If you want to take in the picturesque Denver skyline from atop a 55-story building, Blake Wetzel is your go-to guy.
“When I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do something,” Wetzel said, in an interview with PHONE+ just six weeks after he was named vice president of sales for the Qwest Business Partner Program.
 |
| Qwest's channel chief Blake Wetzel. |
What Wetzel is going to do in his new post is the question on agents’ minds. So, I went to Qwest Communications International Inc. headquarters in the mile-high city to find out. First of all, he pulled some strings to get this reporter, her publisher and a photographer on the roof of the Qwest headquarters building for a photo shoot — a request that required an escort to help navigate the less-traveled maintenance corridors and stairwells. The extra time and effort were, in my opinion, worthwhile; the mountainous vista was a spectacular.
Agents are hopeful for similarly speedy and positive outcomes to their requests. High on their lists is rolling back certain changes to the 2009 compensation plan and channel integration rules, which they perceive to be at least disincentives and at most adversarial.
In our interview, Wetzel did not commit to a rollback of specific policies, but he did concede there would be some changes, particularly with the company’s approach to channel integration.
“We are evaluating things all the time,” he said. “The biggest changes in 2010 are, No. 1, coordination with the direct side to make sure we have a consolidated strategy on a go-to-market basis, [and], No. 2, really making sure that we have a good communicated strategy across the partners, so that they know what we want them to do, and we can work productively and make them efficient.”
And, agents may dare to hope. In part, that’s because Qwest has redrawn the org chart, assigning Wetzel to report directly to Chris Ancell, the executive vice president of the Qwest’s Business Markets Group, eliminating a management layer and potentially giving QBPP its strongest advocate yet. “It’s actually great for the partner program,” Wetzel said. “I now have an equal seat at the table ... with the direct sales organization.”
Wetzel plans to use that voice to create greater alignment between QBPP and direct sales. “I want the partners to understand that it’s going to be very synergistic with our direct side,” he said.
In that regard, account tagging (assigning a direct sales representative to agent accounts) is going to continue. “At Qwest we have a general philosophy that we want to have a direct rep attached to every account,” he said. “Our hope, and my strategy, is to actually make sure they are working together, so there is a collective strength brought to our customers.”