What's Inside

1. AireSpring Executive Expands Role as New VP Channel Sales & Operations
2. Product Update - AireSpring Adds Viasat Broadband
3. Product Update - Price Reductions on VMWare by VeloCloud™ SD-WAN!
4. August Promo - To WANfinity and Beyond!  
5. Partner Training - AT&T Partner Exchange: Next Wave of the 5G Evolution
6. Visit AireSpring at These Events
7. Partner Spotlight - Michael J. Onystok, SVP, TBI Inc.
8. Meet the AireSpring Team -Dave Pierce, Director of Global SD-WAN

 To WANfinity and Beyond!

Reach out to your AireSpring Channel Manager today or call us at 888.389.2899.

Last December AT&T officially introduced the nation’s first commercial mobile 5G service and they spent the early part of this year accelerating and advancing their 5G network. After being the first company to offer both a live mobile 5G network and a commercially available 5G device in the U.S., AT&T continues to push for faster speeds and is now first in the nation to surpass 1 gigabit mobile speeds on a live 5G connection.

AT&T’s 5G momentum is moving forward with plans to offer 5G nationwide in the first half of 2020. Join AireSpring and the AT&T Partner Exchange to learn about the exciting developments ahead for 5G for the remainder of 2019 and the Next Wave of 5G, planned for early 2020. Learn how AT&T’s mobile 5G will jumpstart the next wave of unforeseen innovation.

Complete our brief survey at the end for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card!

Visit AireSpring at these Coming Events:

COMPTIA CHANNELCON
Bellagio Hotel
Las Vegas, NV
August 5-7, 2019
REGISTER HERE
Visit AireSpring at Booth #222

TELARUS PARTNER SUMMIT
Gaylord Rockies
Aurora, CO
August 7-10, 2019
REGISTER HERE

INTELISYS SOUTHEAST MINDSHARE
The Battery
Atlanta, GA
August 14, 2019

MICROCORP ULTIMATE PARTNER TRAINING
Dallas, TX
August 20-23, 2019

FIVE STAR TELECOM
AGENT SUMMIT
Target Field
Minneapolis, TX
August 28, 2019

CHANNEL PARTNERS EVOLUTION
Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Washington, D.C.
September 9-12, 2019
REGISTER HERE for FREE PASS
Visit AireSpring Booth #534

INTELYSIS CHANNEL CONNECT
Monterey Conference Center
Monterey, CA
September 25-27, 2019

Welcome to the latest edition in our series of profiles, shining the spotlight on AireSpring’s amazing partners. This month, we’re speaking with Michael J. Onystok, Senior Vice President, TBI, Inc.

Hello Mike, thank you for agreeing to speak with us. To begin, please tell us a little about yourself, your agency and your professional background. 

I started out early in life working full-time by just age 15. Throughout most of my early career I held two jobs, in carpentry, concrete work and web press printing. I had a variety of different sales jobs. Then, in 2008 I joined TBI as an inside sales rep. I became the top performer and focused on closing deals for others. When I proposed that they create a position for me, the company agreed and I became a supervisor, functioning as "the closer," if you will. As Director of National Telesales, I flew around the country, recruiting call centers as partners, training them to sell using our methods. That was a very successful venture for TBI resulting in the launch of a new channel operation, and I took on the role of Director of National Channel Sales. Today, I serve as TBI's Senior Vice President, Operations. There were 35 people here at TBI when I joined, and we’re now quickly approaching 300. Our growth is fueled by new partners onboarded every month, penetrating tier one and tier two cities. I’ve been lucky enough to spearhead a lot of it, working on concept development with TBI President and founder, Geoff Shepstone, identifying a leader and building a team. I always look for ways to differentiate our products and services.

As a master agency, we've become known for adding tremendous value for our partners, drawing on all our different capabilities. Our extensive back-office team does pre-sale and post-sale support as well as project management, creating the industry standard in white glove service. Our inside sales team will come in to help close a deal and identify whatever is needed to complete the solution, even sending a truck out nationally to do an install. Our engineering staff will work with the customer on behalf of the partner, offering solution designs. We work with over a hundred service providers or vendors. Sometimes we spec and arrange for the equipment to be delivered, sometimes we just provide good traditional sales support. Either way, we go the extra mile for our partners and their customers.

