Metro Fiber Locator On Net Internet Locations in Denver Colorado and Major Cities!

Your #1 Source for Fiber!

Cogent's goal is simple: To unleash the potential of the Internet by making vast quantities of bandwidth an affordable reality for your business. Our unique ability to provide a higher performing service at a lower price makes Cogent an obvious choice.

Cogent is ranked among the top five networks in the world. Our Internet access is dedicated, non-oversubscribed and backed by one of the best SLAs available.

Cogent is a refreshing change from your traditional telephone company. We will impress you with our simple product, rapid service installation and proactive customer support. Our ability to provide reliable, yet affordable bandwidth has turned thousands of businesses into loyal customers.

Cogent provides On-Net Internet access to more than 2,090 buildings directly connected to our IP backbone. In these buildings, Cogent's optical fiber physically runs through the building. Cogent provides Off-Net Internet access to more than 190 markets. Off-Net traffic also runs over the Cogent network, but a telco tail circuit connects the customer to our IP backbone. Off-Net service allows us to extend our reach exponentially, making Cogent service available to hundreds of thousands of additional businesses

Reach out to me to see how we can help with any current Network or IP needs you may have at this time!




Contact me at tduggan(@)Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable IP Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

12 Things Not To Do at The Office Christmas Party!

Have Fun But Not Too Much Fun

One of the most hazardous driving days of the year is the Friday before Christmas, because that’s when many companies take part in that yearly tradition known as the Office Christmas Party. While this should be an occasion for enjoying the company of your co-workers, too often the office party turns into an embarrassment that haunts some employees well into the next year.

Here are some common gaffes to avoid. 

Don’t get drunk. This is the number one mistake that tends to be at the root of all other mistakes. Drinking too much can lower your inhibitions and make you do things you’d never do sober. Before the party begins, resolve to have no more than two alcoholic drinks all evening, even if there’s an open bar and the booze is free. Carry around a glass of sparkling water with an olive and no one will know you’re not drinking.

Don’t eat like a pig. Even if the food is expensive and delicious, try to use good manners.
Don’t overload your plate and properly dispose of stained napkins, toothpicks, etc. Above all, do not try to sneak out snacks for later consumption. Being seen stuffing a napkin full of shrimp in your pocket or purse does not contribute to your image as a classy employee who knows how to represent the company in public.

Do not use the office party as an opportunity to climb the corporate ladder. Just because those in upper echelon management choose to make an appearance at the office party does not mean that they’re willing to be your new best pals. Do not buttonhole the company president and try to make a case for your getting that promotion you’ve been hoping for. Do not pitch the head of research and development the fabulous new product you’ve been working on in your basement. Career-wise, you’ll do yourself more good by politely introducing yourself to bigwigs without monopolizing their time.

Do not make sexual advances to co-workers—or anyone else. If there’s one faux pas that can haunt you all the way to divorce court or the unemployment line, it’s this one.

Hitting on your fellow partygoers has always been a really bad idea, but now in the age of smartphone cameras and social media, it’s a potential career (or relationship) killer. If you come on to that sexy babe in the low cut dress and she turns out to be the big boss’s trophy wife, getting shot down is bad enough. Having a photo of your unsuccessful forward pass wind up on Facebook or Instagram is much worse.

Do not over (or under) dress. For some women, the holiday season is the perfect time to play the sexy siren, with plunging necklines, curve-clinging dresses and stiletto heels. While there’s a place for movie star glamour, it’s not the office Christmas party. If you want to be taken seriously in the corporate marketplace, do not use this as an excuse to show off your figure. You don’t have to wear the same tailored suits you wear to work, but do keep it classy. As for the guys, liven your work wear with a Christmas tie, but stick to standard office attire unless the party is formal.

Don’t do anything you don’t want others to see. In addition to those ubiquitous smartphones, some companies have security cameras hidden around the premises. Do not think you can sneak off to the janitor’s closet for a tryst with an inebriated co-worker and not get caught. There are some more things you should consider not doing at the office holiday party ahead. Keep reading so you know what they are 12 Things Not to Do at the Office Christmas Party.

Do not bring uninvited guests. Spouses and other SOs are welcome at some office parties, considered excess baggage at others. If the invitation does not clearly state that you are welcome to bring a guest, ask about your company’s policy before bringing anyone else. If your spouse gets miffed about not being invited, remind him/her that this is a career obligation, not a fun event for sharing. To smooth things over, stay at the party for a short time, then take the SO out for a romantic dinner.

Do not inflict your religious or political beliefs on others. This is not the time to toss down a few drinks and start giving your opinions of the current administration, your state’s governor or how your city is being run. Not only are you boring the crap out of most of the other guests, you may be offending someone who can affect your future with the company. Your boss may have been a major contributor to the campaign of one of the politicians you’re bad-mouthing. This goes double for trying to preach your religious positions on your co-workers.

Do not just fail to show up. If you really hate office parties and are tempted to pass this year, make sure attendance isn’t mandatory. There are some companies where all employees are expected to make an appearance and those who don’t are likely to find their future with the firm cut short. Find out how important it is to make an appearance at the party before you beg off with an excuse.

Don’t over-share. Maybe you think you could do your boss’s job better than s/he does. Maybe you’re planning to bolt for a competitor after the first of the year and take all your clients with you. Maybe you had a one-night stand with someone from human resources last summer. Stay sober enough not to share any of these at the office party.

Don’t show off your dance moves. Getting your groove on out on the dance floor may make you the life of the party, but not in the way you’d like. Even if you’re ready for “Dancing with the Stars,” you don’t really want to see photos of yourself booty bouncing all over a co-worker’s Facebook page. Slow dancing can get even more dangerous if you have a few too many and use it as an excuse to feel up that sexy redhead in accounting.

