Telarus Blog by TA

"Why Nuvox Agents Will Love the Windstream Deal" - Dan Sterling Video

"Nothing to worry about, guys!"

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.

Posted 3/12/2010 by:

Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director

951-251-5155
[email protected] 

Windstream Executives Deliver Unique 2010 Vision at Telarus Agent Expo

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.

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.

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

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] 

Qwest Multi-Location Case Study Training at Telarus Agent Expo

Telarus hosts their annual agent expo each year in Las Vegas during the two days that precede the annual Channel Partners Conference. It's a training intensive event that brings Telarus' corporate staff together with close to 100 of their top agents and most all of their top vendors.

The first of the two days was dedicated to deep technical training with Qwest on their SIP, MPLS and hosted VoIP solutions. the day was capped off by a great case study that required that the audience put their thinking caps on to solve a problem for a multi-location customer.

Scroll below to get a flavor of the great training day.

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Telarus President Adam Edwards Introduces "Qwest Day" at the Annual Telarus Expo

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Qwest Senior Sales Engineer Bob Steurer based in Colorado Springs, Colorado

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Case Study Setup by Dave Robinson, Qwest Channel Manger based in Denver, Colorado

Click here to view the case study Dave was reading.