We offer marketing programs and collateral for the partner to brand with their logo and deliver to their customer base. Our automated marketing platform will run a campaign that agents can send to their customers, promoting new technologies they have added to their portfolio. If they were a legacy network-focused agency, for example, and they are moving into the cloud space, we’ve already designed the language and everything down to social posts that they can use. They are then able to go back to their most precious resource, their existing customers, and offer them the additional services that they are likely to need.

What do you like about working with AireSpring?

I’ve been working with AireSpring since 2012. What do I like the most? It's the people! I love the people at AireSpring, and over the years I've worked with various Channel Managers, including Ron McNab, SVP Channel Sales and more recently engaging with Shane Speakman, VP of Channel Sales and Operations. I've been really pleased to get to know the Lonsteins. Both Avi (Avi Lonstein, CEO) and Daniel (Daniel Lonstein, President and Chief Revenue Officer) have been out to our Chicago headquarters and they are at just about every channel industry tradeshow. They keep their finger on the pulse of the industry. They are great, honest businessmen, and they are loyal, hardworking and smart. They make it so very easy to do business. As a longstanding tradition, I look forward to having breakfast with them at Channel Partners Las Vegas. I can count on seeing them at every show whether it's AT&T Fusion or Channel Partners.

What would you say is the secret to being a successful agent?

The secret to partner success is being there for the customer, ensuring the best customer experience. It includes educating the customer and always doing what's best for them. You need to understand what their business goals are, identify solutions that complement their business goals and keep an eye on them as they change over time. AS goals change or expand, partners need to bring value to the table, solutions that work within their Environments and successfully deliver on those business outcomes. I've always started with that and worked backwards from there, whether they are migrating to the cloud for efficiencies or reviewing networks to reduce costs, what is the customer trying to solve for, what challenges do they have, what are they looking to accomplish? Identify those and solve for X.

What is the "next big thing" you think agents should be aware of in 2019?

We’ve seen landslides toward adopting decentralized technology, and we'll continue to see more of that. I think our channel will undergo extreme growth, with more and more players in the space, not only selling networks but also UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service), CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service), security, 5G, mobility and all the communication technology that the world is dependent on. There’s hardware, software and connectivity and those technologies are undergoing rapid convergence. I would keep an eye on that space as it will continue to grow rapidly for channel partners. More and more customers of larger size, like the world’s Fortune 500, will be purchasing from a trusted advisor. TBI already works with dozens of these companies. We’ll see more of the service providers leaning toward the channel instead of direct sellers, and that’s just great for all of us. Our space is about to blow up, with more customers moving toward UCaaS, especially internationally. We will see rapid international channel growth, particularly with UCaaS, CCaaS and SD-WAN. In other words, get excited! 

What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of telecom?

I do work a lot, and I think about work all the time, but I’m also a family man. I’m a Dad and I love to fish—it’s basically work, family, fish. I normally bass fish but this year I got to fish for steelhead in Olympia, Washington, and did some trout fishing in Colorado on the Platte River. In a few weeks I’ll be in Florida going deep-sea fishing. My son, Michael John III, is two years old. He loves the water so we do a lot of swimming. He still has afternoon nap time, so our activity is geared to the morning. We go to the gym where he gets to socialize with other kids, and then the pool. We have two “stock dogs,” which are fairly large breeds, bred to work with cattle. One of them is a Catahoula Leopard, the state dog of Louisiana, and the other is a red-tan Australian Kelpie, the most common dog in Australia. My wife, Ashley, and I both have huge extended families, so every weekend is pretty well planned for me with someone’s birthday party or a holiday gathering.

Mike, thank you for taking time to talk with us today.

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 another key member of the AireSpring team. This month we are talking with Dave Pierce, Director of Global SD-WAN.

Hello Dave. To begin, please tell us about your professional background.

I’ve spent nearly two decades working in IT and telecom infrastructure, building deep expertise in solution sales and management, particularly in high performance bandwidth, intelligent controls and content delivery networks. My background includes working with the top three out of four global content delivery network (CDN) providers. These involved selling internet services in very niche areas, including for data centers with large bandwidth requirements. A great part of the work has called for a deep understanding of the infrastructure that drives application performance and global content delivery. The layers of experience I’ve had the opportunity to build throughout my career give me a unique depth of understanding that I can draw on in my current role as Director of Global SD-WAN at AireSpring.

