Vlad Mazek – Vladville Blog

There are days when I feel things I learn about business totally devalue my college education. Filing this under “they didn’t teach me about this in school” is the  experience of adjusting to the circumstances and accepting that sometimes… well, things just don’t go your way but you can either let it get to you or really enjoy yourself.

The other day I was shipping some stuff, using a process that is not very familiar to me. I asked the lady if I needed to fill out additional paperwork or provide a payment or what the next step was going to be. Here is the conversation, for your amusement:

Vlad: So do I pay you or something?

Clerk: Oh no child! You put your credit card number here so they’ll do what they do and you’ll see it…

Vlad: So they do what they do and I’ll see it when I see it and I’ll know what it was, right?

Clerk: You got it!

Even mob conversations are more specific.

But hey, made me laugh!

Today was an exciting day – I finally took the wraps off what we’ve built and how we’re changing this game when it comes to professional services.

In my casually slimy way, I went around the room asking what attendees (and presumably our common customers) would consider to be a “good integration” project. What would make them more successful?

When you look at the vendor/PSA/rmm integration points you’re welcome with a sea of bullshit data points that are incomprehensible to even the most savvy full-of-crap marketer explaining where the customers money is going.

So after taking a few hints as to what our customers were expecting… I flashed my agenda for integration. As in, why would we bother entertaining an idea of integrating with a product?

Talk about not BSing people on the agenda, eh? I AM here to make you money. If you aren’t here to do the same for me, the door is that way, see ya.

Then I actually showcased our “integration” and I’m not talking about the voice control for Autotask we produced as an attention stunt.

I’m talking about entrepreneurs and business owners understanding their real cost centers and understanding the boundaries of their control and profitability that is realized when each party addresses it’s own turf in a way that benefits the customer the most. Let’s not forget who we’re doing all of this for (Customer. After they are happy and they pay the bill, the Vlad’s Ferrari Collection Fund.)

Attendees will get the integration documents tomorrow. If you’re savvy enough and actually look at our portal, you can actually get it going right now 🙂

What I want to know is – if you work with us, what is a good integration point? This is critical to the Shockey Monkey solution, it is critical to our partners on Autotask and Connectwise, and to everyone else in this ecosystem that is currently profiting on services.

I’m all ears – vlad@vladville.com

Aside…

Still very pleasantly surprised by the level of professionalism and handling by Autotask. They have been very kind to us, very helpful and today I got to meet a bunch of folks within the company which is always awesome.

Eventwise, again, perfect. Rented an entire restaurant, free bar and southern food, fried pickles and pulled pork sandwiches.

The night ends with Karl and Erick and a 4 hour dinner.

The goal behind marketing is to attract attention. There are many ways to do it, most of them immensely expensive. Over the years we’ve come up with a “Slimy Vendor Whore” concept. It started with a vendor, which then became vendor whore – we added slimy as the highest tier, identifying people that just outright slimy stuff to promote their message, product, service, etc. Every time you do something original, appealing, that connects with the audience… welcome to the club 🙂

Yesterday Mark won the Autotask MVP award. He came to our booth, dropped down his award on our table and wrote the following:

All day long, people kept on coming up, looking at what it was on our desk, etc. It raised attention, started conversations, mission accomplished.

New Rule: Don’t talk to ANYONE after doing the SPAM Show. Friday afternoons, which during the fixing-OWN-crap timeline used to go to catching up on stuff and kicking ass, have recently turned to the SPAM Show afternoons which are bar conversations I used to have with some top notch people in the business that drove us in the direction that we are in and the company we have become. Having spent the past two years fixing the growth pains in support, in my products, in the staffing, in the billing, in virtually every area that you can mess up when you grow as fast as we have, Friday’s have a special place.

Today the original drinking crew (sans Dave) was together: myself, Erick and Karl. This is sort of like He Man standing in front of the Skull Mountain. It gives me such tremendous energy knowing that I am in line with the thinking and strategy the other two have. I mean, if I were to bet, these would not be the guys I’d go against. So naturally, recording this podcast was a full on bitch-fest: I opened up my inbox and just went down the line of the concerns partners have voiced to me over the past few months. You know the deal: slow economy, no demand for SBS 2008, where are MSP revenues going to go, downsizing, rightsizing, emergence of cheap labor, cheaper competitors, companies not wanting to sign contracts. We went through it all in over an hour long show, with all 3 of us sharing about equal time, just laying the cards on the table. To be in these uncertain times, and to be so much on the ball with the other leaders in this space…. wow. Just wow. It’s been a great week man.

