If you study certain aspects of his management style, you can learn how to implement his techniques when dealing with your company’s telephony, and how to leverage it to your advantage.  Never really thought about an approach like this before?  Here are 5 tips you can start using today:

1.  “Don’t follow the rules, make them.” What most companies typically do when evaluating a telecom provider or telecom services  is to determine if what they offer make sense (technology and cost) and accept that service.  Depending on what your needs are and overall spend, those services may not fit precisely OR even be the company’s best program.  In most cases, your sales rep will work only as hard as they perceive they have to.  If there is plenty of competition out there they will work harder than if they feel the for instance as the, incumbent provider they don’t have to give their best offer or research how they can be the best fit for you, so you have to let them know they will have to work to make the cut.  If your budget is less than $100K per month, it is hard for you to demand customized solutions from your carriers, but not impossible.  So think how can my carriers give me what I need and what are they doing for my competition?

2.  “Be relentless with your vendors and service providers when they have the business.” Steve Jobs isn’t scared to let a company always be on pins and needles.  IBM once handled the processing for their computers before giving it to Intel.  Providers that build their computers are held to strict confidentiality clauses that if a peep gets out about a new product, they could be axed before they event know what hit them.   Similarly, once you’ve awarded your providers with your business, you need to keep pressing them.  Increased levels of service, price reductions when warranted, updates to new technologies.  It is completely your responsibility to make sure you have the best of the best from your carrier.  Unfortunately, as businesses have many responsibilities to conduct every day, it is nearly impossible to dedicate time to making sure your vendors do their best for you, don’t miss this one as telecommunications is integral to every growing business.

3.  “Continuously evaluate and review, are you getting better service and technology than the competition?” Apple continuously asks “How can we leverage our size, technology, intelligence etc better to stay ahead of the competition?”  All too often, companies view telecom as a necessary service that is used and never leveraged.  That type of thinking can leave your company behind in your market.  When 800 services, faxing, email and the internet starting becoming popular – many companies reluctantly starting using those services only when the world started shouting “YOU’D BETTER USE THOSE SERVICES BECAUSE YOU NEED TO!”  For the companies that studies the services before they became popular, and started to adopt and leverage those technologies, they were ahead of the curve and made millions more than their competitors.  Slowly other companies started getting on the bandwagon because they had to but other companies where ahead of the curve already had quite a head start.

4.  “Push those services to the limit.” Apples asks “How can you make this happen?” every day from their partners.  They want to squeeze the most from them and push the thinking of their company AND vendors.  How much can you get from the platforms you have at your disposal today?  Are you getting the types of service levels you can from your providers?  Are there services that are offered by your carriers that are unique that you could take advantage of?  Does your sales rep or engineer from the carrier not get what you’re looking for?  If not, ask for another one.  If your business has a large reliance on the phone, perhaps you’re missing something that other companies are using or something you all should be using but aren’t.  Ask, ask and ask some more.

5.  “Be creative where no one else is.” When the iPod was introduced, the MP3 player had been around for a long time.  Because Apple’s Steve Job’s was at the helm when it the iPod was introduced it was elegant, simple and innovative.  Their approach to music has become legendary and changed the industry completely.  Cheap single songs from the iTunes store, that could carry huge libraries that eventually started carrying videos and video cameras and eventually a phone and who knows what for the future.  How long was that type of device around before Apple got into that business?  How much as the industries they’ve entered into changed since they brought their products on the market?  Once upon a time, there was no clear leader is when Steve Jobs entered the ring they started to dominate those fields. How are you looking at your telecom services and how are you being creative with your business with those tools?

There you go.  When you take a fresh look at the same old services, you can get a new perspective and understand what a quality telecom auditor and management company can do for you.  It’s not always practical for a company to use telecom services in this way, but a smart choice is to choose a zero-cost firm like GrayBear for you to do these services and more for you.

His eyes lit up when we chatting about how the infrastructure of carriers was changing dramatically.  We went on about network topology design, and telecom architecture management.  When the talk shifted towards billing, suddenly the conversation hit what seemed to be brick wall.  His look changed, he even groaned a bit.

“If my boss just understood how much I hate reviewing those stupid bills, I think my life would be a lot easier” he mumbled.  “Every month, I am supposed to take hours out of my week to review the billing and verify that they’re right, that credits were posted and that everything is in order, candidly – I just make sure that the bills aren’t too far out of line, I just sign off on them.  They really don’t care as long as they’re not too crazy.”

And so it goes, when I talk with many different companies the conversation is fairly similar.  Executives believe that their organizations are auditing their bills and that they’re being taken care of properly, when in fact over 80% of the time we’re able to find ways to reduce cost.  Why?  I believe it boils down to a few simple reasons:

1.  Just because it’s somebody’s responsibility, doesn’t mean it’s taken care of – how would an oversight manager actually know if they were being taken care of properly unless they audit the auditor – I’ve never met any one who wants to do that frequently plus it horrible for morale.  It’s not being done because it is a chore most people don’t want to tackle.

2.  It is a hassle and time-consuming.  On average, we see highly-skilled and capable IT professionals that make very large salaries responsible for non-technology related items such as billing verification and waste control as it relates to telecom.  They don’t like to do it and they’re not very good at it either, so it goes untouched.

3.  They don’t know what to look for.  Ever have the experience of looking at a problem for a considerable time period and not figure out a solution?  Then somebody takes a look at the same problem and figures it out in a second?  That’s because it’s their expertise, where they are educated and they know where to look to figure it out and perhaps it’s their passion.

Here’s the bottom line, just because you believe something is being taken care of doesn’t mean it is.  Don’t pretend it is being taken care of.

Okay, I’ll share something very personal with you to make my point.  I’m over forty and my wife had been hounding me to get a physical.  I delayed going to the doctor even though I know I needed to have it done.  After a bit of time, I finally relented.  Even though I eat right, exercise regularly and follow a healthly lifestyle, I needed to have that checkup.  I got the clean bill of health and now I know that everything is A-O-K.  Yes, I’m better off for it and you will be glad when your telecom expenses are given the thumbs up too – I promise.