This week, I attended a BCTIA Impact event, a monthly speaker series highlighting winners of last year's Impact awards given to the brightest stars in BC's tech industry. The two speakers were Greg Speakman, VP Marketing at Sierra Wireless, and John Livingston, President of Absolute Software. Here are the top takeaways I took from this event!
1. Make your offering a "need to have" rather than a "nice to have". (John Livingston)
I couldn't agree more - especially in this economy. From my personal experience - when the tech bubble burst in 2001 I was working at a video-over-IP company called Eyeball Networks. The reason I left is because I realized that in the economy at that time - companies were only buying "need to have's", and cutting out all "nice to have's". Video-over-IP wasn't considered one of those "need to have's".
2. When in doubt, just act. (John Livingston)
The culture he has created at Absolute is under the belief that you can sit around and discuss theories and strategies, but at the end of the day - action needs to be taken to get results. So he encourages people to just act! Sometimes, I call this "ask for forgiveness, not permission" in my career.
3. Listen to your partners - especially the ones that are where you want to be. (Greg Speakman)
Both companies have created extremely successful strategic alliances with large companies as part of their go-to-market strategy. Absolute with laptop manufacturers (Dell, HP, etc.) and Sierra Wireless with telco carriers (AT&T, Telstra, etc.). They stressed the importance of listening to your current customers (duh), but also of listening to these types of partners who may be closer to your target new customers. And revise your product and strategy if required.
4. Hire people who have worked at your target alliance partners.
To successfully create alliances with large, complex organizations (like laptop manufacturers and telco carriers) - both of them said that their secret to doing this successfully was by hiring people who used to work at these organizations. In some situations, they even did it after they had established relationships with the partner company (with permission). They know the culture, can navigate the complexities of the organizations to identify the influencers and decision-makers.
In my job, since I've started to work with telco carriers (on our mobile CRM product), this was the key question I wanted to ask. And though we aren't yet ready to hire people from these telcos, I'm doing the next best thing by hiring a wireless telco consultant that is ex-Bell/Telus/Rogers. Thanks for the great advice!
5. Beware of service providers and job-seekers at networking events
I periodically go to BCTIA events, but never before had I been to one where there were more lawyers, bankers, and unemployed people than actual tech industry people! That took me by surprise a little. But I guess this is a sign of the economy where more than the usual # of people are looking for business and jobs!
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