Telarus CEO Adam Edwards delivers the company’s 2026 State of the Union address to technology advisors, outlining key trends and opportunities for the year ahead. He emphasizes that 2025 was an excellent setup year characterized by innovation, change, and complexity – conditions where advisors thrive. Edwards discusses how AI is transforming every technology sector, creating both opportunities and challenges as customers experiment with new solutions. He stresses that while AI conversations are important, advisors shouldn’t abandon foundational technologies like network infrastructure, which remains critical and continues to evolve. The presentation covers what top-performing advisors are doing: working hard, staying educated through resources like Next Level Biz Tech podcast and supplier education programs, getting comfortable with uncomfortable AI conversations, and maintaining long-term customer relationships beyond initial procurement. Edwards addresses concerns about industry maturity, asserting that the advisory channel is still in early stages compared to mature industries like financial advisory services. He concludes with practical advice about marketing channels, managing overwhelm in a rapidly changing environment, and announces upcoming tool releases and innovations from Telarus to support advisor success.
Transcript is auto-generated.
To officially open 2026, we get the privilege of hearing from someone who has spent years championing advisers, anticipating the market, and helping us stay ahead of what’s coming next. Our CEO, Adam Edwards, is here with our twenty twenty six State of the Union. And if you’ve heard Adam speak, you know, he brings a level of clarity and honesty that really cuts through the noise. So he’s gonna walk us through the trends, the opportunities that you can act on right now, and the priorities that will define top performing advisers for this year. Adam, we are so grateful to have you with us to kick off the year. The floor is yours. Please take it away.
Alright. Thanks, Cassandra. And, hey. Great to see everyone, here on the the, chat going, pretty strong.
I gotta say, little nervous. We sent out a new registration link. You never know how many people are gonna make it over, to the new link as we start out a new year, and, great to see a number of people, probably many like me who were, dying to get back from the break. Love a good break, love the time off, but, I like what I do.
This is, not just a vocation, but, it turns out to be my hobby as well. And I I really look forward to kicking off this new year with you. First of all, we mentioned in the the promos for this that there would not be a look back at twenty twenty five, but I have to say, you know, launches into twenty six. Twenty five, just given a little background, was a great year.
If you look at it, it’s got all of the elements that we want as advisers, in a great year, which is, innovation. It’s change. It’s, questions. It’s dynamic from an economic standpoint, from an industry standpoint, and that’s where we thrive.
If you look at our history, the the complete arc of the, advisory path, it has always been around complexity and, fragmentation. And what I mean by that is when you look at where we thrive, it’s where people have questions. If there are no questions, you know, if there’s one behemoth provider who is providing all the services, really not much of a choice to make. And and that is half of what we do is help people navigate risk and help them make the best decision for their company.
What that means is it’s something that is differentiated, it’s also fragmented. There’s a choice to be made, and we’re seeing a lot more of that today. In addition to that, there’s complexity. The more complex things are, the more risk to a business.
And and when I say risk, it means someone’s got career risk in making a choice. They’ve also got business risk. It could harm them if they make a wrong decision, which means naturally they want to reach out to someone. I’ve always viewed the advisory path as being very similar.
A lot of people look at the advisor and say, oh, one day they’ll grow up and they’ll be an MSP. One day they’ll grow up and be a VAR. That’s never been the case. My view has always been that we are advisers.
I view, advisers as being more of a boutique, Deloitte or an Accenture, someone who is assessing and advising, not just managing a service. In fact, that’s typically what we don’t want to do is manage a service. We want to direct and advise customers in in their correct path. And again, where we thrive is when it’s dynamic, when there’s fragmentation and complexity.
We’ve seen a lot of that. So twenty five was a great setup year.
The the of course, the buzz, as you saw in, the tech trends report and from your conversation, was all around AI. What does this mean for my business? What investment should should we be making? And that’s also what we saw in the data is that, people are focused focusing their budgets on AI.
We also know that a a lot of those, things went from experiments to operation, and some failed and some succeeded. Like I said, that is a great background for us, when we have an environment like that where people are testing and experimenting. We also happen to do very well when it comes to innovation. Innovation is taking place in two two areas.
One, within organizations, within enterprises, and and also without from a supplier perspective. And what what what we’re seeing with those conversations is raising a lot of question. In fact, I had a conversation just with my dentist yesterday, and it was fun talking to him.
He said, hey. This is the new software we’re running here. It kinda points to a screen, and what do I know? It’s a bunch of teeth and X rays and everything.
And he said, yeah. We’re trying different software in different offices. And he goes, what’s funny to me is they all label it AI. Everyone now in their product, you know, promotions is telling me it’s AI.
