Real answers to real questions — no sales pitch

Amplifier One is an independent IT and telecom advisory firm. We help businesses nationwide find, evaluate, and negotiate technology solutions — from internet connectivity and cloud infrastructure to cybersecurity, UCaaS, and managed services.

Think of us as a buyer's agent for technology. We're not a reseller, and we don't manufacture or white-label any products. We bring the full market to your table, help you cut through vendor noise, and make sure you're getting the right technology at the right price with the right terms.

Our founder built infrastructure and technology teams at companies including Slack, Lookout, Deloitte, and Mosaic Networx — so we approach every engagement with real enterprise experience, not just sales experience.

Most VARs (Value-Added Resellers) and IT consultants make their money by marking up hardware or software, or by steering you toward products they're certified to sell. Their inventory defines your options.

We operate differently. As a vendor-neutral advisor and telecom agent, we have access to 200+ carriers, managed service providers, cloud platforms, and IT vendors — and we have no obligation to recommend any specific one. Our only obligation is to you.

• VARs earn margin by selling products at a markup. We earn supplier-paid commissions that don't inflate your price.
• Certified resellers are trained to sell their vendor's stack. We're trained to evaluate the whole market.
• Project-based consultants bill hourly. Our advisory model means your interests and ours are permanently aligned — we succeed when you get a good outcome.

No — and that's an important distinction. Amplifier One is an advisor, not an operator. We don't replace your internal IT team or take over day-to-day support responsibilities. We complement whoever is managing your environment by helping with the vendor and procurement side of the equation.

If you have an IT Director or CIO, we work alongside them. If you already have an MSP you're happy with, we can still help you optimize your telecom contracts, evaluate cloud options, or negotiate renewals. We fill the gaps that most internal teams and MSPs don't have bandwidth for.

Every engagement starts with a discovery conversation — usually 30–45 minutes — where we learn about your environment, your goals, and your pain points. There's no commitment required at that stage.

From there, we typically:

• Audit your existing contracts, vendors, and spending
• Conduct a Technology Strategy Session
• Identify gaps, redundancies, and renewal risk
• Issue RFPs or RFIs across relevant suppliers in our network
• Present a side-by-side comparison with our recommendation and reasoning
• Negotiate terms on your behalf
• Support implementation and stay on as an ongoing advisor

Timeline varies by project scope. A single circuit replacement might take two weeks. A full technology audit and stack refresh for a mid-market company will likely take longer.

We're based in California and are experts in serving businesses throughout California, Arizona, and Nevada. That regional focus matters — we know the local carrier landscape, the availability maps, the regulatory quirks, and the vendors that actually perform in your market.

That said, many of the services we advise on — cloud, security, UCaaS — are national or global platforms. If you're a business with offices in other states, we can still help with your full environment. We just won't pretend to have boots-on-the-ground presence in all markets.

Directly with our founder and leadership — not a junior associate or an account coordinator who hands you off after the sale. We're a boutique firm, and that's intentional. We don't scale by stacking clients; we scale by staying close to the ones we have.

Our founder brings hands-on IT infrastructure experience from companies like Slack, Lookout, Deloitte, and Mosaic Networx. That background shapes how we approach every engagement — with real technical judgment, not just procurement process.

In most cases, nothing. Our advisory services are compensated through supplier-paid commissions — the same model used by mortgage brokers, insurance agents, and commercial real estate advisors. You get professional guidance, negotiation leverage, and ongoing support at no out-of-pocket cost.

For certain specialized consulting projects — technology audits, custom RFP development, or advisory work in areas where no supplier commission structure exists — we may discuss project-based fees. But we're transparent about that upfront, and we'll always tell you before any fee applies.

When you purchase technology through our advisory process, the suppliers in our network pay us a commission. This commission is built into the supplier's standard pricing structure — not added on top of what you pay. In most cases, you'll pay the same or less than going directly to that vendor, because we have negotiating leverage they don't extend to individual buyers.

Does it influence recommendations? We've thought hard about this. Here's our honest answer: we only work with suppliers in our network who meet our standards, and within that vetted group, our recommendation is based on fit — not commission rate. Some of the vendors we recommend most often pay lower commissions than alternatives we've passed on. Our reputation and your long-term trust are worth more than a short-term commission spread.

You won't. Supplier commissions in the telecom and IT advisory world are paid out of the supplier's distribution budget — they're part of the vendor's go-to-market model, not a surcharge added to your invoice. You see the same prices (or better) whether you buy direct or through an advisor.

