Telarus protects our culture in a deliberate way.
Telarus is a private company owned by Adam Edwards, Patrick Oborn, and Richard Murray with investment from Columbia Capital. In 2002, Adam and Patrick bootstrapped the company from savings and commissions they earned as Commission River online affiliates. Telarus first consisted of Patrick Oborn generating leads with ShopforT1.com and Adam Edwards making sales from the steady stream of new prospects. That early stream of the residual commission was re-invested into channel managers who could support new agents, new software developers and employ the services of a patent attorney to assist us with the patent application for GeoQuote, our new real-time quoting software. In October 2017, Telarus acquired CarrierSales, a competitor in the master agent space, to create the largest privately-held master agent in the country. Columbia’s investment in Telarus will fuel its continued growth as it expands its lead as the largest privately-held master agent. Telarus’ existing management team continues to lead and maintain a majority stake in the company.
Our Leadership Team
Adam Edwards is a co-founder of Telarus and serves as our chief executive officer. He’s responsible for the strategy and the culture of the organization which means he focuses on “who we are” and makes sure we’re focused on helping partners be successful.
Richard comes to us from CarrierSales as one of the co-owners of Telarus. He is responsible for overseeing all operations to ensure the best and most efficient support channels are made available to our partners. Richard is responsible for “What we do"
Patrick Oborn is a co-founder of Telarus, Inc. and a driver in marketing and communication efforts. "What's next" is what Patrick does, and has done since the beginning. Patrick wouldn't take 'no' for an answer during the start-up phase of the company, coming up with the idea for GeoQuote (real-time quoting), lead sharing, and more. He now oversees the entire partner experience set out to optimize and innovate every touch-point a partner has with Telarus services and tools.
Zane’s primary responsibility is “paying for it” which means he’s responsible for financial planning and analysis, accounting, but most importantly making sure we pay our partners accurately and on time.
Dan Foster is responsible for all revenue streams and driving growth for Telarus and our partners. Dan focuses on the “why and how" to bring strategy, solutions, and passion to delivering a world-class partner experience.
Additional Leadership
Amy is responsible for “what we say.” Amy has taken events at Telarus to the next level with over 150 events per year including educational Academies, Partner Advisory Council meetings, and Telarus Partner Summit - our signature 1,000 person conference. She manages events, creative marketing, content, and recruiting. Amy serves as the president of Alliance of Channel Women.
Brandon is our leading expert in Contact Center solutions. Our partners can engage Brandon on their related opportunities and gain a critical asset in discovering and designing the best fitting solution for a clients needs.
Bryce manages all support services including account management, project management and general support. Making sure our partners can price, sell, implement, and retain customers is where Bryce focuses.
Chad is responsible for owning the brand strategy, and visual experience across all channels in a way that reflects the unique services, values, and personality of Telarus. He drives awareness and brand loyalty, manages a growing creative team of designers, writers, an email specialist, and works closely with our video production team. Chad partners with peers in sales, IT, and operations to reach and exceed big growth goals.
Christie is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the overall strategy and relationship development of Telarus Suppliers, both internal and external facing. She manages, trains, and develops the Telarus Supplier Management team. Christie also leads the planning of supplier meetings, QBR’s, and initiatives where they develop goals, objectives, measures, and procedures to ensure supplier satisfaction. She assists in the negotiation of supplier contracts and coordinates with operations and commissions team for high level escalation support.
Chris is our leading expert in IoT solutions. Our partners can engage Chris on their related opportunities and gain a critical asset in discovering and designing the best fitting solution for a clients needs.
Ciera manages the training and organization of Telarus support staff, making sure all of our partners are offered the best resources to guide them through their opportunities.
Jo is responsible sales and support of Lumen services. Jo has significant experience and leads a team of more than 12 specialists who focus only on supporting large and/or complex Lumen opportunities. Jo’s team is known across the industry for their unsurpassed ability to help partners succeed with Lumen.
Josh leads our team of engineers who make sure our partners have access to solution assessments, designs, and knowledgeable engineers to help our partners successfully sell to their customers. Josh has been involved in engineering and cloud technologies over the last decade.
Kameron oversees the field sales operations in the East and Southwest.
Koby is our leading expert in Cloud solutions. Our partners can engage Koby on their related opportunities and gain a critical asset in discovering and designing the best fitting solution for a clients needs.
Lesley is responsible for the overall productivity and effectiveness of the international sales organization. Lesley fosters close working relationships with the internal teams and partners to ensure efficient operation and success within the sales organizations. She leads the processes and tools that enable the Sales Team to make Telarus partners leaders that are productive and strategic within their markets.
Michael is responsible for the development, implementation, and maintenance of the software solutions for Telarus and VXSuite. His teams are also responsible for implementing and supporting the IT Support and infrastructure for Telarus. He brings over 25 years of operational, development and IT Management experience to the team, including six years with a Managed Service Provider.
Mike oversees the field sales operations in the US West and Midwest.
Michelle is responsible for managing three separate teams with specific functions. One team handles processing of commission payments from Suppliers. The second team is Revenue Assurance – focused on data analytics on existing commission payments and proactively opening inquiries with Suppliers on commission changes. The third and final team, Inquiries, is a team of analysts who are Agent facing and who handle incoming inquiries and escalations on commission payments. Michelle ensures service level standards are met or exceeded for each team, serves as an escalation point on incorrectly paid or unpaid commission inquiries, and drives process improvement and efficiency through the Commission Team.
Rich is our in-house corporate attorney overseeing contract and brand legality. Rich is also available through our Loyalty Program from consultation.
Ruth oversees the participation management of our selling partners.
Shane is our leading expert in Unified Communications solutions. Our partners can engage Shane on their related opportunities and gain a critical asset in discovering and designing the best fitting solution for a clients needs.
