Sunday, March 2, 2014

Top Colorado Sales Information: Selling Telecom Meetings, Cloud Managed Hosted Technology, Wireless, Job Openings

Friday, February 14, 2014

Storm Piles More New Snow on Colorado Ski Country




Colorado's Ski Season Getting Dumped On!
Denver, Colo. –
Article Link

Powder continues to descend on ski resorts throughout Colorado Ski Country USA (CSCUSA) as winter in the Rocky Mountains shifts into high gear. Ahead of what looks to be another great week of skiing and snowboarding, winter storms have again brought new snowfall to all 21 CSCUSA member resorts. Up to 22 inches of new snow has fallen in the last 48 hours, with steady accumulation expected to continue through Sunday.

Resorts in the western and southwestern areas of Colorado saw the most new snowfall from this mid-week weather system. Wolf Creek received 22 inches, while Telluride and Powderhorn each registered 18 inches of snowfall during the two-day period. Other resorts in the region also fared well, with Durango Mountain Resort recording 7 inches and Crested Butte and Silverton Mountain each welcoming 4 inches of new snowfall. Resorts in the central mountains of Colorado were also reporting significant new snowfall totals.

Aspen Mountain and Snowmass both recorded 10 inches of new snow, while Buttermilk and Aspen Highlands each measured 8 inches of fresh powder. In addition, this latest storm also brought an impressive 11 inches of new snow to Monarch, 7 inches of powder fell at Sunlight Mountain, and Ski Cooper added 5 inches of new snow. Further north, Steamboat saw 7 inches of fresh powder and Winter Park Resort welcomed 3.5 inches. Copper Mountain, Loveland, Eldora, and Howelsen Hill each received 2 inches of fresh snowfall during the 48-hour span, while Arapahoe Basin and Ski Granby Ranch each received one inch of new snow. More great skiing and snowboarding is on tap for the week’s end and into next week with another round of winter storms expected to bring significant snowfall to Colorado.

Knowing how to ski safely in deep snow is essential to having a fun day out in the powder. Visit http://www.coloradoski.com/page/ski-safety for helpful tips and to learn the Know Your Responsibility Code, the list of best practices to ensure your safety on the mountain. Keep up to date on snowfall totals with the CSCUSA snow report updated by the resorts themselves: http://www.coloradoski.com/snow-report



Contact me at tradd.duggan@integratelecom.com at Integra  for more Info 3o3-884-4294: Whether your company needs Managed Network Services, price shopping, Cloud Firewall Solutions, Ethernet or Fiber Services, MPLS- Data protection, VOIP-SIP-Integra has a suite of offerings that nobody else can provide.

Monday, February 10, 2014

The Case For Face To Face Networking, Sales Tips For New Business!



The problem with events today is that the focus is on event planners turning a profit- and not on driving ROI for each attendee.

With rules like no sponsorships until you exhibit or no social networking opportunities or even zero promotion of attending companies leading up to the event—it’s impossible as an investor in the event to determine the real value. We need to look at attendees as investors. I come from the business world—I come from telecom—the industry that combines technology with the need for communications—and with this background, my team and I create events for my fellow telecom business professionals. Each of our attendees are investors—and the event is our company—it’s our brand—and we need our investors to get real value and that critical trust factor from our brand.

So how do we do it? We provide technology to let them network ahead of time—before they walk through the doors of the event. So they have a list of prospect or partner meetings – a timetable of business opportunities—before they even walk in the door. What does that do for me, the event planner? By actually driving the success of your investors—you are driving the success of your brand. You are ensuring that they will walk away with fresh contacts- leads for them to nurture—which can ideally turn into deals and real revenue for them.

If we consider our event as a multiple-leads generation tool that all our investors are committing to—then we have a successful event—one where folks will register early, will not swap out or cancel their ticket days before the event due to calendar conflicts—one that they will love from start to finish- and one they will easily sign up for again next year or quarter. It’s about creating an environment to grow business. So there needs to be a real study on meeting management at events. It’s not about showing a list of company or sponsors names and saying – “you are all in the same room, find each other and see if by the time you actually hunt that person down, you have enough energy and time to actually talk business in a crowded room.”

It’s about creating face-to-face meetings in an environment appropriate for business. This new message and pre-planning requires time and thought well ahead of the event dates. So what technology drives pre-thought, this pre-planning for face-to-face, on-site meetings? As an event planner, I was looking for this technology back in 2003—before facebook, before myspace, heck, before widely-distributed blackberries. And I was looking in vain. There was no such technology. Even the financial guys on Wall Street were resorting to timely-planned emails to folks they already knew a few days before the show—but there was no way (unless events gave out their attendee emails out right, which caused a lot of unwanted spamming and overall irritation) to successfully network before an event. That’s when I met with my IT director at the time and sat down and created the first iteration of what is now known as DealCenter.