ExchangeDefender Staff Meeting, Vlad in Pimp Hat.

Autotask

First thing is first: When you are in a really good mood and in a competitive market, don’t talk to other people. I was emailing back and forth with Bob from Autotask and telling him about our big presentation on Monday:

“The idea behind this, aside from being able to be a complete ass and laugh at other vendors that can’t even sync their data to AT while we’re making the damn thing _____ and ________”

His response: “_____? Does this say what I think it says?  How much will it cost for the SP?  How much lead time do we have over our competitors?”

It’s free Bob 🙂 Now, truth is this is the part of Shockey Monkey 3.0 which is coming in May, but we’re bringing it to Autotask first. Why? Well, the announcements that we are making on Monday are going to basically knock my competition on it’s ass when it comes to MSP integration and the value of our services. If you’re in antispam space, if you’re in the web filtering space, if you’re in offsite backup space, if you’re in Exchange+SharePoint hosting space, if you’re in NOC services, if you’re in anything I’m in you’re going to just take a seat. I’m thinking of something more colorful but it sounds better live 🙂

Now, after I had a brief talk with Bob where he gave me more ideas on the new product, I did a job interview.

Job Interview

Again, another mistake. Don’t do job interviews when you’re in a good mood. Do them when you are angry at the world and you just want someone that is going to come in with some pixie dust and make it all rainbows and clouds.

When you’re in a good mood you might just be too honest, too honest for the sake of everyone involved:

“Listen… this is a marketing job but I’ll be honest with you, it’s a hustler gig. You’ll be talking to people in the morning, running to the embroidery shop after lunch and closing out the day with a webcast run.”

That’s generally where I say: “Do you find anything uncomfortable about this” and thankfully I stopped myself well before I got to the lawsuit category. The response really blew me away: “Sounds like my kind of thing.”

It’s pimpin’ pimpin’

The Show

The SPAM Show #5 is up. It features Bob Godgart from Autotask (the guy above), Mark Crall, Erick Simpson, Dave Sobel, Karl Palachuk and special star, straight from Tuscaloosa, Chris Rue. Chris had a really moving, wonderful story about Twitter and Frank McAllister. Frank was the oldest SBS MVP around and he passed away about a month ago. Chris shared a very moving story about the summit, about Twitter, about how the whole community comes together. I’ve sent him the mp3, if he chooses to post it I encourage you to check it out at www.chrisrue.com.

Now the show has its fair amount of shenanigans, but we edit it into a very professional show because it is the image of Own Web Now and ExchangeDefender and all the associated parties and it just has a lot of standards. The door is open, if you’re doing something really well we want to talk to you.

Here we go, more “Woe is me, I hate dem injuns, they took oooor jobs!” story from Financial Times.

I know that there is a popular misconception that everyone in India walks around with a masters in business administration and Ph.D in computer science.

If you’ve ever talked to an Indian call center you’d already know that’s far from reality. I think that the more realistic scenario is that 90% of the workforce that has been phonetically taught the IVR prompts and the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet, combined with ability to work the overnight hours, represents who is working there. Which I would argue is no more or less education than you’d get anywhere in the US rust belt or deep south.

Take a look at this about India whining in DC.

Now, this is not an argument on whether they are any smarter or any more hard working or any more efficient than the American workers. It’s not even a challenge to the companies that outsource to the third world.

It’s a question of WHY business leaders are choosing to go abroad instead of hiring locally. Rust belt has been pretty much decimated with no chance of coming back, right?

So where are the big midwest management companies standing up to train the masses? Anybody in Alabama ready to offer American accents? Are any of the brokeass WV mountain folk ready to offer around the clock shifts and price it accordingly? No, they vote for republicans to protect their guns and religion and wait for democrats to deliver their welfare checks. Someone else should get us out of this, it’s always someone elses fault. We’ll just sit here and pray for it.

That folks, is why there is outsourcing and why your region is falling apart economically. You can bitch and moan about India and Pakistan and China all you want, until you get organized (organized as in a money-seeking-operation, not union) the jobs will continue to float elsewhere.

Don’t like it? Do something about it.

We are the problem. Not Rajeshapitapetalon or Yu Suk.

Now go on and have a happy Friday.