HITT- First Half of 2025 and the Upcoming Partner Summit- July 1, 2025

In a reflective discussion, Telarus CEO Adam Edwards and CCO Richard Murray shared insights on the wins and challenges faced in the first half of 2025, highlighting the rapid progression of the year and the diverse performance trends among advisors. They previewed the upcoming Telarus Partner Summit, emphasizing its role in fostering advisor growth and connection, while also addressing the importance of adapting to new features and maintaining strong supplier relationships. The conversation touched on the increasing interest in mergers and acquisitions, the significance of quality data, and the growing demand for consulting services in the industry. With a record number of new suppliers and a focus on education, the summit aims to energize the community and encourage early registration.

Transcript is auto-generated.

Introduction to High Intensity Tech Training

Well, it is time now for our high intensity tech training. Today, we take a step back to reflect on the wins, the lessons, and the momentum from the first half of twenty twenty five. We will hear directly from Telarus CEO, Adam Edwards, and the chief commercial officer Richard Murray as they share insights on the current state of the technology channel. What’s steady? What’s shifting? What it all means for your business right now?

Also, we’ll receive a preview today of what’s ahead for the upcoming Telarus Partner Summit, August fourth through the sixth, a must attend event for advisors seeking to grow, connect, and lead in this rapidly evolving market. I could not be happier to welcome back to the Telarus Tuesday call at our hit training event, Telarus CEO Adam Edwards and Telarus chief commercial officer Richard Murray. Thanks to you both, and here we are already in July.

Reflections on the Year So Far

Yeah. Thanks, Doug. It was actually a little bit of a shock to the system to hear you say July. I I don’t think I’m ready for it to be this far into the year already.

And yet it just keeps coming at us.

Adam, we’re ready to go?

I we’re ready to do it. I’ve been bouncing around networks, testing them all out, all three of them, and, I think I’m settled. Let’s do this.

Alright. Fantastic.

Well, look. I I you know, Adam and I, as we talked about coming on today, we thought it may actually just be funner to have a a bit of just a conversation, and, and kinda walk through our thoughts and some of the things that that we’ve seen so far through this year and and how we we see kind of the state of the industry.

Casual Conversation on Industry Insights

So no slides, no presentations. Really just a a conversation between the two of us.

So, Adam, I’m I’m gonna yeah. I’ll I’ll I’ll, I’ll tee you up because I I love to hear how how you view things, and I think everybody on here will will as well. As you look at the first six months of the year, what what are some of your, your thoughts on on what you’ve seen?

You know, it’s it’s been interesting. And we kinda have this view not kind of. We have this view where we’re able to see so many different advisors and what their business is looking like, how it compares to, previous months. And what’s interesting is you see people hit their highs. You see some people trailing off, and you you kinda get this aggregation. It creates a trend. But seldom do they all move in the same direction.

Understanding Market Softness

And we saw some of that at the beginning of the year. What we saw with softness, and it wasn’t it wasn’t a single product category. It wasn’t a single region. We saw softness, you know, with a lot of advisers. And as we started asking them and then asking suppliers what was going on, we started hearing this common refrain of, you know, the sign dates were just getting pushed back.

And and I I think this is something we’ve seen in the past where, you know, the channel does really well in, good times. People want new technology. They wanna change. They wanna make the upgrades.

They don’t wanna get left behind. But then in a downturn as well, we do equally well. You know? Some people in our neighborhoods, you know, are, in in, you know, industries that are subject to interest rates or they’re subject to, you know, an economic downturn.

Impact of Uncertainty on Business Decisions

But we tend to thrive because people are trying to save money and they’re, taking a look at infrastructure. They’re taking a look at optimizing, and we tend to thrive whether it’s an upturn or a downturn. Where we tend to see, problems is when people hesitate. I think it’s uncertainty.

And that’s what we started to see in the beginning of the year was uncertainty. You know, initially, it was January.

We we saw a lot of questions in January after the election. We’ve seen questions around tariffs. But I think there’s a lot of, you know, organizations that are putting things off internally.

And we’ve seen some speed up there, but I think as people get conviction, that’s when things take off. By the way, it reminds me a lot of last year. Last year, we saw softness at the beginning and then things went gangbusters, the last part of the year. And so it’s hard to look. If we could predict it, you know, we’ve we none of us would be working. We’d just be, you know, buying buying stocks or going to Vegas.

