Time to Give Back

When I'm not making web pages, working with our programmers to create new quoting tools for GeoQuote, or changing diapers (my kids still aren't potty trained yet), I like to do triathlon. Swimming, cycling, running - they all help to keep my blood flowing to my most important muscle: my brain. I began doing triathlon in 2005 at the last-minute request of a friend and Telarus agent, Jason Oliver. Although the first race was a horrible experience, it left me wanting to get better; better equipment, better training, better prepared. I signed up for some more races, trained hard every day, and wouldn't you know it, I went from almost last to almost first. Then, I got it in my mind to become an Ironman - like the ones you see on TV every November riding across the big island of Hawaii. 140.6 miles ... wow. I hired a coach, got new race wheels, and began to train like never before, for hours on end. In June 2008, with the help of all of the training, my coach, and the right equipment, I finished the 140.6 course in 11 hours, 24 minutes. The thrill and sense of accomplishment overwhelmed me. M-dot (the slang for finishing an official Ironman race) was mine, and no one could ever take it away from me! To get a sense for how I felt about the accomplishment, I instructed my wife to engrave the M-dot symbol on my gravestone so everyone who ever saw my grave would know that an Ironman lay 6-feet under where they stand!

Finishing that triathlon did more for me mentally than physically. It's a feeling that can cure depression, desperation, self-pitty, or any feeling that brings someone down. It's a feeling that I'd like to help bring to people who battle with those feelings everyday they wake up: injured Iraq veterans. Through the Challenged Athlete Foundation, more and more wounded Iraq (and Afghanistan) vets are being helped out of their wheelchairs and into the water, and onto a bike, and into a specialized cycle-chair - for Ironman California (70.3 miles). I've done the race twice myself in the past, and I'm planning on doing it again on April 3, 2009. However, this time I'm racing for the troops:

• 1st Sergeant John Blue (lost leg below the knee in Iraq)


• Colonel Patty Collins (lost her leg below the knee)


• 2nd Lieutenant Melissa Stockwell (lost her leg above the knee in Iraq)


• Former Reconnaissance Marine Oscar “Oz” Sanchez (spinal cord injury)


• Sergeant Michael Gallardo (lost his leg below the knee in Iraq)


• Corporal Evan Morgan (lost his left leg below the knee, right leg above the knee and vision in one eye in Iraq)


• Petty Officer 1-Class Casey Tibbs (lost his leg below the knee)


• Ret. Staff Sergeant Chris Chandler (lost his leg below the knee in Afghanistan)

If you would like to join me and lend a helping hand to John, Patty, Melissa, Oz, Michael, Evan, Casey, and Chris, please donate what you can to the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

For me, the war is a whole lot more personal when you're running next to one of these heroes. This year, my conscience won't let me run by without knowing I did all I could to show my thanks and appreciation. Thanks in advance for your support.

Another Lead Source Emerges

As I sat in quiet meditation on the flight from Salt Lake City to Boston, I took a mental tour of the past year's events that had transpired since the 2007 Channel Partner Show in Seacacus, New Jersey. Back then I was presenting my first marketing plan to our vendors. The plan included things such as Telarus Agent Conference sponsorships, trade show booth sponsorships, joint press releases, and co-branded magazine ads. Up to that point, Telarus has never exhibited at any trade show, we had never run an ad in a magazine, or engaged in any other form of marketing. The Telarus brand was built purely a result of public perception of our agents, our staff, and the founders.

Without any traditional marketing, we were still able to grow the number of agents, VARs, and referral partners from 0 to 20,000 in under 5 years. "How was it possible for us to grow organically and by word of mouth for so long?" I thought.

In my opinion, it all boils down to value. The stated goal of our company is to "make agents more successful with us than they would be on their own or with any other competing master agency." The only real way to provide value, in my estimation, is to help agents make up for areas in which they are deficient.

Some agents are great at selling, but horrible at finding leads. Others, like equipment dealers and network integrators, have the business, but lack a system that makes ordering and tracking telecom circuits easy. Others lack the back office software they need to scale their business so they can break through the glass ceiling of customer saturation.

By having a balanced approach to value creation, Telarus has attracted new partners each and every month since we opened our doors in 2002. Our first priority was leveraging my search engine optimization skills to generate warm leads. One thing that most agents always need is warm leads, even more than a top tier commission. Agents gravitate to companies who help them grow their business, not just provide contracts and process their orders. It took a few months to jump start the lead engine, but once it fired up in 2003, our agents have received over 500,000 opportunities as a result.

