We hosted a pair of great lunch & learn events last week in Atlanta and Nashville. Our attendees included several VARs and solutions providers in the area, and during the conversations a few key points came up that are worth sharing.

Referral arrangements with direct reps are still big small.

There were a number of attendees who had been selling Comcast Business Class for a while, but through a referral program that pays a small up-front. At the same time, they were the ones getting the paperwork signed. All the direct rep did was do a quote and provide a contract.

Most didn't know there even was a residual program. The difference in compensation is pretty substantial. According to one of our attendees, he gets about $100 whenever he refers a business class internet deal. Let's assume that's an $89 MRC sale. On a 36 month term, that's worth between $300 and $400 in residual commissions. That's a big difference.

VARs and solution providers are usually already supporting their clients' Comcast services.

This was one of those things that's intuitive, but doesn't get much attention. Most of our attendees who were providing IT services to their clients were the first call in the event of a service issue...even if they didn't sell the service. It makes perfect sense when you think about it — the customer hires a company to manage their infrastructure. Internet goes down. Who gets the call?

If your area of responsibility already extends to the data connections your client has, why not make sure you're getting paid for that service?

Many people aren't aware of the sophistication of Comcast's Metro E product set.

This challenge is probably one of the most insidious for all MSOs, not just Comcast. Being that they are known as the local broadband and TV provider, people simply don't realize that they also have over 145,000 miles of fiber across the country.

They also don't realize that Comcast's fiber products all carry an SLA and that they're fully MEF 9 and MEF 14 certified. More importantly, many people don't realize that Comcast is the single larges facilities-based last mile alternative to the phone company.

Think about that for a minute. This is huge.

How many of your clients request redundant connectivity? In our groups, several folks that focused on healthcare and telepresence said all of their clients demand redundancy. Add another traditional telco, and you will need to babysit the build to ensure that the connection comes through different entrances and goes to different COs.

Or you could just install fiber from Comcast. Their assets never touch a CO and follow completely different routes.

I could go on...

In all these events were a spectacular success. Thanks to everyone who was able to come out. Besides being a great educational event, we had the opportunity to meet a number of really good people.

For those of you that didn't get a chance to make it, don't sweat it. Get in touch with us and we can either run you through the material via a webinar or we can just send over the slide deck.