Asathor – ASATHOR

30 Day Kettlebell Challenge – Mother went Shopping

I have written a lot about the idea of a healthy body as prerequisite for a healthy mind and joyful life. It was about eating properly, weight training (body weight training, calisthenics, functional training) and of course discipline. Over the last 4-5 years, kettlebell training are a key part of my weight training staying in shape. Kettlebells are more or less heavy balls with a handle and can be used for static and ballistic exercises.

Unlike the exercises with dumbbells or barbells, kettlebell exercises involve large numbers of repetitions in the sport, and can also involve large reps in normal training. Kettlebell exercises are in their nature holistic; therefore they work several muscles simultaneously and may be repeated continuously for several minutes or with short breaks.
Wikipedia Entry

I use competition kettlebells which all have the same size regardless of their weight. That way, I’m more used to their handling even when taking heavier balls. Like many others, I have started during Covid in a time where gyms where closed and also after realising that I’m not a gym person. I started with basic exercises I found on YouTube (e.g. from Bär von Schilling, Geoff Neupert, and Johannes Kwella). If you do this by video watching only, take your time, take low weights, and film yourself or have someone watching you for improving the execution of the exercises.

I also found that I need change stimulus when I workout, that’s why I bought some courses from the guys mentioned above, followed their training plans, and also some challenge. Today, I finished the 30 day workout from Johannes Kwella. This is nothing you can do immediately – you should build some strength first and be confident in executing the exercises (there are tons of training plans getting there). I’m proud that I finished the 30 days (now the 2nd time) and I feel great.

Let me show you how the last day looked like: you start with exercise 1 (1 left, 1 one right), then exercise 2 (2 left, 2 right). Then you start again, exercise 1, 2, and then 3. And then exercise 1, 2, 3 and 4, etc. until you have all 11 in a row. Each day is explained in a nice video where Johannes shows you how to do the excercises.

1/1 Turkish Get Up
2/2 Bottom Up Press
3/3 Snatch
4/4 Jerk
5/5 Clean
6/6 Swing
7/7 Staggered Rows
8/8 Cossack Squats
9 Power Swings
10 alternating Leg Passes to Body Catch 11/11 High Pulls
12 Jump Squats

Phew. I feel like hulk now – next is Johannes’ double kettlebell program (I worked on Geoff’s double kettlebell programs before). Keeping you posted,

Why Asathor?

Sometimes, people ask me, what Asathor means for me. It’s very simple – I’m a big comic fan (both DC and Marvel) and I liked the Thor character since I was a kid. Thor, the god of thunder, is also called Asathor. In the mythological Edda writings he was the protector of Midgard, the world of mankind against the giants from Jötunheim. A nice analogy to protecting mankind against cybercrime these days.

Fighting the Yoyo Effect, post Covid Thoughts

Getting older (I think it started after 30+), I found it more difficult staying in shape. Although I exercise regularly, there were always phases (let’s call that the yoyo effect) of gaining extra kilos and it became harder and harder to lose them again. For me, staying at a certain weight and staying fit is key for a fulfilling live. Why? When I add kilos, I have more pain, when I have pain, I’m getting mad at myself and others. Healthy body, healthy mind.

The entire Covid restrictions led to further difficulties in staying in form. Less contacts, less (outside) activities, getting more and more used to stay inside in front of your favourite streaming show.

While I made it to get back on track in terms of exercising, weight remained sort of an issue. Given my age, I went to the doctor for the typical health checks and they found that everything is ok. So it only could be my eating habits. While I try to eat “good” food as often as I can, something was wrong here. Cutting it short: I called my osteopath who is also a good coach for other live situations. And here is what she came up with:

There have to be longer breaks between eating (4-6 hours). If you don’t do that, the body doesn’t really consume the intake and it ends up in additional body fat (there are experts explaining that in all detail, for example Lothar Ursinus in his book “Gesund und aktiv Stoffwechselprogramm”).
Breakfast can and should be with carbs (no devil, but needed as body fuel), then less carbs and more proteins in the subsequent meals during the day. Be careful which type of fat you have – there’s good and not so good fat.
In order to follow such a program over time and not falling back into the yoyo effect, key to success is cheat meals where you eat what you want. I also added extra exercise sessions after such moments (e.g. the next day) to compensate.