Don’t drink and drive. Another reason for staying somewhat sober at the office bash is that you have to drive home afterwards. Even if you live in an area where you can get home via public transportation, you don’t want to be so snockered that you don’t know where you’re going and miss your stop. Getting arrested for DUI can negatively impact your career and could be grounds for dismissal if you’re convicted, so it’s just not worth risking. Plus, if you’re one of the guests most capable of driving safely, you can help others get home in one piece. You never know when doing something nice for a co-worker will work in your favor. Try to have a moderately good time and be happy the office Christmas party strikes only once a year! 12 Things Not to Do at the Office Christmas Party

Article link





Contact me at tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

12 Tips To Your End of Year Sales Quota

Each year, November brings with it a certain level of anxiety for many sales managers. With fewer than 60 days left for sales reps to meet their quota objectives for the year, it's not uncommon for them to feel a bit overwhelmed. It's not only the rep who is affected, however, as sales managers typically inherit a fair amount of stress as well.  Sales managers whose own commissions and bonuses are based on their reps making quota need to do everything they can to help push sellers in the right direction.

Here are 12 ways to help your reps close their end-of-year sales and make quota:

1. Encourage your reps to take a “one more” approach to sales. Whether they're selling PCs, projects or services, capitalize on situations in which they might be able to sell one extra thing.
2. Ask sellers to spend two or three days focusing on nothing other than closing proposals that have been lingering in the pipeline. Even proposals from back in January are potential opportunities.
3. Ensure your reps are setting appointments now for January. This can give them a jump start on the year and may even result in a few last-minute opportunities for 2014.
4. Coach your sellers to upsell any add-ons that they may have thought best to leave out of earlier proposals.
5. Push your reps to analyze all the proposals they've closed throughout the year to identify anything that a customer decided to hold off on. Now's the time to close these.
6. Assist your reps in tackling any potential roadblocks that have been hindering a sale.
7. Have your sellers conduct a review meeting with their top eight customers from 2014. Review the successes they've had throughout the year and identify what’s yet to be done before year-end.
8. Instruct reps to call any customers they haven't spoken with in more than 90 days. Tell them to check in on the prospect's positioning for the start of 2015, as well as whether they may need a hand now.
9. Remind your sellers to look for customers who have money left in their 2014 budgets that they may want to allocate now to projects kicking off in early 2015.
10. Have your sellers review their forecasts to identify specific steps they can take to close opportunities and who from your team they need to help make it happen. 11. Have reps remind customers that you welcome referrals. Many customers will be more than happy to oblige when they appreciate the great service you’ve provided. There might be a last-minute sale in a new referral with end-of-year budget.
12. Direct your sellers to call all prospects that have been putting them off. While not always the most comfortable route, especially for your sales reps who dislike prospecting, it's worth a call to inquire about prospect’s first-quarter initiatives—and uncover year-end spending opportunities in the process.


Article Link





Contact me at tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Colorado Data Center News on OneNeck

OneNeck It Solutions is investing $20 million on a new data center in Colorado, its first in the state. OneNeck parent company TDS acquired Englewood-based MSN Communications in October 2013, unifying it under the OneNeck IT brand. At the time of the acquisition, the company announced intentions to build, which it has now confirmed.

OneNeck has lined up construction companies and has secured incentives from Douglas County Commissioners. The project leverages a personal property tax rebate and construction fee waivers.

Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Integra Tech Expo 2014 Denver, Colorado

Join Integra at the Tech Expo as we provide critical insights into industry trends and connect you with industry leaders so they can answer your business application questions. Space is limited so register now! Lunch provided by Integra – Grab a lunch and join our sponsors for in-depth conversations about solutions and their products and a chance to win an iPad mini or a GoPro Black camera at the Vendor Fair.

Keynote|8:30 AM - 9:15 AM The CIOs new Job: Drive Customer-Centric Innovation Throughout Your Business Knowledge Sessions| 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM *Data Center Without Walls: Networking for the Hybrid Cloud *How the Cloud is Changing The Deployment of Wi-Fi *Security With Hosted Exchange: What You Need to Know *From Boxes to Clouds: The Evolution and Impact of Communications Services *Social Media and Customer Interaction driving business technology today Vendor Fair| 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM Lunch and Prizes| 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

For more information on the topics of discussion please visit: http://www.integratelecom.com/about/pages/tech-expo-2014.aspx

*Feel free to Contact me for more information and if tickets are needed.

Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

22 Brilliant Social Media Marketing Tips

Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

How To Target & Exceed Quota!

Quota Bound &  How To Get There
Article Link

For salespeople, we all have a quota. It may go by other names where you work (target, goal, "the number"), but regardless of what it is called, it is the single most important measurement of your success as a salesperson. Yes, your company (or yourself) also looks at attitude, thoroughness, and dozens of other things; however, it you're not contributing revenue (or margin) as a salesperson, your days are numbered.

Some companies go to the extreme when managing salespeople to quota. It has become an obsession. For those poor souls who work for these types of companies, we all know the inevitable result: Micromanagement. No salesperson likes to be micromanaged. For that matter, few Sales Managers like to micromanage their salespeople. It usually happens because of the culture of the company or how the Sales Manager grew up in the industry. It's really not important why it happens. What matters is that you hit your quota (monthly, quarterly, annually) and you put yourself in a position of success. Here's some helpful tips (some are obvious) that can get the "monkey off your back," and hit your quota:

1. Figure out early how to get there. This one seems pretty straightforward, but for every type of company, there is a typical formula for a salesperson to hit quota. Your job is to talk to other successful salespeople and get them to reveal the secret. You may get different answers (which is good). Sort through the mess, overlay your personality and selling style and come up with the formula.

2. It's hard to get to quota with hundreds of transactions. It's easier to do it in chunks. Let's say you have to sell $1M of stuff to hit your quota. Most successful salespeople will break that $1M down into reasonable, sellable pieces. For example, one way to get to the number is to sell one big deal (say for $500K), two to three medium deals (say $150K each), and then 15-20 smaller deals. Believe me, if you don't plan this out and revisit this throughout the year, you can get caught up in the details of selling and before you know it, you missed the target.

3. Work smarter that you are working today. I say it like this because everyone is at a different place in their career when it comes to efficiency, tools and selling patterns. Therefore, wherever you are today, figure out a way to do it smarter tomorrow. Maybe it's leveraging a new tool, writing down goals, changing a small piece of your strategy. Smarter gets you to quota faster!

4. Pipeline development (or Sales Activity in general) is the raw materials that sales are made of. If you run out of raw materials, you're screwed. NEVER run out of raw materials. This means that you have to feed the pipeline, go out on sales calls, do proposals, meet with customers, perform demos, etc. to feed the never ending raw material engine. Don't let yourself get caught in a rat-hole on some detail. Stay big-picture. Never run out of raw materials.

