TA Expo Blog

top Telarus Agents Share Success Tips at Telarus Agent Expo

How have success metrics changes over the past couple years?

In two years of covering the annual Telarus Agent Expo I've learned that Telarus fosters an environment that causes their top agents to share some of their best secrets with other Telarus agents. This is obviously one of the big draws that cause such a good turnout at Telarus' annual Agent Expo. It also tends to get a higher than average attendance rate to Telarus' weekly agent training calls.

This year Telarus had Tim O'Rourke of TelePointe Communications, Gala Gorman of Go To Telecom, Steve Roy of TelecomBuyer.us and Jeff Ott of Total Carrier Solutions all take the stage to share with their peers.

Click the video below to hear what they talked about. (It may take up to a minute to start since it's a large video. The wait is worth it though)

Following are some notes from the video.

0:00 - Telarus President Adam Edwards' introduction. He mentions that Tim is an expert in renewals, that Gala and her partner Charlie Frangos recently closed a $30,000 and a $60,000 deal, that Steve Roy is called on by Goldman Sachs to educate their private equity teams about the telecom industry and that Jeff Ott had recently closed a $80,000 RespOrg deal, a $100,000 tyco deal and a third text messaging deal almost as large.

2:00 - Jeff Ott shares how he targets $30,000 plus accounts by writing R.F.P.s or "requests for proposals" for prospects at about $200 per hour. the other panelists also offer their ideas on this topic.

27:00 - Tim shares how he is able to generate most of his new business from his existing customers.

30:00 - All discuss successful tactics for how telecom agents and channel partners can generate more business working with referral partner like IT VARs and others.

41:00 - All discuss tactics for renewing expiring contracts in a challenged pricing environment.

45:00 - Comments about successfully asking for referrals. Jeff gives a "thank you" shout out to successful tactic he learned from Tony Robbins. 

47:30 - Additional comments about tactics successfully employed by telecom agents and channel partners to recruit and maintain lead partners.

58:30 - Jeff Ott comments on the importance of continuing to train yourself to be the expert your customer needs and expects you to be especially "during the cut".

The audio on the video is not the best but the content is priceless. I strongly urge you to assign yourself to watch the whole video over a working lunch. Nothing will keep you more energized and more productive than hearing from successful agents that "it's not impossible" to succeed, "this is how I've done it" and these are the "lessons learned".

What success stories do you have to share?

Posted 3/14/2010 by:

Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director

951-251-5155
[email protected] 

Dan Sterling Tells Telarus Agent Expo Why Nuvox Loves the Windstream Deal (w/Video)

"I was worried, but I'm not worried now"

Windstream VP of Dealer Sales Dan Sterling tells the Telarus Agent Expo audience why he went from slightly concerned to very happy when he learned that Windstream (an "old-fashioned" residential copper-based carrier with tons of cash but declining revenues) would be purchasing NuVox, a business based CLEC.

Sterling assured the Telarus agent audience that he'd been told by everyone at Windstream with an opinion that "they want us to be and stay very aggressive".

Click the video below to view and hear Dan's comments to Telarus' top agents.

Click video above to hear Dan Sterling's address to Telarus Agent Expo audience

While a buy-out of a nimble business CLEC by a copper residential LEC might seem a bit scary to the CLEC's agents (not to mention the CLEC's employees), with the comments from Dan Sterling and the address from John Leach (in a prior post) suggest to me that Windstream agents have a unique opportunity to sell (and get paid on) more service than was ever previously possible in Windstream's 16 Southeastern state footprint.

We'll have to wait and see if actually Windstream becomes like NuVox. We'll know when we see a remake of the following "It's a NuVox Thing" video starring Joh Leach and the Windstream board.

Click here to see all NoVox' YouTube videos. 

The best one is the video that "kinda" explains SIP. You gotta watch!

Posted 3/12/2010 by:

Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director

951-251-5155
[email protected] 

Windstream Execs Showcase Special Differences at Telarus Agent Expo

Are all "copper-in-the-ground" phone companies the same? Apparently not!

Like their company name might suggest, John Leach and his fellow Windstream executives delivered some fresh air to Telarus' top agents last month. When you consider all the "me too" vendor presentations you can drown in at a trade show, it's refreshing to hear a presentation that showcases something quite different than all the other presentations. While I believe Telarus is Windstream's biggest or oldest master agent, other TA vendor master agents for Windstream include Telecom Brokerage Inc. out of Illinois, World Telecom Group out of California and MicroCorp out of Georgia.

Windstream (a Southeast "RLEC" that recently acquired Nuvox) did just that with their presentation delivered by Jason Dishon RVP Sales, John Leach Sr. VP Sales and crowd favorite Chris Shubert Dealer Manager.