Anticipating Future Market Activity

But, you know, what ends up happening is the year, our years end up being about what they think they are, but they never come together in the way that we predict they will. It’s it’s never smooth. So we see big, you know, massive months like, December was, and then we see different changes. I think right now we’re seeing activity.

We’ve seen I’ll tell you what, more registrations, more pricing requests in the last three months. They’ve been record setting months. But, in terms of closes, that’s when, you know, that’s when you really know that demand curve has hit again. So it’s interesting.

It’s it’s playing out differently than I think we we anticipated but looks like last year, which means, you know, if it is like last year, then second half of the year is, like like I said before, gangbusters, if that’s a if that’s a word.

Internal Reflections on Telarus Performance

Well and and, I mean, a lot of that is industry focus, obviously, how it impacts the Telarus number as well. I I do just wanna, come back and ask how you view kind of the first part of the year for Telarus more internally, like the the reflections what we’ve done, where our focus has been.

Yeah. You know, we’re we’re so key. We just had our all hands yesterday. What we tend to talk on our all hands call about is, you know, how our advisers are doing, how and, you know, bookings is an indication of that. So we’re very tied to that. Although a lot of things we’re working on are very long term in nature.

You know, the the big focus this year we said no to a lot of things. One of the challenges we have in this organization is we wanna do so much, and we’re so excited about these different things.

Limiting those and focusing, you know, has been something I think we’ve done really well in the last two years, and that was on Hub this year. So we launched that in March, March nineteenth.

And, we have released over a hundred new changes or features to that since March nineteenth. We’ve never developed this fast. We never iterated that move this new platform, move to a a less code debt no code debt, I should say. And the promise was we could move ask. You know?

Rapid Development of New Features

It’s not You’re wrong.

And hold on, Adam. Your your network is is is jittery.

I I I I I picked the wrong one.

Let let the jokes begin of I I know someone that can help sell you an Internet connection, but you already have three also.

See, that is I bought them all.

That’s the problem is I bought I bought them all. I have I have many connections.

Bernadette, I I appreciate you not disappointing what I would have said on a call as well.

So so look, Hub, I I agree. I I’ve been impressed at how fast, the team can take input from advisers and say, hey. What about this? Or I don’t like this.

And I I think our ability to listen and change is, isn’t an all time high for us, and and that’ll continue.

Yeah. It’s, it it it’s been fascinating to me to see the team move as quickly as we are. That’s one of the reasons that we want to move from ABO is because forty percent of our time is spent maintaining.

Maintain the data, making sure it matches on both sides, making sure when we build a feature in hub, it is also backward compatible and we’re maintaining. So forty percent of our time goes to maintaining.

Transitioning to a New Platform

And post July nine, post next week, we can dedicate all of that time to building new functionality. I think that’s one of the been one of the frustrations for years as we had these requests from advisors of, hey. If we could have this feature or that feature and that list kept growing. Our capacity to get through that list seemed to slow as that list grew because, you know, these businesses continue to grow and evolve, and we’ve gotta be ahead of it.

And and, that’s, you know, it’s it’s it’s, uncomfortable. I’ll tell you that. I I think internally, you you could agree with this that, you know, it’s uncomfortable to create change like this because you wanna just get there. And, as we do, I think people will will look back and go, wow. I wish we had done that sooner. But getting through it tends to be tends to be tough.

Advisors’ Reactions to Platform Changes

Yeah. And it well, and it’s never easy. I think for some of the advisers that are, are so accustomed to ABO, it it the change impacts them more. There there’s more sadness around, hey. I use this one little feature, and it’s no you know, it’s not in hub yet.

And yet those advisers that maybe have less history with ABO are absolutely in love with the hub and the ease and the the the, you know, the refresh look and all the things. And so we’re we’re we’re seeing those two levels of of talk tracks coming in.

Well, I think there’s a correlation. I mean, those who have been with us for, you know, ten plus years favor ABO because it was built iterating with them of, hey. And what if we could do this and what if we could do that? But I’ll tell you, anyone who’s been with us five years or less tends to feel like, hey.

