The Wireless Way, with Chris Whitaker

The Mobility Shift: Navigating New Waters in Telecom with DBA from GoExceed

• Chris Whitaker • Season 5 • Episode 85

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This special edition of 'The Wireless Way' transitions from solely audio to include video, featuring a detailed discussion with guest DBA (David Bailey Aldrich) who has recently joined GoExceed as the director of channel sales in August 2023. The conversation begins with DBA's extensive background in telecom and technology, touching upon his sales career beginning in retail at Nordstrom and his journey into the telecom and technology sectors. DBA shares personal anecdotes, including lessons learned and his passion for singing. The focus then shifts to the challenges businesses face in managing mobile environments and the solutions offered by GoExceed. The partnership between GoExceed and Spectrotel is announced, highlighting its potential to deliver comprehensive managed mobility services. DBA elaborates on the application of AI and machine learning in optimizing mobile expenses and the broader impact of managed mobility services across various industries. The conversation concludes with advice for sales advisors on leveraging GoExceed's offerings to provide value to clients and the importance of solution-oriented sales approaches.

00:00 Welcome to a Unique Edition of The Wireless Way

00:44 Introducing Guest DBA: A Telecom and Technology Veteran

01:59 DBA's Journey: From Retail to Telecom Titan

03:00 DBA's Unexpected Talent: A Singer with a Diverse Repertoire

04:02 Transitioning to Telecom: A Story of Opportunity and Growth

05:41 The Power of Perspective: Turning Setbacks into Stepping Stones

07:05 Exploring Enterprise Wireless Expense Management with GoExceed

07:32 The Surprising Lack of Awareness and Adoption in Telecom Solutions

11:50 Best Practices for Selling Telecom Solutions and Demonstrating Value

16:11 Real-World Impact: Saving Money and Streamlining Operations

18:18 Innovative Reporting and Cost Optimization

19:55 The Power of AI and Machine Learning in Business

22:31 Enhancing Device Lifecycle Management and Security

24:41 Strategic Advice for Advisors in Mobility and Expense Management

28:46 Exploring Verticals and Opportunities

31:17 Closing Thoughts and Strategic Partnership Announcement

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Chris:

Hey, welcome to a another edition. In fact, this is a unique edition of the wireless way, because normally I come in, I'm coming to you audio only. So if you're listening audio only, if you go to my YouTube channel, you can get the, see me live in person with my guest DBA, and I'll see you there. And and by the way, yeah, say hi DBA, but before we bring DBA, DBA on, I want to tell you a little bit about him and also just for a quick shout out to my buddy, KC Wallace at Cox business. I love your glasses. And I thought when DBA came on with his really sharp glasses, I felt I had little glasses envy. So I had to pull out my, my, my fake glasses. You gave me KC, but for the sake of not being distracted, I'm gonna take them off. But Hey, KC, thank you. So now back to my guest, a little bit about DBA and that's David Bailey Aldrich. If you know him well, it's DBA and he has more than 20 years experience in the telecom and technology spaces in wide ranging roles, including sales support, direct sales. channel manager and managing a channel sales team with a carrier, so six years as a selling agent. Talk about both sides of the coin and three years with the TSD. If there was a third side of the coin, I guess that would be that. But most recently DBA joined GoExeed in August of 2023 as a director of channel sales. This has been a great opportunity for them to blend that unique mix of sales acumen and technical aptitude, relationship management, team building, and business strategy. DBA loves creating force multiplier relationships where all parties are wildly successful, which brings us to today's podcast. I'm glad to have you here at DBA. Thanks for making time.

DBA:

Oh, glad to be here, Whit. I'm super excited about the conversation.

Chris:

Absolutely. As always yeah, I think we got so much we're gonna unpack and talk about today. So I'm really excited about that. But first question I always ask my guests, what's not the bio? How did you get here? Tell us the rest of the story.

