Excel Telecommunications, one of the country's largest resellers of long-distance phone service, wants you as a customer. And then it wants you as a salesperson.
Because Excel finds customers through multilevel marketing, you're likely to hear about the company from a friend, neighbor or colleague. And if you sign up you'll inevitably be offered the opportunity to recruit other calling-plan customers and sales representative.Excel's sales representatives can earn a 2 percent to 5 percent commission on their customers' monthly bills. Sign up other sales reps and you'll also earn commissions on their sales.
That's what puts the "multi" in multilevel marketing: Independent distributors (who are not employees of the companies they represent) not only sell products and services but also build their own sales teams by talking others into joining them. These recruits get others to come on board, those recruits find still others and so on.
Other phone companies, such as LCI International Inc., also sell long-distance service through multilevel marketing.
Before you invest money and time in such a venture, says Charles Bain, a telecommunications consultant, ask some pointed questions about how many sales reps and customers are already in your geographic area and how the company's rates stack up against the competition.
Dallas-based Excel says it has captured about 1 percent of the long-distance market. The company is stingy with other statistics that prospective reps might be interested in, such as the company's profitability and the attrition or failure rate of those who sign up as sales representatives.
Chris Dance, Excel's vice-president for legal affairs, estimates the company has signed up about 200,000 sales reps, but not all are receiving commission checks.
While Excel has a satisfactory record with the Better Business Bureau in Dallas - meaning it has resolved all complaints - consumers have complained that independent representatives misrepresented Excel's cost savings, switched long-distance service without authorization, failed to fully explain the company's multilevel marketing system and misrepresented earnings potential.
In addition, the Federal Communications Commission fined Excel $80,000 in August for the unauthorized switching of two customers' long-distance service.
How competitive are Excel's rates? Generally, they're only cheaper than AT&T's True Reach rates, MCI's Friends & Family rates and Sprint's regular rates when you're calling someone within a 22-mile radius or another Excel customer.