Differing Perspectives Among Long-term and New Advisors

This is much more of what I want to see. These features are where I can find things more easily, because they didn’t grow up with ABO. So we we are seeing that and, certainly gonna work with our our, advisors through it to make sure they’ve got the things they need and some coming late. I mean, we got some that are getting released right before July ninth and right after, but we are moving fast.

I’ve never seen us develop at this pace, and it’s only gonna get quicker, once we can move fully to the hub.

Yeah. So, hey.

I wanna jump for a minute. You know, it’s it’s a mystery sometimes. You talk about it in the advisory council, you know, and and our leadership meetings, we certainly, talk about it. But you have been on the road nonstop, the first half of the year talking with suppliers.

And, I I want you to give, the the the community here an idea of what those conversations are like because, you know, you put together the you talk with so many of these different executives from suppliers, about best practices, about what we want to see, but you’re seeing trends as well of what the suppliers are doing and what advisers should be aware of. Can you talk a bit just about this first year and what you’re seeing?

Yeah.

I mean, to to your point, there there was a stretch where I was, actually on the road thirty two of this forty nine days in a seven week period at advisory councils at meeting. And I think what’s been just, really, I don’t know, awesome to see is is where the channel is viewed overall. Everybody agrees they need to have a channel. And so then it’s how do we help them have a channel.

Supplier Commitment to Channel Growth

I I mentioned in, at Presence Club that one of our large suppliers has an OKR to be I think it was forty five percent channel this year, fifty five next year, and then eighty percent of their business they want to be running through the channel in in, three years. And and that’s a huge commitment, and we’re seeing that from a lot of the suppliers. So you’ve got some that are really leaning in and then some that are still figuring it out. And so some of the the conversations that I feel like I’m repeatedly having, I I would say number one is around renewals.

And, you know, there’s there’s a few areas of that. There’s the just the network suppliers that, you know, we all have very large bases with that they wanna make sure that we’re in renewing those and upselling those.

But then the if you think back to what was happening, you know, you’ve you’ve got the big COVID UC and CC, CX burst, and you’ve got all of those contracts that are coming up. And and so the need to be in having those conversations around renewals is one that all of my suppliers are are bringing up.

So that that’s probably number one. I think from there, I see, two things happening. I see some suppliers that are really leaning in and doing all of the right things and then some that, I I would say are doing not not out of malice or or, you know, necessarily they they want the channel. It’s just they’re bringing in people that maybe don’t understand the channel, kind of, you know, call it the uninitiated, I think, is a word that I’ve heard you use around it, where, you know, we did a bit of an internal study where of of our top suppliers, sixty, sixty two percent of those are led by people who don’t come from our channel.

Challenges with Supplier Understanding of the Channel

They’re either former direct leaders. They come from Cisco or Microsoft, or more of the legacy distribution model. So they understand channel, but not the nuance of our channel. And and so where that kind of ends up rearing its ugly head is just program complexity would be the number one area that I’ve seen.

They come in and they introduce all these legacy things. And so I think one of my core focuses of my job has been to try to teach them, ask them you know, teach them how to avoid some of those mistakes, I would call them, around so so that we can keep their channel moving. Right? They they want channel.

Navigating Supplier Policies and Practices

My job is to help them keep that going.

And the good news is is when I’m unsuccessful and maybe we have a supplier that introduces, you know, they’re denying registrations on deals or they’re they they come in and they try to limit, Evergreen, which candidly is another area where I’m seeing is suppliers trying to limit what Evergreen means in a contract. Right? It mean you know, they they maybe want you to be involved in the customer renewal. Make sure you’re registering that or make making sure that you’re the one doing all of the work, which, you know, isn’t all all we’re we’re great at maintaining the relationship, but we have to show that we’re continuing and involving in that.

Advisors’ Adaptability to Supplier Changes

But, anyway, when suppliers do that, the the beauty of it is is we’ve got other suppliers that are doing great things, and the channel will do what we always do and adjust.

And if somebody comes in with some bad terms or they get overly complex, which some have, takes them a minute, and they realize six months or a year into a bad decision that, oh, where did all my sales go? Oh, it turns out the channel is really good at moving it to where, there there’s the path of least resistance or better terms are available.