DBA:

Yeah, I'll try to keep this as brief as I can, but I'm old. So this, there's a long time, a runtime for this, but I'll start, yeah, exactly. Exactly. I started actually my sales career in retail and I worked for Nordstrom really well known I was in women's shoes and I bounced around in some of the internal departments there and learned a lot about about selling, but also about customer experience. And Probably the best lesson that I learned was when I got let go and it was about follow up, right? I was, I took care of my, the customers that were in the store. I did a really good job with that, but Nordstrom actually had a personal shopper kind of approach and I didn't have the experience and the wisdom to understand the importance of follow up and execution and I learned that the hard way. That was a great lesson after four years being there. And I took that away and I, and really the key thing was is that I never was going to make that mistake again. And that became a staple in my career going forward is that I was responsive and that I would follow up. I wasn't going to let that happen again. So that's one piece. Another piece, which is not necessarily related to the business but what a lot of people don't know about me is that I sing. I've done everything from opera to musical theater to barbershop quartet. And also just recently had a great time in the, at the channel partner show in Vegas, thanks to CBTS and their live band karaoke contest. Couldn't compete this year cause I'm no longer with a TSD. But had a great experience getting a chance to perform in that. On the open mic. And so what did you sing? The song that I sang in the first part of the open mic, excuse me. Let me think. I did Come Sail Away by Sticks. I actually did five songs. I did living on a Prayer as a duet with somebody, which was a great challenge. Did if I had a million dollars by Bare Naked Ladies as a duet with somebody else oh, I did Green Days holiday, right? So like to do a wide mix. Last year when I. competed when I was still working for a TSD, I did Garth Brooks, Friends in Low Places. I love me, I love singing all types of music. I love to perform. So that's maybe something that folks don't know.

Chris:

Yeah, I would say so. What got you into so you went from shoe sales. And what was the bridge that got you into telecom and technology?

DBA:

I'll be completely frank with you here, Whit. It was that I was looking for a job and a buddy of mine was working for at the time is US West, right on the residential side. I did the interview, I got hired as a sales and service consultant for inbound residential. So this is right around the time when DSL was getting rolled out. And PCS phones, right? So Sprint had their PCS phones and we started selling those as well. So again, learned a lot about customer service, but also dug into some of the technical aspects of things like DSL and qualifying lines and learning about pair gain. And things like that, as well as, as well as the regulations and, supporting 14 states and all the different PUC requirements as well as the FCC requirements, you learn a lot and you have to know a lot and I really enjoyed that. So that was the beginning of that mix of sales service and technical aptitude. And I just really enjoyed it. And so that I, but that's how I started. It's just, I needed a gig.

Chris:

Yeah, but lucky us. And I can relate with you there. I w I got out of the army, not knowing what I was going to do and stumped my brother in law's Hey we're hiring you. Maybe you should come interview and work for us at Cox communications. Interestingly enough in Northern Virginia. And I'm like what, what's the gig? And he goes it's just going door to door, signing people up for cable TV. And we got this new thing called high speed internet. And it's going to be all the rage and you should come. Yeah I, as opposed to being unemployed, I went and interviewed. And I was very, again, I think that's, that was the beginning of my career, but something you said at the very beginning, you're talking about your experience at Nordstrom. It reminded me of a saying I had a conversation with Eric Qualman also known as equal man, a great guy, great podcast if you haven't checked it out super you, but he talked about when bad things happen in life, instead of going why this happened to me, the better question is why this happened for me. And boy, just changing that one word from two to four really puts it in a different perspective. And for you, it made you who you are, which is this great guy. I can attest to that. Every call we have with you, There's a follow up and if there's action items, you're on it. So that's that it's real clear that you're right. You're not just talking to you're walking it. Man, that's fantastic. And the fact that you're this great thing I'm telling you, I'm really trying not to say, Hey, felt one out for us right now, because if you're on the today show or something, You mentioned something like that. You got to say, okay, now show me, but

DBA:

If you challenge me at some point, maybe I'll sing. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:

Just yeah. There's another Michael Alaso, another alumni guest to the wireless way, a great public speaker, coach and director producer and vocalist. I guess that's the right word. Yeah. So all of his every day he changes his voicemail. It's a singing voicemail, most cases. So anyway yeah, so you, I should connect you to guys. That would be a hoot as we say in Georgia. But so who you are at go exceed now do you have this experience as an agent yourself, as you've carried the bag, you've had to close deals, you're coaching and talking to partners. And is there any kind of like surprise or common thread of all that, especially since your time at go exceed when it comes to enterprise wireless expense management, what are some of the aha moments or the surprises you probably see daily?