5. Set your own goals and targets that are GREATER than your quota. Some companies do this already, but this does not matter. If you need $1M, set your goals at $1.25M. Setting the bar higher gives you several advantages: First, it's a buffer. Giving yourself a buffer is a good idea. Second, you will likely be financially rewarded when you over-achieve. Here's a bonus tip: When it comes to forecasting - be honest with yourself and your managers. Don't load-up with pipeline with unqualified deals and don't over-promise bookings that really won't happen. First, this let's you change your activity behavior if things don't look good. Second, it helps build rapport with management.

Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Success Is An Inside Job

Success Is An Inside Job
by Bill Caskey

Contrary to the old adage, I believe great salespeople are made, not born. Furthermore, the "making" of a great salesperson involves more than just going to the right training classes or having the right coaches. It also requires developing the attitudes, attributes and inner discipline that allow you to maximize what you've learned in those classes and coaching sessions. What are these qualities? Following is my list of the top five attributes of a high-performance sales professional.

Mental toughness. This is skill number one for all salespeople, yet typically it hovers below the radar screen of most conventional sales trainers and recruiters. The top 5% of sales professionals achieve at a higher level than 50% of the rest. Some might attribute these results to superior closing, probing, or territory management skills. In reality, they're a result of mental toughness: the inner ability to know what to do, coupled with the mechanical ability to execute it.

Profound communication skills. Effective communication involves more than just matching and mirroring prospects. Profound communication skills enable you to create an environment of trust in which prospects become willing to share and reveal the truth about their problems. Ninety percent of sales processes are based on lies, misinformation and gamesmanship. In order to get prospects to open up and reveal their problems, you must understand how to communicate in a way that elicits truth. Then, and only then, will you be working on the right problems.

Knowledge of value. Some would say this is not a skill. But if not, what is it? If you don't understand the core tenets of your value proposition, how can you expect to articulate them effectively to the marketplace? In fact, most salespeople have a weak understanding of what a value proposition is, which is why they typically convey only a small percentage of the value their company really offers. Communicating real value requires study, practice, and shedding preconceived notions about what selling really is.

The ability to deal with humans. Those pesky humans! Wouldn't it be nice to not have to deal with all their insecurities and pains? But then, who would write the checks, approve the deals, and have the motivation? When you accepted life on earth, you accepted the challenge of relationships. The better you are at having a relationship with yourself, the better you will be at external relationships. This applies to relationships with your superiors, clients, prospects, vendors and anyone else you come in contact with. If you're in sales, you signed up for relationships, and lots of them. So your skill at dealing with people is essential. Do you have a good psychological understanding of why people do the things they do? Do you know why most prospects lie about their true motives when a salesperson shows up? Do you know why a prospect gets excited about the presentation, only to disappear two weeks later? Do you know why some prospects simply cannot pull the trigger to buy? People who study this stuff get real good, real quick. They make a great deal of money because they are dialed into their profession at an entirely different level than their competitors.

Process thinking. This essential skill keeps you from spending too much time with the wrong people in the sales process. Time is an active asset, ticking away each day. Do you spend it talking with true prospects who understand and believe in your value, or with average prospects who have to be convinced of the value in your services?

Ideally, it would the former: potential clients who see your value. But that's not what usually happens. Because of insecurity about their own value, most salespeople will spend time with anyone who extends an invitation. Then, instead of telling the prospect that it doesn't appear to be a good fit, they continue trying to force a fit, ending with confusion, frustration, and possibly a small deal that was hardly worth the time.

When you understand up front what a good prospect is, how he thinks and acts, you will spend more time with the right people. Success is an inside job. By focusing on developing these five attributes, you will acquire the positive attitude and mental discipline necessary to be a high performing salesperson, and accomplish all you desire in the field of sales.

Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Checklist for a Successful Office Move-Identifying Your IT Infrastructure Needs

Checklist for a Successful Office Move
By Integra On July 8, 2014

In Featured, Technology 2 Comments It’s All About the Details Moving a company to a new location whether it is in a new city or just to another floor in the same building is full of challenges. Integra understands the obstacles and opportunities your company is facing and we developed a timeline to provide an overview of the moving process and a best practices guide with tips to help you avoid the pitfalls along the way. This week, we focus on the important details that your team should track when moving your IT infrastructure with a checklist. Use it to begin working with your IT team and work with other groups to develop their specific checklists. Your IT infrastructure is vital to the operations of your company.

IT is one of the most complex areas to move since there are many details involved. Our checklist focuses on four areas for an IT move:

• Build Your Move Team – Minimize business disruptions during the move as well as make improvements that can result in savings and more efficient processes by working with your IT team as early as possible.
• Evaluate the New Site – Make a thorough evaluation of the new site to help you understand the extent of changes needed.
• Assess Your Technology and Equipment – Know the current state of your technology, infrastructure and equipment before making decisions on what to change, replace or discontinue.
• Confirm Your Business Continuity Plan – Keep your business running by being prepared for move-related problems by making sure you have backups for all of your company’s critical data and systems.

In addition to identifying tasks, you can also align your project timeline with your checklist(s) to add due dates to tasks and assign priorities. Review the tasks regularly with your team, adding new items as needed and checking off items as they are completed. Besides providing an easy way to track and communicate your project’s progress, the checklist is a great tool to help put focus on the details that contribute to a successful move with minimal downtime.


Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

My 5 Favorite Apps For Business and For Fun!

Dave Hemler is CEO of Revation Systems, which delivers secure and compliant communication and collaboration platforms to organizations in regulated and high-compliance.

1. Evernote A perennial favorite, with good reason: I keep track of everything in Evernote. Since I'm someone who can often be described as forgetful, Evernote is an app I use across all my devices and PCs to keep track of things both business and personal. Notes from all of my meetings are easily tagged and searchable. I can set reminders on notes and share important ones with others in the company. I keep all my shopping lists by location in Evernote, such that I’ve largely eliminated that “what else did I need to get?” moment when I’m standing in the checkout line at the grocery store. Configuration information for various systems, recipes I like, and notes from books or talks that resonated with me are all in there.