You know, we we’ve seen that cycle, so many times. I think this is for that, bit of leverage. You know, I have great faith, that, you know, an adviser is going to, move an opportunity where they’re gonna be treated best, which is only natural. But that is one of the things we see over and over. These people who are supposed channel experts from outside of our channel tend to impose, processes that just don’t work or policies that just don’t work. But but, what I’ve seen you do, and I I I think the audience needs to know this, is you’ve saved a lot of those suppliers from making dumb mistakes, in the education.

Now it does it’s not always it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes they just can’t help it. But the number of advisers that have backed off of silly policies that would have hurt advisers and ultimately hurt themselves. It’s a two year recovery process that we typically see when we insert a dumb policy, of, you know, stopping, you know, evergreen or diminishing commissions, on a renewal cycle, those kinds of things.

The Importance of Healthy Supplier Relationships

You have talked them off the ledge so many times, but but, ultimately, the the leverage that we have is when they do make a mistake, the advisers will move business elsewhere. And thank goodness we’ve got choices. That’s where we thrive as a channel is really when we’ve got choices.

Well, I I don’t wanna take all the credit for saving, but I I because it ultimately comes down to them listening. Right? And so so many of them have good intent. And I think where that marries in well is they understand that Telarus as a whole, but especially me, I I care about just the overall health of the channel.

And so sometimes, the, you know, this the these new leaders will approach it with caution or skepticism that, hey. Maybe I’m just in trying to negotiate something over them. And while yes. I I always want the best contractual terms.

I also just care about a strong, healthy channel.

And once they understand that, that’s when we tend to to get the the best response and the best structure.

But, again, as much as I I want people to hear, there are some suppliers that are leaning, you know, looking at doing things that we don’t love, and we’re we are on the wall defending that.

The flip side is we’ve got some suppliers that are leaning in more than they ever have, and so it’s our job together to find those and reward those that behave well.

Yep. Absolutely.

You know, the the other thing I feel like I should mention real quick, and then we can talk about whatever you want, is, I I don’t think I’ve ever seen a time in in in our our our growth where we’ve been adding so having so many new suppliers come to us.

And I think probably the closest kin to it was was during the UC boom when you had four hundred UC suppliers. And, yes, some were an asterisk switch in their in their mom’s garage.

But there were so many UC suppliers, you didn’t know who was going to be good. And so, you know, Telarus probably signed forty of them, and then it came down to where there were ten and then really, you know, less than that that really matter that drive a lot of the number. And, you know, we’re certainly seeing that in security and cloud.

But then with AI, the number of AI people that are knocking on the door, we’ve brought on over I I think we’re we’re at now thirty two suppliers that we’ve brought on this year.

And you can’t accomplish that with still maintaining our very high I I would say we still have the highest standards of contracts.

And so the beauty is we now have enough leverage that most of many of them are signing our contract.

Right? So we’re starting from an easier base. And so introducing that, I’d say probably a year or two ago, where we’re like, hey. If you wanna come on, that’s great, but it’s gotta be our contract.

It has allowed us to accelerate a lot faster and bring on more suppliers than we’ve been able to do in the past and still maintain our standards. And then we’re still, you know, walking through. You should see the list of negotiations that that we currently have.

It’s kinda mind boggling, and and in some cases, how long they go. But, you know, we’ve got a a punch list of things that we have to have in a contract, and, those that that will get there faster get get to come on faster. But it’s it’s a it’s an interesting time with so much demand. I mean, we still say no over twenty times a month to suppliers because they don’t they they don’t have the investment. They don’t have channel structure.

They they they won’t do the contractual terms that we, you know, that are necessary for a strong channel, so we say no.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s well, it’s great to see that pace quickened, but, you know, our our duty has always been to vet to make sure we’re we’re putting reputable companies that are gonna make our advisers look good and, you know, do well for the customer. And that’s a pretty high bar.

It’s number one, you know, making sure they’ve got the product. Number two, they’ve got a channel program, but number three, that agreement. And it’s great to see we streamline that, that we’ve got the, you know, the the leverage now to say, no. This is the contract we go with, not your modified residential contract that you use for your resellers, which takes so much time to rework and turn into a channel contract, that that that really has quickened the pace, which is great to see.

The Evolution of M&A Conversations

Yeah. Let let me put one back on you because I I it seems like anytime advisors have you one on one, They ask you about m and a.

And, you you know, we’ve got obviously, it it’s less one on one, so you’re not gonna be able to personalize the answer.