Sharron leads the HR team and is responsible for the culture of the organization making sure we hire the best and retain the best team to help our partners.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is a Master Agent, and What Does Telarus Do Different Than Other Masters?
A Master Agent is an agency that
- Signs carrier contracts and consolidates volume
- Assists its sub-agents with pre-and-post-sales support
- Consolidates commissions from multiple carriers into one monthly commission statement/payment
- Leverages its size to gain concessions from carriers on behalf of its agents. Since master agents pool the volume of hundreds of independent agents into a single contract with each carrier, the community at large does not have to bear the burden of sales quotas, providing for a more stable and stress-free income stream.
Telarus, Inc., founded in 2002 by entrepreneurs Adam Edwards and Patrick Oborn, was created in response to the horrible agent support they received as subagents. Frustrated with long delays that accompanied each price quote request, the level of commission they were earning, the lack of accuracy of their commission checks, and the risks they took entrusting their business to master agents who stood on shaky financial ground, Telarus was born. Agents today will find Telarus is the best, offering real-time quotes on the transactional products, personalized support from industry experts on complex solutions, direct contracts with all carrier partners, audited commissions, and home-grown software that makes agents efficient.
Here are a few of our differentiators:
- Full Service Support
- Sales Engineering
- Base Management
- Project Management
- Partner Support
- Commissions How You Like It
But even more important than the efficiencies we’ve created is our reputation. Integrity is at the heart of our business and we take great pride in doing right by our agents and carriers, every when nobody is watching. Our philosophy is that business is a direct reflection of its owners and management, not an entity you can hide behind while making immoral decisions.
Is Telarus a Master Agent or a Software Company?
Both. When Telarus founders began the company, they found it was not acceptable that quotes took days, even weeks, to come back. It was not acceptable to manage a large base of customers using Excel spreadsheets. It was not acceptable to be in the dark with relation to all of the carrier’s service footprint. The only way to build the master agent of the future was to invest heavily in software so that the necessary efficiencies could be built into the quoting, customer management, accounting, and commissioning systems. Today Telarus is consistently one of the top producers with each carrier we represent. Telarus is heavily involved on the back end as we generate millions of lines of source code each year with our team of software developers who have built our robust systems on the foundation of PHP, Cold Fusion, mySQL, SQL Server, Java, and JavaScript.
Having our own software development division enables us to produce tools at the request of our agent partners and employees. All of our peers have to license outside software and any modifications are extremely difficult, which is a challenge Telarus does not have.
What Is the Ownership and Financial Structure of Telarus?
Telarus is a private company that is 100% owned by Adam Edwards, Patrick Oborn, and Richard Murray. In 2002, Adam and Patrick bootstrapped the company from savings and commissions they were earning as Commission River online affiliates. Telarus first consisted of Patrick Oborn generating leads with ShopforT1.com and Adam Edwards making sales from the steady stream of new prospects. That early stream of residual commission was re-invested into channel managers that could support new agents, new software developers, and to employ the services of a patent attorney to assist us with the patent application for GeoQuote, our new real-time quoting software. In October 2017, Telarus acquired CarrierSales, a competitor in the master agent space to create the largest privately-held master agent in the country. Today, Adam, Patrick, and Richard each own a one-third share of the company. All of our growth has been internally financed through operations. By keeping creditors and outside investors from tainting our decisions or changing our focus on our number one goal Telarus has empowered itself to revolutionize the way carriers sell network solutions through the agent channel.
How Much Commission Does Telarus Pay Its Agents?
Telarus pays its agent and VAR partners a residual commission according to the terms in your contract. We offer pass-through as well as fixed commission percentage payments which are negotiable based upon the volume and growth potential of a new partner. The standard rates that we pass will be revealed to you once a non-disclosure agreement is in place. To get started, complete your agent application and we contact you with further details. As a Tier 1 Master Agent, Telarus enjoys the highest commissions available from each of our carrier partners, so our pass-through is, in many cases, higher that what you can earn working with a carrier on your own.
How and When Are Commissions Paid?
Telarus pays out commissions on the 28th of each month via Electronic Funds Transfer (ACH). International agents can receive their commission via PayPal.
How Long After a Sale Does It Take for Commissions to Be Paid?
The answer varies between 30 and 90 days. The main factor is the time it takes for the supplier to credit approve your client, install, turn up their service, and send or collect a first bill. Once the supplier receives its first payment from a client, Telarus is paid around the 15th of the month, just 13 days ahead of your payday which is the 28th of each month. Bigger networks will start to commission as soon as the first site is turned up and billing, and continue to grow until the entire network is billing.
Looking for a company who is small enough to feel the impact of your contribution, yet large enough to provide career stability and ongoing mentoring?
Welcome to Telarus – the company built from the ground up to foster, celebrate, and reward excellence. As an industry thought leader, we’re looking for the best and brightest to join our team and to make an immediate impact.
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Interested in Becoming a Partner?
Get Started”I needed resources, people with integrity, and people with experience. Telarus wants to see me succeed and the amount of support around me is really overwhelming. If I don't succeed, it's because of me, not because Telarus didn't give me the support I needed to succeed. It's like going into battle by yourself, or going into battle with an entire team with different expertise behind you; by yourself, you wouldn't last very long.
Elan CraneWheelhouse Virtual Solutions
”When I chose Telarus as my partner, it was because of their knowledge in the industry and their relationships. I help customers get off premise and onto cloud. It's the experience and selections that Telarus comes to the table with that allows me to put together real solutions. Then they support me and make me look better.
Jill BlankenshipCEO at Frontline Group LLC
info@telarus.com
877-346-3232
45 W Sego Lily Dr,
