Avant Launches Sales Enablement Platform Aimed At Helping Partners Sell More Connectivity, Cloud Solutions

Master agent Avant Communications has launched a sales enablement platform to help its channel partners select, sell, and support more connectivity, and channel-friendly cloud and co-location solutions from start to finish.

The latest platform – Avant Sales Enablement as a Service (AVANT SEaaS) includes a combination of tools, best practices, and live support. The latest offering combines the BattleApp mobile application, as well as access to Avant’s research and development staff, the BattleLab sales enablement and training center, and Avant’s BattlePlan lifecycle sales enablement tools.

Agent partners often have to do a lot of the researching, lead qualifying, and booking business legwork on their own. But Avant’s latest platform brings all of its resources together in one place for its telecom agent, reseller, and managed service provider partners, Drew Lydecker, Avant’s president and co-founder, told CRN.

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’[The platform] has everything from our printed Battle book – summaries of every provider and our research – the app, our portal, and [partners can] also now interact with our engineers who are agnostic experts in cloud, co-location, and connectivity,’ Lydecker said.

While Avant has been great at helping solution providers get into cloud sales, its sales enablement tools weren’t always in a centralized place, or as robust, said Courtney Humphrey, CEO of Opex Technologies, a Raleigh, N.C.-based solution provider and Avant partner for the past three years.

’This announcement is just another example of how they are empowering partners and really executing on their goals … that means a lot to partners,’ he said.

Opex Technologies made the pivot from selling simple telecom services to including cloud in its portfolio about three years ago. Today, more than 50 percent of the solution provider’s business sales come from cloud services, Humphrey said.

SEaaS includes four core components. BattleApp is a mobile app built on Salesforce Communities that can help agent partners research, qualify, propose and close cloud, co-location and connectivity deals. The app includes Avant’s Intelligent Qualifying Forms, an online tool that helps guide partners through the process of qualifying a sales opportunity. BattleApp is available on Android, iOS and Windows devices.

’We’ve been using [previous iterations] of this app because it gets real-time data so we can look at things like data centers or fiber in the area and even at International locations when you are on-site with the customer. It just really makes us look like we are bigger than we are,’ Humphrey said.

The platform also includes BattlePlan, a lifecycle sales enablement tool that provides assessments and lifecycle channel development plans for partners.

Through SEaaS, agents will have access to BattleLab, Avant’s ’immersion’ center based in the master agent’s Chicago headquarters. At BattleLab, agents can participate in sales enablement and technical training, demo labs, and provider briefings that are also broadcasted to Avant’s partner community.

The SEaaS platform also gives agents access to Avant’s R&D team of solutions architects that can provide help for sales qualifications, portfolio selection, and assist in closing business with clients.

’We’ve really just surrounded our sales community with as much information as they can get their hands on, and we are making it as easy to consume as humanly possible, and allowing them to become trues experts,’ Lydecker said.