An Information Security Place

OK, now that I am settled in my hotel room in Dallas, I have some time to respond to Alan’s post calling me a hooker (like I said to Alan, at least he called me high-priced).  I will also be responding to a comment left by a reader who goes by the name of Shaneo.  You can read that comment here.

The first thing that strikes me about Alan’s and Shaneo’s comments is that they seem to think that selling products is what makes a person bad.  Either that, or they think I was making that implication.  Alan says:

To me Michael sounds a bit like an expensive call girl talking down on a lowly street walker.  At the end of the day they are both working girls, who work hard for the money, but they are what they are.  As long as Michael is putting the food on the table by selling products to customers, whether they be from a line card that Accuvant offers or from a specific vendor, he is selling nevertheless.

Shaneo says it like this:

You make me laugh! A VAR is still always a VAR – a sales engine. If you were an Independent consultants and didn’t sell any product, then I could support some of your statements.

…don’t put yourself so high and mighty above all the rest…When your a part of the food chain.

I seriously do not get why they think that because I sell products that I am a whore.  My point was never that selling a product was a bad thing.  In fact, my point in the original article wasn’t even to attack vendors, though I’ll admit I was harsh on the vendors (not apologizing, just admitting ).  My point was that I, as the trusted adviser to the client, need to make sure that their expectations are managed so that they can make the right decisions.  I made that point by saying that vendor marketing departments often try to make their products look like they can solve all ills and the client often buys what the marketing department says because they WANT to believe it. 

When Alan asked me in a comment what I would do if I worked for a vendor, I told him straight that I would have to look hard at the vendor before I made a decision “because of the situations I would be in that would require me to sell a product that was not a good fit”.  Do I think every vendor will try to sell something even if it is not a good fit?  No.  And I believe Alan when he says, “It is not some sort of pump and dump scheme over here.” But I also know that it is extremely hard for a salesperson (VAR or vendor) to turn down a sale, and it makes it doubly difficult when you are feeling pressure from above.  So the temptation is there to push the product whether it is a good fit or not.

Now where Accuvant comes into play is that we look at the product that the client is asking about, and since we are the trusted adviser in the situation, we have the leeway to tell them the truth.  If we don’t, then we can lose that status.  Not a good idea for a company that leads with services, not product.  And Alan, you asked, “if Accuvant did not have a product that was a good fit, would you send the customer to EnPointe, Cadre, Fishnet or another VAR?”  Actually, yes, I would.  And I can speak for most, if not all, of Accuvant when I say that they would as well.  That may be hard to believe, but I think you know me well enough to know that I ain’t jerking you around.  In fact, we have contracted with competitors before for stuff that we could not do because of lack of resources or whatever (and no, we did not make them wear Accuvant shirts and not tell anyone where they were from).  We have done that because we place our customers first.  If the competitor gets in and steals the business, then obviuosly we weren’t doing our job in the first place, and we deserve to lose the customer.

Alan also says:

Michael here is another example you site.  The vendor who is upset with you for bringing in his competitor in a deal.  Of course he is.  You would be too.  In fact you are upset by it and you even say that your dander was up because the vendor admitted he wanted another reseller in there.  You wouldn’t mind the vendor suggesting another reseller? See the point.

Well Alan, I see the point you are TRYING to make, but you actually miss it.  Read my paragraph again:

 But what really got my dander up was that I knew that the guy had not brought me in to the client.  In fact, the client requested Accuvant (the client and I were old friends – we had worked at another reseller together).  And in the course of the conversation with me, the sales guy got so flustered that he actually admitted that he had suggested another reseller first (a big mistake on his part that essentially killed his argument, no matter what my argument had been).  This was just pure and simple dishonesty, and it irked me tremendously.

Go to the end.  I wasn’t upset because he suggested another reseller.  I was upset because the vendor was dishonest about saying that he had brought me to the deal when he had actually suggested another reseller first.  That is what makes me wary of vendors.  I have seen that kind of dishonesty time and time again, both from the reseller POV and the client POV.

Another Alan quote:

As long as you are getting paid to put products in at the customer, whether you make and sell them or just sell them, you still sell.  As long as you sell, you are as guilty or innocent, moral or immoral as anyone else in the food chain.

This goes back to my original question.  Why does selling make me guilty or innocent or immoral or moral?  That makes no sense.  It is not the act of selling that makes a person bad.  Guilt and immorality come into play when the sales person or the marketing department or whomever makes false statements to make a sale, and that applies to the VAR or the vendor.  And I know plenty of VARs who sell based on the best spiff that month.  But everything I have seen from Accuvant since before I worked here and after I have been here 9 months tells me that we don’t follow that kind of crap.  Have we had people collect on spiffs before?  Hell yes.  But it was not the driver behind the business.  And if you don’t believe we are on the up-and-up, just ask a customer (thanks again, LonerVamp).

Alan again:

First of all Michael assumes that only someone like a VAR would tell the customer that a case study or lab result are “done in pristine situations”. Why would a vendor be disqualified from saying that?

They’re not.  But do they?  It is not in their interest to do so.

Mr. Shimel again:

Then he talks about telling the customer the truth about how long it takes to install the product. Do you think a vendor is going to lie about this?  Especially if the vendor is selling install professional services along with the product.

Because it is often a bait-and-switch.  Alan, I have seen this so many times it is impossible to name them all.  In fact, one of your competitors in the NAC space does this very thing.  In all honesty, I don’t think the sales person is actually lieing.  However, when he says the product installs in 30 mintues (OK, I exaggerated by saying 5 minutes), he is not telling the full truth.  Does the product physically install in place in that amount of time?  Yes.  They are specifically trying to counter Cisco NAC because they have seen the uber-pain people have gone through trying to implement CleanAccess.  But it takes time to determine the business behind the need for the product, create the policies to fit those needs, get the agent installed on all the workstations, etc.  And yes, a security manager or administrator worth his salt will know the intricacies involved and will know that is a shortsighted claim.  But the fact that he says it and uses it in every sales call creates the need for me to manage the customer’s expectations and let them know all of the other details if installing a product like this.

And if you don’t believe that this is a problem, let me tell you that I have had to convince customers numerous times that getting this product (and others whose salespeople make similiar claims) installed is not just plugging in a couple of patch cables and letting rip.

Anyway, in the immortal words of Forrest Gump:

And that’s all I have to say about that.

I’m going to bed.

Vet