Now that the snow has all melted in and around Denver it’s time for us to all be productive.  Isn’t it funny though that most people that aren’t from Denver or don’t spend much time here think that there is always 8-10″ of snow on the roads and sidewalks from November 1st until sometime in April.  Denver is very different from places like Minneapolis or Fargo in the sense that whatever snow falls is usually totally gone within 3-5 days – even in the months of January or February.  It’s the 300 days of sunshine that make this a beautiful place to live.  If you’re longing for more vitamin D, come to Denver.  Having a sister that lives here and works for the visitor and convention bureau has made me a huge advocate for our city.  You want the place you live, play, work and breathe to be vibrant and that means that you want steady streams of new events and new residents joining our population.  If you’re a convention planner or CEO reading this post and you want to bring your 1000 employees or association members to Denver, call my Sister Jean and she’ll get you on the right track.   Enough about Denver…….  : )

Channel Conflict is a crazy thing for many of us in the telecom business.  As an agent (part of the Indirect sales channel) in our industry it’s particularly difficult when you’ve invested tons of time supporting a customer on a solution only to find out that they have also been working with an account manager (part of the Direct sale channel and an employee of the carrier) presenting the same product solution.  Thankfully I’ve only been in this position about 5 times in my 15 year career.  When I worked direct for Qwest in my various sales roles I battled with my management to get the agent(s) out of the account – we ended up taking full responsibility for all aspects of the sale and regretfully, all billing problems the customer was experiencing.  I still remember my manager telling me, “Those agents will mess everything up”.  Now as an agent we make sales to our customers with little regard to who the direct sales rep is that may or may not be tagged to our customer(s).  It’s our customer by golly, why should I share things with another sales person!  This is channel conflict in the carrier world as it relates to the direct and indirect sales force.

Qwest implemented a policy called CIE or Channel Integration around 2003 which was really smart – they allowed both sales channels (direct and indirect, employee and agent) to work together and insure that the customer’s interest came ahead of all others.  This has worked like a gem for a few years.  It’s allowed direct Qwest sales professionals to partner with seasoned agents to support their customers together creating a very workable and successful sales and service model.  Regretfully very few of the other carriers have implemented this as a strategy so the conflict goes on in many regions of the country.   Last year Qwest reversed their stance and decided to pay direct and indirect channels less commission on deals where CIE is involved.  I think this was a backward move that now encourages the agent community to move services to other providers rather than settle for a smaller piece of the pie.  My hope is that this decision is reversed and leads to more overall Qwest revenue in the future.   In the interview in Phones+ magazine we were introduced to Blake Wetzel, the new VP of sales for the Qwest Business Partner Program – my hope is that he will positively influence some of the decisions made for our channel in the coming months and years (for all parties involved).