Founded in 1988 by Dallas entrepreneur Kenny Troutt, Excel Communications was a long distance reseller. It began selling franchises using a multi-level marketing (MLM) business model, eventually selling over 200,000 of these franchises, or an average of 1 franchise for each 20 customers. In seven years, it became the fourth-largest long distance carrier in America and the youngest billion-dollar-annual company in history (8 years as compared to the second fastest growing, Microsoft, which took 15 years).

As a consultant in New Customer Provisioning department during the “slamming” scandal in 1996 when the FCC cracked down on aggressive switching of long-distance carriers by salesmen, I was able to save Excel the $500.00 penalty and fines for each potential “slam”. “Slamming” had been occurring at the rate of hundreds per day.