The second piece of the equation that we sought to provide agents was productivity tools that enabled agents of all backgrounds to become telecom consultants. GeoQuote, the main productivity tool in use by Telarus agents today, has required a massive and continual investment to build and maintain. I estimate that we have spent north of $2M to build and maintain that piece of software alone. And its not done yet. We are still struggling to get all of the data we need from our vendors so GeoQuote can accurately quote all of the products our carriers have to offer. Right now we can only quote about 50% of all offerings. However, with the help of our new GeoQuote Specialist, Danny Steer, we hope to change that equation. In the long run, our agents sell what they see quoted in GeoQuote. More products, more quotes, more business.

As the plane readied itself to land in Boston's Logan International Airport, I thumbed through my 2009 Marketing Plan that I had printed and ready-to-go in anticipation of numerous vendor meetings at the trade show. This time, I was able to think of more ways to generate leads - ways that would truly bring new and valuable business to our carriers as well as make a lot of agents rich. The simple scheme should have been an obvious one, but I failed to see it until recently. By realizing that Telarus has a CRM that can manage large numbers of leads effectively, and that many Telarus agents are eager for new leads, and (this is the one point that wasn't apparently obvious to me for some time) carriers have lead lists generated by their marketing research departments, I was able to create a new program called the "Vendor Provided Lead Calling Program."

That's right! Telarus can be more that just an Internet lead shop. Telarus has the technology, the people, and the resources to function as a carrier's de facto outbound call center. It's genius: a call center that costs a carrier nothing for phone minutes, for cubicle space, for telecom hardware, for salary, for bonuses, for health care - nothing. The carrier only has to invest in the marketing research, turn it over to us, and pay only for performance. Imagine that! Paying nothing for a TV ad if it got zero response rate! Paying nothing for a billboard that yielded no results!

To put it mildly, the Vendor Provided Lead Calling Program won rave reviews from every carrier I pitched it to. The success of the program will rest on my ability to ensure that the lead lists we receive are accurate, targeted, and compelling - so that the entire program doesn't turn into a dry ice cold calling exercise that isn't interesting to agents.

The program entered its pilot phase this week as Broadweave, new owner of the iProvo municipal fiber network, outsourced its outbound calling campaign to Telarus. Though it is still to early to tell how successful it will be, we know that we can modify it to meet our agents' very high expectations.

I don't know why I didn't think about this sooner!

Awards Anyone?

Man - this past month has reallly kept me and the marketing department busy. Trying to keep up with the torrent of press releases I've had to put out has pushed me to my limit, but I'm more than happy to do it.

Some of the recent awards Telarus has won includes:

• 2008 Telecom Assocation Member's Choice Award Winner to Top Master Agent
• 2008 VAR Business Magazine Gold 5-Star Award
• 2008 Top Agent - Covad Communications
• 2008 Top Agent - Nuvox Communications
• 2008 Top Agent - Telnes Communications
• 2008 Top Agent - MegaPath
• 2008 AT&T Circle of Excellence Award Winner
• 2008 XO Communications Club MVP
• 2008 ACC Business Platinum Cup (4th consecutive year)

To put it mildly, we had a lot of momentum this year going into our annual Telarus agent conference and PHONE+ Channel Partner Show in Las Vegas 2 weeks ago. We even exhibited for the first time! Here are some pictures from the show!



The Telarus booth where we gave live demos of the back office and GeoQuote.



The Telarus team at our "pre-game" meal on Sunday night. The top row is: Pam Simon (AT&T/Qwest specialist), Thomas Hernandez (Channel Manager), Mike Gottwalt (Channel Manager), Daniel Pentecost (System Admin), me, Carole Calderon (Internal VAR Manager), Adam, Robert Butler (Director of VAR Network), Andrew Morgan (VP of Web Development). The bottom row is: Jessica Martin (Business Administrator), Aaron Jay Lieberman (Cold Fusion/PHP/SQL Programmer), James Knight (Channel Manager), Lance Akins (VP of Sales), and Chris Reynes (GeoQuote Specialist)

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Telarus agents after the annual Telarus Agent Conference on Monday, March 10, 2008. The conference was sponsored by Cavalier Telephone and XO Communications - both of which did a fantastic job. We were blessed to have such great sponsors!

