Hi, and welcome to the Bridge. I'm your host, Scott Kinka. My guest this week is Chris Jones of AT&T. He's the AVP of channel sales. For AT&T and ACC business. Chris has been with AT&T for 28 years. We laughed a little bit about one or two little breakups they had where he tried something else, but he's, he's been there almost straight for 30 years.
He's been in multiple roles there. Channel sales, marketing. Strategy, even spent time in wireless. Just a different story than what you hear about folks in this fast moving tech space where we're jumping all over the place. We talked a bit about the start of the pandemic. He was on vacation in Mexico.
His son called him from college to let him know that you know, they were canceling classes. He got back into the US right before things shut down to walk into the news that our biggest show of the year in our industry is called Channel Partners. It was. AT&T was the title sponsor that year. Just a surreal thing.
I'm sure they had 20 or 30 people going and he was on vacation and walks into the fact that that was canceled. Jumped straight from vacation to the lockdown. Kind of a surreal story. He said that they were very prepped as a tech company. Most of the workers, you know, were able to work from home. You know, but he did talk about how you know, look, they're in the wire line business.
They had people who had to go in were, were running fiber to buildings. They were considered essential workers. Really kind of the heartbeat of the pandemic response. And it's funny, you know, we talked about what the pandemic would've looked like in 1990. If not for those essential workers focusing on connectivity.
You know, we didn't have the internet if we didn't have this level of access. You know, our belief, my belief certainly is that the economy would've shut down. He shared some interesting stories about what AT&T calls tabletop exercises. It's, it's sort of a methodology where the execs in the business get together and sorta.
You know, throw the chess pieces on the table. They zombie apocalypse plan, if you will, and talk about how they would do it. So they felt more prepared than most because frankly, we, we had that level of you know, pandemic emergency, if you will, and they got to test some of those plans. Something I've haven't heard from many other vendors and, and haven't seen in a lot of other businesses.
That was a really interesting. We spent quite a bit of time talking about virtual desktops and how they are used internally at AT&T to support bring your own device. He did say though that the tools were available, but people really didn't understand it, really didn't see the value until the pandemic push adoption forward.
And now today most people inside of AT&T will not live without the convenience of flexibility of their BDI. Of their virtual desktop. But it is an interesting parallel that we, we've seen with some of the other pods that we've had lately where we've talked about the pandemic, sort of forcing people to learn how to use the things.
They already have. We did talk a bit about culture what was lost in the pandemic and for Chris, it, it really focused around new employee onboarding. He's, concerned as I am and, and many others are about sort of a potential generation of workers without sort of the, having had the ability to interact one on one.
A really good example he gave, and I haven't heard this yet I wrote it down, I took it as a note. I'll use this again, but we talked about small. You know, you get to know people in small talk and when you walk into a conference room, you sort of pair off. That's when you can talk about your kids and, you know, taking your kids to school and what happened that weekend and sports teams.
But that's really hard to do when the entire room is sort of flat and in a web conference together. You know, he felt, and I, and I agree that it creates a much more mechanical relationship, because you can't do that small talk, You can't do those breakouts, and frankly, people just feel like it's easier to be mean online.
He, already felt that everyone in the business needs to start thinking like a cto, at least in terms of thinking about the business, how it uses, the tools it has, why it has them, you know, everybody being a good consumer, if you will, of the technical capabilities that the business is. And then of course, listen, he's been there for 30 years.
We talked a little bit about AT&T pre pandemic. They were already thinking about sort of refocusing the business on its roots, a little less entertainment, you know entertainment networks, television, and more around what was at the basis of AT&T being a connectivity company. Really that essential work that he was talking about in the pandemic.
And of course now, you know, it's become essential that security is tied to the hip of every connectivity conversation we have. So, look, I'll skip right to it. This was a compelling conversation with a seasoned executive from one of the titans of the industry. And you'll, you'll see that even at that size, Chris and and his peers, they've dealt with a lot of the same concerns, had to make a lot of the same kinds of tough business decisions that you've had to make in your business, regardless how large or small you are.
So lots to learn. I hope you get as much out of it as I did. Here's my conversation with Chris Jones from AT&T.
ABOUT CHRIS
Chris leads the AT&T Alliance Channel Technology Distributors organization, focused on growth for AT&T Business and ACC Business. His organization is solely dedicated to supporting Technology Distributors, Channel Partners, and their customers. This includes organizational strategy & evolution, sales production, operations, process automation, and sales effectiveness. Chris has been instrumental in implementing innovative strategies and thought leadership to shape and transform the program. His efforts have led to significant YOY revenue growth in the segment, and his efforts have led to vastly improved Channel Partner experience.
CONTACT CHRIS
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-jones-47392b/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cj5075alliance