So far, I follow this program since 8 weeks and after a difficult time really not eating anything in between, I’m getting used to it, even when being on the road for fun or business. Keeping you posted how this goes on and looking forward to your thoughts.

How to scale Product Demos

In young companies, the core team is doing everything. Development, consulting, sales, administration. While you grow, more people come on board in often you find yourself in a trap: it’s always the same 2-3 people doing the demos. The downside: they quickly become a bottleneck. And on top: the demos are mostly too technical for a broader target group (not to speak an also growing sales and marketing team that needs simple messaging). Let me summarise how we industrialised product demos once we passed the 40-50 people mark:

Focus on selected use cases: software has many features. With every release, there will be additional features. This often leads to an extensive show of each and every feature and you will lose your audience (that is the enterprise buyer). It’s smarter to think from the customer’s end and present some compelling use cases that generate a WOW effect. 3-5 are sufficient, nobody can remember more. There’s room for the feature battle ground in a later phase where the engineers are involved (proof of concept, proof of value).
Don’t embarrass customers: this is particularly important for security software that reveals weaknesses in a customer’s environment. Show 1 or 2 examples per check and only a few checks. It’s tempting to showcase how many issues your tool will find, but if you try to show them all you simply tell the customer: you are doomed, you are lost, you failed – that’s what they will remember.
Scaling demos: I stopped doing live demos at a certain point. It’s risky because you usually need to dial in to you demo system and such connections can break. Broken connection – no demo – no pitch – you lose. Recording your demo (along the key use cases) has the following advantages: a) in your script you can work on a compelling story, b) you can highlight certain statements with callouts, c) you are getting consistent (no matter who is doing the demo), and finally: everyone can do the demo everywhere, anytime.

A closing idea: if you record new features once available and update your recordings accordingly, you’ll get a nice collection of “why cool” videos for internal training, education partners (scaling, scaling, scaling), and also customers.

Strategic Selling vs. “We needed the Money”

I think a lot when exercising. This morning I reflected my own experience from the very beginning until the end of my active role as founder and my later role in sales. So there will be some historical story telling here.

When we started my company, we were just a few guys with a joint passion for breaking SAP systems. And we had the first assignments literally over night after establishing the company. We pen-tested day for day and month for month and we grew organically. We recruited many people from my “Hacker Contest” courses at the university and grew organically (I will talk about the “pain of growth” later). And then we found out, that it was very difficult keeping heads above water because many project assignments came in late in the year. We couldn’t deliver everything while suffering hardly above the line vor the first 9-10 months of the year.

That’s why we decided to turn the company from a consulting to a software firm (I will also talk about making and executing strategic decisions). Having left SAP after a few years as product manager, I knew what was not in SAP’s portfolio. I still have the sheet of paper with ~20 ideas but we opted for what was later known as “CodeProfiler” – a security scanner for SAP’s proprietary language ABAP. We funded this with cash flow and our own money and had our first prototype up and running for SAP TechEd late 2008 in Berlin. This attracted the first customers and we could grow the business from there generating a recurring revenue stream as desired.

While we could grow the company further, some things went wrong. Since we were funded by cash, we could often not sell strategically (executing our vision). Sometimes, we had to hunt every EUR in order to move on and we sometimes couldn’t do what needed to be done. Here are three key examples:

Custom Development: you know the stories where one customer says “I buy your product, if you implement this …” and we did that a lot in the beginning. While this may secure a deal (it doesn’t always), it doesn’t help you to built a standard product that is valuable for many customers vs. only one customer. In the worst case you will end up with a highly segmented product where no customer gets the full value. We changed that over time by implementing product management functions and agile development.
Consulting without focus: due to our history, we had a strong consulting division. Strong also means that there was high revenue generated. The downside was that many consulting services were not around our products (like getting it up and running, executing scans, working on results, etc.) but dozens of small service offerings somehow related to our topic SAP security. By nature that was difficult to transfer to the field organisation since sales must be simple. You can only overcome this situation if you have enough funding for implementing your strategy – by being very focused and also by bringing in growth capital.
Too much focus on features: I’d say that we had the best product in our domain over time. However, the best product does not necessarily sell by itself. The market might value your solution – but first of all prospects need to understand WHY they need what you have. Since we sold complex products that are not explanatory like iPhones, a lot of effort needs to be put into the right messaging with a focus on customer value. Over time we succeeded and “CodeProfiler” is still used synonymously with security scanning of SAP ABAP.