This is not AI. He goes, I can tell you right now looking at this that it’s an algorithm. What they’re doing is they’re just saying, hey, if it’s x percent into the enamel, you should drill or you should inspect further or do whatever you want. And he said, you know, I’m just not at the point yet where I’m ready to seed, my judgment to this because I just don’t have confidence here yet.
These are one of these experiments that’s taking place where people are trying to figure out, does this fit my business? Is this hitting my need, and is this going to change the way I operate? Now his belief is, yeah, for someone like my father, who, was educated forty plus years ago and, you know, he could probably use some augmentation here. Yeah.
I would recommend it for him, but for, many of my other current practitioners would not recommend some of these things. So there’s a lot of choice being made. There’s a lot of experimentation. Like I said, this dentist is using different software in different offices experimenting.
And you’re right at the center of this. You’re right at the center where this is, taking place. One more element that I would tell you is happening today is there is this constant there is this constant challenge when it comes to innovation. There’s a battle between distribution and the innovators.
And this always takes place if you if you look at the evolution of technology. Hey. Even go beyond technology. Go to fast food.
You know? Are the innovators the person who creates that burger going to create a new path and a new product? Or is McDonald’s that already has distribution just able to slot in that new product and put it out to their distribution? We see it right now.
The question, if you’re paying attention right now, is on what AI is going to become. And are some of these old SaaS companies I shouldn’t say old. Some of the the the legacy SaaS companies we’re familiar with, like a Salesforce, are they, with their distribution, going to be able to implement a lot of these new services, or is innovation gonna take over? One of the debates taking place right now is context graphs.
Familiar with context graphs, it’s not just the system of record, what the argument it is going beyond the system of record like a CRM. The context graph is going to map out decision points, how a decision was made historically, and how that should, help coach us for the next decisions being made. And the the discussion is, hey. Someone like Salesforce does not have the architecture to take advantage of this.
Therefore, the incumbents are really going to be in trouble and the innovators will take over. Is that true? We don’t know. Fortunately, from our perspective as advisors, we don’t have to place a bet, and that’s taking place in each of our technology segments right now. You’ve got the incumbents, You know, let’s about networking. In networking, are the incumbents gonna be taken over?
Probably not. They’ve got so much infrastructure in the ground and fiber that is very hard to displace. Now Starlink certainly did, came over the top with a new technology with less infrastructure.
So does that become a challenger? The answer is yes, but not to the extent that SaaS could be disrupted. And and, fortunately, we sit in a position where we can go and advise and have the conversation, identify what is best for the customer. It means we don’t have to invest in the r and d. We’re not taking the risk of what’s going to work. And what will happen this year and beyond is we’re gonna see some of our incumbents are adopting right now. They’re adopting the technology.
Some are just wallpapering. If you look at, kinda like my dentist, some are people just labeling it AI and pretending their algorithm is AI when it’s just not.
What what what we’re going to see is some of the incumbents are going to adopt this and be very successful. Some of our existing providers are going to continue to thrive, but we’re also going to be seeing new providers come in. We already are. We added more new providers last year than in any year.
I think it was, close to fifty that we added to the portfolio. And keep in mind, for every provider we add, we’ve screened probably twenty five plus providers for, do they have the right product, the market fit, or do they have the channel resources, the investment, the the contracting to protect you. All of those things come in, and we’re continuing to see new as well as these incumbents. So what does that mean for you?
What it means is you gotta remain at the top of your game, and this continues to be true, but even more so now. And we’ll talk. One of the questions we had was about, you know, what top partners are doing, about this. I would tell you that consistently, what we see is the the the trend, if you look over the last couple years to today and beyond, that addition of providers is going to continue to accelerate.
The number of technologies we’re able to sell, and I know there are questions about, hey. Which technology should I I I be investing in? The number of technologies, but also the number of suppliers is going to continue to expand. However, the bulk of revenue continues to go with the incumbents, those that are tried and tested and have proven because you as an adviser are telling your customers, this is what I trust.
This is what I’ve seen, and this is what you should consider, and that ends up having momentum. So even though we see a lot of activity and you need to be ready to discuss the the the puts and takes of each of these choices, the positives and negatives of each of these suppliers, what we find is the lion’s share goes through a consistent number. While we add to that, we we add to the number, we continue to see revenue going to many tried and true places. Why is that?
Well, it turns out that no matter what you do with AI, you’re going to continue to need network. In fact, your network needs are going to change. That change from a work from home standpoint, it’s changing from a data center configuration now. When we go to edge computing, it constantly puts a a demand and a change in demand on network.