DealCenter is a platform where we can keep all attendee contact details—safe and secure—where folks can log in, sort this list of other registrants, view their profiles, and if they have services and products in their particular area/region, contact them – via the DealCenter system—to plan a meeting at a particular time and location during the show. Since 2003, the DealCenter system has gone through many iterations, incorporating latest technologies and social media tools. Now, and new for 2012, our newest version combines ease-of-use with a powerful, fast machine, to offer the fastest—google-esque searching capabilities with facebook-esque participant profiles. Also new for 2012, we have a mobile site that takes face-to-face networking on the go for all our investors. And it’s not just the brawn of the platform, it’s the brains of our team.

DealCenter team members are available throughout the use of the platform to offer live and fast support. We are also on-site helping to foster these meetings in a dedicated area, often near the exhibit floor, where we direct meeting participants to their pre-assigned, numbered table. We help facilitate on-site impromptu meetings as well, for those attendees who would like to use a table for a period of time, to have a business meeting with someone they just met on the floor.


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.









Denver & Boulder High Speed Fiber Internet-Ethernet Specials, VOIP-Cloud Firewall Data Network, Hosted Managed Services, Disaster Recovery, WAN LAN & Colorado Web Hosting


Denver & Boulder Top Network Service Provider

Whether you have one location or are a multi-site organization, Integra has a variety of solutions to connect your business. We provide scalable data and Internet access solutions over a variety of technologies, customized for your unique requirements. At the core of these services is our fully redundant backbone that delivers secure, private network services across our network footprint. Integra’s carrier-class network allows us to deliver services ranging from Ethernet to ultra-high capacity Private Lines.

As always, no matter what type of capacity you need, Integra delivers the superior customer experience you deserve.

Dynamic, Integrated Service – Allocate bandwidth dynamically for data services when your network is not used for voice traffic with Integra’s SIP Trunking service. Our service integrates your voice and data traffic and eliminates the expense of separate networks, while providing a standard platform for current and future multimedia applications.

•Dependable and Secure Private Network — Integra’s high performance network connects all your locations over a private IP/MPLS network with 99.999% network availability. Voice, data and Internet traffic converge over a single network, providing rapid, reliable and secure access to all of your employees regardless of their location.

•Flexible Bandwidth and Access Options — Integra offers a variety of access technologies to provide just the right amount of bandwidth for your applications and traffic to all of your business locations.

•Converged Architecture — Integra offers the networking foundation for your business that allows you to grow, on-demand, with multiple service types: Internet, Voice and MPLS. This scalable platform supports your growing business and can be designed as a fully meshed network to support the needs of multi-location offices.

Contact me at tradd.duggan@integratelecom.com at Integra  for more Info 3o3-884-4294: Whether your company needs Managed Network Services, price shopping, Cloud Firewall Solutions, Ethernet or 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.









Thursday, February 6, 2014

Longmont-Loveland-Frederick-Broomfield High Speed Fiber Internet Specials,VOIP-Cloud Firewall Data Network, Hosted Managed Services, Disaster Recovery, WAN LAN & Colorado Web Hosting



Northern Colorado Top Network Service Provider

Whether you have one location or are a multi-site organization, Integra has a variety of solutions to connect your business. We provide scalable data and Internet access solutions over a variety of technologies, customized for your unique requirements. At the core of these services is our fully redundant backbone that delivers secure, private network services across our network footprint. Integra’s carrier-class network allows us to deliver services ranging from Ethernet to ultra-high capacity Private Lines.

As always, no matter what type of capacity you need, Integra delivers the superior customer experience you deserve.

Dynamic, Integrated Service – Allocate bandwidth dynamically for data services when your network is not used for voice traffic with Integra’s SIP Trunking service. Our service integrates your voice and data traffic and eliminates the expense of separate networks, while providing a standard platform for current and future multimedia applications.

•Dependable and Secure Private Network — Integra’s high performance network connects all your locations over a private IP/MPLS network with 99.999% network availability. Voice, data and Internet traffic converge over a single network, providing rapid, reliable and secure access to all of your employees regardless of their location.

•Flexible Bandwidth and Access Options — Integra offers a variety of access technologies to provide just the right amount of bandwidth for your applications and traffic to all of your business locations.

