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The annual Visionary Spotlight Awards recognize excellence in outstanding products, services and deployments across a broad range of communications technology categories, including voice, data networking, hosting, cloud services and managed services. The winners of the 2017 Visionary Spotlight Awards showcase the best of the communications industry's overall innovation efforts, highlighting future-thinking execution and creativity.
AireSpring products and services stand out as award-winners in the field, thanks to a network engineered with end-to-end quality of Service (QoS), including a variety of carrier networks and technologies aggregated to create a unified platform. It adds up to a seamless support and billing structure all across AireSpring’s national datacenters around the United States.
To learn more about how AireSpring’s network allows you to deliver customized, cost-effective solutions to your customers, reach out to your Channel Manager or send an email to sales@airespring.com. |
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Are you prepared to capitalize on the SD-WAN opportunity? SD-WAN is disrupting business as usual because it simultaneously improves application performance, lowers WAN costs and enhances business continuity. But tailoring an SD-WAN solution to meet the unique business requirements of your customer is a complex process filled with myriad options.
Don’t miss the opportunity to learn all this and more! Join AireSpring Principal Solutions Architect, Mike Chase, aka Dr. Cloud, on Thursday, July 27th, from 1:00 to 1:45 PM PDT as he takes a deep dive into the intricacies of SD-WAN.
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Intelisys Northwest Mindshare
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TBI Boot Camp – Network Focus |
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Telarus TIC Seattle |
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TBI – Impact Regional Conference |
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Telarus TIC Chicago |
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Channel Partners Evolution 2017 |
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Welcome to the latest edition in our series of profiles, shining the spotlight on AireSpring’s amazing partners. This month, we’re speaking with Jason Smith, Co-Founder of BlueStream Consulting.
Tell us about yourself, your background and the history of your firm.
I grew up in Pensacola, FL. My father was a navy navigator, my mother was a school teacher and I was an avid swimmer. I swam competitively all through high school and college, which is where I met my wife Emily. We both had athletic scholarships for all four years of college. We started out at Indian River State College then transferred to the University of Toledo for our junior and senior years. My wife was actually a national champion, and I was a member of the Division 1 NCAA Swimming and Diving Team and an ALL MAC Swimmer. While attending the University of Toledo, I founded the University of Toledo Cycling Club. After graduating with a BA in
How long have you been partnering with AireSpring?
Since 2016. We were introduced to AireSpring through our relationship with Telarus.
What do you like about working with AireSpring?
I love the fact that AireSpring can provide me a quote virtually immediately. I also like the fact that AireSpring provides access to multiple loop providers or access providers. I like how simple AireSpring’s pricing is, and I like the promos—especially the Polycom VVX 400 promo. Right now, I have a client who is purchasing their phones on contract and they are not having to pay anything for those phones. It comes with the SIP license. I like the fact that AireSpring’s provisioning team keeps me in informed. I like to keep my clients in the loop which makes me look good. AireSpring’s provisioning team sends out the emails which enables me to add project management as a service for my clients and take that worry off their hands by leveraging your internal teams. I like the pass-through on the installation charge as well. There is a lot of work and effort that goes into ensuring a service gets delivered. It requires a lot of hands-on attention and you really need to care about your client. Clients that have been through a bad experience really appreciate when things go well. We just did an install with a healthcare client in south Florida and the manager there said it didn’t even feel like he just went through an install. Actually, we did two installs because we had a temporary circuit first, then we had to cut over to the permanent site and disconnect the temporary. Everything went so smoothly. It was very good. Finally, I love the fact that AireSpring does not have a direct sales force. I used to sell a lot of Windstream. But I found myself competing with their retail team. I had problems with Windstream reps going in to my accounts to upsell them.
What would you say is the secret to success in this industry and being a successful agent, VAR, MSP etc.?
You have to really care about your clients. You want to look at your client and be able to empathize with them. Try to look at the business through their eyes. When I am asking someone who is positioning themselves to me as an expert, I want to hear “If I were you this is what I’d do,” or “This is the product you should go with, and here’s why.” You almost have to have the heart of a teacher to help your clients succeed. If your client succeeds you will succeed. Most of our business comes from referrals. Make sure you’ve brought some value to the table. Even if you don’t win the business, make an impression on the prospect, because we’ve lost deals and then gotten calls from the same prospect for something else. We’ve won their business the second time around because they remembered how professional we were, and how we advised them on what was best for them, not us. Even if it meant we weren’t going to get that particular deal, we are honest to a fault. People remember that display of integrity and they don’t forget you. They feel like they got value out of meeting you, and you’ll get another chance. We’ve been invited back to bid on additional business many times.
What is the “next big thing” you think people should be aware of in 2017?