Adam (blue shirt) receives the ACC Business platinum cup award (for the 4th consecutive year). Every agent you see to the right of him did less volume than Telarus. There were only two other masters in the country that did more ACC business than us, and one of them is actually two masters sharing the same contract! (Microcorp and X4!)

Overall, we've never had more momentum than now. Following up on all of the many leads we've received in the past few weeks will be ulta-critical to our success. We know that we've got a winning formula - we just have to tell more poeple about it!

Independence, Huge Limits

Until 2003, all Master Agencies were pretty much the same. Each of them had (and still has) the self-proclaimed job description of acting as in intermediary between agents and carriers. Many of them have tried to distinguish themselves by providing a “back office” which is comprised of dozens of people who push paperwork, follow up with vendors on order status, and provide the necessary accounting support to provide agents with accurate and on-time commission payments.

Since then there have been a few companies who have taken a different approach to being a master agent. One Master Agent cut out all “back office” personnel in order to offer the highest commissions possible, selling “subscriptions” to agents to obtain these high commissions. Some agents jumped at the idea of super-high commissions and paid the gateway fee while others passed on the opportunity to make a higher gross commission in favor of the status quo.

The Master Agency that Adam Edwards and I started in 2003, Telarus, Inc., was one of the few (if not only) Master Agencies born of non-telecom veterans. Our naiveté was both a blessing and a challenge which ultimately led to the creation of the “next generation” Master Agent. Coming from an aerospace engineering and big-5 accounting firm background, we saw the entire telecom agent setup as a big “mess”. Agents needed Master Agents just to sort out all of the disorganization coming from the carriers, each one with their own rat’s nest of paperwork, pricing, and commission plans. Add to that the “island” approach to working in the telecom business, ergo agents dealing with a Master Agent on a one-to-one basis, competing with one another for business, and you have a recipe for independence.

That independence comes with a price, however. There is only so much a human being can do in a day. There are only so many customers an agent can call in any 24-hour period. As agents grow to around 200 clients, the work required to maintain the base of customers becomes a full-time job. Agents hit a saturation limit and their income growth is artificially capped. Granted, 200 clients should equal over $15,000/month in commission, which is nothing to sneeze at – but the glass ceiling exists nevertheless.

All of these things entered into our planning of Telarus. We could only succeed if we could figure out at way to get most of the people in the “back office” to go away through automation (we were funding the business with our savings accounts, which forced us to automate). We could only provide value to agents if we could get price quotes to them in 5 seconds, again, through automation. We could only allow agents to break through that “glass ceiling” by creating an in-house CRM system that actually allowed them to work together on deals, and to split up the lead generation and sales pieces of the sales process, and to interact with VARs. Likewise we would need to create a system to allow agents to grow beyond themselves, to hire administrative staff, and to eventually mature into master agents themselves.

Not coming from the 1980’s and 1990’s telecom crowd, things like this just made logical sense to us. We did not have decades of old dinosaur telecom logic engrained into our consciousness and thus, our business plan was and remains radically different. But even with what we thought was a great plan, we always let our agents guide the ultimate shape and form of Telarus. Each week we meet will ALL of our agents on a conference call to discuss what’s working and what’s not about our program, our software, our vendors, and our staff. Our agents are painfully honest in their feedback, but we see it as our job to create the software infrastructure they need to succeed as agents, and eventually as master agents.

So which kind of Master Agent is right for you? Here is a quick checklist that you may consider when making your choice:

A “traditional” Master Agent is for you if:

- You have no problem finding leads.
- You have no desire to speak to carriers directly about special pricing.
- You do not have a need of speaking to a technical sales engineer who works for a carrier.
- You want someone else to handle all of your order paperwork.
- You do not require instant pricing for your customers and can wait a few days for a quote.
- You have no desire to partner with other agents on sales opportunities.
- Your VAR partners send you telecom leads without requiring reciprocal equipment leads.
- You don’t mind using off-the-shelf, on-size-fits-all software like MasterStream and RPM Software.
- You are already a Master and would like to combine your book of business with a Master who has met their volume commitments.
- You are happy with your web site and online marketing strategy.
- You require the maximum commission, whatever the cost.

