MessageBroadcast Taps WTG Exec To Lead New Channel Charge

Sondergaard, a 26-year telecom industry vet, joins MessageBroadcast after a four-year run at master agent World Telecom Group, where his most recent role was senior vice president of provider relations. Sondergaard's new role at MessageBroadcast is vice president of channel sales, in which he'll be responsible for building MessageBroadcast's formal partner program from the ground up, according to MessageBroadcast CEO Bill Potter.

"We've been in business for about 15 years, but were largely unaware of the channel until recently," Potter told CRN. "We had traditionally gone after [customers] through our inside salespeople, and while that was successful, it wasn't scalable. So I was looking for different ways to grow our sales."

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To kick-start its channel charge, MessageBroadcast has signed on World Telecom Group as a master agent, and is exploring partnerships with other agents, as well. The details of MessageBroadcast's new partner program are still light, but Potter said he's looking to Sondergaard to help flesh them out over the next few months.

"It's now Mark's responsibility to take us to a much greater depth of integration with VARs," Potter said.

Sondergaard, for his part, said he's up to the challenge.

"My goal over the next couple of years is to make [partners] the main sales channel for MessageBroadcast," Sondergaard said. MessageBroadcast's new partnership with World Telecom Group is a solid start to achieving that goal, Sondergaard said, given the agent's rich partner base of solution providers and telecom consultants. But the unique value proposition of MessageBroadcast's communications solutions also should help in his on-boarding of new partners, Sondergaard said.

MessageBroadcast offers cloud-based and automated communications solutions for the enterprise and SMB space, and also has a major play among telecommunications providers, along with verticals including healthcare, retail and financial services, Potter said. MessageBroadcast's automation tools can be leveraged for both inbound and outbound communications across channels, including voice, SMS, email and social media.

Potter said MessageBroadcast makes it possible for organizations to fully automate and personalize every form of interaction and transaction they have with a customer, ranging from on-boarding to day-to-day transactions to billing.

MessageBroadcast's products are hosted in the cloud and are purchased on a pay-per-use basis. Potter and Sondergaard said this model will afford future MessageBroadcast partners with flexibility, along with consistent and recurring revenue streams.

"I think this will be accepted highly based on the conversations I have had already with VARs," Sondergaard said. "It's something nobody else is offering."

PUBLISHED ON MAY 22, 2013