DBA:

I think one of the biggest ones, and this doesn't only apply to enterprise, right? This really is even the SMP and mid market spaces. But the biggest surprise to me is how few clients know that this kind of solution exists and more importantly, have it in their environment. There's such a mix of pain points and challenges and cost overruns in the mobile space in the just that environment, right? The carriers, it's just a challenge for people to have enough time to be able to do the things that they need to do in order to effectively manage their mobile environment. And so it just becomes ungainly, right? They, they're doing the best they can. And they just don't know that something that tool exists that they can put into the environment. They don't have to be the experts, right? They can leverage the expertise of a go exceed right to be able to put in a tool that they can leverage to get more time back in their day as well as to optimize their environments and save money. And so I think that's the biggest surprise. The other one is more focused around the partner, trusted advisor community, and that is that, my, my background is wireline, right? I mentioned, I started at us West. The vast majority of my career has been focused more on the traditional telecom space. And when I was introduced to go exceed while I was working for a TSD I realized very quickly that there was a great opportunity for not just the clients, but the partners, the advisors to latch on to the value prop that a solution like this can bring, right? It, It provides hard dollar savings very quickly for a client without making major changes to their environment. And so that helps the client free up dollars to be able to reallocate that to something that's more strategic. And actually helps the business from a technology standpoint, whether it's UCAS or cybersecurity, CCAS, other managed services, right? These are the things that, that the agents and trusted advisors. Are trying to sell their focus on moving up market and a solution like ours can be one that opens the door for that and actually can move the timeline up for decision making and buying of those types of strategic solutions because it frees up hard dollars in the current budget. So I think, the surprise within that is the relative lack of adoption so far from the traditional agents, right? The folks who cut their teeth on telecom and voice services, and that's where they're comfortable. The key is being willing to just Push your comfort zone a little bit, just step outside of it a little bit, find a trusted solution provider, whether that's GoXceed or others and link arms with them and go to market and just listen to the talk track and hear how easy it is and how much clients appreciate the value that it brings, right? Again, I give them time back in their day. There's FTE savings, which is soft cost savings. There's the hard dollar savings. All of those things can make an advisor look like a hero to that client which then can lead to just building that rapport and finding other opportunities.

Chris:

I love it. And you're right. My background also, I've spent some time in a TSD and growing a mobility practice 150 percent and I always found, that was. Partners had reasons. They're like, Hey, I don't do mobility. There's no money in it. It's too scary. Yeah. It's I'm a super what I know. I know connectivity. I know fiber. I know UCAS and now SD WAN and whatnot. So yeah, being able to pivot and change the conversation and lead with something new. That's what I tell people all the time. It's Hey, have a different conversation. Everybody's going to the door talking about. Hey, I could save you money on your connectivity, or I could get you a UCAS with more features and save you, per seat costs, etc. Going in there, talking about mobility, man, that obviously is my jam.

DBA:

For sure. I think though, to your point, it's less talking about mobility, although obviously that's where the solution is focused. But they don't have to go in and have a deep conversation around the mobile environment. It can be a very quick set of questions, right? Which carriers do you have in place? How many devices do you have? What are your pain points? What's challenging. And then would you be open to a conversation with a strategic partner that we work with to see if we can help you identify some savings and give some time back in your day? Boom. It's that simple.