•Converged Architecture — Integra offers the networking foundation for your business that allows you to grow, on-demand, with multiple service types: Internet, Voice and MPLS. This scalable platform supports your growing business and can be designed as a fully meshed network to support the needs of multi-location offices.

Contact me at tradd.duggan@integratelecom.com at Integra  for more Info 3o3-884-4294: Whether your company needs Managed Network Services, price shopping, Cloud Firewall Solutions, Ethernet or 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.









Integra EoC Footprint Surpasses 460,000 Businesses

Integra Increases Their Footprint
By Sean Buckley 

Integra is continuing its aggressive Ethernet buildout strategy, expanding its Ethernet over Copper (EoC) network to another 43 fiber-fed ILEC Local Serving Offices (LSOs). Through this expansion, Integra's EoC access service now reaches a total of 187 on-network LSOs, enabling it to reach more than 460,000 businesses in over 140,000 commercial buildings. Providing up to 100 Mbps of bandwidth over existing copper pairs, the expansion accommodates growth in seven of the CLEC's existing markets: California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Minnesota and Colorado.

Brian Washburn, service director, Global Business Network and IT Services for Current Analysis, said in an interview with FierceTelecom that Integra's milestone reflects its move to extend Ethernet into secondary markets that have not been traditional targets for Ethernet deployments. "What's really nice about this for Integra is it is getting Ethernet over Copper into a lot places that are maybe not as well loved as the U.S. East Coast or the Pacific Northwest," he said. Washburn added that Integra will face competitive headwinds from area incumbent telcos, particularly CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), which has been expanding its EoC footprint in many of the markets where Integra provides service.

"The flipside to this is among the incumbent local carriers, CenturyLink is one of the bigger proponents of Ethernet over Copper," he said. "In that respect, it's behaving more like Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) or Frontier (Nasdaq: FTR) and being kind of pro deployment of Ethernet over Copper inside of its carrier incumbent footprint." Data transport is only one part of the EoC equation. Current and new EoC customers can also get access to its broader portfolio of Ethernet-based services, such as its IP/MPLS VPN Solutions, Hosted Voice Services and other managed and cloud services.

While Integra has built a sizeable network that supports a suite of fiber-based Ethernet, EoC has been a key element in extending Ethernet service into areas that it currently can't reach with fiber. Over the past two years, it has been enhancing its EoC portfolio, introducing a 60 Mbps symmetrical EoC service in November 2012 and later a 100 Mbps capability.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Hot IT Job skills in 2014: Mobile, Web Development, and Big Data Colorado



Technology Full Speed Ahead
Article Link

Expertise in Web development, mobile development, and large-scale data analysis will be much sought-after by IT hiring managers this year.

The clients of Doug Schade, principal consultant in the software technology search division at hiring firm WinterWyman, are especially interested in Web developers who know open source languages. In addition to Java skills, Ruby and Python development backgrounds are desirable, reflecting a development trend that de-emphasizes Microsoft languages, he said. Also on InfoWorld: Hotshot young techies, take heed of these 10 hard-earned lessons of a lifetime in IT.  Get a digest of the day's top tech stories in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter.

Java and .Net skills are especially valuable for Web development projects, said Jack Cullen, president of IT staffing firm Modis. In the mobile space, experience with developing for Apple's iOS leads the way in desired backgrounds, said John Reed, senior executive director at staffing firm Robert Half Technology.

There's also some demand for other platforms like Microsoft's Windows Phone, he said. Understanding how to create a site that can be easily viewed and navigated from a handheld device is just as important to employers as knowing how to develop a mobile application, he added.



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.









Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Channel Sales Defining Sales Goals 2014!




Contact me at tradd.duggan@integratelecom.com at Integra  for more Info 3o3-884-4294: Whether your company needs Managed Network Services, price shopping, Cloud Firewall Solutions, Ethernet or Fiber Services, MPLS- Data protection, VOIP-SIP-Integra has a suite of offerings that nobody else can provide.

Monday, January 13, 2014

5 Things To Get Smart About in Telecom & Cloud Technology For 2014



Cloud Technology Getting Brighter
Posted on by Andrew Pryfogle
Article Link

Headed into 2014, I’ve been asked what the key areas are that people need to get smarter about to be successful selling Cloud in the new year. Even after several years of buzz and progress, there remains a tremendous amount of confusion around Cloud. Trusted advisors who understand how to apply Cloud technologies to solve real business problems are at a true premium.

