Sorry about the Show

I wanted to take a moment to apologize to the many of you that were a part of my vocal carnage yesterday at MSPU in Washington DC and live online. My voice simply, and completely, gave out – several times, and while I tried to make the best of it I feel like I owe you an apology. Sorry for wasting your time. I’ll make it up to you.

Once upon a time people loved working with me because they only worked with me and I took an immense amount of pride in what I did. As the years have passed by, and we’ve grown, less and less of what people get from us is directly my product – so when I bomb like I did yesterday it’s hard not to think like there has been d@#% worth of progress in 14 years 😉

I do want to thank many of you who emailed and tweeted at me telling me how much you enjoyed the presentation. I appreciate the notes, even though I think most of you are probably just making fun of me 🙂 It’s always a ton of fun to put together a Vladville act, give away a Rolex, drink on stage and curse because when people stop looking at “What is this jerk trying to sell me” and start actually thinking about the solution design, positioning, marketing, differentiation, exclusivity and all the other stuff – minds open up. Sure, I hope you pick us, but making any decision is better than doing nothing. It’s one thing to sit and argue over what cloud is and what it will replace – and it’s quite a different thing to stare down the barrel of at least two dozen billion dollar companies that are aiming straight for SMB.

As someone that constantly deals with that shotgun, and has a lot of years competing in the commodity world, I’m here to help teach you how to build differentiation and talk to people who have already considered 10+ of your local competitors and are hit up by at least a dozen global ones daily. 

I’m just sorry I blew that opportunity yesterday. I’ll do an online one shortly and you’re all invited.

In the meantime, have a great holiday! I’m off to University of Florida football game tomorrow, then off to Cabo in Mexico with Alex Rogers. We’re gonna go fish for some BDRs or build a call center or something..

See ya next week!