2. LastPass With all the noise and scare in early May from the Heartbleed vulnerability to so many websites, I was glad I was using LastPass. It’s a secure password management service and app that I use across my devices. It allows me to save my passwords in the LastPass vault and not have to remember and type passwords for all the various sites and online services I visit. It will automatically generate very strong passwords for you, and it flags sites where you may be using the same password if you aren’t using their generated passwords. From a work perspective it’s great since I can delegate access to various sites and logins without disclosing any of the underlying information. For example, I could grant server access to a support team member without actually giving him or her any login or password information. With so much of Revation’s business in regulated industries like banking and healthcare, that extra control and security is a significant benefit.

3. Box Box is yet another service and app combination that I depend on and use on all my devices. It allows me to securely share and collaborate with our employees and our customers regardless of device or location. There are a lot of great cloud file-sharing services (Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox among them), but Box stands out for its security, simple but powerful content sharing and viewing tools, and extensibility. Whether it’s sharing proofs for large marketing and image files or getting customer sign-off on a promotional video, Box makes it easy for me to share and update on whatever device I happen to be on.

4. Trello I’ve experimented with a variety of task applications and to-do management tools but lately I’ve been using Trello to help me manage my commitments and deliverables both personally and professionally. Trello is a visual organization tool that uses Kanban principles associated with Lean Six Sigma to help you track progress, display next steps, organize, and arrange projects, tasks and just about anything else. I like it better than other apps I’ve used ( any.do is a very good one) because it allows me to both see detail on my tasks but also really zoom out to get a big picture – something I found hard to do with other apps. It’s also easy to share, add others to collaborate, and assign cards and tasks to others.

5. Hubspot At Revation, we use HubSpot as our integrated marketing tool – everything from email marketing and our company blog to social media and targeted inbound marketing. It’s really been a great tool for us, and HubSpot have recently released mobile apps for iOS and Android. These allow me to see progress on our marketing activities, get notified when we have new leads, publish and monitor social media, and really take action on any marketing tasks from my mobile devices that would previously have required me to be at my PC. My favorite app for fun Dots When I need a break or some quick rejuvenation, I turn to Dots. In general I’m not much of a gamer, but Dots is just a gorgeous and deceptively simple game about connecting dots of the same color. The developer, Betaworks One has just released a sequel to the game cleverly called Two Dots (currently only available on iOS) that should soon become my new obsession.

Article Link

Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

The Game Plan for Successful Prospecting, Whether Technology, Telecom or any Industry!

Prospecting is hard. I can't find anyone who disagrees with that statement. Even people who are good at it freely admit that it is challenging. And if prospecting was hard before, it is even harder now.

Look at some of these statistics:
•90% of C-level executives say that they never respond to cold calls or email blasts (Harvard Business Review)
•94% of buyers couldn’t remember a single prospector or message they had received during the last two years (Huthwaite®)
•90% of your calls will end up in voicemail
•It takes 12.73 dials to get a connect when calling a list of prospects with direct phone numbers and 18.83 when calling switchboard numbers.

 (Vorsight) Most people’s first reaction to the data referenced above is that prospecting doesn’t work anymore. It's a fair assessment, but unless your company’s marketing department is providing you with 100% of the opportunities that fill your pipeline, you need to prospect. The good news is there are lots of people who are still building big businesses successfully prospecting against this very difficult backdrop. A great example are appointment-setting firms. They are still outbound prospecting and driving hundreds of appointments for sales people every month for great companies. When done correctly and persistently, outbound prospecting still works.

In order to help ease the pain, I have provided some of the successful prospecting best practices that we use at TOPO to train our customers:
1. Identify — The first thing you have to do is find the right person to speak with. Even when you start with a list, you should do your research (see #2 below) and then ask around in the organization. When calling into an account for the first time, hit “zero #” when you get voicemail and get transferred to an admin to make sure you are calling the right person and see if there are others to speak with.

2. Research — Before you call someone, do 3-5 minutes of research to find something, anything that allows you to connect with the buyer. Your goal should be to come away with 2-3 interesting pieces of information you can use in your conversation. LinkedIn, Google, your CRM notes all contain the information you need to be relevant. Most prospects don’t want you to just call and read a script. If you can make your approach personal, then you can change the nature of the relationship from buyer-seller to business person-business person.

3. Find a referral — Often times it’s not your message; it’s the fact that some prospects will just delete anything you send. You could send them the message: “I am about to give you $1 million in cash. It’s in your lobby right now.” It would still get nothing. Often you need help from someone your prospect already trusts. According the Edelman Trust Barometer, 84% of b2b buyer decision makers begin the buying process from a referral. If you are building your network, there is a referral somewhere... ask them for an intro.

4. Be relevant — Matt Heinz once said to me: “If you are relevant, then it’s not spam.” He was talking about email, but it is the same thing across all your channels. Prospects are busier than ever and are getting blasted by marketing and sales calls left and right. You have to show the buyer that you understand their business and can be trusted to solve their pain. Here are some examples of usable intelligence in order of effectiveness: •Social intelligence — Social intelligence tends to be the best intelligence. The information someone shares on social is something they care about and can make for easy connections. You can truly personalize the message with this kind of information. Someone once got me with the following message: “I just read your blog and decided ‘I have to talk to this guy.’ I especially loved your post on x. I work with incredible entrepreneurs like you to …” •Publicly available buyer intelligence — If you have nothing on social, just tie back to some publicly available information. For example, if they are an insurance firm, then mention that you help other insurance firms grow by X% for example. There is a great post on how a young entrepreneur got a meeting with Mark Cuban. There are a number of great points in the post but one simple thing the writer did was mention the fact that he was an entrepreneur in the first sentence of the email. He wanted Cuban to see it in his Gmail preview pane since entrepreneurs love entrepreneurs. These little touches change the view of the buyer from “canned outreach” to a personal “I know you and can help you” message. •Any intelligence — I remember talking to Mike Lodato from Network Hardware Resale about how they lifted email conversion rates by just mentioning the local weather in the opening sentence.

