Who Is TBI And Why Should I Care About Network Services?

Back when long distance voice service cost a fortune and there were only three choices for carriers, you did not have an option to rebill it without a lot of capital and certifications from the FCC. So the three major players at the time (AT&T, MCI and Sprint) created indirect sales channels—people that were not employees, getting paid straight commission to sell the carrier's service. The carrier still billed it, and the carrier still supported it, but they paid the "distributor" a commission for the sale. Then the Internet came along, and lucky for many of us, they used the phone network to run it.

Suddenly there were bigger products, more expensive services and additional carriers. TBI, a distributor of network services, signed up and sold them all: Internet, telephone service, private networking and many other things.

LCI was a company that became the fourth player in the long distance game. They were quickly bought by a construction company called Qwest, which offered a partner program where a nonemployee could get paid for selling its services. This is how TBI was born. Former Qwest employees started selling long distance services to businesses. It started with eight employees and one carrier with just a few products. Twenty-three years later, we are 120 employees strong with 70 carriers and hundreds of options for technology services.

We contract with vendors, like CenturyLink, Comcast and Verizon, making large-volume commitments to ensure the highest possible commission payout for agent partners. Our support staff is trained in their products, tools and ordering systems, so you don't have to be the expert. You bring us what the issue is for the client, and we will offer solutions for you to present to your client.

Our partners bring us requests for these services and we quote, contract and then pay a percentage of our very large commissions for what is sold. We are one of the largest and oldest distributors in the industry. Partners feel safe doing business with TBI because our agreement has no quota, exclusivity, and we include an evergreen clause that ensures if TBI is paid, the partner is paid. Because we mostly pay residual commissions, it can be very profitable for unsavory organizations to cancel their partners and keep the commissions for themselves. This never happens at TBI, guaranteed contractually.

Some of our partners are consultants, hardware installers, IT service companies and in many other areas of expertise. But anyone in a position to recommend a carrier service to a business can become a partner of TBI.

At the beginning of this blog, I discussed why people did not get certified to rebill or become a carrier. It takes FCC approval. There is low brand recognition, and if anything were to ever happen to you or TBI, your customer would be the one on record still getting service, and that is what is most important—the customer's satisfaction. So, we do not rebill. Your customer is billed and supported by the carrier they choose.

TBI will quote it. TBI will contract it. And TBI will project manage the install, but the carrier will bill and be the first line of support. If the customer has a problem, opens a trouble ticket with the carrier and gives you that number, we can be a VERY strong second line of support. We have been working with these carriers for a long time, and we know how to solve problems for customers. The customer just has to call first because they are the "customer of record."

The best part of working with TBI? We pay very well for the referrals. Usually this is a residual percentage of the customer's bill. If you keep selling, it keeps billing and the residual payments get larger and larger. Currently, TBI processes well over a million commissionable items a month for its partners. We send out millions of dollars of commission every month. When people ask what does TBI do, I like to answer with, we pay people money, monthly.

Simply put, TBI is one of the largest national distributors of telecommunications, and we want to pay you for your referrals for network services.

Please contact us to learn more about how to be successful selling network services at http://www.tbicom.com/partners

You can reach Ken Mercer at [email protected].

Sponsored by Telecom Brokerage, Inc.