So network, I think, what, ten, fifteen years ago, people thought, oh, you know what? This is legacy. This is yesteryear. We’ll be selling new fancy things in the future.
The largest category continues to be network. And and those with a background in network and continued investment in network, while we’ve gotta stay up to date with the modifications, it will continue to be. Because remember, this is all sitting on infrastructure. All of this change, whether it’s quantum computing, whether it’s AI, whether it’s context graphs, all of this technology is riding on infrastructure.
And when we sell infrastructure, you’re in a very good place to be relevant to your customers who are gonna consistently have evolving needs. Now going back to that set of solutions, you’ve gotta continue to be able to be conversant in each of these technologies, and I’ll talk about which technologies in just a minute. But you’ve got to be conversant. And, what I would say to you when we look at what top partners are doing and, how they’re succeeding, they are conversant in those things.
As that change, they may be selling the same thing. They may be selling network. They may be selling cloud like they did, last year, but the the conversation to get them there is evolving. And and in order to be relevant to your customers, you have got to be able to speak to things that they are concerned about.
The concerns they have in real time, whether it’s pressure from the board of directors saying we need to see AI implementation and we see need to see it reduce headcount or their conversations about security. That, hey, our ability to secure a network and to secure data in motion may be increased, but the the bad actors have adopted AI as well. And, therefore, we’ve got to inoculate against these, you know, superbugs now or, supervillains, I would say. So the conversation is changing, and you’ve got to be aware of of what the solutions are, what the current topics are, and how to speak to them.
I would say this to you.
And by the way, this does lend itself to to the patterns received from top partners. You’ve got to constantly be educated about what these topics are.
We saw that in twenty five. It moved faster than ever, and therefore, we’ve put in front of you, resources to do that. Number one, I would say next level biz tech has got to be a staple. When you’re working out, when you’re commuting, whatever you’re doing, that podcast is current information coming from our engineering group of what conversations we’re having with with, advisers when we’re assisting you with customers.
All those conversations is coming back, and it’s coming through that lens. If you want to multiply your impact to the extent that you’re you’re getting plenty of experience with your customers, but if you could have the experience of hundreds more engagements, that’s what you get is is the insight into real time conversations from next level biz tech. The other thing I would mention to you, and, yes, this is a plug, a new topic we’ve put out or a new program we put out is called, the new suppliers on the block. Yes.
It is a it’s a throwback to a, boy band of yesteryear, but we found that to be one of our most popular segments this past year. It was just introduced. And, what we do is try to introduce just four, just four suppliers that we want to make sure you’re aware of. Whether you sell them or not, you need to be aware in your conversation of what is out there.
Because the reason we’re introducing these to you is they solve a need that we have seen, that we’ve been asked about, that we have consulted on, from an engineering perspective, and we’re putting these in front of you so you can be conversant.
And and that’s just an element of business hygiene you’ve got to have in front of you is the constant, engagement to to make sure that you are staying current on the information. As an adviser, you’re not like a service provider that focuses on a couple providers. You resell it. You do the break fix, and you’re an expert in that, you go deep in that. As an adviser, you’re going broad and need to have awareness of other things because your customers have questions about them.
And one of the best ways to do that is take advantage of the education that we’re offering. Next level biz tech, the the the Ascends that are gonna continue this year, the gear ups, but also these bite size educations. The bite size education like new suppliers on the block. As I mentioned, we’re bringing in more suppliers than we ever have at a more rapid pace.
And to get you exposure, yes, there are tools that can do that. There are engineers that can do that, but you’ve gotta have proactive awareness of that. And it’s these programs that are gonna allow you to do that. So make sure you take advantage.
That that leaves me my next topic of I’m I’m consistently asked is what are the top providers doing? The the the top level providers that, we’re checking in with on regular basis. They are having these conversations. They’re having the conversations about AI.
Whether there’s a product to sell there or not, you’ve got to make yourself relevant. And and, candidly, some people are just getting over their skis having these conversations.
We have put together a, a framework for this. It’s our AI selling framework. This was first released in our advisory council last year. You’re going to see more of this. When you see our education this year, you’re gonna see it put in the context of that AI framework of how you should be having these conversations, how you can guide your customers to have these these this this discovery and these these solutions is through that AI framework. So make sure you stay tuned for that, as that that comes out this year.
Next topic. And I’m bouncing around a bit. I’m gonna come back to, what what it takes to be successful in this environment. Next topic is people consistently ask which products do I need to to, be aware of. If you read our tech trends report, if you downloaded that, rebranded for your customers, hopefully put it in front of them, you’re gonna see a couple of things. Number one is it is the time for the adviser.
