A technical consultant, partner, and advocate.

I introduce myself to a client as a technical consultant, a partner, and an advocate, and I do not present myself as a know-it-all. Opening that way breaks the ice on any current or past frustrations and turns the conversation toward fixing the client’s problems. Clients do not expect it. I find it eases the tension in the room and builds rapport faster than any pitch.

I have spent 25 years on the delivery side: designing, installing, programming, and supporting systems, then taking the escalation when something breaks. As a director of integration services I set deployment strategy and vetted technology, and as the owner of a service-provider practice I was responsible for the work my team put into customers’ buildings. Today I manage and monitor 150+ IPsec VPN tunnels on FortiGate as the final escalation tier.

That approach does not stop when the first meeting ends. As the final escalation tier, I usually meet customers after something has already failed, so I listen first and ask what went wrong last time. I explain the problem and the fix in plain language, whether I am talking to an executive or the person who uses the system every day. I stay with the problem until it is closed, and I tell the customer what I changed so it does not surprise them later.