But I think everybody would benefit to hear from how how you viewed m and a and and where where it stands and how they should be thinking about it.

You know, it’s I’m surprised at how often it’s a topic of conversations. It’s been around for five years now. I mean, we’re looking at five years. It’s it’s been a lot.

There was, you know, TSD roll up started where there was consolidation there, and then the advisory roll up started, shortly after that, and it’s continued. And, you know, it’s no longer the fever pitch it was. It was interesting to see the evolution of how advisers look at it. You know, first, I would call the first wave, you know, they think I’m pretty and want to dance with me phase, where people were just elated to have a conversation because there just wasn’t a market to sell an advisory in the past.

And there clearly is now. And now it’s a question around terms. And now, you know, I think advisors have gotten really smart about the fact that there are different options and they can weigh them out and decide what’s best for them. What is still fascinating to me is the number of people I talk to and have regrets after transaction.

And less so now than maybe two years ago, but I think that’s really a function of not knowing what you really want. And while people have been thoughtful and ask themselves a question, I think a lot of times we as human beings just don’t know what we want. We think we want, you know, to lay on a beach and, you know, have all the stresses of life removed. And the truth is, that’s not necessarily what we want. You know.

People who have have have fought through challenge and experienced progress and experienced success, like to continue doing that. And some are ready to sit on a beach. But what I find is those that are more thoughtful about what they want are happier with the outcome.

Those things are continuing on. M and A is continuing on. It’s going to get by the way, there are more buyers that are trying to enter the market. They just have not sharpened their approach or their offer, and so they have not been very successful, those that have come on in the last year or so, because you’ve really got to offer compelling value to an advisor who is going to transact with you.

And and so we’ll continue to see that, but I think we’re seeing that mature to a phase kinda like the insurance brokerage industry where it’s just always there. It’s always an option. And what I like most about this is, advisor looking at it and saying, great. Now I know I’ve got that option. I can build toward that in five years, ten years, etcetera. So in terms of the offers, we’re not seeing them change a whole lot.

You know, some of them are getting a little better. Some are staying the same.

But that it it is just always going to be here. And that’s a great thing that people recognize value, in these businesses. I’ll tell you one thing that’s changing though is the, the the bigger players, the bigger investors out there are looking at this. And the reason they do is this is a proxy for digital transformation.

You know, if if you’re trying to invest in, data centers, you know, or in AI companies. Well, one way to do it is, to invest in the organizations that are selling it because they benefit from the same trend, and it’s just a better way to, to get something that’s more durable without having to risk the r and d or having to invest in the real estate or infrastructure. You know, when you look at advisory, you know, organization, it is benefiting from the exact same trend, and I would argue at a much lower cost of capital, meaning, it doesn’t require such an immense investment, to to, to play.

And so that’s why I think it’s it’s gonna continue to be a, a part of the business.

Yeah. And it’s it’s interesting as that’s evolved. Just I mean, the professionalization of it, the I I would say an increased demand for data around those transactions, right, of making sure you have all of your customer information and history and contract information, all of those, and and that you’re on top of it. And that you you know, I’ve I’ve seen that, really help valuations or kill deals.

The Importance of Clean Data in Transactions

Yeah. You know, it it centers around clean data. Unfortunately, the the people who have been in the in in this game for a while now understand the data and could put it together pretty quickly. But to have clean data is everything. You know, it’s interesting. We were talking about this a little, bit ago, but the, you know, the request for consulting services that we get, of course, we ask people internally not to respond to those, but I’m sure most people on the call have received those requests for, hey. We’d love pay a couple hundred dollars an hour.

You know, that is a good indication that people are asking for that. It means investors are asking for the research, and that’s why you see this flurry of activity every once in a while is because there are some investors that are keenly interested on researching. What I would say about those is, be careful what you say because it is permanently recorded.

We we we, so just so the audience knows, we got a sample, license for one of those tools, and we’re able to go and see people from the industry. And it didn’t say their name, but it said the organization and their position. So you can narrow it down. I mean, this is a small enough industry.

We we know each other. And so you can see, you know, the CRO from this place, the VP of engineering from that place, and you can see exactly what they said, you know, whether a couple months ago or a year ago. So what I would say is number one, be careful what you say on those calls because it’s permanently recorded, and people are going to be researching it. But number two, you know, talking great terms about the channel, about the prospects because you are informing, future investors, future entrants into the channel.