 5. Make multiple touches over a multi-week period – As a general rule, you want to make six to eight multi-channel touches over the course of two weeks: Phone + email + social (LinkedIn InMail, retweet them, like them, etc.). Dan McDade has a great write-up on this concept that I recommend. Buyers are very busy. They don’t call you back. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t interested. It just means you haven’t connected with them. You want to create a patterned, consistent outreach program that consists of a mix of channels and a mix of offers and message. Do it in a contained timeframe of two weeks.

6. Have a multi-channel approach — For me there are a number of reasons to use multiple channels (phone, email, and social): •You have no idea the best way to reach this person. •You gradually build personal and corporate brand equity over each touch. •When you do connect, the buyer knew you were going to call. Think of your communications in packs of two or three. Every voicemail gets an email and an InMail for instance. Prospecting is a mix of process, art, and effort. For process, you can use this post as a framework to get started, but build on it from there. The art is in what you say/write and when you say/write it. Be patient with messaging, trial and error will only make you better. And finally, effort. Prospecting requires hours of thankless activity to be successful. The rewards only come to those willing to put in the work.

Article Link

 

Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Top Telecom Technology Cloud Based Data Center Services, Fiber Network ROI Communication 2015

internet broandband fiber ip transit services (1) interview sales tips denver (1) interviewing tips job openings sales jobs sr consultant engineer atlanta contract jobs (1) IT cloud software voip fiber ethernet sales account executive (1) IT Information technology telecom director staff owners conference spend money budgets denver boulder co springs colorado network (1) it technology business denver (1) Job Fairs (1) Job Openings (1) Job openings recruiters (1) job outlook growth engineer career boston bronx philly (1) job sales openings denver (1) job search videos (1) Job Searching (1) Job websites (1) kansas texas nebraska utah arizona ethernet resell carriers pricing (1) lake district patagonia fly fishing (1) Lakewood (1) lakewood denver dog waklking cat care sitting (1) laramie cheyenne wyoming Bundle Companies VOIP Cloud firewall Data SIP Internet Specials best prices discounts disaster recovery web hosting PBX fiber ethernet video conferencing (1) las vegas reno nevada agents High Speed internet Ethernet MPLS VPLS (1) linked in job search denver service (1) linkedin job search denver (1) Littleton (1) littleton denver dog walker cat care (1) local job fairs colorado (1) longmont loveland frederick erie berthoudColorado Companies VOIP Cloud firewall Data SIP Internet Specials best prices discounts MPLS web fiber ethernet Deconferencing (1) lowry stapleton washington park dog walking (1) marketing cloud solutions technology telecom network services MPLS VAR partner channels atlanta denver boulder phoenix salt lake city (1) marketing telecom energy tips websites (1) medford portland eugene oregon High Speed internet Ethernet MPLS VPLS (1) metro denver dog walker pet care christmas (1) mpls benefits and WAN sites blogs news (1) mpls defined by networks (1) mpls global pricing networks (1) Multimedia (1) national sales fair (1) nebraska arizona new mexico ethernet internet high speed ip transit data center location (1) network security firewall nexus cloud engineering openings new york bronx (1) networking green markets colorado (1) new home business ideas (1) new telecom blogs sites (1) norman oklahoma city agents High Speed internet Ethernet MPLS VPLS (1) online spending technology telecom colorado denver boulder companies end of year spending (1) op Ethernet Services-IP Transit Around Denver (1) Orgs (1) p2p POP wan LAN best price ethernet (1) Palm springs california agents High Speed internet Ethernet MPLS VPLS (1) patagonia fishing trips (1) Patagonia Fly Fishing Big Trout (1) PBX (1) phoenix tuscon arizona High Speed internet Ethernet MPLS VPLS (1) point to point communications (1) POP (1) POP list denver colorado (1) pop locations denver boulder colorado (1) portland oregon hi speed ethernet internet POP list (1) price quote shopping ethernet internet best new mexico arizona nebraska (1) Prices (1) PSTN (1) pueblo Network Solutions for Colorado Companies VOIP Internet Specials best prices disaster recovery MPLS WAN LAN web hosting PBX fiber ethernet POP EOC pueblo video conferencing (1) Recruiters and News (1) recruiting career openings (1) recruiting denver boulder job opening sales (1) renewable energy (2) Renewable Energy denver Job Fairs (1) renewable energy denver recruiters (1) renewable energy denver sales representatives (1) Renewable Energy news around Denver (1) renewable energy selling (1) Renewable Energy Sustainable Energy Solar Energy employment jobs (1) revenue decrease cellular (1) Sales (1) sales account executive manager seeking job opening denver boulder (1) sales business networking for jobs clients (1) sales conference online meeting tips clients success business (1) sales email marketing tips campaigns (1) sales goals success tips blogs (1) sales job hunting top sites (1) sales leaders tips websites (1) sales numbers denver (1) Sales Openings (1) sales openings AE SAE Manager (1) sales openings for denver market (1) sales openings telecom recruiters (1) sales resumes tips colorado IT Technology telecom job openings (1) sales stats companies (1) sales success at home (1) sales success interviews (1) sales tips videos 2013 telecom technology manger account executive competitors (1) sales tips websites blog performance web conference convention meetings facebook linkedin tools colorado technology telecom (1) sales top resumes (1) salt lake city provo utah agents High Speed internet Ethernet MPLS VPLS (1) seattle washington hi speed ethernet internet bgp dia wan lan pricing data centers pricing rates connect co locate (1) selling best price MPLS POP VPLS Fiber Ethernet (1) selling best price WAN LAN (1) selling wireless airwaves (1) seo social sales selling linkedin contacts groups c level fortune 500 (1) social media best tips sites cities numbers groups (1) social media sales sites selling power (1) social selling linkiedin tactics strategies (1) Software (1) solar energy jobs denver boulder (1) solar wind power water utility boulder denver recruiter company job openings (1) Specials Denver boulder fort collins longmont loveland castle rock Business Internet Promotions Bandwidth Phones Firewall Cloud Based Network Solutions hosted managed deals (1) sprint rolls out iphone 4g (1) Stapleton (1) success sales rep denver boulder (1) summer fly fishing aspen basalt (1) summer vacation in aspen colorado (1) tech centric job search sites (1) tech centric jobs (1) technology and telecommunications sales representative (1) technology industry areas of focus (1) technology telecom industry news ethernet fiber cable eoc mpls vpls (1) telecom (1) telecom 2012 preview industry (1) telecom news takeover att tmobile (1) telecom technology energy solar power (1) Telecommunications (1) Telecommunications Industry News Best Sites Blogs Groups (1) texting services colorado (1) things not to do at christmas parties sales corporate holiday parties trouble (1) Time Warner (1) tmobile att legal telecom suit merger blocked (1) top 2012 sales tips websites target markets jobs careers colorado arizona (1) top best drives colorado fall colors leaves changing (1) Top Business Network Solutions VOIP SIP fiber ethernet POP Internet Data Cloud-Phone Network for Denver Companies (1) top cell nextel gig system denver colorado best networks (1) top cold calling selling techniques (1) top colorado denver boulder staffing recruiting agencies companies (1) top colorado job search tips (1) top colorado telecom technology directory listing company corporate list (1) top data centers hybrid cloud based network infrastructure (1) top denver boulder colorado renewable energy tips (1) top denver boulder colorado renewable green energy recruiters headhunters sales job openings (2) top denver boulder headhunters seeking sales jobs (1) top Denver boulder sales telecom technology blog website cloud based data center on net lit fiber mpls networks (1) top denver colorado job search sites (1) Top Denver Colorado Recruiting Information Tips News Conventions Job openings How To Find a New Sales Job (1) top denver job search tips (5) top denver medical and energy (2) top denver medical and energy recruiters (1) top denver recruiter interviewing (1) top denver recruiter tips (2) Top Denver Recruiting Sites (1) top denver sales jobs 2011 (2) top denver sales receruiters (1) top denver sales reps and resumes (2) top ethernet dealer directories (1) top ethernet deals (1) top ethernet news (1) top ethernet sites blogs wesites (1) top ethernet sites groups news blogs websites (1) Top Ethernet-Fiber Carrier Companies (1) top fiber on net lit buildings downtown Denver Colorado internet speeds competitive 100mb gig fast e (1) top fly fishing shows and video awards shows (1) top green energy sales jobs denver (4) top home business (1) top interviewing sales tips (1) top job growth sites news stories (1) top job search blogs (1) top lit buildings patches nodes network resell ethernet carriers (1) top medical sales represenative (1) top mobile applications sales technology telecom IT online (1) top mpls wan lan service networks (1) top networking sites nationwide and denver colorado (1) top qualified sales rep telecom technology green energy recruiter (1) top renewable energy solar tips news and savings (1) top resume tips denver colorado (1) top sales account executive resumes denver (1) top sales employee denver (2) Top Sales Information Selling Telecom Meetings Technology (2) top sales interview tips (1) top sales network telecom technology tips websites (1) top sales networking (1) top sales recruiters colorado job openings experience denver boulder energy IT telecom (1) top sales recruiting recruit2012 top sales recruiters headhunters career openings denver boulder (1) top sales representative denver (5) top sales reps positions resumes denver boulder (1) top sales results driven video group meetings denver colorado boulder (1) top sales selling techniques tips (1) top sales selling tips pitch presentation meeting c level telecom technology it leaders decision makers (1) top sales techniques denver colorado conference convention meeting (1) top sales technology telecom Colorado prospect client sales process (1) top sales telcom technology news (1) top sales tips 2014 2015 (1) top sales tips denver (1) top sales tips playbook goals quota success enterprise selling fortune 500 telecom technology (1) top sales tips quota help forecast revenue commissions (1) top sales value proposition tips (1) top sales video tips tricks websites software (1) top selling sales tips new year websites blog news managers reps 2014 denver boulder colorado (1) top selling tips technology (1) top selling tips websites blogs magazines news conferences links telecom companies colorado (1) top social media marketing sales telecom tips (1) top social media sites (1) top streaming access pricing ethernet services denver colorado best (1) top tech telecom shows 2011 (1) top technology telecom 2014 industry videos news (1) top technology telecom cold calling tips (1) top technology telecom energy denver boulder job career news companies (1) top technology trends telecom big data 3d apple software computer cloud computing denver boulder colorado (1) top telecom integrator seller (1)

