I am really looking forward to the MSP University bootcamp this week. It’s in Baltimore at the end of this week and is my last big thing for this quarter before we get into the summer of announcements.
I’m excited because I’m trying out new content. For years I’ve done a variation of “Vlad Mazek, MCSE, CEO… I’m here to make you money” followed by 20-30 slides outlining our company. This typically went over the head of 50% of the audience, the other half would come and chat with me for a free tshirt and we’d get about 10% of them to try out our stuff. Worked great but at this point in our business and in the marketplace (where we are already working with just about everyone in the SMB market) it’s more about getting to the core of the problems we find in this business together than just trying to earn that next IT guy that’s never heard of us.
My new deck starts with:
Vlad Mazek, Philanthropist, Remote Viewer, Prophet.
Should be interesting. Should be unique.
For years I’ve had the benefit of observing my fellow peers / clients / victims at the events and one of the constants until 2009 has been the perpetual lack of progress. People kept on coming to events, to the extent that I doubt they ever did any actual work, only to be seen at the next event slightly disheartened about their lack of progress.
But they fixed it that night at the bar.
In the morning they were back with lack of progress, lack of a cohesive approach to their market and no concrete process driven environment that can be replicated and grown as the news of their service spread.
But they fixed it that night at the free drinks party that some vendor invited them too.
The next morning they were still going and getting nowhere, but they had more friends.
And then it ended….
2009 came around, economy fell apart and their prize 1-2 clients went out of business and along with them a huge bulk of their revenues. Dell entered the market, other shops smelled the blood and the local competition intensified. Are you the next one to jump the shark?
The tragedy here is that it didn’t have to go down like this – because for the most part the business owners had all the control, had all the opportunity, had a demanding market, had a thirsty audience with nothing but problems and broken infrastructure on hand – and so many people failed to capture it.
Why? Because it required hard work.
This is why I love Erick’s events and am so dedicated to helping folks that are part of MSP University bootcamps. They aren’t swag collectors sitting around in hallways waiting for the next snack break or for the big dinner – MSP University is a bootcamp. Classroom all day, homework at night.
It’s so easy to find out who will not be with us next year – they will be at the bar all night!
When you listen to Gary and Erick present with their minions, one thing is clear – this stuff is not difficult, but you gotta get on the ball right now. Not tomorrow.
Times are tough, for many…. there is no tomorrow. I’m accounting for so much in my presentation and not even bothering to talk about OWN and all the ways we can help produce revenues and grow the client base – because if the fundamentals and process of our reseller aren’t solid…. then we’re just wasting time setting up reoccurring billing.
Welcome to the new world.
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The first day of the event went very well I have to admit. Autotask hooked us up with a very nice spot, we got a lot of traffic and got to chat to a lot of new folks and existing customers. For the most part, slimy vendor whoring at these events has gotten much tamer over the years as more people use them to showcase solutions and software becomes a subscription, instead of a bucket of Oxi Clean. For us, the key value as we grow is collecting live feedback that just doesn’t get to us any other way, good or bad. Most people, even live, are admittedly swamped throughout their workweek to bring up stuff that is working well or remarkably poorly, so days like this give us some insight to what we are doing and what we could be doing to make money for everyone involved.
My presentation is later this afternoon. We’re talking about OWN-Autotask support integration workflows and the difference this makes when you are reselling services. Since services/hosting thrives in tough times, managing the support of services becomes crucial and if you have to go back and forth through different portals not only do you lose money but you also lose insight and reporting capability that you have when all your support is rendered in house. That, and a few other surprises. I know this block is likely to raise all sorts of “but what about Shockey Monkey and ConnectWise?” – April/May.
If you aren’t here, or you just got lost in Gaylord and decided to settle somewhere in the Delta Quadrant and start a new life, don’t worry – we’ll have series of webcasts starting next week to onramp people onto the new support integration and all the support tools.
One thing we’ve had to come to terms with is that nobody, ever, reads the documentation. So going forward, we won’t do anything so stupid as to put our software on the front page (www.exchangedefender.com) and hope the people look at those README or Documentation folders. Instead, access to the integration and product management will be embedded behind a training webcast and a quiz – we’re growing too rapidly and too widely with our solutions and business management is becoming too complex to “release and pray” any further. If that doesn’t sound appealing, we’ve also teamed up with a bunch of people that will offer our stuff direct off their web sites, probably significantly cheaper than we’re willing to let it go for…
…
You can’t really tell that this is the first conference Autotask has thrown. Everything is very clean, organized and put together. Our handler Lauren has followed up with us a bunch of times during the event, Autotask staff is mixing with the crowd and introducing people to us, everyone is taking really good care of just about everything. As more vendors look to bring in their own communities together, and display this level of professionalism and event management, it sort of spells doom for the big disorganized SMB conferences with spotty content and general lack of understanding who is there and why… As a slimy vendor whore I welcome that demise because it helps filter the message – much like with MSPU – the people that are here didn’t just sign a check, they have actually developed a solution for your platform/business and we all work together.
