Move over Eric: Slimy Vendor Showcase

Aaron Booker from Hardlines caught up with me at the recent Connectwise Summit. I’ve blogged about VarVid video blog that Aaron and Pat Dolan put together to give you the street-vibe around WPC. Now it was my turn, but first a bit of background:

Slimy Vendor Whore is something Dana and I came up way back in 2005 when I got introduced as Vlad Mazek, the Microsoft MVP, Exchange guru and an outspoken community leader and Dana got introduced as a vendor. As Dana sat there outraged at his introduction I of course piled on by not just saying he was a vendor but a slimy vendor whore at that. Ever since that my official introduction to anyone that was a potential lead outside of the general pitching/networking areas has been that I’m a slimy vendor whore.

As you will see in this video, I’m proud to unseat Eric Ligman from his throne as the king of our slimy vendor whore kingdom. Please watch the video and count the # of sales pitches and gratuitous self-promotional messages – I’d say make it a drinking game and down one every time you hear a sales pitch but you’d likely end up dead from alcohol poisoning.

Vlad Mazek Interview from Aaron Booker on Vimeo.

If you are thoroughly disgusted at what you just saw I’m going to let you in on a little secret that I see far too many people are not too clued in on: When someone sticks a mic and a camera in your face it is not to get to know you, the real you, your soul. It is a self-promotional effort of getting the content that others will want to get something for – you have only a few moments to present yourself and what you do for others. In crude terms, it’s an invitation to pimp. Unless you are a twelve year old girl nobody wants to hear your shoutouts, your thoughts on world peace or a funny joke or an anecdote of what the times were like when you worked on mainframes – they see a goofy picture you’re guaranteed to hate and they want to know what you can do for them. This isn’t 60 minutes, it’s 5 minutes – sell yourself.

Oh, and for those that haven’t met me and wonder if Vladville is just an act and what I’m really like in real life…. that’s me without caffeine in a basement in Florida during summer.

P.S. If you don’t creep out the guy interviewing you, you simply haven’t done your job.