I can only encourage every entrepreneur to look for growth capital being able to execute strategically. Keep in mind that finding the right partner for this will be another challenge in your life as a founder and director of your own business.

Thoughts on Value-based Selling

I have worked in or for software companies since the late 90s and found, that messaging is often very self-centered (“we are the best”, “see our new 100 features”, “see why our new partnership with xyz is so cool”). While this is typical thinking of leaders of software companies, this misses the viewpoint of customers. You don’t given an answer to the “WHY” is this valuable for them?

I have offered a service for software companies analysing their USP and messaging. Here are 3 key findings:

Very often, the USP is mixed up. You should focus on either company USPs (why is it beneficial for customers to work with you and no-one else?) and product USPs (why is it important for your customer to use your product and no other solution)? For me, it worked out many times to have this view on USP clearly separated between company and product.
On the messaging, which should build on the USPs, I have observed the self-centered wording mentioned above. Instead of having a constant exchange with customers about what’s perceived as value, companies often make something up. They think of USPs but customers don’t see that. And if you don’t understand what value means for your customers, you can never make them really happy. Examples: customers don’t want to have another 100 features (they never use) but something like a dashboard for keeping management in the loop. Keep you customers close and understand their perception of value.
I have seen many messaging frameworks. While it is good to have a messaging framework for consistency in communication, most of them are overcomplicated and therefore inapplicable. If they are inapplicable, they are useless. As you can see in many of my articles, I usually use 3-5 statements for making a point (no-one can remember more). Do the same in your messaging framework. 3 key statements for corporate USPs and 3 key statements for the product. Apply the Golden Circle to this. Simplify your messaging.

I have written more about starting with the WHY here (Vision and Mission) and there (the typical trap for technical leaders).

Vorsätze fürs neue Jahr

Ein Artikel mit guten Vorsätzen – Ende März?` Nun ja, ich war ziemlich nachlässig, was das Schreiben von Artikeln hier angeht. Es ist nicht so, dass ich nichts gemacht habe – im Gegenteil: in allen Bereichen, in denen ich mich hier austobe, bewegt sich sehr viel. Aber: ich habe das Thema Bloggen etwas aus den Augen verloren, insbesondere auch, weil ich kein Konzept hatte, was ich wo schreibe (das habe ich nun geändert – alle Details hier, Kurzfassungen z.B. auf LinkedIn). Das will ich nun ändern, gerade rechtzeitig zum Ende des ersten Quartals.

Bei meiner jährlichen Rückschau habe ich festgestellt, dass viele Dinge gut laufen und andere mehr Fokus brauchen. Hier meine geschärfte Liste, zunächst zu den Businessthemen, zu denen ich hier schreibe:

Successful Business (Coaching): als ehemaliger Eigentümer und Geschäftsführer im Cybersecurity-Umfeld habe ich mir zum Ziel gesetzt, meine Erfahrung weiterzugeben, helfen Fehler zu vermeiden und Entscheidern in kleinen Firmen (50-300 Leute) auf ihrem Weg zu unterstützen. Mir ist in den letzten 1-2 Jahren sehr deutlich geworden, was mir dabei wichtig ist: gegenseitiger Respekt, Kommunikation auf Augenhöhe und ein gutes Team. Das klingt einfach, ist aber keineswegs immer gegeben (dann passen wir nicht zusammen). Ich habe zudem festgestellt, dass ich am liebsten mit Software-Anbietern arbeite – denn das ist es, was ich am besten kann und wo ich mich am besten einbringen kann.
Successful Business (Consulting): eine andere Ebene ist die fachliche Erfahrung, die ich als langjähriger (SAP) Cybersecurity Experte einbringen kann. Ich habe hier vor langer Zeit aufgehört, in die Tiefen der Bits und Bytes einzutauchen, sondern mich vielmehr darauf zu fokussieren, IT Entscheidern zu helfen, gute Entscheidungen zu treffen. Warum muss was gemacht werden? Wer kann dabei helfen? Was kann passieren, wenn nichts gemacht wird? Etc. Wenn die Frage nach dem “WHY” beantwortet ist, sind die Folgeschritte deutlich leichter festzulegen.
Successful Business (Investment): die dritte und letzte Dimension im Bereich Business ist es für mich, in Ideen zu investieren. Nicht mit Unsummen (die ich nicht habe), sondern einer Idee mit kleinen Geldspritzen zur nächsten Stufe helfen. Hier ist mir der Kontakt zum Unternehmer, der dahinter steht, wichtig. Ist es wirklich ein Unternehmer? Brennt er für seine Idee? Wenn ja, reden wir.

