They're brokers. There's really nothing wrong with what they
are doing, although they may not have explained it to you too
well.
What they do is become an agent, or reseller, for a company and
they get a residual on anyone they refer. So if you are a corp IT
guy and you have no clue as to who's out there and what the prices
are, these kinds of services "can" be useful. Almost everyone will
give someone a residual for a referral, but you have to ask. 
-M<
Hannigan, Martin wrote:
They're brokers. There's really nothing wrong with what they
are doing, although they may not have explained it to you too
well.
I guess not.
What they do is become an agent, or reseller, for a company and
they get a residual on anyone they refer. So if you are a corp IT
guy and you have no clue as to who's out there and what the prices
are, these kinds of services "can" be useful. Almost everyone will
give someone a residual for a referral, but you have to ask.
Brokers are one thing. Consultants or "advisors" are another thing. I don't see anything on their web site that labels them as "brokers". I do see under their FAQ...
Q. How does Bandwidth Advisors get paid?
A. Bandwidth Advisors receives a small residual payment from the
Telcos once the Client begins paying for the service.
Nice to see it there.
I know a bunch of consultants out there (me being one, Bill Woodcock, etc.) that do not take money from vendors they recommend. How can a client of a consultant really know they have the best deal when the "consultant" will not investigate all of the options out there?
For those that don't know... I am now the COO of UnitedLayer. It sounds like, since I am not going to pay the "extortion" fee to Bandwidth Advisors, that their consultants won't know about our pricing and services. Even if I did pay the fee, that means that their clients can't get the best deal as I need to raise my fees to client to cover the "small residual payment" going to "Bandwidth Advisors".
Tim
Tim,
I hope you're joking. "Extortion" means something pretty specific, legally.
There is absolutely no extortion going on here. The appropriate term is
"agency". Its a pretty widely used concept in the business world.
In terms of the integrity of Bandwidth Advisors or any other consultant -
its caveat emptor. The party buy such services is responsible for asking
about how the money flows and about vendor neutrality policies. The
consulting Terms and Conditions should clearly state who the consultant is
acting as an agent FOR - the carrier or the customer. This is just like Real
Estate - the Seller's Agent may seem very nice and even help you out, but
they work for the seller, not the buyer.
Selling IP transit or other telecommunications services is a business. One
of the great problems I've seen in the last ten or so years is that people
tend to forget this and take things way too personally or emotionally.
- Dan
--- snip ---
I know a bunch of consultants out there (me being one, Bill Woodcock,
etc.) that do not take money from vendors they recommend. How can a
client of a consultant really know they have the best deal when the
"consultant" will not investigate all of the options out there?
how do you know that a consultant that you pay will investigate all the
options out there? they may not be aware of all the options or may not want
to take up so much time working on your deal, for example. good agents have
the same reasons to find you a good deal as good consultants do - repeat
business and good reputation in the industry. both bad consultants and
agents exist who see it differently. comparing a well-respected consultant
such as bill to a hypothetical bad agent is an excercise devoid of meaning.
Even if I did pay the fee, that means that their clients
can't get the best deal as I need to raise my fees to client to cover
the "small residual payment" going to "Bandwidth Advisors".
no, you pay their fee out of the same pot you use to pay your sales guys,
your marketing guys (if you have any), your advertising/marketing expenses
etc. they bring the deal to you, meaning you've spent $0 to acquire the lead
up to that point. unless you operate on word of mouth only and do sales
yourself (and pay yourself $0/hr), $0 < $your_avg_customer_acquisition_cost.
in short, it's the customer's choice whether they'd like to do the legwork
themselves, hire a consultant or use an agent who is paid by the seller. a
consultant may find you the best deal, but if you're not buying much the
overall cost per meg may be higher than list when you factor in the
consulting fees, for example. using an agent in this case may make sense.
some agents offer direct ports and do their own billing, so you can get a
better price by taking advantage of the volume pricing they enjoy. the world
is not black and white.
For those that don't know... I am now the COO of UnitedLayer. It sounds
like, since I am not going to pay the "extortion" fee to Bandwidth
Advisors, that their consultants won't know about our pricing and
services.
i'm curious to see by what feat of logic you managed to classify what they
do as extortion. they have leads which you may (or may not, as the case may
be) want access to and are asking for compensation for access thereto. if
you don't agree with the compensation, you don't have to do the deal.
assuming an agent's clients are not intelligent enough to understand how
agency works and further assuming that the agent is misleading their
customers in this respect, i can see how it would be unethical from a
somewhat idealistic point of view (which i happen to share). however, i
posit that those two assumptions are rarely correct at the same time and are
definitely not correct in this case as the quote from their website
demonstrates.
i think this has gone sufficiently off-topic at this point (assuming it was
ever on-topic), so i'd like to request that replies be sent off-list.
-p
For those that don't know... I am now the COO of UnitedLayer. It sounds like, since I am not going to pay the "extortion" fee to Bandwidth Advisors, that their consultants won't know about our pricing and services. Even if I did pay the fee, that means that their clients can't get the best deal as I need to raise my fees to client to cover the "small residual payment" going to "Bandwidth Advisors".
Tim
Tim,
Your completely free to hire your own sales people and advertising agency - if they do a good enough job you won't need someone like "Bandwidth Advisors". Of course those people are going to want some money - and nearly all sales people work on some type of base + commission basis. It's up to you to decide what is less expensive and better for you. Either one is going to cost you something. Sitting around waiting for people to come to you can also be pretty expensive if you have any kind of fixed expenses.
Mark Radabaugh
Amplex
