So what are you going to do?
I get asked this question a lot lately and I do not have an answer. The telecom business as I know it is becoming a dinosaur much like my body has, sure there will be a few customers you still need to service due to the fact they will never upgrade or plan to close or sell the business before they need to upgrade.
I guess my question is has anyone found a different revenue source that works well with supporting you telecom clients? I thought about training to sell travel, but there are thousands of home based travel agents selling cruises and not making any money, it looks like the phone business all over again.
At 58 retirement isn't a option and I don't think I would be a good fit a McDonald's

I'm now in the Security business working as a Sales Rep and it has been a fantastic move.

The company that bought my business was a mess. Initially their vaunted technical staff wouldn't work on my customer base because it was all ESI stuff and "beneath" them and there was no supervisor in that department to oversee things so I ended up servicing my customers. When I made a stink their answer was to hire a manager for that department. Since I was 6 months into it and many of my customers had disappeared or gotten annoyed I put in for and took the manager's job. That was fine until we signed a contract to provide first level phone support for the cutover and ongoing needs of another interconnect that was replacing the systems at every Goodyear store (almost 600 of them) in the country with IP Office systems (we didn't service IP Office systems and had ZERO experience with them). The company we were working for (Integration Partners) subbed out the installations (50 per week) to one company which hired subs as well, we handled the first level of support and they used Granite for telecom and wiring.

Turns out the IP Office is horrible with POTS lines and when they swapped out the Cisco UC540's that were working fine all of a sudden they had issues with static etc and we were overwhelmed with calls. The projected 3 calls per day turned into 25 a day and of course they never added any staff to handle the volume so I sucked it up and handled most of them. After 6 months they called me in and told me I was doing a horrible job as Manager and not leading my team. I walked in the next morning and resigned! .... and they lost the account within a month because no one would take the Goodyear tickets and there was no supervisor again.

We do Door Access Controls and Surveillance Systems and business is booming.

Companies I have been working for added not just data cabling but full data room build-outs following TIA/EIA Standards...And then adding Fire Alarm, Audio/Video, Security, Nurse Call, System Controls...

It's the same as Telephone Installations: pulling wire, hanging devices and programming.

I've been subcontracting jobs and really enjoy it. I found a few good nationals that pay well and have several accounts in my area. The nice part I get to pick what jobs I want and don't have to worry about the rest. Days off when I want and lots of new and different stuff to work with only boring time is waiting on hold for support, I just have to remind my self that I'm getting paid so wait it out.

We are selling and installing Hosted, carrier services and Cloud.
Growing a very nice recurring monthly income and doing very well.

This is the next step in what we all do.

The battle for us is every IT guy, every ISP and every Hosted Provider is doing the same thing down here. And $10 to $20 a month on a customer just doesn't cut it when we get the service calls of poor call quality. How are you getting around the Hosted Providers using a phone that's available on Amazon for almost nothing. The customers look up everything these days and find it on Amazon or eBay.

I refuse to go down without a fight. Unfortunately, I'm working myself to death in the process. The number of us out there who understand how to troubleshoot basic tip and ring are dwindling and I'm taking advantage of it. The problem is that I'm doing it for three different companies. My primary job, which was supposed to be part-time, is easily 45-50 hours per week and could be more if I wanted it. That's the one that's a ten minute commute from home for me, with a company vehicle and flexible schedule. The pay is at the top-end of what people make around here. It's not forever, as this company told me from day one that they have no intentions of selling any new systems other than hosted. The beauty is that they have hundreds of customers all over the state with TDM systems that need support. Many of them are still under warranty. We just installed one that was pending from a few months ago yesterday. I've never been so busy in my life. Traveling about a 50 mile radius on a daily basis, meeting people, shaking hands and going to places I've never been. That's the fun part.

The other companies I'm supporting are one that I once owned and the other that Derrick owned. Both are in VA, about four hours from here. At first, I thought that I could provide plenty of technical support for them from home and live a life of semi-retirement. Initially, the money seemed good and the quest seemed manageable. It didn't take long to realize that there's no way in hell that a rookie is going to learn how to troubleshoot dial tone or paging speakers by assisting them over the phone. It also didn't take long to realize that I would have to be traveling up there to assist on a regular basis. Being stuck in the house and attached to a phone and computer started to take a toll on my sanity.

Now, I'm facing the proverbial case of 'be careful what you wish for'. Working a full-time job as a technician while juggling calls from two other companies' employees and customers is no joke. I come home exhausted, only to have to answer a full-day's worth of e-mails and writing proposals. It's killing me to the point where I'm going to have to consider cutting one or more of them and focus on what works best for me.

There was a time when I was convinced that the IT and hosted boys would soon be sending us out to pasture. That might be the case one day, but it sure isn't happening in the mid-Atlantic region of the US. How it will be a year from now is hard to say, but I'm confident that I'm going to be able to keep this sector of the business alive in my area.

