The Trusted Advisor model is not new. It is documented, researched, and championed by the most respected voices in enterprise technology. These are the reports and perspectives that define it.
"There will always be a need for some sort of direct selling entity, but by and large, direct sales are a thing of the past. The world of the trusted advisor is here to stay."
Drew Lydecker built AVANT Communications — the nation's leading Technology Services Distributor — on a single conviction: the direct sales model is broken. Published in Profile Magazine and read over 1.4 million times, his article "Direct Sales Are Dead" has become the defining manifesto for the Trusted Advisor movement.
Lydecker argues that today's technology landscape is simply too complex for any single vendor's sales team to navigate in the customer's best interest. Too many categories. Too much choice. Too many conflicts of interest baked into quota-driven direct sales.
The Trusted Advisor model solves this. A vendor-neutral expert who represents every provider in a category, earns a commission paid by those vendors only when a deal closes, and has a direct financial incentive to get you the right outcome — not the most expensive one.
NexAdvisor is an independent matchmaking platform. We reference Drew Lydecker's article because it is the most widely read articulation of the Trusted Advisor model in the industry. Drew Lydecker and AVANT are not affiliated with NexAdvisor. We simply make the introductions.
AVANT Analytics surveys 500+ enterprise technology decision-makers annually — CIOs, CTOs, VPs, and IT leaders at the C-suite and management level — to track how companies are buying technology, how the role of the Trusted Advisor is evolving, and where the market is going next. These reports are the most comprehensive data set on enterprise aaS adoption in the industry.
These reports are produced and owned by AVANT Communications. NexAdvisor references them as third-party industry research. To download the full reports, visit goavant.net.
AVANT surveyed 500+ U.S.-based enterprise decision-makers to reveal shifts in customer buying behavior, digital transformation trends, and the accelerating role of the Trusted Advisor across UCaaS, CCaaS, and cybersecurity.
Captured the post-pandemic acceleration: UCaaS surged 86% at the onset of COVID-19, SD-WAN adoption climbed, and the Trusted Advisor became a mission-critical partner rather than an optional resource for enterprise IT teams.
The UCaaS-specific report examines the competitive landscape across Microsoft Teams, Zoom, RingCentral, and 8×8. Only ~20M of Microsoft's 300M+ Teams users are connected to the PSTN — pointing to massive remaining adoption opportunity for Trusted Advisors.
The Trusted Advisor model is validated by the most respected independent researchers in enterprise technology. These are the people whose work we follow — and whose data confirms what practitioners have known for years: the channel is not dying. It is becoming the dominant buying model.
"Every customer has seven partners they trust if they're mid-sized or larger. We are not selling commodities; we are selling highly considered purchases to a new buyer who surrounds themselves with seven trusted people."
Jay McBain is the most widely cited analyst in the global channel ecosystem — 2021 Channel Influencer of the Year, named by Channel Partners Magazine. His research at Canalys tracks the shift from direct vendor sales toward partner-led, ecosystem-driven buying models across every technology category.
McBain's core thesis: we are in the "decade of the ecosystem." The companies that figure out how to leverage the right channel partners — Trusted Advisors among them — will structurally outperform those that rely on direct sales alone. GenAI will accelerate this, not reverse it.
View at Canalys →Jay McBain and Canalys have no affiliation with NexAdvisor. We reference his research as independent validation of the partner ecosystem model.
"Anybody who's ever counted the channel out has been wrong — every single time. I've heard 'we don't need the channel' six or seven times in twenty years, and every time they've been wrong."
Janet Schijns is the 2019 Channel Influencer of the Year — the top honor in the industry. Former Chief Channel Executive at Verizon Business and EVP at Office Depot. Her firm JSG is one of the leading go-to-market acceleration firms for technology vendors and channel partners, with a track record of $6B+ in pipeline generated for clients.
Schijns has been one of the most vocal advocates for elevating the Trusted Advisor model — arguing that the convergence of MSPs, VARs, and TSD-connected advisors represents the next major wave in enterprise technology buying. Her work with suppliers, TSDs, and partners provides an on-the-ground view that pure analyst research cannot replicate.
Visit jsgnow.com →Janet Schijns and JSG have no affiliation with NexAdvisor. We reference her work as independent industry research on the channel ecosystem.
"I am putting the Trusted Advisor on my back. This is the biggest no-brainer an IT staff could utilize today as they ready for the future."
Drew Lydecker co-founded AVANT to fill the void he saw firsthand: the direct sales model was no longer serving the customer. He built AVANT into the nation's premier Technology Services Distributor — a platform connecting thousands of credentialed Trusted Advisors to hundreds of vendors globally, backed by proprietary market research, sales engineering, and the industry's most comprehensive data tools.
His article "Direct Sales Are Dead" — read 1.4 million times — defines the Trusted Advisor movement better than any analyst report. It is the origin story of why this model is winning. NexAdvisor exists because of the infrastructure AVANT and networks like it built over the last 13+ years.
Read "Direct Sales Are Dead" →Drew Lydecker and AVANT Communications have no affiliation with NexAdvisor. We reference his work because it is the authoritative voice on the Trusted Advisor model. NexAdvisor independently connects businesses to the advisor community that networks like AVANT have built.
These are representative scenarios based on real patterns in the advisor-led channel. The types of decisions where having the right Trusted Advisor on your team creates measurable, compounding advantage.
Real-time pricing, 1,500+ data center search, and NPS-verified vendor ratings from 1,500+ confirmed Trusted Advisor sales. Exclusively available to AVANT-network advisors. Three times more deals closed by advisors who use Pathfinder with clients.
Get Matched →Stephen Semmelroth (Cyber Resilience), Chip Hoisington (Colo & Connectivity), Rick Mischka (Cybersecurity SE), Dave Watson (UCaaS/CCaaS), John Paullin (CX), and Andy Bird (CX Practice Lead) — available on any complex engagement.
Connect Now →Public Pathfinder demos, State of Disruption BattleBriefings, Colo & Cloud 6-12 deep dives, and cybersecurity practice sessions — all available to view. See exactly how the advisor bench operates before your first engagement.
See How It Works →$290K MRR SD-WAN/SASE deal. $22K MRR cybersecurity resilience program. 1,200-user healthcare UCaaS migration. National retail carrier consolidation saving $800K/year. These are real outcomes from the AVANT advisor bench.
See use cases →AVANT's data shows 84% of enterprise buyers use Trusted Advisors for strategic IT guidance. Canalys shows every mid-market customer works with seven trusted partners in every buying decision. Janet Schijns has watched the channel get counted out — and bounce back — six times. Drew Lydecker built one of the most successful companies in the industry on this single insight.
The question is not whether Trusted Advisors are valuable. The question is whether your business has access to the right ones. That is the only problem NexAdvisor is solving.