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PICS Telecom Corp. president Timothy Williams is not that anxious to tout his company.
Wrapping up a more than hour-long interview, he mentions only in passing that his 80-worker company is establishing a sales and distribution branch in Bristol, England, to service a fast-growing international business with telecom carriers in Europe and Asia.
It is clear he has given little thought to how impressive an expansion into international markets might sound. But, as Williams talks about the several new people he hired recently to set up a sales office and distribution center there, his excitement about the project also is clear.
Williams, 47, is proud of PICS Telecom's achievements. He declines to state the privately owned company's revenues, but a certain satisfaction is evident when he says it will reach the $100 million mark soon.
His reticence about PICS Telecom's success is partly because he is uncomfortable with self-promotion, he says. He looks at it as boastful and a little unseemly. But he also sees bragging about the firm's success as unnecessary. The company is doing well without publicity, Williams says. It needs new sales help more than it needs publicity.
"I think we could sell whatever we have, if we had the people," he says. "I'd hire 10 right now, if I could find the right people."
His preferred sales force candidates are young, eager to learn and-like Williams himself when he entered the business a dozen years ago-not necessarily schooled in telecom lore.
Strong business model
Arunas Chesonis, chairman and CEO of PaeTec Communications Inc., fairly froths with enthusiasm over PICS Telecom.
"(Williams) has a great business. It's unique. He's really taken advantage of the telecom bubble," Chesonis says. "He sells to everybody."
Chesonis' enthusiasm is understandable. As a provider of voice and broadband services to businesses in 27 U.S. markets, PaeTec buys a fair amount of pricey telecom hardware. Telecom equipment is not impressive to look at. Much of it looks like an industrial refrigerator packed with computer cards. But some telecom, cards go for $150,000 or more.
PICS Telecom's prices can be as much as 50 percent lower than prices offered by original equipment manufacturers such as Lucent Technologies Inc. or Cisco Systems Inc-.even though some equipment the company sells...