Who the VoIP Country Partner Program Genuinely Isn't For

Most sales pages spend all their energy telling you why something’s right for you. This one’s going to do the opposite for a few minutes, because a program that can’t tell you who it’s wrong for isn’t being honest about who it’s right for.

So here, plainly, is who shouldn’t do this. If you see yourself in one of these, we’d rather you know now than three conversations in.

Is a managed VoIP partnership right for your MSP?

A managed VoIP partnership fits an MSP that keeps getting asked about phones, wants recurring voice revenue, has no interest in running a 24/7 desk or filing telecom taxes, and intends to stay the client’s advisor after the sale. It is the wrong fit for shops wanting a one-time referral or to own the entire telecom stack.

If you want to hand off a name and never think about it again

Some shops genuinely want the referral model: pass a lead to a carrier, collect a check, and be done. No relationship, no ongoing role, no phone conversation ever again.

That’s a legitimate choice, and if it’s what you want, this isn’t your fit. There are carrier referral programs built for exactly that, and they’ll pay you once and take it from there. Our model only works because you stay in the account. You’re the account manager, the trusted advisor, the person who picks up when the client has a question about their business. If you want out of the relationship entirely, we’re the wrong partner, because staying in the relationship is the whole point.

If you want to own the entire telecom stack

On the other end are shops that want to be the phone company: own the platform, the carrier relationships, the billing engine, the compliance, all of it. They want the full margin and they’re willing to build and staff a telecom practice to get it.

If that’s you, and you have the scale and the appetite for it, go do it; direct white-label or a full DIY build will get you there. This partnership is for shops that want to sell phones without running the phone company underneath. If running the phone company is the goal rather than the cost, we’re not what you’re looking for.

If you’re not going to stand behind the account

This is the one we actually won’t bend on.

The reason this model exists is that the client ends up with someone in their corner. You know them, you notice when something changes, you’re the one who answers. When a partner disappears after the sale, collects the recurring revenue but stops showing up, the client is left with nobody who actually knows their business, and that’s the exact outcome the whole thing is built to prevent.

So if the plan is to sign clients and then go quiet, this won’t work, and we’d catch it early anyway. We’re not looking for volume for its own sake. We’re looking for partners who’ll still be in the account a year later. That’s the one arrangement we won’t do.

Who it is for

Clear the three out and what’s left is straightforward. This is for the MSP or IT shop that:

• keeps getting asked about phones and is tired of saying no,
• wants the sticky, recurring revenue that voice brings,
• has no interest in filing telecom taxes, running a 24/7 desk, or becoming a carrier,
• and intends to stay the trusted advisor on the account, not vanish after the sale.

If that’s you, the model is simple: you bring the client and hold the relationship, we run everything under the hood, the customer stays yours in writing, and you keep half the profit every month. No fee to join, no minimums, no quota.

We put this section last on purpose. A program that only tells you why to say yes is selling. A program willing to tell you when to say no is the one you can actually trust with your best accounts, which, in the end, is the entire business we’re in.

Read next: Do you guys do phones too? The question every MSP eventually gets.

Greg Steinig is the Vice President of Sales at Spark Services, a 3CX Titanium Partner and RingLogix Master Agent in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He has run hosted voice since 2014 and wrote the VoIP Profit Blueprint.