Windstream, it seems, owns quite a bit of copper in the ground in many rural parts of the country that telecom agents might otherwise not be able to sell in. (Many "monopoly ILECs" are notoriously agent hostile to the idea of paying commissions.) 

John Leach, Windream's new SVP of Sales (who recently came over from PAETEC), says that Windstream isn't like other copper-based LECs who find themselves in a slow death-spiral. Leach suggests that Windstream is quite enlightened to the partner channel and is embracing partners as a way to transform Windstream into the dynamic selling machine of the future that it wants to be.

But don't take my word for it. Scroll down below and listen to Jason, John and Chris speak for themselves. Their message is clear, "We are THE PHONE COMPANY in our footprint. Sell with us or sell against us BUT WE'RE NOT GOING TO LOOSE".

As a simple (getting older) sales guy, I like it when the vendor spells out their market value simply like that.

Sales VP Jason Dishon Likes Telarus' Sales Figures 

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Senior VP John Leach Explains the Windstream Vision

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  Telarus' Favorite Agent Manager  Chris Shubert 

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Windstream's Presentation to Telarus Top Agents

0:00 - 1:40  Telarus President Adam Edwards' comments about the Windstream relationship

1:40 - 4:56  Windstream Sales VP Jason Dishon comments on Telarus & Windstream successes

4:56 - 15:00 Windstream  Sr. VP John Leach discusses Windstream's marketplace advantages

15:00 - 47:07  Windstream Dealer Manager Chris Shubert shares Windstream product sales strategies

If you watch no other part of this video, make sure you watch the 10 minutes by John Leach. The opening by Telarus president Adam Edwards is also good in how is showcases the Telarus/Nuvox/windstream history. Also talk to your Windstream agent manager to learn why your Windstream opportunity is different from others.

Posted 3/10/2010 by:

Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director

951-251-5155
[email protected] 

MegaPath Sales VP Shares 2010 Vision at Telarus Agent Expo

 At the annual Telarus Agent Expo this past month, Eric Wick, MegaPath VP of Sales got up close and personal with the crowd and shared why Telarus and MegaPath get along so well. 

After that he went on to suggest why MegaPath was positioned to make sure Telarus agents could maximize their customers happiness in 2010. Eric's presentation was actually one of the best 15-minute vendor overviews I've seen lately.

Below are some screenshots from his PowerPoint slides. All the way down you'll see you can click on a video to see Telarus President Adam Edwards' introduction of Eric as well as Eric's remarks.

 

"Who is MegaPath?"

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MegaPath Solutions

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MegaPath 2010 Outlook

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2009 Year in Review Successes 

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MegaPath Customers

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Adam Edwards & Eric Wick on the Telarus Partnershop with MegaPath
Click to watch video

Qwest Predicts Business Tech Trends at Telarus' Annual Agent Expo

At the annual Telarus Agent Expo last month, Qwest gave a terrific presentation that showcased the macro trends that would shape the business telecom and technology buying climate over the next 18 months or so.

As you can see from this PowerPoint slide screen shot to the right, major present and future trends include:

• Network Traffic Growth
• Collaboration: Text, Voice & Video
• Internet Gets Mobile
• Smartphones!
• Google and Disruptive Innovation
• THE CLOUD
• Intercompany and Customer collaboration
• Ethernet Delivery
• Data Center Consolidation

Click the video below to watch an overview of the presentation given by Mick Campbell

 

Qwest's  Mick Campbell share tech predictions for 2010

Does Telarus Really Have "The Best" Technology for Agents & Partners?

"Best Technology" is kind of hard to measure. The number of IT "humans" a business employs is not hard to measure - especially if they're standing up in the front of a large auditorium.

Telarus attempted to have their agent partners measure their technological "bestness" by paying to bring their four IT staffers out to the annual Telarus Agent Expo in Las Vegas last month. During the portion of the program where Telarus outlines all their newest "technology" tools, Telarus executives Adam Edwards, Patrick Oborn and Andrew Morgan repeatedly had their four IT staffers stand up in the front row and take a bow.

I don't know how many other master agents have four IT guys on staff writing software but I can't remember ever being introduced to any like I was at the 2010 Telarus Agent Expo.

But judge for yourself. Click the video below as Telarus' executive staff share the technology advances they've brought to their agents over the past year.

(The first four minutes of this video is an overview of GeoQuote leading up to Adam discussing why Telarus launched CarrierQuoteShop.com. The CarrierQuoteShop.com part of the video is in the blog posting before this one if you want to watch it. If you've already seen it just scroll forward to 4:00 on this video for all the other technical roll-outs from the past year.)

Click video above to watch and hear Telarus executives Adam Edwards, Patrick Oborn and Andrew Morgan discuss Telarus' technical innovations over the previous 12-months.

You've got to hand it to Telarus. They do have a lot of cool technical stuff and they're not keeping secret about it.