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[xxxxx Vlad Mazek 8/23/2007 - the day Vlad finally caved in to the vast sucking pressure of MVP mafia]
Dear Riff Raff,
Just say no.
Say no to the paid off MVP mob force that is trying to squash any bit of truth when one of their own screws up.
Say no to the events that make you pay to watch infomercials, eat in a parking lot and then spam you.
I am not paid off to tell you to give my friends money after they screwed you, I do not have an alterior motive, I do not have a competing event/conference. I just believe in truth and value and if you think you’re riff raff there are better places to spend your money:
Spend it on true SMB community events: SBS Migration ITPRO Conference (New Orleans), SMBTN Conference (Dallas), SMB Focus (Australia)
Spend it with the MSPU, Mobilize SMB, Great Little Book, SBS Unleashed
Spend it to send a thank you postcard from your vacation to the SMB blogging elite that calls it like it is and never asks for a damn thing in return: Susan Bradley, Susanne Dansey, Tim Barrett, Eriq Neale, Andy Goodman Blog, Andy Goodman Chat, Dana Epp, Vijay Riyaait, Chad Gross, Dean Calvert, Andy Parkes, David Mackie, David Schrag, Steve Wright, Jeff Altman, Bill Leeman, Anne Stanton, Richard Tubb, Bill Waters, Jason Lieb, Karl Palachuk, Mark Crall, Larry Lentz, Nick Whittome, Kevin Weilbacher, Amy Babinchak and the TS2 community guys who although Microsoft employees probably spend more than anyone outside of 9–5 to locally support the SMB community.
Bring some food, drag a vendor, contribute a presentation or share notes from your SMB user group meeting.. or start one.
These are the people and events that build our community, if you like them support them. If you want to call yourself a leader try being honest about the past mistakes instead of glossing over them, try supporting and promoting new blood instead of clapping on your old social circle, try focusing on the big picture of promoting community involvement instead of nitpicking little nuances to support taking people to the wallet cleaners and locking them into your limited frame of thinking. You’re either leading, or standing in its way. I hope you choose correctly.
Bad leader,
MVP,
Community crusher
But not a sold out whore,
-Vlad Mazek
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The other night I was traveling back from WWPC with two girls from Microsoft that were heading to their MDX meeting. I did my best as a Floridian to give them an idea of what to do, where to go, how not to get robbed… but about the only thing they had planned to do was sleep for a few days and recoup from WWPC. Strange, I thought. Then I pulled two back-to-back 12+ hour sleep nights and am still adjusting to the time zone changes, maybe they had the right idea after all. Either way, I’m in bed with the LCD glare and I figured I’d offer you some perspective on what WPC did for me this year.
WPC Last Year (2006)
Whenever you do reviews of investments you always compare time periods. How did I do this quarter vs. last quarter? Met expectations? Exceeded growth? Failed miserably (like there is any other kind of a failure):
In the now infamous suicide note, last years event fundamentally changed how I do business, how I make my business a part of my life.. in a way, last years WPC marked the death of the old Vlad who seemed to be preoccupied with work, immediate surroundings and very little else. I’m quite glad I killed him because deep down I believe he would have killed me eventually. Before I sat at this lake with Susanne and Dave, both of whom have moved on since then as well, I had spent days in meetings with middle aged guys who seemed to have lost their technical edge, who seemed to be in a rut with their business and trying to outsource everything, some that had big dreams and were perhaps just begging for a landing in a sea of reality.
What was particularly sad was the WPC Attendee Party that year; I remember running around trying to meet up with someone and in my circles around that Boston square I saw those same guys, standing far away from the stage, by themselves, almost without a friend in the world.
I decided that was not going to be me in 20 years. They say the change begins when you decide; what they don’t say is that it can take some time till the change you decide upon gets planned, implemented, documented and finally executed in full effect.