Contact me at tduggan(@)Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable IP Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Level 3 buying TW Telecom in $5.7B deal

Level 3 (NYSE: LVLT) of Broomfield and TW Telecom (Nasdaq: TWTC), based in the Lone Tree area, announced the deal Monday morning. The deal would be a bigger acquisition for Level 3 than its $3 billion purchase of Florham, New Jersey-based Global Crossing in 2011.

Level 3 says it will buy TW Telecom in a stock-and-cash deal valued at $40.86 a share. That translates to each TW Telecom shareholder receiving $10 in cash and and 0.7 shares of Level 3 for each share of TW Telecom. The deal is valued at $7.3 billion, including about $1.6 billion of debt. TW Telecom shareholders will own approximately 29 percent of the combined company.

The deal is subject to approval by shareholders of both companies as well as the Federal Communications Commission and other federal and state regulators. It's expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Article Link


Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Embracing the Cloud Means Altering Business Practices

It’s nearly impossible to open a business journal today without hearing about how the cloud is available to take over and automate virtually any software function that a business might need. The cloud offers so many advantages in terms of services-for-cost that it’s easy for a business to find a reason to jump onboard. What many don’t realize is that moving towards cloud services will end up changing the internal environment at a business. Telecom agents should be aware of these changes and should able to advise their clients in this respect.

Geographic Independence Cloud-based data services and virtualization go hand-in-hand. Companies that move their servers onto the cloud can then provide the exact same computing environment to their workers, regardless of their location. Someone at home could log in as easily as someone in the office–right along someone on the other side of the world. Some businesses are even beginning to question the extent to which they need physical property at all if their workforce is distributed. Many major call center providers, for example, deploy virtualized systems to send calls to workers at home, eliminating the need for a physical building with hundreds of phone lines.

Strategic Internal Collaboration Consolidating business systems online can ultimately empower more employees to contribute positively to the whole organization. The days of having separate R&D, marketing, and sales departments may be quickly coming to an end. After all, if a company’s marketing department is sitting on all the best analyses of its customer base, why wouldn’t the department be invited to product development meetings?