Posted 3/9/2010 by:

Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director

951-251-5155
[email protected] 

The CarrierQuoteShop.com "Back Story" Video

On the second day of the annual Telarus Agent Expo last week, Telarus President Adam Edwards explained to Telarus' top agents why Telarus is "giving away" part of the valued GeoQuote multi-carrier quoting tool (for which Telarus has a patent) to the agent public through their new online tool www.CarrierQuoteShop.com.

The reasons cited by Edwards include the following:

1. Give all carriers a terrific incentive to ensure Telarus' GeoQuote & CarrierQuoteShop.com tools have the best information

2. Drive down Telarus' costs of supporting their proprietary quoting tool

3. Prevent Master Stream or other corporate carrier software platforms from creating a carrier pricing information monopoly

4. Showcase to all industry agents, master agents and carriers the cutting edge technology that Telarus has brought to the game.

Click the following to watch a video of Adam Edwards explaining the move to Telarus' existing agents. There's about a 4 minute lead in. If you want to "cut to the chase", scroll forward to 4:00.

Not that anyone's asking, but what do I, Dan Baldwin, think of the move by Telarus? 

I've been watching Adam and Patrick grow Telarus for several years. While I'm not a Telarus agent myself, I know many Telarus agents quite well. My impression is that Telarus is not trying to make life difficult for their fellow master agents. They seem fairly confident that's there's enough business to make every master agent happy and then some.

Telarus also acknowledges that every master agent brings something different to the market. Telarus' "gift" if you will, is their technology. While they were not the first to increase agent back office efficiency by combining computers and the Internet (Brad Miehl of MicroCorp with his Nautilus solution might have been the first), Telarus has certainly done the best job of empowering possibly the greatest number of telecom agents with the technology.

My gut feel is that CarrierQuoteShop.com, while it might seem annoying or threatening to other master agents, is a very good thing for all master agents, agents and the carriers alike in that it is "Googlizing" carrier pricing information. 

By making the best pricing freely available to all, Telarus is ensuring that an information monopoly does not develop in the form of Master Stream or any others. Now certainly one can say, "What if Telarus is evil?" To which I would answer, "Not these guys."  They're hyper-aggressive. They're intensely curious. They're also border-line fearless. But mean, nasty, dishonest or untrustworthy? No.

To all the carriers in "agent-land" I say, "Support CarrierQuoteShop.com to ensure you're able to get your pricing to the marketplace outside a single-source".

To the master agents I say, "You know where you have advantages over Telarus - those are not going away. Give Telarus a call and see how you can amicably work together to see how  CarrierQuoteShop.com can benefit you and your subagents."

To the working agent I say, "Hey, this is a 'no-brainer'. More knowledge and better pricing is always better. Sign-up for CarrierQuoteShop.com to ensure you're bringing the most accurate pricing to your telecom party."

Posted 3/9/2010 by:

Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director

951-251-5155
[email protected] 

Instant Multi-Carrier Quotes for Any Agent from CarrierQuoteShop.com

By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director

At the Channel Partners Conference today Telarus unveiled "CarrierQuoteShop.com", their new website for offering instant multi-carrier quotes to any agent - even agents that are not Telarus agents. The new site is powered by the patented GeoQuote software platform that Telarus built in-house to create instant multi-carrier quotes for their own agents.

To hear why Telarus is doing this, click the player below to listen to an audio interview with Telarus president Adam Edwards. Click here to download the MP3 file of the interview.

By creating a resource where any agent can get quotes, Telarus appears to be addressing two issues. First and formost, they are creating a tool that conceivably any or all agents will want access to which will then motivate the carriers to invest whatever resources are neccesarry to keep the information that generated the quotes current.

The second issue Telarus seems to be addressing is to prove to the telecom industry that their patented multi-carrier quote software is indeed the best solution on the market. Before Carrier Quote Shop, only Telarus agents knew and understood the capabilities that GeoQuote brought to the table. Now any agents can experience it without needing to be a Telarus agent.

Why give it away to agents who aren;t Telarus agents?

They obviously want to be THE QUOTING ENGINE. The telecom carriers are not going to want to support every different quoting service with all their data. They are just going to want to do one. To date, Master Stream was making the case that THEY were the single quoting solution the carriers need to feed. With their actions today, Telarus seems to be saying, "Not so fast - before you all get into that 'row boat' check out this high-performance 'speed boat'"!

Will it work? Will Telarus position themselves as THE quoting engine? I can't say for sure but speaking as an agent I do know I've snuck onto GeoQuote myself in the past to see if the quote I was taking a customers was indeed the best quote that could be found. If they end up being perceived as "the Google" for multi-carrier quotes then they may just win.

But what are your thoughts? Please post your comments below.

To get more of a background on the whole quoting evolution, please listen to the past interview on where history of the multi-carrier quote.

Posted 3/9/2010 by:

Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director

951-251-5155
[email protected]