So this year, towards the end of the concert at the WPC Attendee Party, I pulled back from my friends at the Coors Field and walked back to the distant left seats and sat there for a few minutes. Went through the videos, went through the photos, played for a minute in my cell phone. I took a moment to reflect back on the previous year: the good, the great, the bad, the ugly, the muddy…
… no regrets. Year to date, I like this Vlad much better than I did the old one. Perhaps thats about all you can expect from life, that each year you see yourself as having improved.. something.
A..B..C..
Always..Be..Closing; That in itself is Microsoft’s World Wide Partner Conference. Closing deals, closing opportunities, closing project resources, closing hopefully a successful year. WPC 2007, for me, was all about validation. Have most changes I’ve implemented made sense for me, for my company, for my family?
While I am sure you can understand that I cannot share the specifics of parties, discussions and details due to confidentiality…
This year was different, it was not about Microsoft anymore as an enemy or a friend, it was more about me and where I am heading, with Microsoft obviously being the 900lb gorilla. Every now and then people share with you some small tidbits of knowledge that really affect your perception of what is around you.
Little while back I was complaining to a friend about my inability to bring out people to my user group meetings en-masse. His response?
Maybe it’s really about the people that do show up, not those that don’t.
Which, extended to the Microsoft partnership, means: It’s not about the $800 trillion in the business I will never see but in the $XXX million in business I do see. Maybe it is all about my partners and customers, not about the future ones that aren’t coming, aren’t doing what we do now, aren’t interested or can’t afford us.
When you approach a professional conference in such a way, and do not give in to someone elses vision (ignore and reject banners)… when you only come to turn your vision into reality, pursue your agenda, further your goals and plans.. Things look a lot different.
WPC 2007: Validation
I established my agenda long before I got to Denver. I established my next years goals way before I went on the road to begin with. I know where I fit, I know who I am, and I am blessed (lucky) to be able to finally focus on what I am really good at.
So this year, I was determined not to sell a single CAL, a single copy, a single deal or a single lead.
This year, I was determined to say: Listen, I know we suck, how can we make this better?
And I did. Some, and to be honest, many didn’t think we suck at all. But I get that all day long. I wake up to a pile of orders. I go to bed with a pile in a processing queue. I get fanmail all day, far more so than trouble tickets. But I wanted to know what sucked.
Even though nobody would play with me and go as far to say that we suck, I really pushed my partners, coleagues and others to tell me their little annoyances. Give me some ideas. Tell me what you usually do with it. How do you deal with this situation. What about that. Have you considered xyz. Oh, you want it to do that. Ok. Hrm. Ok.
To me, this year was about validation of all the changes I had made last year, based on the vision Microsoft had for me (yeah, right) and based on what I saw my customers demanding from us. They are two very, very different things but our customers and partners pay us a heck of a lot more than v-Microsoft does.
Was I right in making the drastic changes I’ve made over the last year? You bet. Is Microsoft right with their direction, hopes and dreams? God I hope not, but its their perogative.
Did I learn anything new?
Yes, I did. What I specifically learned is that I am no longer a small business. Or perhaps, I no longer have the small business mentality. This was painfully obvious in a lot of conversations I had with Microsoft, partners, customers, vendors.
I had also, in no small part through Vladville, influenced a big change in the community, evidence of which I’ve seen over and over again.
I have also seen, first hand, how the Karma tends to work in your way when you don’t only look at yourself, at your company, at your wallet… but also at that of the others and take their best interest before your own. It’s not easy, but looking back over the past 3 years there are very few regrets and a lot of triumps.
I have also seen and heard the fundamental principle behind success of a community, business community. No, not from Susan Bradley, not from Steven Ballmer, not from the PAMs/PCMs/TS2 guys. I was sitting one day with a partner, who shall remain nameless, and a third partner who wanted us to develop a solution. We’ll call them Partner A and Partner B:
Partner A to Partner B: Ok, so where do you come in?
Partner B to Partner A: I am just here to make an introduction. We work together often, these things work in such a way that eventually everyone wins. I just wanted to get you together and see how you can make this happen, we’ll sort this out on the backend.
(not 40 seconds later)
Partner A to Vlad: Oh, and what about _____?
At which point I turned to Partner A and just pointed. Nuff said.
Oh, what about Microsoft?
Prior to the event I had written that anyone that thought WPC was about Microsoft was a fool. I stand by that, even more so now that it has ended. Whats even more interesting is that the partners I hung out with also seemed to come to the same conclusion – it’s not about Microsoft.
