SALINA — Peter Belyea may be a life member of the Central New York Sales and Marketing Executives’ (CNYSME) board of directors, but he didn’t know he was up for the organization’s annual Crystal Ball Award until he’d been tapped as the winner for 2013.

“I actually didn’t find out until it was chosen and had been announced,” says Belyea, who is the president of Salina–based CXtec and Teracai. “It’s probably been six or seven years since I sat on the actual Crystal Ball committee, so I’m familiar with the process. But I was totally taken aback. I’m not even sure quite yet who nominated me.”

Belyea, a former president of CNYSME, has stepped back from active participation on the organization’s board in the last three to four years, he says. He took on more of a historian’s role to allow younger members to become involved in the group’s operation.

Then in late September, the CNYSME’s Crystal Ball committee chose Belyea as the winner of its 2013 Crystal Ball Award. CNYSME hands out the honor annually to a local businessperson who has contributed to the sales and marketing profession and has worked in community development and support.

Former Onondaga Community College President Debbie L. Sydow won the Crystal Ball Award in 2012. Previous Crystal Ball winners also include Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Founder and CEO John Stage, Coleman’s Authentic Irish Pub Publican (saloonkeeper) Peter J. Coleman, Jr., Galaxy Communications, LP President and CEO Edward Levine, Nice-N-Easy Grocery Shoppes Founder and President John MacDougall, Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor, and Alliance Bank, N.A.
President and CEO Jack Webb. 

Belyea will have to wait a few months before he actually receives the award. CNYSME will present it to him at its 37th Annual Crystal Ball and Sales & Marketing Excellence Awards (SMEA) Ceremony on Tuesday, April 9, 2013. The event is scheduled for the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel and Conference Center.

CXtec work honored

CNYSME pointed to Belyea’s work with CXtec’s equal2new business and its social-media marketing as reasons for his winning the Crystal Ball. CXtec built its equal2new brand around refurbished networking equipment.

“Creating the equal2new brand really allowed us to take what was used equipment and give it some teeth, give it some consistency,” Belyea says. “I think you see that now with some of the premium brands in the automotive industry. In the last 12 to 15 years these brands have really wanted to wrap their heads around the fact that you have to own the quality of your secondary market.”

Belyea cited CXtec’s CABLExpress division as a marketing and branding triumph. When he started at CXtec in 1988, the company was known as Cable Express, but cable business was dwindling, he says. Then about six years ago, company founder William Pomeroy asked Belyea to revitalize the cable business and turn it into a brand. Today, Belyea calls the CABLExpress brand one of CXtec’s strongest.

“It was really a big branding change-around, it was really a big product progression,” Belyea says. “One of the great things about this organization is we’re not afraid to go out and flex with the market.”

CABLExpress is also a good example of CXtec’s success in social media, according to Belyea. One of the company’s product managers, Josh Taylor, records YouTube videos for an instructional series called “Cable Talk” that has been popular, Belyea says. Belyea stresses CXtec’s social-media strategy is a blend of platforms, from YouTube to Twitter.

Another CXtec marketing success Belyea says he was a part of was the company’s spinoff of Teracai in 2009. Teracai focuses on selling Cisco products. It generated $41 million in revenue in 2011 and is on pace to grow in 2012, according to Belyea, although he declined to share exact projections for this year. 

In comparison, CXtec generated $64 million in revenue in 2011. It is also on pace to grow in 2012, says Belyea, who again opted not to share specific growth projections.

“When the organization chose to spin off Teracai as a standalone company, that really represented an opportunity for us to understand what the market wanted, which was an upstate New York, East Coast business,” he says. “CXtec is more of a national business. We had to go out and understand what the market wanted. It would have been easier to say we’re going to go out and be another Cisco reseller.”

CXtec and Teracai share a headquarters facility of about 70,000 square feet in Salina. However, CXtec uses the address 5404 S. Bay Road while Teracai uses the address 217 Lawrence Road E.

CXtec also has about 90,000 square feet of warehouse space on E. Brighton Ave. in Syracuse. It employs 246 people, with about 190 working at its Salina headquarters. Teracai employs 45 people.

Teracai has added five employees this year, while CXtec hired about a dozen workers, according to Belyea. Both companies are looking to fill more open positions, he says — CXtec has about 10 open account-executive positions, while Teracai has four jobs to fill.

Belyea took over as president of CXtec and Teracai in August 2011. He places an emphasis on sales and marketing that helps the companies stay centered on their customers, he says.

“I think connecting with your customers one-on-one and having a strong brand allows you to communicate effectively what you’re doing and where you’re going,” he says. “It’s a team effort. I’ve been blessed with an incredible team of people here.”

Belyea’s work at CXtec and his history with CNYSME played a part in his winning the Crystal Ball, according to CNYSME president Katherine Rech, who works for Lockheed Martin in Salina. 

“I know the Crystal Ball committee was very strongly for Pete because he’s done so much for the CNYSME organization,” she says. “He’s a former president. He’s worked on the Crystal Ball committee. And he’s done a lot for the community and for sales and marketing at CXtec.”       

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com