Telecommunication Sales – Tricks of the Trade

If you work in an area service by AT&T:

If you call AT&T’s repair phone number, it will ask you to enter the number you need service on. If you enter a number and it’s not an AT&T phone number, the system will tell you who’s providing the service. I used to cold call and then go back to the office and check the phone numbers on all the business cards I collected, to tell what company the business was buying their phone service from.(1) Then when I called the contacts, I mentioned the carrier’s name. It made it seem like I knew more than I did and the person was more likely to listen to me. The information also helped me tailor my sales pitch.

If you work for Cox Business Services:

When I worked at Cox, no one could tell the salespeople where the company’s service was specifically. Many times reps would go out canvassing in an area that the company couldn’t service. A number of times, reps made sales to companies that were too far off Cox’s network. There was no way to cost justify the build and the sale had to be canceled. That didn’t make for a happy sales environment. I discovered that you could search by name in the Cox’s database. So I would search for words like, “National”, “United”, “First”, etc. and then look for businesses with suite numbers in their address. I knew that Cox could service any business in the existing customer’s building and I could sell phone service to existing Cox internet customers.

Make friends with the network engineers. They are given plans for network build outs. If they are building out to a new mall or shopping center, they’ll have plans that should include store names and contact information for the mall management. Proactively call all the out of state retailers and tell them Cox is the incumbent phone service provider. I did this for a new mall in San Ysidro, California and won 60% of the mall business.

If you work for Qwest:

Qwest has a system called Exchange and if you type in a phone number, it will tell you which carrier is providing the service. If it comes up Qwest, look up the account in BOSS and look to see if you can cost justify a PRI, if the customer is paying too much for their long distance or would be better off with an integrated T1 instead of phone lines and DSL.

If you work for a competitive local exchange carrier in Verizon territory:

Verizon is one of the few incumbents that still offers fixed bandwidth, integrated T1’s, and their pricing is horrible. I sat through an hour long conference call, webinar, learning about this service.(2) After the conference, there was a question and answer session. I wanted to ask the moderator what year it was because I thought I had gone back in time and 512k was still considered a good Internet speed. I also wanted to ask them for a list of their customers utilizing the service. I wanted to market to the world’s most uninformed customer base.

The way to identify these businesses is to conduct a speed test on one of their computers.(3) If their speed is less than a megabit, they probably have one of Verizon’s pre-tech-stock-crash, integrated T1’s.

If you work for a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC):

Try to locate areas that are too far from any of the phone company’s wire centers and can’t receive DSL service. Offer the businesses integrated T1 service.

When you get a business’s phone company, phone bill:

Look for “crammed” charges. These are monthly charges from third party companies that the phone company bills for. They are almost always erroneous. On the bill, near the charge, is a toll free number for inquiries. Have the company call to get the charge removed. This practice will help you create good will and trust.

If you’re selling against an incumbent phone company’s integrated T1 service:

The phone company is new to integrated service and horrible at it. They don’t manage their installations, conduct site surveys and they charge to extend the demarc. The integrated T1 has always been the CLEC’s bread and butter; feel confident in pushing your company’s service.

(1) I put the number in my mobile phone and called when I was out in the field sometimes, to avoid places my company was already servicing.

(2) I hung in there because I wanted to win an iPod.

(3) www.speedtest.net is a good site.