HITT – Telarus Education Curriculum Overview and Training Opportunities

The way advisors build skills is rapidly changing. Customers are expecting more strategic conversations. Suppliers are innovating faster, and the landscape you’re navigating is evolving every week. And that’s exactly why today’s topic is so important. The better equipped that you are with the right training framework and learning experiences, the more confidence you bring into every customer conversation. So here to guide us through what’s new, what’s improved, and what’s coming next inside Telarus education is someone I hope you all know, our Jojo Stadig, our director of learning and development. Jojo, we are so excited to have you on, and I will pass it on to you.

Well, thank you, Cass. I’m so excited to be here. And hello, everyone. I’m super excited to spend the next, little bit walking you through the brand new twenty twenty six education curriculum here at Telarus. But firstly, if you’re on this call, that is an indicator that you are invested in your continued education, which is a trait that we’ve identified all top advisers possess. And so, I’m super excited that you all have taken the first step, towards that by being on this call, and I hope that at the end of this, you walk away with some additional opportunities to continue learning.

Before I dive into the classes themselves, I wanna start with how this curriculum was built because I think that that’s what really differentiates it. And, we really took a different approach when we were building this last year and said, you know what? We’re gonna start with feedback first. And so if you if you’ve been on a virtual education call with me, you’ve seen how annoying I am about showing you a QR code and filling out a survey.

But there’s a reason for that, and it’s because we truly do take all of that feedback, and we build we build learning, that that aligns with that. So what we did last year is took feedback from your partner summit replies, from regional events, from, you know, onboarding sessions, supplier conversations. We talked to your PDMs, your area VPs, and we even sent out a dedicated education survey. So thank you.

If you’re if you fill that out, you’re on this call. Thank you so much for doing it because it helped provide direction for this curriculum.

But we took all that feedback, and you told us what you wanted, which was more advanced content in all the advanced solutions. Right? AI, CX, cyber, cloud, advanced networking, and specifically how to position those solutions without having to be the expert. You told us that you wanted more hands on scenario based coaching.

New advisers said that they wanted more structure and a a better understanding of how to even be a technology adviser in this channel. You wanted to see more in person opportunities, more on demand content, more virtual content. Right? You wanted to continue to see opportunities that were provided in different modalities so that you can engage in a way that works for you.

And so that’s what this education curriculum was really built around. And before we even dive into it, I I wanna leave you with a data point that really reinforces why this matters, and that is that advisers who have engaged in Telarus education have booked four point two times more business than advisers that don’t. And we talk a lot about this in one of the first classes that I’ll introduce, but it is continued education is one of, again, those the key traits that we’ve identified top advisers, continue to invest in.

Let’s go ahead, and I’m gonna do just a quick overview of, the entire curriculum, and then we’ll dive into some really key areas.

Now this curriculum is made up of three layers. So we’re gonna start over here on the, on the left side with our Telarus foundations course. This is for newer prospective advisers or those who are newly onboarding at an existing advisory.

And this is where we really give them the clarity and confidence and a strong start. The content for this is, built by Tim Bossa, our SVP of sales, and, Leslie Evans, our VP of sales operations who, oversees all of our onboarding initiatives. So great opportunity for any new advisers there. I’m gonna jump down to our mastery programs. We’ve got three different mastery courses, sales mastery, marketing mastery, and business mastery.

And this is really for, advisers who are looking to sharpen their core revenue driving and business building skills. And these classes are also developed by Tim Bossa, our SVP of sales. And then we’ve got we’re gonna jump back up to our beyond the solution courses, And these are really our advanced learning experiences across those advanced solutions that I mentioned. So, and developed by our, ASVP. So we’ve got Sam Nelson covering CX and AI, Sumera Riaz covering cybersecurity, chat muck and fuss, over cloud, and then, of course, Graeme Scott over advanced networking and mobility. So these beyond the solution courses, you’re going to see them siloed to each of those advanced solution areas, but you’ll also see opportunities in person for combined events that really help with those cross selling skills, across different technologies.

