Intelisys Offers $1M Bounty To Top Cloud Performer

Telecom master agent Intelisys Communications is lighting a fire underneath partners to target recurring revenue sales by launching a competition on Thursday that will give the first partner to achieve $5 million in net monthly billings a $1 million award.

"It creates excitement like we've never had before in terms of really going after it," said Tim Kennedy, vice president of carrier services at Carousel Industries, an Exeter, R.I.-based partner of Intelisys. "There's never been an incentive from our carrier partners that's ever come close to this. Sometimes they might offer a couple thousand dollars, but nothing anything close to the scale of money Intelisys has allocated for this, nothing close at all."

The Drive for 5! competition is aimed at pushing partners toward going after recurring revenue sales. The competition will immediately conclude when the first Intelisys partner achieves $5 million in monthly net customer billings.

[Related: Intelisys' Cloud Computing Offensive Is Picking Up Steam]

"This is just a really inspiriting thing to chase for us," said Jason Kraft, national director of carrier and cloud services at FusionStorm, a San Francisco-based Intelisys partner. "That $1 million is a number that really resonates with people. Imagine the amount of effort and commission that are going to go into building your base to $5 million? And to get that $1 million award on top of that is absolutely inspiring."

Kraft said the $1 million prize is making partners think about how they can better embrace the cloud and services compared to simply hardware sales.

"What this has done in my company is that it has shown people that there are large, large opportunities out there that can be won in the cloud space," said Kraft. "They see the size of the deals that can be won are growing at a rate where they feel comfortable offering a bounty like this for their top sales agent ... $5 million is not really that unrealistic of a number anymore."

If a partner achieves $5 million in recurring revenue, they're looking at capturing around $700,000 per month, or $8.4 million per year in commission income, according to Petaluma, Calif.-based Intelisys.

Partners said if the competition had been launched five years ago, it would be a nearly impossible number to reach, but with the opportunities in today's market in regard to cloud services, they can see a company reaching the $5 million goal in about two to four years.

"It’s a great goal everyone is chasing, and trying to get there is going to only improve your business as a result," said Kraft. "What you could do with $1 million to reinvest in your business and take it to the next level is something a lot of people are talking about."

Kennedy said sometimes companies fall into the trap of being too complacent and satisfied with their growth.

"I think this really helps create momentum and encourages us to push even harder because the goal is so big," said Kennedy.

PUBLISHED APRIL 2, 2015