A “next generation” Master Agent is for you if:

- You don’t mind taking a lower commission in return for warm leads being assigned to you on a daily basis.
- You have no problem earning your way up a commission scale.
- You find it an advantage to obtain instant pricing for your clients.
- You don’t mind working directly with a Channel Manager who works for a carrier.
- You don’t mind helping your customers fill out paperwork.
- You don’t mind acting as a main point of contact for your customer, where carriers send you order status updates.
- You are happy to receive maximum commission on your own deals.
- You would like to upgrade your web site with value-added content (like xml-enabled real-time quotes).
- You like the idea of receiving marketing web site code that you can modify and use as you see fit.
- You would like to introduce your VARs to a system that feeds them equipment leads every time they feed you a telecom lead.
- You want to hire administrative staff and give them limited access to your customer records for follow-up and up-sale.
- You want to eventually graduate into a master agent of your own, with free software that enables you to do just that.
- You would like Search Engine Marketing coaching and mentoring by people who actually do it (successfully) for a living.
- You think that having a sales CRM, real-time quotes, and accounting system in one back office will help you be more productive.
- You like the idea of having a team of software engineers that can modify your back office interface, marketing web sites, etc. in a matter of hours.
- You like the idea of being part of an agent community, working as a team, communicating on a live bulletin board system.
- You want to make your opinions and suggestions heard on weekly conference calls.
- You are already a Master and are in need of a back office for your sub-agents, but don’t mind sharing contracts.
- You are already a Master and would like to combine your book of business with a Master who has met their volume commitments.

As you can see, there is a wealth of differences between the two main types of Master Agent. When making a decision about which one is best for you, keep in mind your own goals and end-game. Figure out where you would like to be in five years and then align your goals with the Master Agent that makes the most sense. Are you looking for a solid income stream that will afford you a comfortable living, or are you looking to create a system and employ people in hopes of building a substantial book of business? Independence is good, but interdependence is the only thing that can help you shatter the glass ceiling that hangs over the head of every agent in this business.

Another Programmer Added to Team

Last month Commission River hired Jeremy Hicks, formerly employed by Novell. Jeremy started a few weeks ago and is doing a terrific job! Now that we have a full-time programmer working on all-things Commission River, the rest of the gang (Keith, Aaron Jay, Daniel) can focus on heavy-lifting for Telarus - which is exactly what's been happening.

As our company grows, the amount of projects we undertake also grows. The new projects that we are working on include: SEO work on ShopforEthernet.com, construction of ShopforVoIP.com and ShopforSIPTrunking.com, and further enhancements to the VAR Network, MARS (Master Agent Reporting System), and VENUS (VAR Enterprise Network Update System).

Look for GREAT things out of the IT department the last quarter of 2007!

Patrick

P.S. Look for great things from the Marketing Dept (i.e. me) too! I'm working on full-page Telarus ads for Phone+, planning the Las Vegas Telarus Agent Conference, the Channel Partner Show exhibit, and lining up sponsors for events, meals, and activities (golf). More to come later.

An Online Tribute to Kevin Anderson

On August 11, 2008, Kevin E Anderson, the founder of Cognigen Networks passed away. Having been in ill health for the better part of 15 years, he finally succumbed to the inevitable. You may not know Kevin Anderson, but some where, some how, I am sure he has touched your life in some way.

Kevin founded Cognigen back in 1994 with his wife Laurel. He had this crazy idea that independent agents could use the internet as a vehicle to sell products and services for product suppliers. Although his web design was pretty good for a pure coding genius, his pages read like a classified ads page in the New York Times. But they worked.

Kevin figured out, using "hash files" in perl (yuck), that he could make web pages that were "self replicating", capable of tracking an individual's AgentID. This opened the door for thousands of people incapable of creating a web page to become referral marketers - directing their web traffic to these pages Kevin created to capture orders and deliver them to the associated vendor.

This all seems trivial now, but 13 years ago it was revolutionary. Kevin was a man ahead of his time in many regards.

I met Kevin in 1997 when I joined Cognigen. He took the time to welcome me and to show me the ropes of my Cognigen business, together with my upline Joe Kennedy. His low, baritone voice reminded me of the voice of God in the movie "The 10 Commandments". His command of the English language was superb - he could articulate his opinions ever so cleverly.