So these are the three programs I’m really gonna focus on today, but I would be remiss if not to mention our local education events. So these are organized by the local partner development managers, and they’re built around learning needs that they’ve identified in their specific regions. What those could look like are lunch and learns, supplier open houses, AI workshops. So, if this sounds like something that is a good fit for you, make sure that you partner with your assigned partner development manager to figure out what’s going on in your area and be able to participate in these events.

And then, of course, partner summit, our premier education event of every year. We have over forty plus breakout sessions, education breakout sessions, during this event as well as main main stage keynotes, panels. So make sure you save the date if you wanna join us this year. We’ll be in Dallas, Texas at the ******* Texan, August eleventh through the thirteenth.

Alright. Like I said, I’m gonna dive into, three key focus areas today, which is going to be Telarus Foundation’s Beyond the Solution and all the mastery courses. So let’s go ahead and just dive in starting with Telarus Foundations.

So this is where we really, again, anchor advisors who are either brand new to Telarus. You just signed. You’re new to the industry. You just onboarded at an existing advisory, or maybe, you know, you feel a little bit stuck. You’re ready to reset, kinda get recentered, and revisit those, fundamentals.

You know, one thing to see over and over again with advisers who have scaled quickly, is that they all mastered kind of the same core pillars really, really early on in their career, and that’s what we walk through in Telarus Foundations. Gonna start with the adviser mindset shifting from selling products to actually becoming a true consultant. From there, we sell, discuss how to sell beyond basic connectivity. Right? How to really incorporate those advanced solutions, instead of staying kind of in that comfort zone of selling Internet.

We start to introduce, some adviser case studies, and then, we also talk about the importance of continuous learning. Right? Staying ahead of the curve coming to these Tuesday calls is is one of those things. So congrats. You’re already there.

And then we really talk about how to leverage supplier relationships as true force multipliers. Right? A lot of new advisers kind of think of of suppliers as just vendors, but top advisers really know that suppliers can be strategic partners who open doors. They help you co sell, obviously bring in that tech technical depth, and all that really accelerates deals and, of course, accelerates your momentum to success. So if you build the the right relationships with the right ones, you know, you can leverage suppliers in in an amazing way. And, of course, you’re going to hear from a new supplier at the end of the call today, so make sure to stick around.

Alright. Let’s move on to marketing mastery.

This was really interesting when we put out that dedicated, education survey last year. Marketing was the most asked for piece of content. So think this is going to resonate with a lot of you folks on the call, but this is really built for advisers who know that they need more consistent, predictable lead generation. So if you’ve been relying on referrals or just, like, sporadic bursts of activity and you want a system that creates demand week after week, this is a course that you definitely want to engage with.

It’s especially helpful for advisers who just need to narrow their niche, right, and and be better at addressing their target market and communicate their value in a way that actually stands out. So, you know, one one thing that Tim has identified again, I said he’s the one that’s building this content, is, like, a lot of the advisers that he’s talked to were never taught modern marketing. They were told to, like, build a brand, post on LinkedIn, but not actually how to drive revenue through marketing. And so that’s what this class really focuses on.

It introduces direct response marketing, which gives, like, a measurable approach that guides your buyers through a decision making process and positions you as the obvious choice to them.

So, again, we’ll walk you through defining your ideal client profile. We’ll sharpen your messaging and talk about building a content engine that educates your audience before they ever reach out. Right? So think about your website. You’re always on salesperson.

And, you know, so this class really isn’t about being louder or posting more or designing a compelling logo. It’s about being intentional and speaking directly to the problems that your I ideal clients care about so that your marketing generates real conversations.

Alright. Let’s move on to business mastery.

Alright. Business mastery is for advisers who are growing beyond a one person operation, whether that’s an additional two or three people, or, we can get you linked to to courses, Mark, for sure. I’ll talk about Telarus University a little bit at the end of this.

But, yeah, whether you’re a two, three person team or a big team, right, that means that you’re juggling back office responsibilities. You’re managing a team. You’re you’re kind of filling the strain of rapid growth.

It’s also built for any advisers who just need stronger financial, operational, or forecasting skills, to stabilize their business. So this course really gives you the structure for that, and it focuses on how you can put in the operational, practices that allows your business to run without you. We’ll introduce, simple operating systems that help eliminate bottlenecks, teach you how to measure data that matters, align your team, create accountability so you can plan strategically, not reactively. And, again, just gives you a repeatable system for running, growing, and eventually scaling a business as profitable.