Like I said, we thrive in complexity, and we thrive in fragmentation. And now is that time. In a period of innovation, when AI is creating this innovation, not just in AI itself of LLMs, in every product set, that change means you are more relevant and more needed than ever. And so our arc, our trajectory continues to steepen as, there’s more opportunities.
So what products to sell? First of all, I would say don’t abandon what has worked. I just mentioned network as that staple. That infrastructure is not going away.
It is more critical. It continues to evolve. The the security around the network continues to be critical. All of the things that we sell are continuing to be relevant.
They’re not going away. This is an additive conversation of what more should we be looking at. If you go back to tech trends, you talk about, you know, what people are asking us specifically, you’re gonna see a lot more cloud. You’re especially going to see security.
AI, of course, is a con conversation piece, and it is imbued it it is it is in in, each of these products is now AI. I can talk about my dentist. Some are just labeling AI, and and there’s not AI. They’re some of it is very real and very usable today, and we’re seeing companies take advantage of it.
And you need to be having those conversations. One I would add, and that is this is probably not on anybody’s list because it doesn’t have AI in it, MSP services. What we see continue to grow and people continue to ask for is managed services. The reason security didn’t take off as quickly in the advisory community as it did in other places because there are point solutions.
It was something for a VAR to sell to install the equipment, to turn the screwdriver, for an MSP to manage it. What we need as advisors, we want someone to come in and manage it because typically we’re not doing that as a part of our service. Some are. Some some of you have a combined practice.
The majority of advisors do not, and we see MSPs continue to accelerate. The MSPs who are managing these services, bundling to them together, and offering that service layer, we see as a an accelerating product category. Expect that this year. Be aware of those.
We have a number of them in the portfolio who do really well. We expect to see more of that coming through. Coming back to, what you should do about all this. I mentioned education.
I wanna go back to top partners. Again, this is a a question that we receive constantly of what are the top partners doing? What am I missing that I should be thinking about as an adviser?
And I’ve gotta say this. This has been true whether it’s last year or ten years before. The consistent factor that, I see in top partners is hard work. I know it’s not sexy.
I know it’s not AI, but I’ve gotta tell you the foundational element I find in every successful adviser, is an element of hard work. That they’re constantly they’re they’re up earlier than others. They’re they’re they’re going to bed later than others. They put in a lot of hours.
Now is that the only element? It’s not, but that’s the common factor I see in people who are successful. Whether you’re building your career, whether you’re building a business, it is it is the number of cycles that you get in. I know there’s this fantasy about, hey.
Work smarter, not harder. There’s this this idea that, we we can just do a little bit, and, it all gets done. I just haven’t seen that. That hasn’t been my experience.
That hasn’t been my observation. When I look at the most successful, the folks standing on stage, I see a personal story to each one of those, and it typically involves great sacrifice. So if if you’re trying to grow your career, if you’re trying to grow your business in this environment, that is ingredient number one. And that hasn’t changed, and it’s not going to change.
I I don’t see. I don’t see AI replacing that. I see AI augmenting us, but in terms of the number of cycles, that is number one. Number two, I find top advisers, right now, they’re getting over their skis.
They’re they’re at this place of discomfort where they’re having conversations with enterprises or or mid enterprises about AI, about what’s going on. And that is a very, very good thing. Uncomfortable. Yes.
But what it means is number one, that customer trusts the adviser to have the conversation. Even though it’s somewhat new for a lot of these advisers, they’re having the conversation and digging in. And every time you’re in that uncomfortable space, you get more comfortable. I would say if you’re not in that position of trust where you’re asking being asked those questions, you need to get there, and you need to be willing to have them.
Prepare yourself to have them, but it’s gonna be uncomfortable. That’s okay. Get comfortable. Being uncomfortable is the old adage, And it just so happens.
It’s true in this environment as well. Top partners are having those conversations. Now are they selling LLM? Are they selling Claude?
And are selling Gemini? No. They’re not. But they are selling the enabling technology. They’re having the conversation about what the business is doing because, remember, that conversation is gonna help you be that much more effective in your next engagement.
You’re gonna learn from that. Whether something gets sold or not, you’re you’re furthering your trusted in in, relationship with them, but you’re also gonna be that much better in your next engagement. It also primes you. When you’re in an area of discomfort, it primes you for learning because when you don’t know the answer, you’re gonna be dang sure.
You’re gonna create the space for that answer when you do find it. So I’d say get get uncomfortable in having those conversations.
That leads me to one other item. We’re continuing to see pressure from, suppliers who want to make sure advisers are staying with the customer. You know, a lot of times we talk about being an adviser in terms of procurement. And, yes, we get paid on procurement.
