service.

More Reps for

More Agent Support

Lynette Jones, Director of Customer Service

Announcing More Reps for More Agent

Support!

to you and your customers.

Develop our After Hours Service Deliv-

ery utilizing new equipment and re-

mote Staff.

There is no question that the vast majority

of our orders now require more advanced

complex technologies. We continue to add

more Enterprise Customers which demands

more expertise than ever before. We feel

confident that if we keep our nose to the

grindstone and work hard on these initia-

tives, the Service Department will meet

these challenges.

Carrier News You Should Know………..

AT&T Flex/FBB

The AT&T BVOIP product line continues to

change and their marketing team continues

to add more options, promos and features.

Advanced Features allows you to call for-

ward in an emergency and provides many

other features through their online tool,

Business Direct. There are small fees for

these Advanced Features but are well

worth it. Lead Times:

IP Flex – Installation timeframes (if

facilities are available) – 45-60 days.

FBB – Fiber orders still average 6 – 9

months. We had many delays this

quarter with fiber but part of the prob-

lem was the weather playing havoc

with construction teams trying to bore

through ice and snow!

We look forward to assisting you and your

customers even better this year !

Provider Spotlight

Q2 Spiffs

Mobility Update Ian Branam, Mobility Manager

Mobility is driving the way global enterpris-

es and their customers communicate and

collaborate. Employees and customers alike

take their Smartphones, tablets, and other

mobile devices everywhere they go. In this

age of shared data plans and 24/7 connec-

tivity, your mobility strategy must be not

only extensive and reliable, but also cost

effective. While most business need to em-

brace mobility, getting your arms around all

the options is not easy. Plus it’s always a

challenge to keep up with rapid changes in

mobility technology – will your apps run on

next generation devices? And which devices

are the best fit with your workforce in

terms of features and capabilities to help

them do their jobs smarter?

Managing mobile devices is better with GOOD.

Good for Enterprise

from AT&T is a mobile device management

solution that provides customers with wire-

less productivity.

Good for Enterprise™ provides enterprise-

grade wireless

email, Personal Information Management

(PIM), and IT security and management

tools for complete visibility and control of

your diverse smartphone deployment.

Product Suite Includes:

Good Mobile Messaging

• Email and PIM with exceptional user expe-

rience.

• FIPS-certified TA and on-device data en-

cryption.

• Calendar and contacts that work across

most platforms

Good Mobile Control™

• Control, provisioning and management

from a Web-based portal.

• Software distribution with version man-

agement.

Good Mobile Access

• Access to company information/

applications.

• No extra VPN hardware/software or pro-

prietary SDK require

Business Benefits:

Compatibility

Compatible with a variety of operating

systems your employees are already

using and are comfortable with includ-

ing iOS®, Android™, Palm OS™, Symbi-

an and Windows® Phone OS.

Device Management

• Security and management policies can be

restricted to selected applications or ap-

plied to the functionality

of the entire device.

• Enterprise control is “contained” and

does not impact personal experience, apps

or data.

Security

• Helps ensure security at each level of data

delivery—internal, perimeter, transport and

at the handheld device.

Telegration knows mobility. Let’s talk !

Cincinnati Bell, the nation's ninth-largest wireless carrier, announced that it will shut

down its wireless network and sell its spectrum--essentially an acknowledgement that it

cannot compete in today's wireless industry

Verizon Wireless said customers who are on month-to-month contracts or who bring

their own phones can now get discounts on their service pricing by moving to the carri-

er's "More Everything" shared data plans

According to a new, detailed analysis from New Street Research, Sprint and T-Mobile US

need to merge to effectively compete against AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless be-

cause one of the companies will ultimately fail if they are not able to merge.

T-Mobile US will drop its overage fees for all of its domestic plans and is

launching a petition to get Verizon Wireless , AT&T Mobility and Sprint to do the

same thing.

AT&T launched on April 9, 2014 a new branding campaign that appears

aimed at bringing together its many products under one message, with an em-

phasis on mobility. Under the tagline “Mobilizing Your World”, AT&T is launching

a series of four new television spots that will kick off during coverage of the 2014

Masters Tournament on ESPN and CBS.

MAKING WIRELESS NEWS IN THE PAST WEEKS

Telegration Presence at the 2014 Channel Partners Expo in Vegas

On Feb. 26-28, 2014, Michigan-based AT&T Master Agent Telegration, Inc., a master sales agency and leading provid-er of business telecommunication ser-vices, was in attendance at the 2014 Channel Partners Expo in Vegas. Telegra-tion theme for the Expo was Recharge and Revitalize. Telegration had a booth set up outside the Expo hall that includ-ed an Oxygen Bar, Charging Station for multiple devices, and a Masseuse. The Telegration booth was a huge success. Many attendees revitalized at Telegra-tion’s Oxygen Bar while recharging their mobile devices at the Charging Station. The Telegration team was on site to meet with potential partners and service providers to develop partnerships and expand their service portfolio. Telegra-tion met with some of the leading solu-tion providers in the Telecom industry such as, Comcast, Charter, and Time Warner Cable over dinner discussing strategy and marketing ideas to increase revenue on both sides.

“The BEST networking event I have been to thus far.”

-Rayon Treadwell

Marketing Administrator & Agent Recruiter, Telegration

Upcoming Events

2014 Traverse City Cloud Council

Dates: July 9th-10th

Invites will be sent out via email. Spaces are limited so please respond as soon as you get an

invite.

2014 Telegration Golf Annual Invitational

Date: August 18th

Invites will be sent out via email. Spaces are limited so please respond as soon as you get an

invite.

2014 Channel Partners New Orleans

Dates: September 8th-10th

2014 Telegration Partner Holiday Awards Reception

Date: December 5th

More information will be sent out via email as the event gets closer