2006 in Retrospect

It's hard to believe that another year has passed us by. I just re-read the "2005 In Hindsight" post I made a year ago and it seems like an eternity ago. So much has changed since then, mostly in the form of new accomplishments.

This first major change is Telarus' book of business. Last year at this time we had just eclipsed $1M in T1 billing revenue. This year, we're right at $2M, for a 100% increase. This was achieved by the hard work and dedication of our lead generators, VARs, and closers (both new and seasoned veterans).

The second major change to Telarus is the growth of our payroll. Since New Year's Eve of last year, we've hired Daniel Vest (Senior Cold Fusion Programmer), Keith Grey (Senior Database and GeoQuote Pricing Programmer), Robert Probst (Head of Affiliate Sales), Thomas Hernandez (Channel Manager #3), Jessica Martin (Office Administrator), and lastly Robert Butler (Head of the VAR Program). Rob Butler will begin working for Telarus in under 1 week, focusing on the growth and development of our own internal VAR relationships as well as support our agents in their VAR recruiting and retention efforts. This increase in head count has allowed us to continue growing while improving the support we offer our agents. We've also managed to pay for each new employee from money generated from increases in operational revenue, so our debt is still miniscule and we are still 100% privately owned.

The third major change to Telarus is the addition of the VAR Program in which we generate telecom equipment and service leads for our VAR partners. Prior to this year we only recruited VARs by offering them real-time quoting and support for their T1 customers. We always had the dream to generate equipment leads for our VARs, and we spent the lion's share of 2006 programming VARNetwork.com and VARPartner.com to make that a reality. Now we generate over 500 equipment leads/month, and I foresee that going through the roof in 2007.

Lastly, my twins are now 1 year old! Every second I'm not at work I'm home playing with the little whipper-snappers who are getting into everything they can get their little hands on. Their favorite household items are: 1) Toilet Paper, 2) Tupperware, 3) my computers, 4) remote controls, 5) cell phones, 6) electrical cords of any kind, and 7) anything with bright lights on it! I am so proud of them and look forward to a great 2007!

I am also extremely grateful to be involved with all of the agents and employees that work for Telarus. Not only do they all do a fantastic job, they are like family to me and I care deeply for each and everyone of them.