Chris:

Yeah. So is that the best practice then? Is that where you're seeing the partner selling the most of this? They leave with that. The customer goes, wow, that sounds interesting. Tell me more. And they just go, Hey, hold that thought. Let me get my team on the phone. We'll set up a demo or

DBA:

a conversation. That's exactly right. Yeah. And frankly, the most successful sales engagements that, that I have experienced both with a TSD and then also working at go exceed our, once that partner or that advisor has that initial conversation, they set a demo. And the reason why it's important to see the demo first is because you need to see the value of the solution separate from what you're thinking about dollars. And once you put a price in front of a client, regardless of the solution, that number is in their head. And even if their needs and requirements may change, at least subconsciously they think it should still cost that first number that you showed them. So let's do the demo first and get full discovery. Let us at GoXceed finish the discovery process to understand the client's environment and show them the demo and talk about and tie that in to where that, where the value can be for their organization. Then we do a free analysis based on actual data from their environment, not just bills, but actual raw data. We do a free analysis. And then that's when we come back and we show them what we can save them. But also that's when they see the pricing. But we're tying it to the value that they see in the solution, rather than giving them a price and then trying to sell them on the value.

Chris:

That's right. We flip it. Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. Yeah. And that's been some of my surprises to sometimes, yeah, I agree with you, regardless of the size of the company, how sometimes they're They just accept the status quo is, Hey, this is just as good as it's going to be. We budgeted 30 grand a month for mobility, meaning the cellular carriers. As long as the bill is somewhere around 30, 000, we just pay it. No one's surprised. It's only when it starts creeping up, they get why is it creeping up? I don't know. The bill's 4, 000 pages long. I can't figure it out. Let's call our accountant up and maybe get a hold of them. And yeah, I love when your colleague says, spend a hundred dollars, just get a 4 credit. That's ridiculous, right? Yeah. A

DBA:

hundred dollars a time to get a 4 credit. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And actually you said something I think that's important. And that is that, the clients have budgeted a certain amount. And as long as that number stays within that budget, they're okay. And one of the things that I'm seeing that I've seen is what clients have chosen to adopt. Let's just put everything on unlimited. Then we know what our cost is going to be. And the carriers. I'm not saying they're doing this on purpose from a nefarious reason. It's more like the clients are just like, this is such a headache. The carriers are like here, just sign everybody up for, unlimited. And while that does provide a lowering of the headache, right? You don't have to deal with trying to do plan management and worrying about overages. There are some unintended consequences of that, right? You've got, throughput bottlenecking. If use like 22 gigs of data in a billing cycle, and maybe that throughput goes down to 3G, is that even a usable solution depending on what you're using that device for? And then on top of it, if you have a device that's using less than two gigs of data, why would you buy an unlimited plan? The reason why is because you don't want to have to deal with it when it spikes. But if you can have a solution that automatically monitors and makes changes whenever needed, when that spikes to ensure you don't pay a major overage, and instead it automatically changes it to the right plan based on the usage in that billing cycle. Now you've got the best of both worlds. You've got the lowest cost as well as you removing the headaches of trying to manage it.

Chris:

That's fantastic. And I like how you also, we put it earlier, it's not always just about saving money off the bill. It's given back the employees. We can't even discredit the peace of mind. Having the visibility into the actual expenses, having real day actionable data that you explained to the CFO or to the board and, yeah reclaiming started 30 grand. Now it's 22, 000 a month. Now you've got eight grand a month. You can either. Apply toward a new employee for sales or operations, reinvested back into the business or now about this spending on cybersecurity resources or something. Pay now, pay later. The budget is the budget. But if you can be more responsible and be more efficient and effective with the budget, I think that's the obligation of anybody running a business, right?

DBA:

For sure. And two things to that point. One is just an example recently that we had where we were providing the savings analysis to a healthcare company that we're working with. And at the end of that, we went through all the value prop and everything. We went through what we would save them. And the decision maker said, I don't care if you save me any money. If you just get this headache off of my team's plate, we have too many other projects that are too important to the business. Now that doesn't mean that we're not going to save them, right? We will, but the key takeaway I took from that was the value is the key and the savings is a by product. But the, but as long as you're bringing value to the client, even if it's a net neutral from a cost perspective there's that, I use that word force multiplier in the bio, you, you read that. And that's really what I think, I really believe in that, find a way to, to help a client. Get more than just the value from your solution. And there's other things we could talk about as far as what we do. I don't want to get into the weeds, but the second thing I want to bring up is just, it's an example of a client who was using an expense management solution already. They only had about 3000 lines, which is not small, but our largest client, for instance, is 125, 000. So it's certainly not the biggest client that we have. But they had 3000 lines and they were using an expense management company, a traditional TEM solution that they thought was managing their mobility. And they went through the free analysis process of kicking and screaming. They thought they were getting exactly what they needed. Their advisor said, Hey, just go through the free analysis process and make sure that you're just vetting it out, that you're getting what you thought you were. We did the analysis for them and we found 120, 000 a month in savings. Not just in data optimization, but in the device life cycle management and other things that sort of holistic. And so when you start talking about a hunt, what is that one point some million, almost 2 million in annual savings. We're starting to talk about real money, and an impact to the budget for that business.

