Page 185 - Schooley Mitchell Marketing Manual
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SCHOOLEY MITCHELL
MARKETING MANUAL
Cheat Sheets – Telecom
     Implication Questions
Wireless:
Telecom Cheat Sheet
 Do you have a tracking tool to monitor talk, text, and data usage month after month?
 Do you have a tracking tool to identify data overages each month?
Wireline:
 Do you have software to identify errors on past invoices?
 Do you have a tool to stay on top of numerous telecom market changes on a month-after-month basis?
Fleet Tracking/ELD:
 Do you have software to match contract options on a vehicle-by-vehicle basis for your fleet?
Savings Opportunities
 Negotiating a larger discount
 Optimizing current configuration
 Negotiating added vendor fees
 Verifying contracts are in line with current services
 Removing unnecessary features
 Verifying non-usage devices and removing them
 Updating services to more modern technology
Real Client Stories
Manufacturing/Engineering Firm
I hate when clients are overcharged by their vendors.
Our client, Franklin, was the manager of the IT department. He had been trying to review telecom expenses for quite some time but just never had the time to do so. It was eating at him, but he was just too busy to allocate any time or resources to identifying issues. They were relying on the vendor, which is like the fox in the henhouse. The vendor had been neglected for years in terms of regular detailed reviews. Franklin didn’t like relying on a third party but felt overwhelmed and also uneasy at the same time. He was actually a little concerned that his bosses were going to come across some problems before he could mitigate them.
He thought it would be helpful to bring us in to provide proper direction. We reviewed current and past invoices, as well as contracts, and found that some of the lines were being billed at $500 per month, and the vendor even increased some of them to $700 per month shortly before we stepped in on Franklin’s behalf. I guess they thought they could because they were getting away with it. Franklin was angry when we informed him.
We were able to identify and cancel about a third of their lines because they were not being used. We also brought the prices down to proper market levels. Franklin was pretty upset with the vendor so in this case he wanted to change vendors due to a lack of trust, so we helped him do that.
In the end the savings were $45,000 every single month! Franklin can now sleep much more soundly and ended up being a hero to his boss by eliminating massive over-spending that had accumulated slowly over time.
Icing on the cake was, as we were doing our implementation analysis, we discovered the previous vendor continued to bill the company, and payables didn’t know they weren’t legit bills. We recovered more than $56,000 for the client. Talk about happy!
It’s really imperative to review vendor invoices and contracts every single month.
 FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY
 Manual Revised: April 3 2025 Confidential
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