In 2000, when I transitioned out of pure internet services, marketing and selling high performance internet connectivity and intelligent BGP route control software technology, I joined Internap Network Services Corporation, where we handled high performance bandwidths as well as circuits and infrastructure for data centers and colocation. Later, when I joined Content Delivery Networks (CDN), I managed sales for one of the largest global content delivery networks, gaining valuable background in the global perspective. Then, at Limelight Networks I had the opportunity to work with channel sales, eventually serving as a Senior Account Executive, Enterprise level. That experience became a great asset when I next joined XO Communications as Senior Manager, Cloud Solutions for the Indirect Channels and VARs, focusing on hybrid cloud solutions in global technology.

When I moved on to become Senior Managed Services Consultant at Earthlink, I was able to help promote their Managed and Professional Services through partner channels as well as direct sales. They were unexpectedly acquired by Windstream shortly after I joined, which led me ultimately to Aryaka Networks as Partner Sales Director. In this position I grew and developed extensive channel partner and agent relationships and accelerated lead generation for Global SD-WAN and more. Prior to joining AireSpring, I served as Senior Director for VMANIX, a reseller of emerging technologies, focusing on cloud and hybrid cloud solutions. As a certified Amazon Web Services (AWS) provider, our partnerships with customers within our global technology ecosystem gave me special global insight that will be especially valuable in my new role at AireSpring.

Tell us about your role at AireSpring.

At AireSpring, I've been tasked with supporting the AireSpring channel and solutions engineering teams as we work to meet growing demand for our Global SD-WAN product. As our SD-WAN program expands, I serve as the global SD-WAN subject matter expert, interfacing with multiple teams within AireSpring that contribute to the product’s ongoing development. We operate as a business unit with ambitious revenue goals for year-end. Part of my role involves price modeling, collateral development and driving mindshare internally as well as externally. I’ve had a lot of experience with multi-national organizations and global markets, and will draw on this along with my background in WAN optimization to maximize opportunities for AireSpring’s channel partner community. I’ve already enjoyed helping to develop client relationships and consult on closing deals. The high level of attention to ongoing product development in this area is clear, as I report currently to Avi Lonstein, AireSpring’s CEO. I’m impressed with how fully the entire executive team is dedicated to the success of this initiative.

What do you enjoy most about working with AireSpring?

I especially enjoy the feeling of getting things completed and bringing products to market. The transparency here is really helpful. People have been great and the entire staff is very responsive. That is so refreshing, there are no internal bottlenecks. People throughout the organization are willing to jump in and help out. I’ve worked at some large organizations where the politics were a real obstacle. Instead, at AireSpring, people set the politics aside and work towards a common goal, including working together across units in proactive teams. Even though the size of the company has grown rapidly over the last few years, there is still that start-up feeling. The culture is such that you feel you can jump in, have discussions and get feedback. If something needs attention, it is brought to light and we can work together to address issues.

What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of the office?

Living in Colorado, we spend a lot of time outdoors, hiking and just enjoying being out in the mountains. We’re getting a little old for the kind of skiing we used to do, so we don’t ski quite as much. I do hack a little golf—I’m more of a hacker than a golfer. My hobby these days is going out on my ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) on weekends. My wife, Denise and I have one daughter living in southern California, and our son Vince lives there as well. Our second daughter is a freshman at UNLV. We keep busy with our dogs, Max, Roscoe and Halle, including one Siberian husky, one German shepherd and a toy Aussie mini (Australian shepherd). The little dogs tend to herd the bigger dogs, which is fun, but they are shy of people so visitors don’t get to see them in action.

Dave, thank you for sharing your story with us!

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:

• AireContact Cloud Contact Center
• AirePBX Cloud Phone System
• MPLS Mesh
• SD-WAN
• SIP Trunking
• Managed Connectivity
• Managed Failover
• Dedicated Internet Access
• Wholesale Long Distance

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.

sales@airespring.com | 888.389.2899 | www.airespring.com