Kevin had an astute sense for danger. He spent 1995 - 2002 building up Cognigen and 2002 - 2007 trying to save it from would-be predators. Many "guys with business plans" came to Cognigen promising the fruits of prosperity only to take Cognigen's money and fall on their face. There surely would have been more had Kevin not guarded the hen house like he did.

He was a large man due to a combination of a large appetite and low metabolism - the result of many years of chemotherapy and radiation of his lymph nodes. A cancer survivor, he lived on borrowed time in some sense.

His body type caused Kevin to be somewhat self-conscious. He did not like to go out into public very often, opting instead for phone conferences and endless hours on his computer communicating via email, instant messenger, and VoIP.

I remember the first time I met Kevin in 1999. Cognigen had sponsored a drag race car and Kevin came down to LA (where I lived at the time) to watch the race and to meet me (the newest employee of Cognigen). After a few minutes, I didn't even notice his size. He was so friendly, gregarious, and full of trivia - it was easy to forget about the obvious.

In a lot of ways, I feel that much of the success I've had in recent years can be traced back to Kevin. I learned the system he built when I was the Cognigen Webmaster. I took that knowledge, mixed it with my own, and started Telarus with Adam Edwards. It's too bad that Kevin didn't have an Adam - someone who could be the face of the company, have the hard conversations with vendors, defend the company in public, etc. A great business requires two skill sets: technical/marketing and leadership/politics. Kevin had the technical/marketing pieces, but lacked that right hand - someone to be out in front of the agents, leading them, inspiring them, and making sound business decisions. But even without that, Kevin pioneered the affiliate marketing business model; the very one that Telarus uses to this day. Although our way of doing business has evolved, the basics can trace their ancestry to Kevin Anderson.

In looking through my vast libraries of past email and IM's with Kevin, I wanted to find what would turn out to be his "last words" to me. After a Cognigen training call, I told him "I better run. Debbie needs me to get off my computer and help with the kids" to which he replied "I understand. Laurel hates my computer." It's ironic that Kevin will be, in essence, immortal, because of his computer. His code, his web sites, his company, and his ideas will live on for many years to come.

Thanks for everything Kevin. You'll be missed, but not forgotten.

ShopforEthernet is Born

Today I am excited to announce the arrival of the newest member of our "Shopfor" family: ShopforEthernet.com. As the name implies, ShopforEthernet.com allows people to "shop", or at least locate, potential carriers that offer broadband ethernet service in the customer's immediate location.

Why is this important you ask? Well, 5 years ago we set out to greatly reduce the time and effort required to sell a T1 line. Through GeoQuote, we were able to automate the research time required to sell T1s by over 95%. Telarus agents could price out and sell T1 lines 10X faster than their competition.

Fast forward to 2007, when Ethernet high-speed internet technology is just coming online as a potential powerhouse of a product. The problem that faces customers looking to purchase ethernet broadband is: it's only available where carriers have the equipment to provide the service. Unlike T1's, which can be extended by "local loops" provided by the local phone company, Ethernet requires a direct connection to the carrier. (Some carriers will relay the signal using DS1 (copper) or fiber if the distance warrants). Knowing the exact (and I do mean exact ... down to the physical building) location of both the customer and the carrier's equipment is the key to selling Ethernet. If you didn't have real-time access to this information, you would have to literally contact ALL 30 carriers Telarus offers and wait many weeks to hear back. And most of those responses will be "sorry - we don't have facilities in the area!"

Here is a mini-screen shot of the interface we've created by integrating the various carrier "Lit Building" lists together with Google maps. As you can see, our agents (who will see this image with much greater resolution) will know EXACTLY which carriers to go to for potential opportunities. Although there is never a guarantee a carrier will be able to provide service, we're greatly improving the agent's chances of striking ethernet gold, as well as removing all of the "dud" requests carriers have to receive from our agents who are quoting and hoping.

Never has there been a bigger day in the life of Telarus since we launched ShopforT1.com way back in July 2003, over 4 years ago. Look for many more specialty type web sites to come out in the months ahead: ShopforVoIP.com, ShopforSIPTrunks.com, ShopforMPLS.com, and ShopforVPN.com are among the sites in the planning stages right now.

Congratulations to the IT Department (I am now in charge of marketing) for a great job. I'm sure many people will find this site helpful while our carriers find this site profitable!