This of course is going to hurt the Microsoft marketing department a little bit but hey, everyone paid for their ticket and made out what they needed to. I think last years endless vision of unimportant things, as I like to think of it, told many of us in the audience that despite the numbers and the dreams there really isn’t much for us up there. Not if we wanted to grow, not if we wanted to continue in our roles and keep our existing relationship with our clients.
So this year the keynotes were largely ignored. As I’m figuring will be most of Microsoft’s future stack. Not to slant Microsoft in a big way over this, they are a public company with greedy investors and they have to do what they have to do to grow their market share, even if it means killing all of their ISV partners, marginalizing their consulting core, antagonizing their licensing sales force and patronizing the entire channel. Perhaps one day Microsoft will be able to stand on the stage with HP, Quest and Unisys and have a huge hug fest but that ceremony will not live to see any of us that are actively looking elsewhere. You wouldn’t run after a bus that just ran you over, would you?
Again, validation. This has been written on the wall for years and now its actually showing up. Those of us who have seen this have adjusted our approach, changed our direction, moved our marketing and accordingly our investment in the future of our companies. That is why business plans exist folks, so they can be reviewed, judged and adjusted.
If its not about Microsoft, what is it then?
The fact that we were all busy with our own agenda, not that of Microsoft Corp, meant that we could sit down and discuss our wins and losses. Our changes. Our developments. Our ideas. Key word: our.
I spent most of the week walking around with Karl, Dave and Erick and just comparing notes. Meeting other partners and seeing whats on their mind. But really, at the end of the day, what this was really all about was a huge board meeting with people I respect immensely, working and branstorming the new business plan. We went from presentation to booth to meeting to lounge to lunch… constantly throwing out ideas, suggestions, recommendations. At some point it stopped being a conference and it became a little summer CEO camp. I hate to put it in such an amateur way, given the maturity of the subject, but that is what the whole thing was about.
Even on Day 1, not 8 hours into the conference, Susanne knocked it out the park for me. One of the biggest issues for 2007/08 at OWN is the customer service angle. How do I take “Vlad’s Own Web Now” and make it stand on its own without destroying the satisfaction ratings we enjoy now? How do I gently go about changing the very core of what made this company successful? How do I tell my partners and customers just what we intend to do for them over the next 3–5 years without them looking at me and getting the feeling that we’ve completely lost it?
Susanne explained that to me (and maybe 50–60 others) in roughly under 50 minutes: “This is a circle. This is where you are, this is where your partners are, this is where your customers are. The world goes in this direction, now… push. Got it? Good, 5 is a good number on the evals, thank you, try the beef I’ll be here I’ll week.”
As I wrote before this, life is what you make it, your company is what you develop it into. WPC was all about me. And I think I did well.
What about the leads, the sales, the touches, the cont..
What about them? We’ve got a good product & service, we don’t need help selling it.
What we do need help with is making sure our partners and customers know we’ve got their back, so they remain our partners and customers for the long time to come. That means not screwing them for a 5% incremental revenue and a good quarter, that means not giving up the principles for immediate gratification, that means not being afraid of competition when you know you’re doing the right thing, that means not trying to close the doors that aren’t really open, that means not forcing.
Not… forcing. I see many people fail. I see many projects fail. Something they have in common is either a general lack of interest/effort or more commonly the outright disregard for anything but pure force being put into the item. Forcing in terms of pushing your partners, in pushing your clients, in pushing your employees, in pushing your external support staff.. Folks, I cannot say this enough… You cannot force things. On your best day you can present the things in the best possible light, offer the alternative or two, all the honesty and sincerity as you can put on the plate and hope the other party makes the right decision.
Consider the opposite. You’ve nagged someone into something. You’ve forced someone into a contract. You’ve overpaid/underpaid someone into a position they didn’t want or fit into. You’ve screwed a partner/vendor. You won. Yes, you won. Congratulations. Here is your medal. Just what do you think will happen to your victory party when the other side realizes just how badly you’ve screwed them?
Folks.. Life… business… success… loss… all of which I’ve had the pleasure to experience over the past 28 years is all about the balance and inner peace. If you can’t be at peace with what you do, if you can’t enjoy your victories and cry over your losses, if you can’t see why you do what you do in the greater scheme of things… then whats the point? But if you can, and if you live and put everything you do in a somewhat greater context.. then little blips and turns in the road don’t need to be more than what they really are, and more importantly, they won’t affect you any more than they should because there are bigger things to create and enjoy.
Is that realization worth $1,800? F yeah. I only wish I could have spent it when all I had was $1,800.
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