MICHAEL R. BURNS
BIOGRAPHY
Michael R. Burns received his BS degree in Psychology and MS degree in Management from Texas A&M University in 1970 and 1971, respectively. After graduating, Mr. Burns spent 11 years with Southwestern Bell and AT&T, working on sales and marketing programs for commercial and non-profit organizations. While at the Bell System, Mr. Burns developed several “how to” manuals on telemarketing and teleconferencing applications.
In 1982, Mr. Burns founded TeleSystems Marketing, Inc., a telemarketing service agency, dedicated to implementing outbound telemarketing programs. TeleSystems was operated until 2007.
In 1990, Mr. Burns founded Conference Pros International, Inc., an audio teleconferencing service agency. CPI handled conference calls, from 3 to 1,500 parties, for business and non-profit clients. In 1999. Mr. Burns sold CPI to Vialog, Inc. At the time of the sale, CPI had over 10,000 customers and was growing at 40% per year. CPI provided private label conference calling for resellers and long distance carriers.
In 1995, Mr. Burns founded Network Pros, Inc., an Internet advertising and access provider that evolved into a conference bridge sale, leasing and maintenance organization and is still active today.
In 2000, Mr. Burns founded A+ Conferencing, a teleconferencing company that specializes in reservationless, operator assisted, web conferencing and desktop video conferencing services. The company currently has over 9500 ports, over 5500 customers and is growing at 20%+ per year. A+ Conferencing offers both wholesale and retail services, and features both “per minute” and flat rate, unlimited usage pricing methodologies. A+ also markets its services through a network of Master Agents and resellers in North and South America.
Mr. Burns is author of the book, Telemarketing, Setting Up for Success. He is also a frequent lecturer at seminars and conferences.