Yes, I’m bringing the gaypile back. Had to be done. 

Name calling is fun. It helps people quickly identify what they are dealing with to save copy space and convey a message without getting preachy or far too elaborate. If you’ve ever had to put together a flyer you know what I mean, you try to sum up your entire universe of information to get the point across and you still want to capture attention. So you shoot for a compromise.

In professional (well, IT professional) circles, thats welcome. Coder, DBA, helpdesk can all convey a pretty clear meaning, sometimes positive and sometimes a derogative (“Oh, there goes Mr. MCSE”); And for the most part people welcome it and identify themselves as such.

In IT business, it goes the other way. We have a few dozen acronyms that we use to identify partners and opportunities. But sometimes people try their hardest to identify themselves to you. How often do you hear a pitch and just sum it up to the person to acknowledge you have received their bullshit and know what they do so they will cease the pitch? Some people can’t break out of that cycle. Some people are so sold on their own bs that they cannot escape it, even among the people that do the very same thing:

Hi, my name is Bob and I’m a trusted advisor. I do not try to make profit on products, I simply recommend whats best for you and…

Yeah, Bob, we get it, you’re full of shit. You don’t mark up the services you don’t consider material to your business. Microsoft licensing – $0 markup. Antispam – $0 markup. Offsite backups – $0 markup. You’re a great guy, thank you for recommending this to me – oh whats this $1,500 a month fee? Oh, for the managed services you provide on top of a $100 MSP software platform, $50 management agents and a $200 outsourced helpdesk? Whats that, a 500% markup, Bob?

People are trusted advisors when they are not directly trying to milk the highest possible markup from the customer. For everything else, they are trying to charge the highest possible rate that the market will handle without leaving them with less than 40 billable hours a week. That is called a business. Even if you run it by yourself in your underware 28 hours a week, you’re a business. You charge money for time, you are a vendor.

There is no shame in running a successful business. There is plenty of shame in running an unsuccessful one. Which one would you rather be? Pretty title with no substance or a success with a less glorified name?

-Vlad Mazek, MCSE, MVP, CEO. Decode that, b….

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