Zu den anderen Schwerpunktthemen meines Blogs, Gesundheit und Spaß haben, schreibe ich in den nächsten Wochen.

Keine Überraschung beim Abschluss: “Closing Plan”

Ich habe zuletzt über ein paar unangenehme Erfahrungen bei dem ein oder anderen Abschluss geschrieben. Eins der dort genannten Hilfsmittel im Vertrieb ist der sgt. “Closing Plan”. Es klingt einfach, ist wirkungsvoll, wird aber oft nicht verwendet. Vielleicht kann ich hiermit dazu ermutigen, es wenigstens ein paar mal zu versuchen.

Ich fange auch hier mit einer Erfahrung an. Wir hatten einen Vertriebskollegen, der in seiner vorherigen Firma sehr erfolgreich war. Und hatten dementsprechend auch großes Vertrauen in seine zahlreichen Kontakte bei möglichen Kunden, aber vor allem auch seinen Fertigkeiten, einen Deal zu gestalten und abzuschließen. Tatsächlich hatten wir einen Deal im hohen 6-stelligen Bereich vor der Flinte, der aber zunächst nicht gewonnen werden konnte.

Was war da passiert? Der Kollege hat mit vielen Fachabteilungen gesprochen, um einen Gesamtbedarf bei dem Kunden zu ermitteln. Es ist ihm jedoch entgangen, dass darüber hinaus auch der Einkauf, die Rechtsabteilung, etc. auch eingebunden werden muss. Hinzu kommt meist auch bei höheren Summen ein mehrstufiger Freigabeprozess zu befolgen ist. In seiner alten Firma gab es dafür ein Team, dass nahezu automatisch sichergestellt hat, dass dies und mehr alles synchron läuft. Bei uns war das leider nicht so – kleinere Firma, oftmals noch in einem Startup Modus. Am Ende haben wir den Deal nicht verloren, es kam aber zu einer erheblichen Verzögerung, was wiederum Auswirkungen auf alle anderen Dimensionen der Firmen-Strategie hat.

Wir haben daher das Konzept des Closing Plans eingeführt, insbesondere für größere Deals. Ein Closing Plan bedeutet, dass man mit seinem Ansprechpartner auf Kundenseite plant, was bis zur Einführung des Produkts und ggf. auch danach alles passieren muss. Denn es muss ja genau dieses gemeinsame Ziel geben: wir wollen im Januar loslegen, um Ziel xyz zu erreichen (wenn es dies nicht gibt, kommt es außer zum regelmäßigen gemeinsamen Kaffeetrinken i.d.R. zu nichts weiter).

Solch eine Rückwärtsplanung kann beiden Seiten helfen, zum richtigen Zeitpunkt die notwendigen Dinge zu tun. Das kann z.B. die Vertragsprüfung sein, zuvor das Onboarding als Lieferant, Benennung von fachlichen Ansprechpartnern, Abstimmung des Kaufpreises mit dem Einkauf, usw. Ich habe auch noch nicht erlebt, dass sich ein Kunde dagegen gewehrt hat, einen gemeinsamen Closing Plan zu erstellen. Je nach Kunde kann das anders laufen und eine offene, gemeinsame Absprache hilft jedem, das Ziel auch zu erreichen bzw. festzustellen, ob es irgendwo klemmt. Ein positives Ergebnis ist zudem, dass ein CRM-basiertes Reporting viel verlässlicher wird, wenn hinter den einzelnen CRM-Stufen nicht nur Wunschdenken und Hoffnung stehen, sondern ein solider Plan.