We get paid. Sometimes there’s this upfront bonus. We get paid over the duration of that customer life, and that is an important factor. The reason this model will reign supreme long term is because of the alignment long term, and the best advisers stay engaged with their customers.
They don’t just procure and move on. They stay engaged with their customers. Now why do I bring up suppliers? Because suppliers are starting to differentiate.
They see good, advisors versus those who just bring it bring a customer and move on. The best advisors stick with customers and make sure not just they procure the right technology, but when things go wrong, and they always go wrong, something always happens. When things go wrong, that adviser is there. Those are the people who get called in to have the AI conversation.
Those are the people who get called in to consult on a new technology or a new decision that’s being made even if they are getting over their skis because they’ve earned that position of trust, not just from the simple procurement, but because of the long term advocacy. And that’s what this model is all about. People get too fixated on the up front. I I get it.
That is the doorway to success is selling that new product, getting that customer in the door, getting them cash flowing. Yes. But the other half of the equation and the reason some are phenomenally successful is because they elongate that customer life cycle by keeping them happy with that product because they’ve stayed engaged, but they’re also selling additional into that customer because they have earned the right to that conversation. Earning the right to have the AI conversation.
Earning the right to have the security conversation when you went in on the network conversation. By the way, today, still eighty percent of, advisers cutting their teeth on network. We see some come in from a different angle, but still have a base layer of network and grow from there. But it’s those people who have engaged with the, customer to the extent they have that trusted relationship, they’re able to continue on.
So that that is, going back and summarizing on what top advisers are doing. Number one, hard work. There’s just no getting away from that. There’s just not.
I I haven’t seen it. Number two, being educated and aware, taking advantage of new information, getting yourself into uncomfortable situations to stretch yourself. It doesn’t mean abandon the old. I think people, get this idea that we’ve got to move on to the next big thing.
It’s an additive. It’s not a replacement. The the the legacy things you sold before are still viable. They continue to grow and continue to be important.
Infrastructure matters. But it’s the people who are stretching and getting in beyond that initial phase and helping the customer post implementation. Those are the people suppliers continue to value. And you can look at the data.
If if you talk to these suppliers and pull in data, those are the ones they want to lean in with and bring into opportunities, not just because you can procure, but you can keep that customer around. And and lastly, my point about, hard work, education, and then maintaining customers is what takes us into the next level. I have talked about this industry as, being a a less mature version of financial advisory, a less mature version of insurance brokerage. Remember, those those services are fifty to a hundred years old.
If you look at insurance brokerage services over a hundred years old, this is going on that same trajectory. So people ask me sometimes from an industry standpoint, hey, where is this going? Are the best days behind us? Should I sell my company?
Yeah. You know what? If that’s a personal question. If you’re done, and you wanna hang it up because there are great valuations now, that’s a personal question, and, I think you’re you’re gonna be, happy with the outcome.
But never never sell because you think this is the end or you think we have peaked. What I’m here to tell you is we’re still in the very early stages. If you wanna look at how massive this is going to become, all you have to do is look at some of these parallels. Look at the at the financial advisory service.
Look at the insurance brokerage businesses, that are are absolutely massive. And this is going to continue. So if you feel like you wanna continue going, there has never been a better time. I know I say that every year, but it continues to get better.
And the trajectory is getting steeper in terms of how much opportunity there is. So I I know there have been plenty of people who have been able to sell their business.
If that is your desire in the future, then set a five year plan, a ten year plan, set a goal. But I would not do it for the purpose of, hey. This industry has peaked, I’m not so certain anymore. I would do it for the purpose of, hey.
I have personally arrived at a place in life where that is the best choice for me. Because what we have found is those who wanna take off, take take cash off the table and keep going, there are plenty of opportunities. Telarus Capital creates a great opportunity. I know many of you have done that to invest in the business, to, continue your arc because you’ve got five more years, ten more years, fifteen more years, then I would say invest.
My message going back to beginning from education, that is an investment in you, in your career, in your business, but also from a capital standpoint as well. If you look at the trajectory of this industry, it continues to accelerate.
That twenty five was no exception. Twenty six will not be an exception. It will continue to accelerate, to to get to where it’s going, which is, absolutely massive. And I believe the primary way in which technology is sought out by enterprises, is going to be through this channel.
So, my advice to you, if you’re looking for success is keep in it. Keep at it. Hard work, investment, both personally of your time, getting education and of capital is the way to go. It’s not gonna be because the industry slows down or stagnates that you’re not successful.
