1. Great messaging is more important than great products – of course the product must work, but a lack of great messaging will kill any good technology.
2. Sales people must make it a priority to study marketing concepts.  Marketing is a science as well an an art and is sorely lacking in most sales efforts.
3. Security products require a risk based justification model.  ROI is a poor choice and waiting on budget and customer need is purely opportunistic.  You’ll never consistently achieve quota with either approach.
4. General account managers may not give security the attention it deserves, especially when it is a small part of the overall deal revenue.  It is incumbent on overlay sales, presales, and security division managers to demonstrate the importance of security and it’s power to open new doors of opportunity.
5. Being demoted by asset owners is a surface problem.  The root problem is poor messaging and a lack of risk focused justification.
6. Every company has an urgent security need.  Your job is to discover it and present in with compelling messaging.
7. Security jargon diminishes all urgency – effective security proposals are delivered verbally, to asset owners, in business language, with a focus on impact and likelihood.

Our day ended with dinner outdoors in front of the Opera House with a beautiful view of the city skyline and bridge pictured above.

PLUS: 5 great things about working in Sydney:

1. People show up on time!

2. Seating fills in from the front (rather the rear as in most US events)

3. Fast food is limited, so people tend to be more alert after lunch.

4. The city is safe so you can walk to work or dinner if you are staying in the city.

5. I really enjoy the Australian accent which they tell me is much different than the British accent, although I really can’t tell.

© 2010, David Stelzl

In addition, I visited the Maritime Museum and sampled Sydney pizza (I think everyone knows by now that I am a pizza connoisseur.)  It was definitely not a NY pizza, but not bad at all.  You can see several pictures on my Picassa site (Click).  So that’s about it for tours, we’re off to work on Tuesday morning, noting that it is still Labor Day in the states and I could be on a picnic right now.

I Spent my first day touring the Circular Quay area, Opera House, Royal Botanical Gardens, and the Art Museum.  While I don’t have my Canon SLR camera with me, I did manage to get a few interesting shots with a Pentax 06m pocket camera: Check out my Picassa page.

1. If the test is done for IT, you won’t have visibility into the executive ranks

2. If the process doesn’t involve the executive team they won’t care much about the results

3. The report is too technical

4. The report uses jargon that disguises the problem and it’s urgency

5. The provider appears to be more focused on analytics  than urgent issues

Eg.  If I come to you and say, this is the problem, I’ll put together some options and pricing and get back to you next week, do you feel like the issues are urgent? What if you plumber did that after discovering a leaking pipe in your wall?  You’d fire them! (But only because you know that is urgent.)

© 2010, David Stelzl

1. Sterile corporate looking blogs don’t work – no one wants to read them.

2. Don’t bury your blog inside your corporate website – attract people to your blog, then link to your website.

3. No one is going to visit your homepage on a regular basis, so listing your blog on the front page is sort of useless.

4. People want to read about your opinions more than a bunch of product facts.  Focus on the former.

5. Post frequently…yes this is debatable, but in my experience, people forget about you quickly.

6. Use video.  It takes some getting used to – cutting your first “movie” is always uncomfortable.  Just do it.

7. Audio is second best, text is last.  I don’t always do this, but pictures help bring the text alive, so try to add some.

8. Get personal.  People like learning about people.  That’s what makes reality TV work, and it will help your blog.

9. Focus your material on things that help your audience.  So find out what they need and provide it.

10. Write outside your own blog.  Get involved with others online and build the dialogue.

© 2010, David Stelzl

1. First, those who know me know I’ve been waiting for Verizon to support iPhone for the longest time.  Keep reading….

2. It all started when I called Verizon to get my sim chip enabled for my upcoming trip to Australia, India, and Singapore.  I keep this function disabled while working in the states as a prudent measure of cost containment.

3. Of course Verizon had to put me hold, so I was surfing around, minding my own business when an idea popped into my head.  I wonder if you can make overseas calls from Google phone for free, or some ridiculously low price.  Of course you can (and Skype works as well)…but it requires an app on a smart phone, which I did not have.

4. As the Verizon sales rep began unfolding the simple plan of 4.99/month plus just $2+ per minute, I was reading about $.02 charges using either Google or Skype on Blackberry or Droid phones.  The Droid seemed to be the obvious choice…I didn’t let on, but thanked them and hung up.

5. From there I was in the car on my way to buy a new phone.  If I spent just ten minutes per day, I was looking at a few hundred dollars in phone charges!  My contract at Verizon is up – so I knew I could probably have a smart phone for close to nothing.  The Droid 2 was a possible choice…lots of memory, lots of apps, and pretty good reviews.

6. At the store they  told me they didn’t have it in stock…bummer.  They started working on getting one to the store overnight when I asked, “Does this really sport global support?”  The said “Yes!” but I was asking the wrong question.  I should have asked, “Does this support GSM global communications?”  They didn’t know.  So I headed back home to find out.