Chris:

Man that, that is, that's shocking. That is surprising that have you ever come across a case when we, the customer like was like, Oh my God, how much have we been overpaying? I can't tell my boss that I'm going to get in trouble. Does that ever come up?

DBA:

Yeah, it does. But I think the key thing that we do is we give them very in depth reporting. So we were using power BI in the backend, for enterprise grade reporting and we're giving them. very in depth reporting every billing cycle to show the why of what's happening. In the past, they've been tasked with trying to build a house with no set of plans. It's just, okay I got to put a wall here. Let me figure out how to pot a build that wall. Don't even know what kind of hammer I'm supposed to use, right? They're not armed with the right tools. We're giving them the actual information to be able to provide the right The reasons why the costs are what they are, and also to show the value they're bringing to the organization, because we show them what they would have spent based on the actual data utilization in a given billing cycle. We're showing them what they would have spent without us there. And then we're showing them the optimized total and where the savings comes from. I

Chris:

had the pleasure of sitting in a call with Bob, the CEO and great guy, real visionary. I love his hands on walking around leadership style, but that topic kind of came up a little bit. I think that the customer was at that point of going, wow, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing that you're saving us so much money. And then Bob says, look, it's not your fault. By designed, you could not have figured this out. How many pages is your bill? 8, 000 pages. How could you have combed through 8, 000 pages manually? And discovered all these things we're showing you. It's practically impossible. Sure. You can do it, but it's a full time job and you're going to go mad trying to do it. I love how, go exceed, thank you. Bob's even said, it's really more software first and all the benefits of it. So let's talk about that a little bit. Sure. No, everyone's talking about AI, artificial intelligence and machine learning. And I think it's a buzzwords for many people. The practical application of those two phrases, how is it used in business? How does go exceed? Address that question about AI machine learning and the business.

DBA:

Yeah. Great question. Wit I think first and foremost, it's important to recognize, like you said that AI is a buzzword that, that is, we hear a lot. It reminds me back in the day of SIP, and there's a lot of conversation around this topic without a whole lot of actual understanding. And so without getting too deep in the weeds, I want to make sure that first and foremost, people recognize that machine learning can be very is something that has been used for a long time. We've actually been using it for a long time in our platform. That's something that you could talk about as an, as AI, but really, we like to differentiate that we do use open AI, what used to be chat, chat, GBD four in our environment, but in a bigger way. Very two very targeted instances, and it's trust, but verify. We have humans on the back end validating that the results that are coming out from those two small use cases are actually valid and that we're not negatively impacting our clients because we're just trusting the AI tool because that's really what it is. It's a tool. It's not a. AI itself isn't a solution. It's a tool, and you give it a data set, and then it makes decisions based on that data set and the rules that you set in order to then take action, right? And I think it's key, first and foremost, to understand that. Now, as far as our solution, we use machine learning and predictive analytics. As a key function of what our solution does. And then we layer on top of that automation and our ability to connect into the backend systems of the carriers so that we can automate the decisions that make sense within that client's environment, right? So we're ingesting the important contract terms, discounts, things like that from their existing carriers. And then we're programming that in. And when we onboard we ask them, okay, in what situations are you okay with automation? What should we wait on? And then we can always tweak it later, but we are able to, by once they feel comfortable, we're often automating 90 percent of the decisions that get made as far as data optimization. And even some of the things in device lifecycle management I wouldn't call that AI. That's just a really targeted and surgical use of machine learning. But it's important to understand your environment as a business. It's important to understand what it is that you're trying to solve for, what it is that you see as the business outcome from AI or potential AI tool, and then understanding that it is a tool. It is not a solution in and of itself.