Vorbereitung auf den Abschluss. Oder: einige, gemeine Einkäufertricks

Bei einem meiner größeren Produkt-Deals habe ich eine Verhandlungssituation erlebt, die mir nachhaltig in Erinnerung geblieben ist. Es war einmal …

… der Termin war kurz vor Weihnachten, es war nasskalt draußen, dementsprechend waren wir „sturmfest“ gekleidet. Man hat uns dann erstmal in einem sehr warmen Flur warten lassen. 10 Minuten, 20 Minuten, eine halbe Stunde. Dann kam irgendwann der Verhandlungsleiter des Kunden und meinte: „mein Chef kann nicht kommen und ich habe nur 15 Minuten Zeit“. Unsere zeitigen Anfragen bezüglich einer Prüfung der vertraglichen Konditionen hat man unter Verweis auf *den* Termin abgewiesen. Nur, um uns dann zu sagen: ihre AGB müssen auf 2 DINA4 Seiten passen, ansonsten schauen sich das unsere Juristen nicht an. Selbstverständlich war es da auch nicht erlaubt, einfach die Schriftgröße zu ändern, wie ein erster spontaner Gedanke nahegelegt hat. Eigentlich waren auch Preis und Nachlass schon vorverhandelt, aber da kam dann der finale Kniff der Einkäufer: man hat versucht, uns eine Karotte vor die Nase zu halten und gleich Konzern-Rabatte auszuhandeln, auch wenn nur ein Teil der Firma tatsächlich den ersten Schritt gehen wollte.

Unser Vertriebsverantwortlicher wollte eigentlich schon nach den ersten beiden Finten die Heimreise antreten und ich gestehe mir im Nachhinein ein, dass das vermutlich der bessere Weg gewesen wäre. Denn der Kauf sollte seitens der Fachabteilung noch im Kalenderjahr stattfinden, sodass hier ein gewisser Gegendruck aufgebaut hätte werden können.

Ich selbst empfinde die o.g. Tricks als unfair, da man dem Lieferanten nicht auf Augenhöhe begegnet. Das ist vllt auch einer der Gründe, warum ich selbst auf Vertriebsprofis gesetzt und versucht habe, diese aus dem Hintergrund zu coachen bzw. Verhandlungstaktiken zu entwickeln.

Und das führt zu den Erkenntnissen, die ich gewonnen habe:

Der Eigentümer / Geschäftsführer sollte nicht (sofort) mit in die Verhandlung gehen, da sonst jede Eskalationsmöglichkeit fehlt.
Weiterhin bietet es sich an, mit dem Kunden zusammen einen „Closing Plan“ zu erstellen, in dem gemeinsam alle relevanten Meilensteine bis zum Go-Live festgelegt werden. Dazu gehören dann auch die kaufmännischen und juristischen Verhandlungen, sowie eine realistische Zeitplanung.
Wenn das alles nicht gegeben ist, kann ein klares NEIN unter dem Strich auch richtig sein. Man sollte nicht um jeden Preis verkaufen (wenn man es sich leisten kann – das ist hin und wieder auch leichter gesagt, als getan). Oft fängt die richtige Verhandlung erst nach einem Nein an.

Damit ist es natürlich nicht getan. Aus einem aktuellen Coaching habe ich einige weitere Themen gesammelt, die ich in den nächsten Wochen und Monate runter schreiben werde. Gutes Gelingen und nie Aufgeben!

Selling through Partners. 100%.

I have written about Partnerships in Business (the Win:Win:Win triangle) before. I support some management teams of product companies and like to share the idea of selling products through partners only.

A key assumption here is that a product company is not offering consulting services (for many reasons, for example, a) because focus is getting blurred, b) because it could destroy certain partner markets, c) etc.

Here’s my view:

WHY NOT selling through partners? One of the first counter-arguments against selling through partners is: we are quicker if we go direct. We safe money because we don’t need to pay their sales team. We can better support the customer in the after-sales phase. Etc.
WHY selling through partners? Direct sales might sound attractive, however, it a) takes time to establish market recognition, b) takes money to pay your own sales force, c) might destroy the partner’s opportunity to offer services for your product. Last but not least: if you make your sales team all partner managers and each partner manager can support 2-3 partners, you can easily see the huge leverage effect.
Quick thoughts how to get started:
1. Define possible quick wins and focus on them. It could be even an idea to hand over some leads and prospects to partners in order to remove initial “resistance” before the wheel is turning.
2. Go as a team and bring in your market and technical expertise (“direct touch” sales) but never be a competitor to your partner. Instead your partner knows that they can start without risk since they can rely on your support.
3. Clear rules of customer engagement: how prospects are registered, what that means, and how registrations are extended / ended. By the end of the day this is teamplay and your partner managers should be very close to your partner’s sales team.

You walk better if you never walk alone!