The only reason you will not be successful because you didn’t take advantage of the things that Telarus offers you to help you, of the things that you can do in terms of investing time and resource to make it possible because the framework is there. The platform is is there for success. The model works. Customers want it.
And as long as technology changes and innovation happens, people are going to want help making these risky decisions. They’re gonna want someone by their side increasingly, and and that’s what we’re here to help you do. So I’m excited for twenty six. I’m excited to get a lot of things done in this new environment, the new education resources we have, the new tools.
By the way, here’s a hint. We have a new tool dropping here this month.
You’re gonna hear about that later. There’ll be an announcement, and and we will have a webinar to demo that. Very excited about that. That is going to help address some of the things I talked about today.
That’s all I’ll say about that. But I do look forward to that later this month as we continue to innovate at a faster pace than we ever have as an organization. Twenty six is gonna be phenomenal. We launched Hub last year.
We did over three hundred improvements post launch to Hub. We’re gonna continue that, but you’re gonna see more tools coming this year. Our our innovation is a faster pace. By the way, AI, how real it is, we can attest to internally.
Our development and capability has accelerated faster than it ever has in our history. So twenty six will, a lot of those things are gonna come to, fruition that you’re gonna see. So I’m excited about that. With that, I’m going to, stop and, open up for a little q and a.
So, Cassandra, if we wanna, jump into that segment, happy to answer any questions.
Yes. Adam, thank you so much. That was incredible. The chat has been lighting up with a lot of conversation.
I see a lot of people who’ve had a lot of wow moments, I think. And as we’re shifting into this, if you haven’t dropped your questions yet, now is the time. Go ahead and put them into chat. We’ll try and get through as many as we can.
But, I already, we’re having them kind of come in. But for you, Adam, I have a question as well. As you look across everything that you shared today, what is the single biggest shift that advisers need to internalize right now to stay competitive in twenty twenty six?
You know, it it is that, when you’re talking about, being competitive in twenty six, you’ve gotta have that trusted relationship with your customer to be able to have the conversation, but it is being educated and aware. And that’s really hard. If you look at the the best partners are running and gunning. They are all action, and they’re moving, and they’re engaged with customers.
And it’s very hard time it’s very hard to peel out time to get educated. You do get educated with your engagements and bringing an engineer in, but you the the technology is moving so quickly you have got to be exposed to it. Sometimes that’s from your peers that is in conversation with them, but, that’s why I continue to to harp on the fact that our, you know, whether it’s next level biz tech, whether it’s new suppliers on the block, whether it’s an Ascend event, our webinars. We’ve we’ve moved a lot of our education over to digital because, being engaged personally is is helpful.
Being physically present means you can focus more, but we’re trying to deliver in a way that people can consume it, you know, more along with their schedule. But you’ve got to carve out time to stay relevant because it is changing that quickly, and you’ve got to be relevant to your customers.
Also, for advisers who may be strong in one technology but hesitant to kind of expand, how do you suggest that they confidently branch into some new areas without losing that momentum?
So I you know, what what I found is, it’s kind of the grass is always greener. Everyone feels like they’re being successful over there. They’re therefore, I need to do that as well. I would say number one, don’t abandon your strength.
The fact that your customer brought you in and values you because you do x. Maybe you came in with CX and you’re the CX expert. Never walk away from that. It’s always additive.
It’s it’s always additive. The I I can’t think of any technology that we’ve ever sold that has just evaporated. It has changed form. Maybe it’s changed the the the thing we call it has changed, but the technology continues on.
So maintain that expertise as long as you learn to be additive. But the way you’re additive, a lot of times I I point to our engineers. Sometimes it’s easier to bring in an engineer and say, know what? I am your CX expert, but we’re gonna talk security.
I’m gonna bring in someone. Until you feel comfortable to represent yourself as that security expert, you bring someone along to ride, you know, shotgun with you and make them the expert. So you’re not putting yourself out there and possibly sacrificing your relationship saying, hey, it turns out I’m an expert in everything. But you bring people in.
That’s again, one of the great things about the advisory model is you don’t have to be the expert in anything. You need to be the connection point. You need to be the person that brings in the right conversation, whether it’s an engineer or a new provider that brokers that discussion. But that’s how you become an expert.
That’s how we all become experts is repeated exposure. Repeated exposure to, companies with different problems and the same technology solving those problems, we become experts. So I’d say you you don’t abandon, but but it’s additive.
Wonderful. We do have a few questions that have come in through our q and a. So for one was, Adam, how do you expect AI enablement and technical and procurement professionals to affect the channel in the next two to three years? Of course, I know you’re not a fortune teller, but in your opinion.