Chris:

Yep. One example I heard you guys mentioned was you guys upload all the technical manuals of all the devices and the system automatically, because it has the IMEI number and it knows that Chris is carrying an iPhone 14. But if I was carrying like an iPhone 8, they'll say, Hey, alert. Just so you know, this device can no longer receive security updates because it's outdated. That's something that we talk about cybersecurity a lot. We talk about management of device, mobility, management man, if you don't have that kind of Intel if you're trying to do that manually across thousands of devices. Good luck,

DBA:

right? That's a perfect example with and that's definitely one of the use cases that we use, right? We're calling out In our portal to that admin and that it staff, right? Hey, these devices are no longer taking updates now that doesn't mean they necessarily disconnect them Maybe they want to just suspend them and see if any but first if see if they're even in use, right? But there may be a use case where they decide to automatically terminate, but we can help them see if there's ETF fund or ETF fees so that they can make decisions based on real data. So certainly that's a piece. That's very important. I think one other thing I would point out along with that. We're also where a client wants it, we can be integrated into their MDM software. So like Intune or Jamf, if it's an Apple shop or Mos 360, we only pull data from that, but we can pull the username of the person who most recently logged onto that device, right? And we can push that to the carrier system so that now you've got data integrity. You don't, you're not having to worry that device that was purchased two years ago still shows, Steve Johnson, who's no longer with the organization. And maybe it was even in a different department if you're doing cost center allocation. Again, that's not necessarily AI that's the machine learning and the AI piece tied into that integration and automation, right? Again, it's the whole solution providing, solutions to business problems, if that makes sense.

Chris:

Makes perfect sense. I love I think to wrap that up. It's a tool It's not the end all be all it. Yeah, does it radically change what you're delivering? It just enhances. It's another tool, right? I love that exactly So again, we've been covering a lot and I love it. Advice, so have known your background partner, TSD, carrying your own bag, selling, having a quota, whatnot, what advice do you have for advisors that are not yet having this conversation, what do you tell them and why should they start asking the question about how they manage mobility and expenses?

DBA:

Yeah, we, I alluded to it a little bit. So I, but I'll try to dig into it a little bit more first. And yeah, first and foremost it's a way to differentiate yourself in the conversations. There's a lot of whether it's direct reps from carriers or other partners and advisors out there who are trying to have conversations with clients, and it can become noise. Because the strategic solutions that we talk about SD WAN, cybersecurity, managed services there's a lot of folks trying to get attention for those solutions. This particular, space is relatively niche. And so you can come to the table with a different story. We like to say that our solution is a silver bullet for getting, net new opportunities with clients, right? And it's because you can come in with something that is provides easy to understand value, right? Average savings of sometimes 30 to 40 percent right month over month. No change to carriers and it can remove headaches, right? That's a relatively easy thing for clients to understand to get them hooked to have that first conversation that demo, right? But then once we also have a relatively short sales cycle our average sales cycle from demo to signature of that SOW is 35 business days, right? And then implementation can typically take about another, depends on how available the client is, but that could be another, two weeks, right? So it's pretty quick to get implemented. And also, And for the client to see value from that. And as an advisor to get paid on that, right? Many times we sell something and it takes six to nine months to get implemented and then another two months for it to get paid. It, yes, it's a strategic solution you're selling, but you're not seeing the benefit of it, at least from a financial perspective until. Almost a year later, in some cases, we're helping open that door, build that relationship with and that trust with that client very quickly so that you can then have that deeper strategic conversation because you're not just showing yourself as a commodity or a transactional seller or, and no offense to anybody who's selling the other solutions. It can feel like. A me too to some of the clients, right? So it's a door opener. That's the first piece. The other is it's, having a talk track about what we do is a great way to get a great reason. I should say to reach out to a client and say, Hey, I don't know if but we can help you with this. This is something new that we didn't have before. Would you have some time to talk about it? It's another reason to have a touch point for a client because there's nothing worse when I was selling, as an agent for six years, there was nothing worse than reaching out to a client that had been a client for a number of years and finding out that they've started doing business with somebody else because they didn't know what I do.