Alright. Let’s move on to sales mastery. Another another highly asked for, class. So this is designed for any of you who are ready to just elevate how you sell, especially those who are really looking to improve your overall deal strategy and bring more structure to your process, and and those who just wanna build, like, stronger business acumen as well so that you can engage cross functionally with different cross functional stakeholders.

Right? And then also helping you navigate more complex multistakeholder deals with a clear methodology to lead with instead of to react to. You know, big part of the challenge in our industry is that many advisers, similar to marketing, never received formal sales training. They kind of learn by trial and error.

And, you know, some have been absolutely successful with that, but, you know, a lot have, struggled with stalled deals, and just deal progression in general, that feels a little bit inconsistent. And so they wanna put a repeatable process in place, to help with that. And so what we’ve structured for this sales mastery class is a blended methodology approach that leverages MEDDPIC, which is a framework for qualifying and advancing complex opportunities with outcome based selling, which shifts conversations away from products and towards business outcomes that buyers actually care about. You’re

gonna see that theme bleed into every education, that we actually put out there, and and you’ll see that when I talk about beyond the solution. But the result of this is, again, a repeatable motion that helps you qualify a lot more effectively. Your discovery starts to run a lot deeper. Right?

And you start aligning with executives a lot more.

Little teaser for this that CAS is actually very hard at work on.

We’ve got three on demand courses, in development right now, and they’re coming very soon. You could probably expect them early q two, but there will be an individual course just on MEDDPIC, an individual course just on outcome based selling, and another one that actually blends those two methodologies and teaches you how to execute them together. So stay tuned for that. We typically announce these new course releases through our Telarus University monthly newsletter.

Those usually come about the middle of the week on the third week of the month. So if you’re not looking out for those, be sure be sure to do that.

David lead gen will be talked about in that marketing mastery class. Yep.

Alright. Let’s move on to beyond the solution. Alright. So we just talked about sales mastery, which is technology agnostic.

Right? It teaches that core methodology, med pick, and outcome based selling. Beyond the solution is where we teach you all how to apply that same system specifically to advanced solution deals. So this course is for advisers who wanna move beyond product conversations.

Again, that’s our whole approach to education this year because you guys don’t have to be the expert in technology. Right? So we’re moving beyond those product deals. We’re stepping into strategic selling.

It’s built specifically for any of you who are expanding into multi solution or vertical environments and just wanna be able to confidently engage with executives and position yourself as true consultants, and, again, not vendors because you don’t have to be the expert here. So we essentially teach you how to translate business pain into meaningful technology outcomes, again, using that selling framework.

And like I mentioned in in the bigger overview, right, there is a track for this for each of the advanced solutions, all of which increasingly integrate AI. So if you’re also looking to up your AI acumen, this is definitely, a place for you.

But, again, we’re teaching you how to not be the technical expert or hoping that the technology sells itself and actually create those relationships with those stakeholders and, identify underlying business drivers, you know, such as cost reduction, efficiency gains, improved reliability. And those insights are actually what create urgency and open the door for an expert to come in, right, for somebody from the Telarus engineering team to come in, from a supplier to come in and actually advance the opportunity.

Alright. Let’s go to the next slide. Okay. I wanna I found a little bit engagement from the chat.

You guys have been doing I’ll give you a b plus right now for the engagement. But now that we’ve gone over those three three core, education tracks, I’m really curious which course resonates the most with where you see opportunity in I’ll take a b plus. With where you see opportunity in your business today. So you guys can either go to menti dot com and put in this code, or you can scan this QR code.

And we’ll see how the Internet does with showing our responses in real time because it looks like we’re getting quite a few.

Okay.

See, I’m not surprised seeing all these marketing mastery, interests.

Back to yep.

Yeah. Like I said, when we when we completed that education survey, marketing mastery or just marketing in general was one of the number one asked for pieces of content marketing. Yep. Right?

Alright. Well, we we’ve got quite a few marketing mastery classes in person as well as virtually, and we’re currently refreshing the marketing courses for on demand as well. So those will be coming soon this year as well. But I hope that, you all engage with one of these classes, after this call. So, actually, thank you to all six of your respondents to this. Let’s go to the next slide, Chandler.