A growing number of companies are finding success with more democratic strategic processes, powered by cloud-based data availability. There’s very little reason to keep departments segregated. Often, it just leads to overlap and bad blood; this would include the unfortunate tendency of sales and marketing departments to work at cross-purposes.

IT Gains a Different Kind of Value Some businesses tend to see cloud-based services as a way to eliminate internal IT, but a smart telecom agent would advise against short-sighted strategies. The cloud won’t eliminate IT, but it can change IT’s focus and areas of responsibility. A business’s IT department will likely end up responsible for coordinating the various cloud vendors while ensuring that different systems remain compatible. Furthermore, since IT touches every aspect of a business, the IT department ultimately will be responsible for the flow of information throughout the system. As customer solutions increasingly become technology solutions, an empowered IT department will also be a strong strategic partner. The department will be in a position to proactively recommend solutions aimed at increasing efficiency across a business–rather than simply responding to problems reactively.

Cloud Services Bring a Vision of the Future It might be “sales 101″ to say that sales are created through visions of the future, but this is especially true when selling cloud services. These aren’t simply software services; they’re game-changers that allow a business to radically restructure itself in response to global market demands. Successful telecom agents will know how to play up these elements and pitch cloud services as a roadmap to a shinier future. When a business is excited and enthusiastic about that roadmap, its employees will adapt more quickly and show faster returns on their investment.

Telecom Channel Blog Article Link




Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Future Transportation Technology Will Blow Your Mind

Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Telecommunications-IT Business Directory for Denver Colorado Companies!

Denver's Premiere Business Directory

The Denver Business Journal is the Mile High City's best source for business news, in print and online. The weekly print edition provides perspective and insight into business news as covered by the city's most experienced business journalists. Denverbusinessjournal.com offers the fastest, most in-depth business news report in the Mile High City, supplemented by our Morning Call and Daily Update news emails. And Denver Business Journal Events offer networking, awards and information vital to business

Website Link



Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

How Will Information Technology Pros Spend Money in 2014

Article Link

Tech marketer, get ready for some breakthrough discoveries in this free report. Spiceworks put 450 IT pros under the tech microscope for a clear read on where their dollars are headed in 2014. We broke down the elements to help you understand the IT budget outlook, how IT pros plan to spend the dough, and key tech investments on their radar over the next 12 months. Complete the form to the right to instantly view the budget elements and trends in 2014.

Do you count IT as one of your target markets? Take a look at this compelling stat: IT pros expect their average purchasing budgets to increase to over $300,000 in 2014. At the top of their buying wishlist? Hardware, software, cloud services and managed services. That's just one of the many budget

Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Integra Accelerates Data Center Strategy, Grows On-Network Facilities Nearly 50 Percent

 

Integra Accelerates Data Center Strategy, Grows On-Network Facilities Nearly 50 Percent Since October
Portland, Ore. – April 2014

The surge brings Integra’s total on-network data centers to 92, a nearly 50 percent increase in the timeframe, reflecting continued demand among enterprise and wholesale customers for high-bandwidth, low-latency fiber connectivity to critical infrastructure. The recently added retail and wholesale data centers serve a broad range of data center operators and their customers with reliable, high-bandwidth connectivity to support their critical data, transport solutions, cloud services, and infrastructure needs. The data centers are located in Integra metro fiber markets with a concentration in Phoenix and the California Bay Area.

Integra customers will benefit from this and other recent strategic investments in network expansion, such as a new long-haul fiber route connecting Salt Lake City with Northern California and expanded Ethernet-over-Copper (EoC) access. “The continued acceleration in our on-network data center relationships tracks with the steadily growing demand, particularly among our enterprise customers, for dependable high-speed connections to data center services as well as Integra’s hosted and managed solutions,” said Dan Stoll, Integra vice president, strategy and development. “More and more, our customers are looking to data centers to maintain their critical data and support their most important workloads, including access to public and private cloud services across multiple providers. And, by focusing on connectivity to third-party data center providers, we’re able to support customers who prefer a best-of-breed approach to provisioning their critical infrastructure.”

Integra’s portfolio of on-network data centers supports wholesale and enterprise customers with High Speed Internet, Wavelength Services, Ethernet Services, and IP/MPLS VPN. Data center tenants can also benefit from Integra’s managed services for voice, data and business continuity / disaster recovery (BCDR), such as Hosted Voice Services and Cloud Firewall Service.

Integra™, a provider of fiber-based, carrier-grade networking, communications and technology solutions, has connected 30 data centers to its network since October 2013.

Press Release Link

Taking a Proactive Approach To Marketing Cloud Solutions

Taking a Proactive Approach to Marketing Cloud Solutions
by Cameron Bell
Article Link

Telecom agents, value added resellers (VARs), managed services providers, and other cloud technology stakeholders face a daunting marketing responsibility ahead. The confusing cloud environment and people’s disconcerted understanding of what the cloud is all about are the biggest challenges for cloud marketers. What can marketers do when potential cloud adopters don’t know the difference between genuine cloud solutions and pseudo-cloud adaptations? How can they approach a divergent market that is characterized by populations like these: consumers who don’t know what cloud is, customers who have an idea of what cloud is but don’t know what to do with it, and customers who know what cloud is and plan to adopt it? What follows are ideas about how to approach these divergent populations.

Show how cloud works 
Appealing to the sense of sight is especially helpful for IT-minded business people like CIOs. Video tutorials are compelling tools to demonstrate how the technology works, and they also easily can illustrate the cloud’s core benefits. The main goal of a video tutorial would be to educate–never to make a direct sales pitch. Viewers easily get irritated by bombastic overtures and often opt out of such presentations. Product tutorials, step-by-step guides, and how-to pieces are excellent video ideas that help tell the story of the cloud and how it can help their business.

Give proof 
Businesses want to ensure that when they shift to new technology like cloud services, they are not plunging into the unknown. They want proof of the technology’s success and of satisfied customer experience through factual case studies and testimonials. Documenting a true story of defining a problem, offering a solution, and achieving positive results will help a company establish itself as a thought leader in its niche. Testimonials by verifiable customers also are convincing and can lead to sales.