The Hosted provider provides the phones,

Since we are in a private forum and I hear about the how good the recurring revenue is for hosted- how about some numbers? A business with 15 users in a cloud provided system is bringing how much to you in a monthly income? Curious for sure.

Here goes:

15 Sets. @. 30. =. 450. 25%. Commission. =. $112
Circuit. $200. 15%. Commission =. $. 30

Total monthly recurring commission. =. $142.

1 month SPIFF. $450

Plus. Install $300

This is a average. The more phones the more MRR. Less phones less MRR
Keep in mind, if you don't sell your customers , in most cases someone else will.
Also the more you sell the more MRR you will receive. And also SPIFF can be much larger based on the number of sets .

So for 15 sets there monthly cost is $650 ...... forever.

We have a Magix in our office that is 20 years old. Our owner likes the idea of hosted. When I did the numbers for him and he realizes that over the 20 years we had it he broke even the first five while paying the lease he has then saved $350 per month or about $60,000 he changed his tune!

If I tried to sell that I would not be able to sleep at night.

How do you do it? I have trouble selling good phones with pots line that work 99% of the time it would be very difficult for me to sell stuff that will have problems, need upgrades, reboots and lots of babysitting and cost a unreasonable amount. Time for me to retire I'm just waiting for my 63rd birthday and I'm done. (16 days)

Happy Birthday!

John I'm with you but this is the "old" way of thinking. To me hosted is just going to be a phase like Centrex was back in the day. But I don't know what I am going to do I don't think i can wait until the next phase.

I could not agree more, Hosted is the next step to what ever. But hardware PBX's will not be back.

Hosted is very little different from what we do now.

It's Capital Expense vs Operating Expense. Opex has won the day.

This is Our next step in communications. Don't let I T win and make our money.

Way to go Merritt!

Sam

I may have a update to this thread very soon. And then I might be calling on all of you

I guess it all depends upon the market. Where I am, the only CLEC of any worth is Spectrum, the CATV provider. They are only too happy to sell PRI, POTS, SIP or hosted. They do a pretty good job and leave it up to us to decide what best fits our customers. The company I'm working for has somewhere around 700 Panasonic systems installed out there using a variety of line types. Many are under warranty or maintenance contracts and are only a few years old. I was hired to handle the ongoing support of them, along with moves, adds or changes. I don't see that going anywhere in the next few years. Although they have decided to move forward with Zultys phones using hosted for future sales, they aren't stupid. Applications with a large number of phones using a small number of lines will NEVER be appropriate for hosted, so we still install new systems from time to time. I've only been here two months and we've installed two new TDM/Hybrid systems.

Fortunately, the LEC sold a ton of Nortel systems around here, so there's plenty of activity in supporting those as well. Hosted is right there for us to sell, but it has to be for the right fit and budget. Not all customers are the same. Thankfully, I'll be able to keep working with just support and maintenance on what's already out there for quite some time to come.

I have a friend who was with a total telecom co and hooked up with an IT firm and they are busy servicing their customers with IT and vice a versa, but I believe you need to get with a good IT service company.

So as of July 2018 I am employed by Mix Networks and will be Sr Engineer and Sales support. On top of that will be maintaining the ORT base and slowly moving them onto the Mix platform. If anyone is interested in hearing the sales spiel drop me a line and I will give you the lowdown but basic info, SIP stations $15 per seat you can get Polycom or Yealink phone from Mix or get your own and provision it yourself. We get $2.90 a month for a Polycom 411 phones when you have maintenance and it runs $4 a month. Phone comes provisioned and ready to plug in to POE switch. More than 6 seats I usually add router pre-setup. 24/7 support and 5 switch sites for redundancy and we can port from almost anywhere. Oh I forgot the best part 18% monthly to you on MRC. You send me the info and we will prepare the quote for you and then email it to you with ready to print and sign paperwork. We can also do white label if you want to do you own billing and the MRC cost goes way down.
One of my first task is to build a complete ready to hang on the wall Rack, POE switch, Router and BBU or Mix in a Box package.

Steve, why not post this in the new IT forum.

Decided to take 4 weeks in a row off. 2 weeks in Arazona visiting Daughter, 1 week in NC visiting another Daughter and 1 week driving to see sights I've never seen.

Getting up in morning and what ever direction the car is facing that's how I go.

Nice, Ken!

Sam

Thanks Sam, I think I might visit Nashville.

Very nice Ken! Nashville is really fun town with lots of great history! If you come back through Central PA let me know, I'll buy ya beer if times could meet up!

Gary

And I found out today from Ken that he was within thirty minutes of me last weekend on his 'quest' and he forgot to call me. Let's not let that happen again, Mister!