In practice, most of our clients pay less than the published rate because of the negotiating leverage we bring. Carriers and vendors know we represent multiple clients across a region, and they price accordingly.

If you cancel a service or switch vendors, the commission on that contract ends — and we're fine with that if it's the right move for your business. We're not going to try to lock you into a bad vendor to protect our commission. That's the whole point of being vendor-neutral.

If we recommend a switch, it's because the numbers and the use case support it. We'd rather help you move to a better solution and earn a commission on that new contract than keep you stuck somewhere that isn't serving you.

No fees from us — our services are compensated by suppliers, as described above. On the technology vendor side, most enterprise IT and telecom contracts do involve term commitments (typically 1–3 years), and part of our job is negotiating those terms to make sure they're fair and include appropriate exit provisions.

We'll always walk you through the contract language before you sign anything. No surprises.

It means we don't have preferred vendors. We're not a Cisco partner or a Microsoft reseller or a carrier's preferred agent. We have relationships with 200+ suppliers, but no contractual obligation to recommend any of them — and no financial incentive to favor one over another based on commission rate alone.

In practice, that means when you ask us about connectivity options in Phoenix, we'll show you AT&T, Lumen, Cox, Zayo, and a half-dozen other carriers that serve your area — compare them honestly — and recommend the one that fits your requirements. If the right answer is a vendor we've never worked with before, we'll go find them.

Absolutely. We don't require you to change vendors to work with us. If you're already with a carrier, an MSP, or a SaaS provider you're happy with, we can work with that relationship — helping you optimize pricing, prepare for renewals, or negotiate better terms with your existing suppliers.

Our job is to improve your situation, not to churn your vendor stack for the sake of it. Sometimes the best recommendation is to stay where you are and renegotiate.

We have vendors we've seen perform well for specific use cases — and that experience informs our recommendations. But "preferred" in our world means "performs well for clients like you," not "pays us better."

We won't recommend a carrier that has a poor service record in your area just because the commission is higher. And we won't steer you toward a cloud platform that doesn't fit your technical requirements just because we have a relationship with their sales rep.

You should scrutinize this. We'd encourage any business to ask their advisor hard questions about how they get paid and what limits their recommendations. That skepticism is healthy.

What we can offer is transparency: ask us to show you the full market for any category, and we will. Ask us to explain why we recommended one vendor over another, and we'll show our work. If our reasoning doesn't hold up under scrutiny, that's useful information.

Ultimately, you'll know we're giving you straight advice when our recommendations occasionally say "stay where you are" or "this is a problem we can't solve better than what you already have." Any advisor who never tells you that is probably not being fully honest with you.

Reach out through our contact page, by email, or by phone, and we'll schedule a 30–45 minute discovery call. No commitment, no pitch deck, no pressure. We want to understand your situation first.

If there's a clear way we can help, we'll outline what that looks like and what you should expect. If it turns out we're not the right fit for your situation, we'll tell you that too — and point you in a better direction if we can.

Nothing formal is required for the first call. But if you want to make the most of it, useful things to have handy include:

• A general sense of your current IT and telecom monthly spend
• Which vendors or carriers you're currently using
• Renewal dates for your biggest contracts, if you know them
• The problem you're most urgently trying to solve

If you don't have all of that, don't worry — part of what we do is help you figure it out. Many clients come to us with a vague feeling that they're overpaying or their stack is outdated. That's a fine starting point.

It depends on scope. For a focused project — renegotiating a carrier contract, finding a better UCaaS option, or replacing an underperforming circuit — you can typically see a recommendation and a decision point within 30–60 days.

For broader engagements like a full technology audit or a multi-vendor stack refresh, the timeline is longer — typically 60–120 days from kickoff to implementation. The audit and RFP process takes time, but moving too fast usually means leaving money on the table.

Savings on renewals, where timing is critical, depend on when your contract anniversary dates fall. We prefer to get involved 90–180 days ahead of a renewal to have real leverage.

Yes — you can bring us in for a single problem. If you're trying to renegotiate one contract, evaluate one vendor, or solve one connectivity issue, we're happy to engage at that scope.

We don't require a broad retainer or minimum commitment to get started. Some clients start with us on one problem and expand the relationship over time. Others engage us for a specific project and move on. Both are fine.

Mid-contract situations are common and very workable. Options we'd evaluate include:

• Renegotiating the existing contract to improve terms while you're in it
• Reviewing early termination clauses — many contracts have provisions that are better than clients expect
• Calculating the true cost of staying versus switching, including ETF exposure
• Beginning the planning process now so you're positioned to move decisively at expiration

In some cases, a difficult contract can be restructured, transferred, or bought out. We've seen options clients assumed didn't exist. Always worth a conversation.