So I think it’s gonna affect us in a few ways. And we’re all caught up in LLMs and now we’re talking context graphs and things like that. But it’s affecting us in a few ways. I’ll give an example.
Right now what we’re seeing in with AI and development, I think one of the biggest places AI has impacted technologies in in the creation of code. It is unbelievable the pace at which, code is written now. And it’s kinda like when memory prices dropped. You know, all of a sudden data a database was very expensive and the the price dropped because of these these hyperscalers.
We’re seeing the price of code is dropping. I would say taste and judgment, however, is going up in value because while you can write a lot of code, the decision then is he’s made, well, which code? And should you really be writing that code or we’re creating a mess for later? This cleaning up that code, it turns out, is now taking more time because we’re writing so much code.
If you look at how AI is going to be infused in each of these different products, I see it accelerating the innovation along each of the product segments. That’s why we’ve talked about AI as an enabling technology.
Security is going to be deeper and more advanced. It it it’s infusing AI to be thoughtful about which threats. CX, of course, conversational AI, but it’s going to go beyond just conversational AI and get better to where things are delegated out to AI, and it becomes a labor replacement. That’s how a lot of companies are looking at AI right now is can I reduce my cost?
If you look at budgets, look at tech trends report. What it tells you is budgets for software, it going up significantly. Budgets for people, not going up. By the way, you’re seeing that.
It’s very quiet. No one likes to talk about it, but the job market is softening right now. Part of that is AI. Part of it is the anticipation of AI.
And I think we’re gonna see that as well as companies increasingly are are convinced that they can create these savings. And and a lot of those are labor savings. So it’s gonna be a difficult labor market, but we’re gonna see AI infused in each of these technologies.
Wonderful. We do have some oh, now we have some more questions coming in too. Which verticals are most open to advisers or not as marketed to by advisers, in your opinion?
You know, so so we’ve mapped this out. We we actually took, the entire customer database. We put it up against, you know, the, SIC codes. I think we call them something different now.
What business segments. We don’t see a single business segment that is, either over served or under served. What we do find is they’re all being served differently. So some advisers are generalists, and they’re I specialize in this technology.
I’m a network expert. I’m a CX expert, and I go in and I help customers. There are others who will say, look, am a credit union expert. That is what I do.
I know the compliance requirements, and I am an expert there. We found both both, approaches to be successful. A lot of people health care. You know?
This is what I do. Health care contact center. That is what I do. I know the HIPAA requirements.
I know some people say HIPAA, but they’re not real. I would say that, I I can’t give you a single vertical that says, this one. No. Nobody’s nobody’s engaged in this one right right now.
People are engaged in technology focus. People are engaged in vertical focus. What I would say is wherever you have a foothold, that’s the best place to start. I I spoke with one adviser a couple years ago, and when we looked at his customer base, what we found was there was a concentration in a particular segment.
And you gotta ask yourself, hey. Is this segment gonna grow? Is this segment gonna value me? Well, turns out if half of your customers are in that segment, you already got expertise.
You’re already talking to a concentration. Why not develop on that? Why not continue? Now if you’re just throwing a dart at a dartboard because, you know, you’ve got one customer in each segment, pick a pick pick which segment you think is going to engage most with you.
But in terms of one being underserved, I haven’t seen it, or the data has not made that apparent to us. Some people are focused on government and education. Some people health care, legal. It’s when when you focus on an area or a a product segment, you become an expert.
You become valuable to, customers. And, I’d say that’s it’s larger choice.
Wonderful. So what do you think are the top three marketing channels for advisors to grow their business?
The top which channels?
What do you think are the top three marketing channels for advisors to grow their business?
You know, this is the grail in terms of marketing.
I think we’ve tried to answer this question. By the way, Telarus was built on generating leads. We generated leads organically to get to advisers. What we found was it created a ceiling. We simply couldn’t generate enough leads to keep advisers happy.
And and we’ve tried many different sectors. We bought a contact center to try to set up appointments for advisers.
What when I say hard work is the foundation for great advisers, what I didn’t say is there are also hardworking advisers who did not become successful. And I would say the missing element from those is they did not have a good lead source. We once again, we’ve seen it all. There there’s not a singular path that is going to help folks. We’ve seen people succeed and fail in terms of engaging with a lead gen source. Meaning, someone who is marketing either outbound calling or emailing, bringing in leads.
We have seen people be successful at that. We have seen people waste money on that. What I would tell you in that regard is, don’t dabble. If you’re gonna do it, do it very seriously.
We’ve also seen advisers become very successful at, referrals because they have a referral network that reaches out to them and engage them and values what they do, because it helps that referral partner in their business. I hand off to this advisor, and we make a good pairing. We’ve seen people be very successful, from from that aspect. We once again, I would go back to the point of don’t dabble.
