General Consultant Discussion

Partner Call in 7 minutes. Who is listening in? BAsed on the fact that they want you to use computer audio, are they allowing questions or did Kathleen ruin this for us last summer?????

How do you activate the subtitles?

That's it???

That's it???

I hope they issue a transcript.

I missed the first 5 minutes, was there something important? Or was that the most useless webinar of all time?

If a customer gets a system that does what they need and doesn't need to be upgraded/changed for five years, then they made a good choice. Its kind of scary if your business model thinks that is a problem...

I'd say the most useless, Jon.

Serious! Is that it?

First 5 minutes was everyone trying to get on the call. And a little resume review from ""Joe"" the new VP

And did anyone ask Joe what ""saleslogistics"" is?

Jeff, what questions would we possibly have besides, ""What's the purpose of this webinar?

What exactly was the point of today's webinar? Does anyone have a clue? I sure don't.

Or, ""I'm sorry Pascal, what did you just say?

His email last Thursday said, ""This will be a session for me to connect with our business partners and it is a result of my desire to communicate more with you. I look forward to speaking with you during this session.

Mission not accomplished. As I believe they say in Hollywood - Take 2!

It might have been better in English

This was not re-assuring. I think his struggle with English is going to make it difficult to be a great leader. Best we can hope for is a great manager which can also work if he has cheerleaders to build support for initiatives.

One thing I did pick up on was the announcement of a ""new"" pricing model. This follows the release of the ""new"" pricing model announces just how many months ago? Does anyone else have the feeling that Sage is about to pick our pockets yet again in the near future?

@GregTalburt I think we can count on it.

@WayneSchulz - Is your blog post update done yet? I want to read it so I can figure out what I just heard. The message + the accent = system failure

Remember the days when there was more competition amongst us and not with Sage?

A serious question. Where do you draw the line and just terminate your sales efforts as it relates to Sage? I cannot be the only one asking this question.

@ThereseLogeais Every group needs a villain to rally against so they are trying to make it easy on us.

@PeterWolf Ron Verni used to let Taylor Macdonald do the talking. As an immigrant myself (born and learned to speak in Indiana) I hate to say it Pascal might consider getting a spokesperson.

Not so much as speaking with us but speaking (down) to us. Is this the French way? Deb Thomas, you just returned from the ""Pere"" land. What say you?

@GregTalburt - I think @MikeFitzgerald mentioned stopping by Walmart on the way home for some applications. Maybe we should see if he can grab some for all of us?

Hey, careful how you talk about the Hoosier land!!!!!! I am a native of Northern IN.

@PaulZiliak - There is nothing wrong with a great manager having a spokesperson. Hell - Tom Miller would be great in the role of getting across the messages in a positive, can-do attitude.

Maybe it was just a scary Halloween prelude?

Jeff, I used to own a consulting business in London that had several clients in Paris. Yes, this is the way that the French operate for the most part.

Is that London and Paris Kentucky???

Why not just send out an e-mail? At least we could understand it.

Peter, All joking aside, I am serious. When do you just call it quits and do something else. We all have other options athat are a lot better than working at Walmart.

Peter, i was waiting for Tom to jump in at the end and at least try and recap what we were supposed to take away from this session. Do you think he was speechless?

Well - back to work. My summary: I still like the changes that I've seen so far happening. I think the execution needs to be better planned and the communication needs to be greatly improved. Also, either a deep immersion in ESL or a permanent spokesperson would do wonders.

Jeff, Cannary Wharf, London England. Trust me, I know the difference and so did my pocket book. You have not seen high rents until you have rented office space in London, England.

@GregTalburt - We all have to make the best choices for ourselves, right? I wouldn't hold his poor communication style against him. It could be cultural, issues with the language and not necessarily indicative of lack of planning or strategic capabilities.

@PeterWolf have you dealt with either Donna Armstrong or Brian Neirby yet?

@ThereseLogeais - Donna - yes. She's sharp. She also has experience working at a consulting practice - so that's good. Brian - no experiences.

The condescending ""we know what's best for you"" attitude doesn't bode well.

I noticed that one of the new hires was for VP Inside Sales - Mid Market Division (I believe that is what it was called). In the past it seems they referred to this as installed base sales. I wonder it we should read anything into this?

I noticed the inside sales reference as well. Although i already knew they were doing just that.

So Sage appears on LinkedIN promising some followup after the call. ""I have let a few Sage employees know about everyone's concerns. The feedback came in pretty quickly after the call and that's a great thing. Please expect a follow up response here addressing the issues."" This is the announcement I really want to hear. How the heck do they spin this one? My guess: Ignore it.

From Tom Miller on LinkedIn: Thanks to everyone who has commented here and also in the emails to Joe Carroll and to myself. I am the responsible party for ensuring that we are effective in all of our executive communications to our channel partners. Any of you who know me know that I take that responsibility very seriously. We missed the mark on several areas including setting the proper expectations for our webcast today. We will improve in that area and other areas that we are getting very constructive and specific feedback on. Please reach out to me at tom.miller@sage.com if you would like to discuss any aspect with me personally and please continue to add your comments here as we value the feedback. I am personally very excited about the many positive things that are happening at Sage and I want to ensure that all of you feel the same way!

And Jeff's apt response: Tom, I see a series of communications that could be construed as a trend. 1) Partner call prior to Summit announcing changes to the partner certification requirements. Very short on details. 2) Announcement at Summit regarding Branding changes. Very short on details. 3) Partner call today announcing Value Pricing. Very, very short on details. With communications like this, no wonder FUD is rampant in the channel!

It was nice knowing everyone.....................................