Having worked in the telecom industry for close to 10 years, I’ve had a chance to work with many providers and explore many offerings. Some of those years were spent with the “big telcos,” but more often I dealt with smaller companies.
The first ITSP (internet telephony service provider) I had a chance to work for was a small but efficient company. Our CTO developed our own solution based on an open source software. Our focus was on SMBs, and the price was a major selling point. We got to such an attractive price point by tying customers into five-year commitments. When we needed to add a new feature as requested by a customer, it would often take days if not weeks to come up with a solution.
The pros to this experience were working with small and agile company able to custom build. The cons: many patched components that created a nightmare for troubleshooting and lengthy contracts that were extremely difficult to break.
The customer experience wasn’t something I was proud to be a part of. Needless to say, I went on to work with another company—our distributor at the time. This was my first channel sales environment and I knew that’s where I belonged. Here I was exposed to hundreds of ITSPs and got to pick the brains of many of the industry’s leaders and familiarize myself with their products. Some were focused purely on very small businesses marketing primarily by word of mouth, while others were international products whose notoriety preceded them. Some offered their proprietary solutions with extremely high workload involved, while others resold existing solutions with little to do apart from field customer requests and relay the information to the provider.
All this to say that every business has their own MO with no clear cut “this is right” and “this is wrong” way to do things.
Why Sherweb’s VoIP offering got my attention
When I was introduced to Sherweb, the more I learned about the company, the more intrigued I was. At first, I saw them as a distributor like many others. Then I found out how Sherweb works with Microsoft and a host of other vendors, and once I saw how complete their offerings were they definitely had my attention. It was only when I started to speak with colleagues who had previously worked with Sherweb that I realized they were so much more. It seemed to me Sherweb offered not only just products, but really an end-to-end support structure for MSPs.
As many channel partners know, products are now available through hundreds of different sources. Standing out or differentiating yourself is generally done in one of two ways; either by being a bargain offering ($), or by adding more value. Sherweb has earned its success by doing the latter. Coming from the telecom world where I experienced first-hand just how much is involved in a single deployment, I gained a great appreciation for partner companies who would consult when needed.
It was something I wanted to be a part of then, and still do now. It’s a big reason I decided to join the Sherweb team.
Why Sherweb is the right choice for VoIP services
Sherweb’s VoIP solutions can be tailored to fit many types of businesses at all stages of their telecom practice.
For beginners—companies who have an established MSP offering and customer base and are looking to diversify—there’s no easier way to the top. Sherweb’s value-adds can all be brought to light in this approach. Getting your new practice up and running can be daunting: what will you offer, how will you go to market and is your team ready to support this new venture? With Sherweb in your corner, the answer is yes! Some examples of how we can work together to grow your business include:
- Alongside your dedicated account manager, we can help paint a picture of what you’d like to offer your clients. Our solutions cover most telecom needs ranging from a pure connectivity play, to our integration with Microsoft Teams, to a straightforward business telephony solution with our Cloud PBX and even a fully-managed, Teams-integrated solution. We can share ideas and work with you to build out your offering. You can also view what’s included by referencing our statement of work to get more information on what a realistic service offering is while still leaving plenty of room to add value on top of what you already do.
- Going to market is the next challenge, including promoting new products and preparing marketing materials. Sherweb’s partner toolbox has a bunch of documentation that can be used by our partners, from simple one-pagers to more in depth eBooks that provide comprehensive overviews of specific products. Some of these materials are already available in a white-labeled versions for you to rebrand and take your first steps as quickly as possible.
- We include free support for both your team and your customers, starting from day one. We can offer training on our sales and quoting tools to get you started. After deployment, while we’re always there for you, a big part of our value comes from empowering partners by giving you the knowledge needed to work independently. Our presales team can also guide you through your first deals and help avoid common missteps.
These are just a few of the reasons that Sherweb drew me in.
What about you? What’s holding you back from jumping into telecom? Do any of these values support your next step? Last but not least, my favorite and most important question: how can we help?
Share your feedback
All the options and value we bring to partners is a result of direct feedback. For existing partners, I would love to hear more about why you chose to team up with Sherweb! If you are a Sherweb partner, but you don’t offer our VoIP services, feel free to reach out to your account manager or myself so we can look at what it would take to win you over or get you started.
Sherweb is an incredible ally for so many MSPs and IT channel partners, and we would love to have you aboard. Reach out anytime! For more information about Sherweb, check out our Partner Guide.