If you’re going to do something, take it seriously. The people that dabble and hey, I got a couple sub agents, a couple referrals, and then I’m here here’s one of the things we found when we had the call center and we were doing leads is someone would come with five hundred dollars and say, would like to buy one lead. I I will buy one appointment or I’ll buy three appoint it doesn’t work like that. You’ve got it.
You it’s not gonna work out of the gate. You’ve gotta take it very seriously. Invest time, effort, make mistakes, correct. The people that we’ve seen successful in those different marketing efforts have made many different, attempts, and they take it very seriously.
They’re just not dabbling. So, those are probably the two biggest ones that I see.
What I would say is don’t try to do all of them.
Take one and take it seriously, and, and and learn from any mistakes and failures.
We do have a few more minutes to answer just a couple more questions. I think here we’ve got, does Telarus provide a platform for MSP to MSP contracting work, engaging for subcontracting consulting opportunities?
Subcontracting consulting opportunities. I don’t think so. I I think what I find is, what advisers will you know, when we’ve got advisers, they will sell MSP services. But in terms of MSP to MSP, I I don’t know that we’ve got anything like that.
Typically, reason we value an MSP is because they can sell a complete solution, and we view them as a supplier. In that regard, we view them as a supplier. Quest is a great example of that. Man, out of Sacramento, if you haven’t dealt with Quest, they’re phenomenal.
You know, the the the, a few others, that that we like. Thrive, great MSP. When we look at them a lot in security, they’re truly an MSP. They’re bundling around the service there.
Tpx, another MSP that these are managing a service. So we as adviser will sell those MSPs. But as far as MSP to MSP, if the if an MSP is working in advisory capacity and doing something they can’t do with a bigger MSP, then yes, we’ll enable that. But they’re really we don’t really don’t have a a community of MSPs where we’re tying them together.
Oh, I did receive a question I do really like. If an adviser is feeling a bit overwhelmed by how fast things are changing, what’s the mindset you’d encourage them to adopt this year?
Yeah. I think it it, you know, it can be overwhelming.
I think the sense, especially when you’re running a business, running your career, you always feel like you’re being passed by.
I I would remind yourself of this. Technology has always been changing.
It’s it’s every year it’s changing. In fact, years ago I it was convergence. This sounds silly now, but years ago it was, hey, voice and data are coming together in the same thing. That was mind blowing. I know it’s not today. It’s ridiculous today because it’s all data.
But back then, was mind blowing. And boy, how am I gonna change and how am I gonna pivot and, you know, what am I gonna say? That concern has always been there and it always will. And I would say this, remind yourself of the fact that as long as that urgency is making you uncomfortable to the point to where you’re doing something about it, it’s very healthy.
If that discomfort is causing vapor lock and making you stand still, then it’s debilitating. And you gotta find a way to get rid of it. I’m here to tell you it’s never too late. It is never ever too late to jump in, to change, to adjust.
Now we encourage everyone to keep up because we don’t want you to miss an opportunity, but it’s never too late. It always it it will always feel that way because technology is always moving. And by the way, if it wasn’t moving, it wasn’t evolving, we wouldn’t have jobs. If it all stayed the same, there wouldn’t be any change required for, customers to make a choice.
So it’s a good thing that it’s changing. We as advisers need to stay on top of them. That’s what Telarus is going to do for you is source all this information from different places, different experiences, and present that help to you to give you a boost, to give you the platform you need to do more than just your individual, engagements are are are giving you. But, you’re in a good place.
You’re it the the world is not passing you by. The trick is just stay engaged. Don’t get into vapor lock. Just be uncomfortable enough that you do something about it.
Wonderful. Adam, thank you so much. We are out of time, but thank you for a very powerful start of the year. I know a lot of the advisors have been talking and conversing with each other, and I feel like a lot of them are walking with clarity and direction and also leaning on each other for the information and the attention that they’ve gotten from today.
So they probably are also walking away with a few new goals, which is wonderful. So thank you again for being here for our first Tuesday call. And to the questions that we couldn’t get to, we wish we had all the time in the world to answer everything. We really truly do.
If you do have questions that didn’t get answered, please remember, you can reach out to any of your Telarus contacts, and they’d be so happy to help help you, guide you to relevant people and suppliers to help you succeed because that’s what we want you to do. We want you to succeed. So however we can help, please reach out to us and let us know. Thank you again so much, Adam.
We really appreciate you.
Thanks everyone for joining. Great to be with you. So excited for the year and where we’re going. Looking forward to end of January for a big announcement.