7.  I was right.  It does not.  However, the Blackberry storm is one of the few that does; Droid is working on it.  So I headed back to the store, made the purchase, and here I am.

So here’s the Trusted Adviser issue, in case you missed it.

- Why did the sales person on the phone lead me down the $2+ / minute route?  Was this a money making deception or just plain ignorance?

- Why didn’t the rep in the store know about global networks?  What would have happened if I had bought the Droid with only 2 days to figure out I had the wrong phone?

Being a trusted adviser means knowing more than just the product.  It means having great advice and being an adviser.  It also requires integrity and trustworthiness.  One of the two was lacking with the first rep; I believe the second was just uninformed.

© 2010, David Stelzl

1. IT people naturally resist sales people who try to move up.  Positioning your technical experts along side IT people can give them a highly valuable connection, one that will help IT people gain the insights they need to increase their own value.  If this relationship holds real value, it frees the sales person to move up.  The IT person will not risk giving up a great technical contact just to block you.

2. Higher level contacts in general, must gain IT buy-in before making strategy technology decisions.  While this is not always the case, there is always a backlash when they don’t.  An assessment does not require the same approval process, making it a better lead in.  Once completed, you have the justification to move other project related services forward.

3.  Every sale should have an end-goal that includes recurring revenue.  Cloud services, hosted services, managed services – all fall into this category.

4. Justification for the recurring revenue portion of the sale should be made through an assessment and justified by risk related issues.  For instance, managed services is presented as a way of maintaining an acceptable level of risk.  When ROI is used, the contract’s life expectancy is much shorter.  Bean counters will be watching this monthly expense closely, and it will be the first to go when things get tight.

Note: here’s a shot from my hotel window in Santa Clara – interesting how things have evolved with Yahoo and Google.  Remember when Yahoo was a hot stock?  What would Seth Godin do if he were back at Yahoo now?  Yahoo would be lucky to get him.

Looking the other way, a shot of the mountains!  You know I’m thinking about backpacking as I sit here working on business items.

© 2010, David Stelzl

The middle man’s life expectancy is much shorter than you think!  If you are still defining your business in terms of the products you sell, you may be headed for disaster…just calling yourself a consulting a company doesn’t make you one, you’ve got to start acting and modeling yourself like one to succeed in this market.

© 2010, David Stelzl

We started our trip at Big East Fork, west of Asheville NC with loaded packs and an excited team of young entrepreneurs.  This is most of the student body right here, along with their faithful leader (me).  It rained most of our drive up, but the sky looks pretty good at this point.

On the trail, we have about 5 miles to go, starting at an elevation of 3500 ft, going to nearly 6000.  Most of it in the last two miles.  Notice Bethany is sporting her new shock absorbing trekking poles and a new Osprey pack!  A big improvement over the old one.

This trail is full of scenic waterfalls, undergrowth, large trees, and moss.  A great place for picture taking as the trail follows the stream almost the entire way up the mountain.  One caution, the trails out here are not marked so you do need a map and compass if you plan on hiking here.  (It helps you know how to use them).

There is plenty of water as long as you have a means of purification.  Once you leave the stream you’ll need to carry it.  There is a small spring on top, but a pump is almost a requirement to get it into a bottle.  Here is Jonathan filtering through an MSR ceramic filter.

And a few hours later, we are on top!  Shining Rock has a great 360 views overlooking the Blue Ridge mountains, including Cold Mountain at 6030 ft.  We attempted to day hike Cold Mountain on day 2, but didn’t quite make it with the little ones.  The trails were overgrown with stinging nettles and lots of bee infested flowers, not to mention a significant altitude change and limited water supplies.

One great lesson we learned – when we finally reached our campsite on top, and prepared to eat, we discovered that our MSR stove pump was not working.  The gasket in the fuel system had deteriorated and would not build up the pressure needed to move gas to the burner.  Not sure what to do with our freeze dried meals we began to brainstorm.  My 11 year old son produced two rubber bands he had brought just in case we needed them – and we were able to fabricate a make-shift gasket from them.  This actually worked!  Shortly after, we were eating hot lasagna!  Who would have  thought…?

Despite hot temperatures, steep climbs, and a downpour on the last day, it was a great trip.  We learned all kinds of things about plants, stoves, teamwork, sharing, encouraging each other, and much more.  We are hoping to head out again when the leaves are in full color.

There are three common assessments I see out there:

1.  The vulnerability assessment is most common – a technical paper that identifies as many holes in the security architecture as possible.  The resulting report is generally very technical in nature, product focused (meaning: Network, application, etc.) and appeals to the IT department.  Certainly there is a place for this.

2. The pen test – penetration that is.  A test to see if the assessment team can break in.  This is fun, expensive and obvious…at least to the team.  They can always get in if they’re good.

3. The risk assessment – this should measure the impact of a loss, but equally, the likelihood of such an issue.

The third one is always most effective in building new business.