Chris:

That's a, yeah, that's a sucker punch. Oh, I didn't know you could do that. Exactly.

DBA:

Exactly. So this is a great way to circumvent that problem, to cut it off before it ever starts. And it just keeps you in touch with that client. So it's a way to get deeper and wider within that client relationship as well. I think another piece that's adjacent to that is that you, you may end up talking to somebody different. Then the technology leader that you're working with today, because sometimes the procurement person or HR or somebody in accounting is doing the mobility piece because it and technology didn't want to do it. And then there's other adjacent conversations that can come from that do they have an MDM and, all these other things, which we don't necessarily focus on, but they can bring in other strategic partners who do have those offerings and maybe even a managed service. It's a great. Door opener for net new clients. It's also a great way to, to get deeper and wider with existing clients.

Chris:

Now that's, I love that. As you were talking, I thought of another question, so obviously huge opportunity. We've established already just because this kind of solution and service has been around for a while. It doesn't mean everyone knows about it or sees value in it. What kind of verticals do you see any common, trend with verticals, our customer types? that benefit from this service.

DBA:

Great question. Yes, in that, if you have a client that's in health care or financial services or another industry or vertical where there's a lot of compliance requirements, especially around, device lifecycle management, there's certainly a benefit to having a solution like ours, because we can help them with things like device recycling and providing, certification that they are no longer liable, which can help them in their compliance. So certainly that's an element. But I, frankly, we do really well in all verticals. And I don't mean to say that to pat us on the back. It just happens to be that anybody that has corporate liable, mobile accounts tends to have pain points, and tends to have the same pain regardless

Chris:

of the vertical basis.

DBA:

And even the size, right? We'll go down to as low as 100 devices and up to, like I said, our largest client has more than 125, 000. And so we can work with SMB and mid market and enterprise clients and all those verticals. Another one that I've actually seen a fair amount of success with. And it's one that I think they're, the challenges may be a little bit unique in that it's, is the nonprofit space. And that's because oftentimes, they have technology leaders who may not necessarily even have technology experience. Certainly they don't have mobility experience unless they're really lucky. And so they're just doing the best they can to hold on. And so they're often overspending because they're relying on the advice from their carrier rep. And the carrier rep has a different goal. And is, their goal is to sell more, right? And that's not meant to be a pejorative in any way, shape or form. It just is that's what their goal is to do. That's their job is to sell you more stuff. Our goal is to save you money and save you time. So our goals are more aligned with you with yours as a business than the carrier's goals are. So we just help you manage that. And in the nonprofit space, obviously, dollars can be hard to find. So that's another one where there's some early opportunity. Logistics is another one that can be really good, especially if they've got data plans with fleet management or asset tracking or things like that. Anything that has a data plan associated with it. On a corporate liable account, we can help manage when I say manage, we can help optimize. Let's put it that way

Chris:

Yeah, so just to clarify if there's a sim card involved it doesn't have to be a smartphone Then it'll be a tab. It could be a gateway or some kind of zebra scanner with a sim If it's got a sim card in it, there's a monthly expense associated with it. You can know we can help. Yeah, that's awesome Absolutely. As we wind down here last words, in anything you want to share with us You Before we wrap

DBA:

a boy, you prep me for this one and still, I want to make sure that I make it a value. So I think the key thing that I would say is just to touch on again. The most important thing that we do as salespeople is really to provide value. for our clients. And if you provide value for your client and you focus on that, you will make money, you will sell, you will be successful. I've been fortunate enough to be, to be at or above quota all but one year of my sales career in the technology industry. And it's not because I'm the world's best salesperson. I don't go in and and try To persuade people to buy something. What I do is I listen to what they need. I listen to what their pain points are. And then I align them with solutions that help to fulfill those needs and remove those pain points. So I'm really, even though I'm selling, I'm not really selling. I'm helping them buy. I think the other thing that, that I would call back to, you said something that I thought was really powerful, and it's how do you deal with what do you say to yourself when adversity hits, right? Instead of why is this happening to me? Why is this happening for me? I like that. I hadn't heard it said that way. The way that I tended to think about it was, what can I learn from this? If you ask that question, the way the brain works, if the, if you're asking a question, the brain looks for answers. And so if that's what you're focused on, what can I learn from this? Then the answers will come to you. So I think that's a, that's another last word I would just share.

