Well, it's not so "new" actually, but the "refreshed" Sirius XM sales team will include current Sirius managers Mike Roberts and Tom Steckbeck, according to a Sirius internal memo. Which XM counterparts are leaving as a result of the move is currently unclear.Roberts remains as VP of Retail Distribution and Steckbeck remains VP of Special Markets at the new company. Both will report to Aftermarket Division VP/GM Bob Law.
"Both Mike and Tom bring many years of consumer electronics and commercial sales experience in retail and special markets, respectively," said Sirius XM Aftermarket Division VP/GM Bob Law. "Mike's focus will be on building a combined retail sales organization charged with selling 'the best radio on radio' in our retail aftermarker business. Tom will be charged with further penetrating the truck, marine, RV, and commercial businesses for Sirius XM."
It's unclear which XM counterparts would leave the company as a result of the appointments. TWICE made a call to XM's Dan Murphy, the EVP retail aftermarket distribution, but it was not immediately returned.
Sirius' Patrick Reilly also remains as Sirius XM's Senior VP of Corporate Communications, while his counterpart at XM, Nathanial Brown, served his last day at the company on Friday.
[TWICE]
no surprise that SIRIUS employees will be leading the retail team they had always kicked our butt there. I would not want to be an XM retail employee right now!
Why does everyone keep calling this a merger, Sirius is taking over XM!
The question remains can the team adapt their expertise (and those under them) to selling a merged (or combined) entity? Considering the great deal of cynicism I read here and elsewhere, this is gonna be a tough sell.
Another part is the merging and making redundant of programming; will they turn it into terrestrial radio, with 18 minutes of commercials on every channel, dumbed down playlists and no creativity allowed by those who made the channels unique?
If that happens, satellite radio is dead. I hope not, to be sure.
Trust me, losing Dan Murphy is addition by subtraction. Same thing for Nathaniel Brown.
How about announcing some new hardware
The XM Guys were the best at SEMA in my opinion. Far more knowledgable than the guys at Sirius.
Yeah. I have to say, though, even though I opposed the merger all along, I sure am glad they did it.
I cannot imagine how XM might have been trading at higher than 5.80/share today. If I were a shareholder in XM, I am definitely much better off after this merger than before.
This merger is just great for shareholders. All those synergies, you know?
As a Best Buy employee, I have to say that our XM rep is far better than the Sirius rep. From what I hear it is still up in the air what is going to happen to them.
I hope Sirius has an honest guy to replace our "Smoke-Blowing" Dan. I finally worked out a formula to detect his lies. You can bet when his mouth is moving. . .