Perfect. So let’s talk about how you can engage. Right?

First, before we even talk about that, I actually wanna talk about the modalities, which I kind of just teased.

Let’s start with our in person sessions. These are hands on and super collaborative.

Advisors who attend these work through exercises with peers, with suppliers, of course, with the subject matter experts, and you guys are participating in hands on workshops, which help you immediately apply what you’re learning. And because they’re live, they also double as very powerful networking experiences. So all of these in person classes are actually anchored with a networking experience so that you have a chance to learn just as much from the people in the room, from from casual conversation as you do from the actual content.

Our virtual sessions make it the same material accessible from anyone. I actually see a few names on this call right now that also join our virtual sessions all the time. Thank you guys for being here. But these sessions feature live instruction, supplier highlights, real time q and a, and it just gives you the structure and interaction of a classroom without the travel, the time constraint, the budget constraint. And then finally, our on demand courses take all this content, and we turn it into self paced learning that you can consume on your own schedule, which is perfect.

And this type of modality is also really great for reinforcement, for new hire onboarding. If you’ve attended some of this training virtually or live, but you wanna revisit specific modules, that that is really great for, on demand learning. So every mastery class and every beyond the solution class will be offered in all three formats, in person, virtual, and on demand. And then our foundations course will be available virtual and in in on demand format. So my action item now that you’ve identified kind of which class resonates the most with you is to actually go to our calendar and register for the next class opportunity. You can do that by going to telarus dot com slash calendar. You’ll see a list of in person and virtual events that you can register for.

And then if you want to access on demand learning, you can do that on Telarus University through Telarus Hub. So once you log in to Telarus Hub at telarus hub dot com, you will see an education tab in the top navigation menu all the way on the right side. When you click on that, you’ll see Telarus University. That’ll take you directly into the platform. And from there, you’ll be able to view a catalog full of courses made from both our internal SMEs and from, our suppliers in our portfolio.

Before we move on, you know, we’ve we’ve already executed some of these trainings this year. We’ve had a couple virtual events, couple in person. I’m just curious to see, if any of you on the call, have engaged in any of those. So go ahead and just drop, like, your favorite emoji in the chat or drop the name of the class that you attended.

I know we had last week, beyond the solution with Chad. Back in January, we had one with Graeme. We had some in person, events last week. We had a marketing mastery and a sales mastery.

So there’s advisers just like you who are, you know, engaging in this training and continuing to learn. So it’s a great outlet to not just continue your education, but also leverage relationships and and grow from, people who are going through the same thing as you. So be on the solution. Okay. Love it. All of them? Great.

Awesome.

Alright.

I think well, you know, on the topic of upcoming events, we do have a couple upcoming events I think that you’re gonna tease.

Actually, yes. I am going to tease those. Jojo, by the way, just fantastic job with everything. There were so many clear pathways for advisors to kind of grow and find the right next step in their development.

And, hey, guys. I went to an event last week. I went to the one in Chicago. I got to see Sumera.

I got to see Graeme. It was a very exciting, event to be at because we are we have this brand new way that we’re presenting information. Lots of fun workshops. We’re doing things live in person with other technology advisers and suppliers, and it really was so valuable.

So I hope you guys get a chance to go. And since we are on topic, I want to highlight at least two virtual sessions just happening in the next week in, the next two weeks. On March fifth at ten AM Mountain Standard Time, we’re hosting our business mastery class. It is a two part session built to help you strengthen the operational and strategic side of the advisory business.

So you’ll learn practical tools, repeatable strategies for long term profitability, leadership, and business health. There are only a couple days left to register, so please be sure to grab your spot, and we will drop a link in chat. So please go in and register for that. And the other virtual event that you wanna have on your radar is that on March twelfth at ten AM Mountain Standard Time, Sumera Riaz and Trevor Burnside are leading our next beyond the solution cybersecurity session.

Now this class helps you position security not as a fear based conversation, but as a strategic business enabler. Like, it’s tied to the resilience, the compliance, and operational continuity. So you’re gonna walk through industry trends. You’re gonna walk through some selling techniques and find practical ways to integrate cybersecurity into broader technology strategies.

