Sage News and Discussion

He sounds pretty excited. Let the Sage Summit attendance begathon begin.

Begathon."" cynic! ;<)

This dude is on downers all the time. I had dinner with him at BPAC. Smart guy but very much a believer in the ""John Hurt"" and ""Harrison Ford"" school of acting (flat acting, deadpan).

My suggestion is to tie his hands down under the desk. All I noticed was the hands flailing about.

I'd like to ban the words ""thrilled"" and ""excited"" from sales pitches. They subtly reduce the ""honesty content"" of the presentation. Smith's presentation was better than many in similar circumstances. At least no ""ahh's"". It does raise for me, a former tv presenter, the question of when an ""intimate"" presentation like this is appropriate. There was a lot of information in this. It would have been more memorable for me if there was some coordinated bullets on the screen with him. His eyes were constantly darting to the notes at the side; would it be more effective if he periodically broke eye contact and looked down at notes? Would it be more effective if he used the longer-shot style that Alan Weiss uses? Just things to consider for when we do our own ""little"" videos.

He is clearly reading from something. My guess is he won't be at Sage more than another year.

This really targeted to Sage customers rather than resellers. much.

Do customers really care whether its some SVP or mid-level flunky talking to them on their computer about an upcoming event? No they don't. They do care if bad news is being delivered, and maybe if it's really good news. Otherwise, where credibility is not a factor, they really don't. There is a lot to be said for the idea that really good execs make only mediocre spokespeople. Why inflict that on customers? This presentation left me neither well informed, nor emotionally touched, nor curious to find out more. I'm not sure he really understands what ""experience"" customers are after. I do know that the structure of the support agreements and options are in his dept. That combined with no real line responsibility makes him not much more than ""SVP of QA.."" If customer sat goes up, others will get the credit. If it doesn't he'll get the blame. So I agree with Wayne's prediction.

No but it's a good show. Notice that we have a customer VP and no longer a channel VP.