Chris:

Wow. Fantastic. And as I mentioned, this is a unique episode both video and audio. And this is probably the first time I have a last word that I want to interject here. Yeah, and I'm surprised I was able to hold it back till now. But go exceed Spectrotel tell now have a strategic partnership, if you're following me and you my day job I'm Spectrotel tell. And we have a managed mobility solution now powered by GoXceed. So we have the strength of everything we've been talking about. There's the software, again, finding those savings, repurposing budget. In addition to so much more, it will actually take it beyond the actual savings, we have a full a managed service approach to mobility included staging and kidding and help desk and MDM licensing and provisioning and setting up and managing an actual MDM platform. And own and on. It's a full thing. Check out the show notes. I'll actually have some graphics and links you can check out there, but man, how exciting is that for you? DBA and the team at go exceed what's the thoughts that go exceed about this new partnership?

DBA:

We're extremely excited with. The early engagement that we've had with the Spectrotel team and the partners that work with you has been huge, right? And the key thing is, I think it's important to note, that what we're doing is we're providing that platform for you to then layer into your fully managed solution, right? If a partner or a client was looking just to get a solution like ours. In a way that while there's automation and other things that are, it's not a fully managed service that includes MDM procurement and deployment and those kinds of things. Then we would recommend that they go to Spectrotel. If they want a fully managed solution with all of the great value that you guys bring, that's absolutely where I would recommend they go. If they're not looking for that fully managed solution and instead are looking for a targeted solution then it makes sense to have a conversation directly with GoXceed. And I think the key is. Throughout our relationship, you guys have been very transparent about the value that you bring, right? And even though it may seem confusing to some, in reality, there's a really strong line of delineation that makes the decision making process of which way to take an opportunity, I think, relatively simple. And, add to that, just, Great people, right? We got a chance to sit down with you and the team in Vegas for dinner. Bob and I, and what a great opportunity to just sit down with great people. And yeah, we talked business some, but we just got to know each other even better. And we're extremely excited to be partnered with a great organization that has great people and brings great value to the client and to the partner community.

Chris:

Yeah, I could second that. It was a good time and I'm glad we were to do it. And I look forward to many more of those kinds of dinners and getting to know each other more. But yeah it makes a lot of sense. I would say, what I've, and I've known Bob and go exceed for years, even prior to joining Spectrotel. In fact, one of the first phone calls, it just occurred to me when the first phone calls I made. After starting Spectrotel, it's the Bob. So it's funny how and honestly, it was just more of, Hey, by the way, I just want to let you know, I'm changing gigs if that was it. That was really no idea that down the road we would be where you are today. It was just more of by the way Bob, another alumni of the wireless way. He's been on the show a year or so ago. Yeah, it was just a friend in my circle, in my network. I just wanted to let them know, Hey, I'm changing gigs. Just wanted, kind of thing. What do you think? Or it was a great little conversation. Then it just morphed and really quickly, within 30 days, we got, Hey, maybe we should talk to you guys. Anyway I'm glad that worked out. And again, thanks for making time for me today. Thanks. Thanks for being on the show here. I think we probably, I think we covered a lot. I don't think we left anything out really. That if we do, we can always do a part two, right? Yeah.

DBA:

Absolutely. I'll come on the show anytime, Whit. You just let me know.

Chris:

That's right. There's a lot of good information out there. And if you're in the trusted advisor realm of this channel, we call the ecosystem of the channel. Yeah, ask yourself, why aren't you asking the questions? How do you use mobility in your business? How do you manage them? How many employees in your organization are dedicated to managing the mobility knowing that you're not a mobility company? So there's a lot of good questions there, and I can go into that in some other videos, but we'll go ahead and land the plane here, man. Thanks again. I appreciate you being here and thanks for listening.

DBA:

Thank you.