And it is coming up fast. And, again, I say it a lot, but it’s true. We have so many folks that register so quickly. Make sure that you get registered while space is still open.

And now that you know a few opportunities coming up, I do wanna shift into our q and a. If you haven’t had your questions into the chat quite yet, now is the perfect time. I do like to pull from chat, and you can message me directly if you don’t wanna put them publicly. But, Jojo, since I have already gotten some, I’m gonna go ahead and start with so many learning paths available.

How do you recommend advisers decide which class or track to take next?

I mean, I think it comes down to where you need the most support today. So, again, it kinda goes back to that question that I asked earlier in the chat. When we did the polling is where have you identified gaps in your business today? What would you benefit the most from?

Right? If you’re feeling overwhelmed, Telarus Foundations is for you. If you want better deal progression, sales mastery. If you need more pipeline, which it sounds like a lot of you do, marketing mastery is gonna be the way to go.

If you’re growing and need systems put in place business mastery, and then if you’re ready for strategic, like, really a lot more high value deals, beyond the solution is your go to. But it sounds like, most of the folks on here are gonna be engaging in marketing mastery, which is very exciting. I’ll be thrilled to tell Tim.

I know. He’s gonna be thrilled too. As for our, like, beyond the solution sessions, those by the way, those all cover the swim lanes of, like, CX, AI, cloud, cybersecurity, advanced networking. What’s one theme that you consistently resonating with advisers?

Oh my gosh. Well, I actually I saw this in person, a couple weeks ago. I went to a Beyond the Solution AI in Salt Lake City. And the one common being that I noticed across all the tables during workshops was, like, advisers were kind of having an moment about not needing to be the technical expert to sell advanced solutions, and how leading with business outcome conversations create so much more value.

And a lot of them have not been using our engineering team as an extension of their own team. And that’s the quickest path, to to getting you into progressing those a lot like, you know, those more complex deals is, like, don’t stress about being the technical expert. I know technology is changing all the time. Everybody wants to stay up to date on it.

But guess what? That is what our engineering team is completely dedicated for, so leverage them, because they’re more than happy to, again, act as an extension of your team and sit in on calls with you to help advance those deals forward.

Wonderful. Wonderful. I do have another one that came in, but which format tends to create the fastest learning impact? Is it live sessions, in person workshops, or, like, Telarus University on demand?

I would say that the in person workshops definitely tend to create the fastest breakthroughs, and it’s because you are live and you are practicing. You are getting that pure interaction. You’re actually sitting at the tables with suppliers, so you’re also getting guidance from suppliers who, you know, deal with this on a day to day basis and have seen, everything on on the spectrum from, you know, roadblocks that are commonly encountered, objections that are commonly given. Right?

So they can kind of help guide you in real time. I mean, all three formats are equally strong. It just depends on the way that you’re you like to learn, and, you know, that was our whole approach is we’re designing these to meet advisers where they are and still deliver, meaningful progress. But I would say, again, the ones that create the fastest breakthroughs are those in person events.

Wonderful. Wonderful. And just one last one before we, have to to pivot here. What where can folks find where, like, the live sessions or in person ones are? Obviously, on demand, you guys all should know where Telarus University is. But, obviously, if you haven’t, we have resources at Telarus University and, of course, Telarus Hub. Where else can they find information when it comes to, like, where these sessions are or where these workshops are?

Yeah. So, again, if you guys go to Telarus dot com slash calendar, it will show you all of our education sessions coming up. It clearly defines if it’s in person, if it’s virtual, the times, the days, the locations for those in person ones, which are typically got some really, really cool locations, again, because there’s a networking experience anchored to it. So you all get to do a fun activity.

But Telarus dot com slash calendar should be your go to. And then, of course, connect with your partner development manager and talk to them about your education needs. They’ll also be able to point you in the right direction.

Wonderful. Jojo, thank you so much for giving us a comprehensive and energizing look at the twenty twenty six curriculum. I know that the team, all the departments have worked so hard to listen to the TAs and really get feedback, so we are giving you guys what you want. So I really appreciate you coming on and just telling us all about what’s gonna be happening this year.