Message from Charles Wigoder, Chief Executive, Telecom plus Plc. Published in Distributor Publication,News Plus - 19th May 2006.

What a great business this is! Since finalising our arrangements with npower, we can now focus all our resources on making this business bigger and better than ever. Our new retail energy prices are still below the cost in the wholesale markets, but our new arrangements mean that instead of losing money, our energy supply businesses are now profitable - and all our Distributors are benefiting from increased residual income payments as a result of both higher retail prices and also the payment of full-rate CVC on “energy only” customers. Our current prices are still extremely competitive and most households can achieve significant savings by moving their energy,telephony and internet services from their current suppliers, to The Utility Warehouse.

We've recently updated our Business Manual and introduced new training for SEs (to help them build their businesses to ED and beyond). We've also been running special BlackBerry training sessions to helpyou promote this increasingly essential communications tool. And we've launched new business energy tariffs, creating an enormous new potential income source which could transform your current earningsf rom Business Club customers.

We have also been focusing on increasing the number of services being taken by existing customers - our recent bill message in March to around 80,000 of our Club members who did not yet have Home Phone Line Rental resulted in a conversion rate of over 5% - so we will be rolling this message out tothe remainder of our customer base during May, as well as repeating it again in June to those customers in the original sample who did not respond last time. And of course, Distributors earn higher CVC on Home Phone customers who have transferred their line rental to us. We also ran a special offerpromoting our broadband package in the April bills, and have extended this offer so you can make it available to new customers as well until the end of June. Unfortunately for technical reasons, this offercannot be extended to existing broadband customers.

The recent broadband launch from Carphone Warehouse got enormous publicity - you can only admire the professionalism of their PR team. The truth of course doesn't quite match the hype...to get their “Free Broadband” you have to pay £21 per month for their line rental and calls package (which is significantly more expensive than our equivalent line rental and calls offer). Not to mention the £30 connection charge, the 18-month contract or the £70 disconnection fee. All the same, we do not intend to sit back and let them steal either customers or market share from us. We are committed to delivering great value to our customers - we've done so for over 9 years now, and we are not intending to stop anytime soon! It will however take time to put in place new commercial partnerships and to develop a new range of broadband packages in response to this latest move by Carphone Warehouse...watch this space!

We are seeing great attendance levels at COPs and COE training sessions which are being translated into increased activity by those who have attended, with a significant increase in the number of new Distributors joining the business and a corresponding increase in customer numbers.……and our fantastic holiday promotion is once again within the reach of every current Distributor. Those of you currently on track haveless than 6 months to go before guaranteeing your place on our exclusive 6 Star luxury cruise - with a number of places still available for those who were unable to achieve the qualifying criteria during the firstfew months.

Our business is now going from strength to strength, with more and more people beginning to appreciate our unique business model and the benefits it offers. We have some fantastic plans we intend to implement over the coming years and with the security of our new energy arrangements, can focus all our management attention on improving our internal systems and making our services even more attractive to our customers. There has never been a better time to be involved with Telecom plus.

For the benefit of all those who have joined the business over the last few months, together with anyone who does not receive our regular “Hot News” updates, we are including within this issue all the main announcements which have been published since our last main issue of News plus. Finally, make sure you put 17 September 2006 in your diary, and reserve seats for yourself and your teamat this year's Express Day before we sell out. We have some fantastic announcements planned, combined with training and new ideas to help you grow your business. You will also have the opportunity to meet both our senior management team and all the successful Distributors and leaders in the Network. It's a great day, and the best way to give your business a lift this Autumn. Don't miss it!

Charles Wigoder
Chief Executive

Labels: corporate-news, director-news

posted by Jeremy Tromans at 6/15/2006 01:31:00 AM