Our core advisory areas include:

• Connectivity & SD-WAN — Business internet, MPLS, fiber, dedicated circuits, SD-WAN overlays
• Cloud & Infrastructure — IaaS, DRaaS, colocation, cloud migration strategy
• AV, UCaaS, & Collaboration — Cloud phone systems, video conferencing, Microsoft Teams voice
• Cybersecurity — SASE/SSE, endpoint protection, identity, email security, SOC/MDR services
• Managed Services — MSP selection and oversight, NOC/SOC, helpdesk
• AI & Automation — Workflow automation, AI-powered tools for business operations
• Renewals Management — Contract tracking, proactive negotiation, right-sizing across your entire stack

Generally, no. We focus on services — connectivity, cloud, software, and managed services. We don't sell or stock hardware, and we don't markup equipment. If hardware is part of a solution (for example, SD-WAN edge devices or on-prem firewall appliances), that typically comes through the service provider as part of their managed offering.

If you need standalone hardware procurement advice, we can point you toward reputable sources, but it's not our primary business.

Yes. We frequently work with clients who have existing security vendors or MSSPs but aren't sure if they're getting full value, or who are approaching a renewal and want an independent read before they sign again.

We can help you evaluate whether your current security posture matches your risk profile, whether you're paying market rates, and whether there are gaps in your coverage. If your current provider is doing a good job, we'll tell you that.

We can help with cloud strategy, platform selection, and vendor negotiation. For hands-on migration execution — actually moving workloads, refactoring applications, writing infrastructure-as-code — you'd typically need a cloud professional services firm or an MSP with that technical capability.

Where we add value in cloud migration is the advisory layer: helping you define requirements, evaluate AWS vs. Azure vs. GCP vs. private cloud options objectively, select the right MSP or cloud partner to execute, and make sure the contractual terms don't lock you into a bad situation.

Multi-location businesses are often where we add the most value. The complexity of managing connectivity, voice, and security across multiple sites creates significant opportunities for consolidation, standardization, and savings.

We have deep experience with technology start-ups, retail chains, professional services firms with branch offices, healthcare groups with distributed locations, and manufacturing companies with plants across the country. The more locations, the more leverage you have in negotiations — and the more valuable centralized oversight becomes.

We work best with small-to-mid-market businesses — roughly 15 to 1,500 employees — that have meaningful technology spend but don't have a dedicated procurement or vendor management function. That's the gap we fill best.

Very small businesses (under 10 employees with minimal technology) may not have enough complexity to benefit significantly from our advisory model. Very large enterprises often have their own internal sourcing teams and relationships. The sweet spot is companies with real technology spend, meaningful vendor relationships, and a need for someone who knows the market on their side of the table.

We don't limit ourselves to one vertical — the technology procurement and advisory work we do is relevant across industries. That said, we have significant experience with:

• Healthcare and medical groups (HIPAA-compliant infrastructure, secure communications)
• Professional services (law firms, accounting, consulting, financial services)
• Retail and hospitality (multi-location, high-availability connectivity)
• Manufacturing and logistics (operational technology, hybrid WAN, IoT connectivity)
• Fast-growing Technology companies (compliance requirements, cloud-native infrastructure, security-forward architecture)
• Real estate and property management (distributed offices, tenant networks)

Early-stage companies are a great fit for some of what we do — particularly around connectivity, cloud infrastructure, and UCaaS where getting the right foundation matters and getting it wrong is expensive to unwind.

Since our advisory model has no out-of-pocket cost in most cases, budget isn't a barrier to getting started. What we're looking for is sufficient technology spend and complexity to make the advisory relationship mutually productive. If you're a team of five running entirely on free SaaS tools, there may not be much we can optimize. If you're 15 people growing fast with real infrastructure decisions ahead, that's a good conversation.

A good vendor relationship is valuable, and we wouldn't suggest disrupting something that's working. But there's a difference between a relationship and optimal terms. Vendors are generally friendly to clients they like — and they're also in the business of maximizing their own margins at renewal time.

Having an independent advisor doesn't have to disrupt your vendor relationships at all. In many cases, your vendor rep will prefer working with a knowledgeable intermediary who can move deals forward efficiently. What it does do is make sure you have market context, someone reviewing the contract language, and an advocate who isn't paid by the vendor.

We're not here to create adversarial relationships with vendors. We're here to make sure yours are fair.