And, we wanna make sure that people coming in have an accurate view of what we’re seeing, and and are positive. Still, our policy is internally is let’s not take those calls.

But, if you are gonna take those calls, I would ask that you, speak well of the channel.

Alright.

The Future of the Channel

Well and look. I I think it it ties into many of us have done this for so long that it’s easy to take for granted what the channel is and has become. But I think for most of us, we’ve got to admit that this it’s it’s larger than we thought it would be, but we still have so much more to go.

Like, the the maturity of the channel is just beginning. And when I I talk to, suppliers that maybe come from traditional distribution, they they have a different view of who we are. Like, we’re the preferred model going forward Yeah. This channel, our advisers, and the TSD structure.

But in, you know, somebody that came from legacy distribution, we still have so much growth to go through in, you know, positive standpoint. But in some cases, there are things where they’re like, you wait. You guys don’t have ethics requirements?

That that that’s maybe something you should have. So the the channel has so much, growth to have. It’s just really exciting, you know, to think about what’s around the corner for us all.

Well, I’ll tell you, I think that makes a real difference in buyers versus sellers. You know, the buyers that want to get in here really understand that vision. They understand that this is going to be a primary way for technology to get to market. It’s gonna continue to expand.

You know, the sellers are the people who feel like, man, this is as good as it gets. I never thought it’d be, you know, I never thought it’d be this, and they’re and they’re ready to be done. And it really is a question of vision. Do people really understand and internalize, you know, the the the, the expanse of, what this this model is capable of?

Anticipating the Partner Summit

And, I think that that makes a difference in how how, dedicated people are in progressing and investing further in their businesses, and in the industry in general. Well, hey. We’re about up on time. Before we go, we would be remiss if we did not mention Partner Summit and what is going on this year.

Do you want to give a a a a quick overview on that?

Well, yeah. Sure. I I I think, the the number one thing I would underline is this is one of the best locations for a partner summit that allows us to do some really, really fun things. So, you know, the the content I with with the number of of supplier leaders that we have attending, is obviously a highlight. I I like, we’re not ready to announce some of them, but there there are some incredible names that we have lined up coming, to to to talk to us all. The education sessions, I think, you know, is where we’ve always focused of trying to be, you know, more than just a party. Like, when advisors come to the event, like, what can we do to make it worth their while to come, I think is always our focus.

And I I’m super excited by the education tracks that I see coming together.

But I think this venue where we’re in California, we’re in Anaheim, it lends to the opportunity for people to come in early with families or stay late and have their families join and do the whole Disneyland thing. Like, I I am a Disneyland person. You are not.

So I’m super, super excited about it and super excited about our opportunity to have a a an exclusive event at California Adventure. That that’s really fun.

Yeah. No. No. You’re right. I’m not a Disney guy.

I am a partner summit guy. Regardless of the venue, you know, highlight for me is getting together the energy. In fact, I was reviewing, some of my notes from past, but it’s the energy that comes together. No matter how much we prep we do on content, the education we do, we put a lot of work into it for the best, most latest, information to equip advisors. But the energy really comes from the caliber of people coming together for a common cause. And I think if you don’t have the vision for what the channel will become, you’ll walk away with that. That’s what’s important to me, and that that’s that’s what we’ll have in spades.

Yep. Absolutely. I I think that the team’s working hard. We’re ramping up. It’s it’ll be here before you know it.

And what’s what’s funny to me is we’ve we’ve got incredible registration numbers. And yet as I have talked to several advisers, they’re like, oh, yeah. I just I I have I have to register. I I always wait until it’s too you know, not too late, but I always wait too long.

Get it done. Get it done, guys. Don’t forget.

Before your wife schedules something else or your spouse schedules something else, get registered. Put it on the calendar.

Doug Doug, back back to you.

I think we’re gonna have time.

Wonderful presentation, both of you. As I listened to, what you explained and talked about, it should be obvious to everyone, what I’ve known for years working, with the two of you is that you care as much about building Telarus and our advisers as you do about building the channel as a whole. And, that always comes out of your presentations. I appreciate it. I know our our advisers do as well. So thank you both for being here. Can’t wait to have you both back on soon.