Use illustrations 
Text is an important part of your website, but images and graphics almost always get the viewer’s primary and initial attention. With the emergence of millions of camera-enabled mobile devices, the world has become a visual culture where images are the driving force for increased customer engagement. In a high speed business landscape where people have less and less time to read lengthy text, high-quality photos and readable graphics are the key to spurring conversion and sales.

Anticipate customers’ questions 
Customers need immediate answers to questions about new cloud services that they intend to adopt, but they may not know where to look for this information and who to ask. A frequently asked questions webpage holds a lot of value, and it serves as the first line of customer service. It becomes an even more effective online customer service center if it provides organized, accurate, relevant, transparent, and up-to-date questions and answers.

Offer value-based pricing 
Price is often the main consideration, but, as many know, cheapest is not always the best. Many customers are still hitched to the lowest price, but many are open to exploring price for value. They know that they may be saving long-term costs if they put a premium on the value of the product they are buying. A price sheet, therefore, is more than just a list of price levels. Value-based pricing highlights the features, functionalities, and benefits of a product, clearly indicating what price comes with what feature. Telecom agents are at the crossroads of their marketing careers as the cloud hovers over their heads. No matter what the game looks like years from now, the competition will continue. Technology integration through the cloud is paving the way to the integration of services by MSPs, telecom agents, VARs, and other marketing stakeholders. The best way to compete is to collaborate. -



Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Top 25 List of Successful Tools for Sales People To Use

My Top 25 List of Tools for Sales People
By Dario Priolo
Article

When you think of typical tools for sales people CRM software and services, such as Salesforce.com, likely come to mind. While CRM is certainly an important aspect of a salesperson’s job, it’s by no means the end-all-be-all. In order to effectively prospect and sell, sales people and managers can and should take advantage of a host of tools and applications to guide their activities and help their efforts. Here’s my list of 25 Tools for Sales People with brief descriptions and grouped by activity: Find Prospects Very few sales reps have an evergreen book of business. In addition to networking, how else can you look for new prospects?

LinkedIn — 200 million+ members. Manage your professional identity. Build and engage with your professional network. Access knowledge, insights, and opportunities by company, industry, geography and role. Leverage groups and discussions.

Twitter — Follow your clients and prospects, their colleagues, and their corporate accounts to stay on top of what’s important to them and their business. What are they saying, and who do they follow?

 Lead411 — Lead411 provides business e-mail lists, company addresses, executive e-mails, and phone numbers.

NetProspex — NetProspex, voted Best Lead Generation Solution, is the fastest-growing and most accurate B2B contact information solution, providing new, targeted prospects.

Google Maps — Find local businesses, view maps, and get driving directions in Google Maps. Stay Informed There’s no shortage of information out there, but you need to be able to sift through what’s most relevant to you and prioritize your time in reviewing it.

Evernote — The Evernote family of products help you remember and act upon ideas, projects, and experiences across all the computers, phones, and tablets you use.

Scoop.it — Easily curate engaging magazines. Effectively feed your web presence.

Pulse — Pulse takes your favorite websites and transforms them into a colorful and interactive mosaic. Sign up to personalize your experience. Recently purchased by LinkedIn.

Flipboard — Flipboard is your personal magazine, filled with the things you care about. Catch up … Tap red ribbon, Accounts, select a network, and sign in.

Google Alerts — Google Alerts are e-mail updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your queries. Follow client or prospect organizations, and receive an e-mail when they’re in the news. Depending on the amount of news, you may need to refine your queries. Live Conversations Few sales reps are shy and likely prefer to have a live conversation. “If I could just get him on the phone so that I can have conversation instead of hoping he’ll read my e-mails.”

ConnectAndSell — ConnectAndSell offers an order-of-magnitude improvement in sales productivity.

Insidesales.com — Phone dialer software. InsideSales.com is the leading provider of inside sales software and solutions to respond immediately and persistently to leads. Make 350+ calls per day.

ooVoo — ooVoo is a FREE video chat and instant messaging app for desktop, mobile, tablets, and Facebook. ooVoo lets you chat with up to 12 people for FREE anytime.

Skype — Make internet calls for free with Skype. Sign up today and discover a whole new world of staying in touch. Not a tool for cold calling, but an effective one if you’re in that stage of not having met in person but want to enhance your relationship. More personal than a webinar. E-mail E-mail is still a prevalent mode of communication. These tools can help you leverage your e-mail efforts and know what’s getting through, opened, and clicked on. Don’t underestimate the power of a good subject line.

Rapportive — Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox. We combine what you know, what your organization knows, and what’s on the web.

Cirrus Insight — Rated #1 by Salesforce users. Create new leads and contacts. Save e-mails and attachments to Salesforce. Sync calendars.

Boomerang — Boomerang is a plugin for Firefox and Chrome that adds scheduled sending and integrated e-mail reminders to Gmail.

Yesware — An e-mail tool for salespeople. Track e-mails, create templates, sync with CRM, and more. Yesware helps you close more deals faster.

Bananatag — Track e-mails from all clients. Know when your e-mails are opened or clicked.

Streak — Streak is great for sales, but you can also use it for hiring candidates, handling e-mail support, organizing deal flow, fundraising, and organizing. Video and Presentations According to Domo, there are 48 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. Videos and savvy presentations might be just what you need to get the attention of your targets. Keep them professional and not too long. Leverage your charismatic sales leaders in a way that e-mail can’t do justice.

YouTube — Share your videos with clients, prospects, and colleagues. Record brief tutorials, demos, or product descriptions to whet your prospects’ interest. Put your content experts on screen to help engage your targets.

SlideShare — Offers users the ability to upload and share publicly or privately PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and Adobe PDF Portfolios.

Brainshark — Create online video presentations and mobile video presentations from PowerPoint or your other static content. You can also create voice-enriched video presentations. Screenr — Instant screencasts — just click record.

Screenr’s web-based screen recorder makes it a breeze to create and share your screencasts around the web.

 Snagit — Snagit screen capture allows you to grab an image or video of what you see on your computer screen, add effects, and share with anyone.

Fiber Services, MPLS- Data protection, VOIP-SIP-Integra has a suite of offerings that nobody else can provide.

Article Link

Contact me at Tduggan@Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.