Looking toward the future we need to realize that there are probably going to be more acquisitions in our industry. We need to prepare our clients for the results of these acquisitions and how firms like my company, BlueStream, can be very supportive in helping them navigate this new environment. There will be new teams coming in, there will be different players at these companies, and their trusted contacts may not be available to them anymore.
Regarding technology, we’ll see more and more businesses moving to hosted PBX, clients will want more bandwidth and they will be wanting managed services. I don’t know what will happen to the cost of bandwidth if they roll back the Net Neutrality Law. I believe firewalls will change, that it will be an appliance-based solution included with SD-WAN. Either the SD-WAN is going to be native to the firewall, or the firewall is going to be native to the SD-WAN. And that’s going to become a popular offer. I also predict that we’ll be seeing routers that can re-boot themselves as well. If we get business intelligence on-prem, and we can monitor and see that this router is going to re-boot itself, it will be manageable.
What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of telecom?
My wife and I were married at the Pensacola Lighthouse, so we’re attempting to visit as many lighthouses as we can on our summer vacation.
Thank you, Jason, for taking time to talk with us and share your insights.
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At AireSpring, we know that it is our dedication to customer service that sets us apart, and customer service begins with great employees. Here is your chance to get to know the AireSpring team that oversees your orders and delivers great service every day. This time we are talking with Senior National Channel Manager, Michael Nesci.
Hello. To begin, please tell us about your professional background and role at AireSpring.
I got into telecom by being in the right place, at the right time, and meeting the right people. I have a BSA degree in criminal justice from Buffalo State College and came to Los Angeles originally to pursue a career in law enforcement. Unfortunately, even though I did very well on all the civil service exams there just were not a lot of open positions with local law enforcement agencies. So I decided to leverage my prior experience in the restaurant industry which I had acquired in my home state of New York, and took a job at the famous Velvet Turtle restaurant in LA. Stuart Anderson’s Velvet Turtle was a very popular LA restaurant in the 1980s that was owned by Marriott Corporation for a time. The Velvet Turtle was also very popular with the business crowd. One afternoon, some of my regular customers, who I had come to know quite well, commented on my sales skills and suggested I apply for a job with their company. As a result, in 1989, my telecom career began with a company called Metromedia. Shortly thereafter, the company became LDDS then LDDS WorldCom and ultimately, MCI. I stayed with them for about 13 years. When MCI went into bankruptcy, I was hired as a Channel Manager at Allegiance Telecom, which was the POTs carrier of the world at the time. I was at Allegiance for about 5 years from 2001 to 2005. When Allegiance was bought by XO, they made some changes. One of my biggest agents, Med Sami [Communications for Business], connected me to Lanny Eule [AireSpring National Director Channel Sales], who was already working at AireSpring. That is how I came to work at AireSpring. I owe a huge thank you to Med, because I have now been with AireSpring for 12 years. As an AireSpring Channel Manager, I oversee the recruitment and development of channel partners throughout the United States and sometimes internationally. I am responsible for acquisition of revenue, project management, proposal generation and contract administration.
What do you like about working for AireSpring?
I have been with AireSpring since 2005 and I have watched the company grow from a small startup to the sophisticated cloud communications provider that it is today. Our product line has expanded so much and I have had the pleasure of being here to witness the ongoing innovation that the Lonsteins have brought to this industry and the Channel. I like the knowledge that is present within these four walls.
I still continue to enjoy the hunt, the development of our channel partners and the ultimate goal of helping them close a deal, whether small, large, or complex. I like the idea of working with channel partners that are coachable and want to redefine how they go about their business, for example, moving from a direct sales rep mentality to a consultative sales approach. I also like AireSpring’s broad product line. AireSpring is not reliant on one carrier or hardware manufacturer. We have a multi-carrier strategy and can go in various directions as needed to meet the requirements of the customer. We are still very flexible in how we can present the end product to the customer. Being agent-centric, our Channel partners get the keys to the kingdom. We are hands above a lot of the other big guys out there who don’t really provide personal support to their channel partners when they need it. That is where we excel. Every day there is a new opportunity. Every day there is a new situation, whether good or bad, that can be handled positively.
What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of the office?
My core hobby is model railroading. I have thousands and thousands of dollars invested in model railroad equipment. In fact, I am a railroad model craftsman. When I retire I will build my own large-scale model railroad operation.
but I have cooked Thai and Chinese and just about everything else. If you can cook it on a range or oven, I can cook it on a grill with various wood chips or wood burning flavors. I have a smoker and a very, very high-end industrial-type barbecue. I got into barbecue because I was heavily into the restaurant business before entering the
Thank you, Michael, for sharing with us!
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AireSpring is an award-winning provider of Managed Connectivity and Cloud Communications solutions providing fully managed and connected end-to-end, next-generation solutions for multi-location enterprise customers, including:
AireSpring's services are delivered over its revolutionary nationwide MPLS Mesh Network, providing customers a fully integrated, end-to-end solution from a single vendor.
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