Pros
This is the company that I want to be with for the remainder of my career. I've been in channel for over 20 years and have seen companies sell, go public, and go out of business. This is the first company where people in the company are appreciated and the product works well. To me, that's what I want to bring to the table when meeting with my partners. After talking to Ira, I learned about the plans to grow and the level of investment going into channel. I've seen channel relationships get burned easily and I was impressed by the customer service passion that lives at Nextiva. The events, Nextcon conference, customer service, reputation, and products I know that Nextiva will only grow bigger. Other companies in the space just don't get it. That's why I joined and I've been impressed with everything I've seen so far. I haven't met the ceo but from the emails he's sent and everything I've read, this is the kind of company every service provider needs to take notes from. If they're not copying Nextiva already, I bet they will be soon. I have always been a remote employee. Before this I was at Windstream and I would rarely get company communication updates. I would also see or hear from my department head twice a year. I would spend more time dealing with my unhappy customers and partners instead of growing the revenue and meeting my sales goals. I will say that my peers were hard working and smart at Windstream, but the company just didn't care about its people. So when I think about where I am now and what I was doing last year, I am very pleased. Nextiva has motivated me to do great work.
One last thing I'll say about this company is that they get the fact that you need to update your infrastructure and features. You can't rely on tech that 10 years old anymore. It's not going to result in wins. Reliability is top tier and Nextiva keeps launching new features to make the company better for its customers. Whereas the speed of new features at every company before this was slow.
Cons
The more schwag we can get to give to our partners, the better. I've never heard a partner complain about receiving too much schwag. The worst case scenario is that they give it to someone else in their office or family. The quality of the schwag must be high and the variety needs to be good. Our schwag looks good but we need more. People notice the free stuff you give them and if it's high quality they will use it more and turns into free marketing. It makes people feel positive about your brand when they use it and if other people see your schwag, they may want it as well or it will lead to people wanting to learn more about your company. I can't think of a more effective way to market today. We need to get better with schwag. I want to see every partner at Nextiva rocking the Nextiva schwag all the time. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing a potential or active partner representing a competitor. Even though I have strong relationships with my partners, schwag can get them to appreciate a competitor quickly.
We need to get better with this.
