Master Agent Featured Articles

Rackspace is getting some serious time in the headlines this week. As CenturyLink (News - Alert) eyes acquisition of the cloud service provider, Rackspace itself is focusing on partnerships that can boost sales this year by 50 percent. How will they accomplish this? Through a new master agency program, of course.

The new program will offer "the highest level of support to ensure that an agent’s clients enjoy a smooth cloud implementation and support experience, which ultimately will enable agents to focus on building their business and engaging with clients," Rackspace (News - Alert) said in a statement.

Basically, this move will pave an easy road for Rackspace partners to deploy the company's managed cloud services, which allow organizations to offload the technical end of cloud design and maintenance to Rackspace staff, in addition to using the company's servers for hosting.

“This is a really big bet we are making,” said Vice President of Channel Partner (News - Alert) Sales Will Knight, in an interview with CRN. “We are dependent upon our partners to be successful. Our partners have to grow and have to grow profitably with us.”

“Partners that join the Master Agent/Agent Program will have the opportunity to leverage a number of incentives, including market competitive compensation, pre- and post-sale resources, training and sales enablement, and more,” according to Rackspace’s blog.

Working with certain service providers can be frustrating for customers. When you work with a Master Agency, you often have access to better contracts, better rates, and better support. This especially comes into play when a customer issue arises. Telarus (News - Alert), a telecom company, follows a master agent model with great success.

Telarus provides its partners with marketing assistance, pricing tools, and a dedicated sales support team that will give participants the assistance necessary in closing big deals.

A Master Agent agreement is an optimal way for businesses to stay relevant and for customers to take advantage of the latest in communications solutions.