Those who invest in getting smarter about Cloud are going to be the big winners next year. But with so much noise around all things Cloud, where is the right place to start? What technologies should you explore more deeply now to set yourself up for big success in 2014?

Here are my top 5:
#1: Desktop as a Service (DaaS) I recently posed the question, “Is DaaS the next hosted VoIP?” There are certainly compelling parallels between the adoption of these technologies. Hosted VoIP (voice-over IP) was a big idea with lots of promise for a long time before it went mainstream. 

#2: Cloud-Enabled Colo More and more customers are recognizing that it makes more sense to park their infrastructure in someone else’s closet instead of their own. Cloud is becoming a popular destination for that infrastructure but rarely is it a pure play Cloud solution.

  #3: Cloud Contact Centers You may have heard me say in the past that contact centers simply belong in the Cloud. I still believe that, and, in fact, nearly every contact center developer and manufacturer has embraced that thinking.

#4: Video as a Service (VaaS) I’m convinced this will finally be the year when VaaS breaks out. The value of video conferencing can’t be argued, and with the explosion in mobility, video adoption is finally accelerating. Web RTC will throw gas on that fire, and Cloud is making video accessible to the masses. I love the innovative solutions that Simple Signal and Arkadin are doing in this exciting space.

#5: Selling is Dead: The Evolution of Solution Selling I read a book this year called The Challenger Sale – Taking Control of the Customer Conversation. It’s the best book I’ve read recently on the subject of solution selling. The bottom line is this: Cloud demands a different sales approach.

Customers are swimming in a sea of confusion and desperately need help navigating those waters.

Contact me at tradd.duggan@integratelecom.com at Integra  for more Info 3o3-884-4294: Whether your company needs Managed Network Services, price shopping, Cloud Firewall Solutions, Ethernet or Fiber Services, MPLS- Data protection, VOIP-SIP-Integra has a suite of offerings that nobody else can provide.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Colorado Employment Update: New Sales Job Search Tips for 2014!

Positive, broad-based job growth forecast for Colorado in 2014, says CU Leeds School of Business

Colorado will continue on the road to recovery and add a variety of jobs in 2014 across almost all business sectors following a positive year in 2013, according to economist Richard Wobbekind of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business. Wobbekind’s announcement is part of the 49th annual Colorado Business Economic Outlook Forum to be delivered Dec. 9 by the Business Research Division of the Leeds School and presented by Noble Energy.

The comprehensive outlook report for 2014 features forecasts and trends for 13 business sectors prepared by more than 100 key business, government and industry professionals. “With Colorado’s skilled workforce, high-tech diversified economy, relatively low cost of doing business, global economic access and exceptional quality of life, the state is poised for long-term economic growth,” Wobbekind wrote in the outlook. Wobbekind is the executive director of the Leeds School’s Business Research Division.

- See more at: http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2013/12/09/positive-broad-based-job-growth-forecast-colorado-2014-says-cu-leeds-school#sthash.qQ1d6DUj.dpuf


Contact me at tradd.duggan@integratelecom.com at Integra  for more Info 3o3-884-4294: Whether your company needs Managed Network Services, price shopping, Cloud Firewall Solutions, Ethernet or Fiber Services, MPLS- Data protection, VOIP-SIP-Integra has a suite of offerings that nobody else can provide.

Monday, January 6, 2014

12 Best Practices That Help Sales Managers Make Their Teams Successful




12 Best Practices That Help Sales Managers Make Their Teams Successful 
Oct 4 2012 By Walter Rogers
Article Link


Sales managers are uniquely positioned to influence and empower sales reps to greater levels of success, but sales managers sometimes become so busy and distracted that they neglect their own professional development as they get caught up trying to survive the latest fire drill. It only takes insight into three key areas to dramatically increase the positive impact the sales manager can make on the whole sales team: Alignment, Motivation, and Performance. As we continue to work with successful sales organizations all around the world, we have discovered that highly effective sales managers have a set of skills and characteristics in common that set them above all the rest, and which enable them to help their teams to achieve results that are also way above average. These characteristics are defined in the topics below:

1. Too many sales teams are over-managed and under-led, which is to say that many sales managers rely too much on metrics and deadlines to drive performance. Highly effective sales managers find numerous ways to come alongside team members to motivate and reward them in a social format that brings out the best in them in a way that inspires everyone.

2. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. This is just a way of saying that highly effective sales managers don’t rely on theoretical or arbitrary programs to drive sales team performance. Yes, every team should have a sales process and set goals and measure pipeline, but it works best to align those organizational goals to a social network. Leveraging social goals gives sales individuals targets that are practical, comfortable, and therefore more natural. Of course, behavior that feels more natural will always work better and longer than activities that don’t.

 3. Building the team; finding and hiring talent. Effective sales managers are committed to hiring the best talent available. If you want the best, hire the best, and save loads of time and money on training while protecting yourself from failure six months down the road. It costs more up front, but it definitely pays off over time. Look for individuals with social goals that are already more aligned with your organizational goals. Screen shot 2012-10-17 at 3.05.18 PM

4. Cadence and Consistency: Set and manage the heartbeat of the team. A sales team thrives when all the components of the sales and management process follow regular standards and schedules. If sales managers have the tools, real time tracking and instantaneous feedback are by far the best methods. When sales reps don’t feel a need to stop and check in or work against intermittent review “events,” they can give more energy to selling and immediately incorporate managers’ instant feedback with deals in motion.

5. Key Performance Indicators: The glue of your communication strategy. An integral part of a consistent winning cadence is the tone and the topics of your communications with your sales team. Nothing is more important to sales makers than knowing what is expected of them and when it is expected. Effective sales managers keep their communication clear and their expectations well defined, so that team members know what to aim for, and understand what will happen if they hit it (or not).

6. Manage the Forward Pipeline: The difference between pipeline and forecasting. Most sales managers understand the necessity of communicating regularly with team members about pipeline and forecasting. However, highly effective sales managers understand there is a difference between the two. Forecasting is focused on late stage deals. It does little to help with future quarters. Pipeline is focused on the future development of sales, which ultimately impacts later forecasts. Most managers don’t differentiate or understand the difference between the two. Keep this in mind when aligning new goals. When coaching for performance, help some reps better understand your coaching by pointing out the respective impact on pipeline or forecasting.

 7. Process: Don’t over engineer it, but don’t ignore it. Every sales team works within a standardized process which defines how to approach, qualify, work with and close the customer. This is a good thing. However, highly effective sales managers know it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Highly regimented, complex sales processes can confuse a sales rep and tie their hands. So, an effective sales manager will use all the tech and tools available to track performance in real time. Up-to-the-minute tracking lets managers make up-to-the-minute adjustments, giving their teams “guided flexibility” that is optimal in modern dynamic sales environments.

8. Coaching: In the day – in the moment. Coaching is the responsibility most neglected by sales managers, because it requires them to borrow time from their already busy day. Highly effective sales managers realize that placing a high priority on coaching will build confidence and drive production for their team better and faster than any other single practice. Therefore, they take advantage of every opportunity, scheduled or unscheduled, to provide feedback that will make their sales reps Perform better

 9. Herding cats: Dealing with the mavericks and high performers. It takes a special kind of person to thrive as a sales professional. The highly competitive profile of a successful sales rep can make them a challenge to work with and lead. Effective sales managers know how to motivate and reward this unique breed of cat, to maximize performance and minimize conflict, thus taking a “good” sales professional making them “great.” Shrewd managers also leverage social networking, using the success of high performers to motivate others, turning great individual performers into great performing teams.

10. Leading Indicators: Worrisome patterns of behavior. Effective sales managers are always thinking ahead; they can recognize what small trends indicate before they become big problems. By noticing small changes in sales rep performance in what otherwise might look like still “reasonably” good numbers, the sales manager can be proactive by coaching reps as they perform. In doing so, the manager helps prevent weaker performances from becoming anchored as bad habits that sap overall yearly productivity and sales.

11. Protect their time: You can’t sell if you aren’t spending time with customers. Highly effective sales managers practice good time management habits, and they enable their sales teams to make the most of their time by eliminating demands on their time that don’t directly help drive revenue. With clearly aligned goals, all activities can be quickly evaluated. activities that don’t support these goals can be eliminated or updated to bring them into alignment.

12. Celebrate: Winning is fun. Celebrate it! This ought to be self-explanatory, but some sales managers wait too long and then don’t celebrate enough. Effective sales managers understand that the best way to dispel some of the pressure is to reward wins – even small ones – as often as possible and use it as an opportunity to give everyone a little boost. A little celebration creates motivation and that goes a long way.

Contact me at tradd.duggan@integratelecom.com at Integra  for more Info 3o3-884-4294: Whether your company needs Managed Network Services, price shopping, Cloud Firewall Solutions, Ethernet or Fiber Services, MPLS- Data protection, VOIP-SIP-Integra has a suite of offerings that nobody else can provide.