Reflecting On My First 90 Days At IPVM As The Token Salesguy...

I am asked at least once a day "What is it like working for IPVM?" Or, "What's it like working for Honovich?" Even "So has Honovich flown you out to Hawaii yet?" He hasn't.

To find myself working for John Honovich... crazy. I think back on my first confrontation with John, which actually wound up being really good publicity at the time, and historically I pretty much hated him. Fast-forward years later and I'm talking to the guy on an almost daily basis, not always about shop, sometimes offering my latest puns or musings, which often end with him referring to me as "a maniac"... and now I work for him! I've come to platonically love the man, and I think you can see his mutual endearment for me in this timeless selfie I scored with him years back… which he has since removed from the post — picture me looking overly enthusiastic, and Honovich looking like he might strangle me. That’s the photo.

On a serious note, my first weeks at IPVM were like a hard restart to my brain. When you have my background, spending the last few years feeling like a drone and totally unchallenged, the mental kickstart has a certain sting; it's like I went from no one giving a damn about what I think to "Hey, yeah, good idea, why don't you submit a ticket to to the Dev Team to have that facet of the website overhauled?" As my mental fog lifts, I find I am able to better contribute and am getting more and more ideas about how to better the IPVM UX.

While on the subject, our Dev Team at IPVM is agile AF. One CANNOT appreciate how rapidly major changes can be implemented over here; I go to sleep with some facet of the site working one way, I wake up the next morning and it's completely customized to my liking. That's another side of IPVM you don't see as a subscriber, the back-end is fairly complex, taking myself as someone fairly technical well beyond a month to learn, and I'm definitely still learning it. But the unsung heroes at IPVM... there are a lot of them, and you'll never see them posing for a camera shootout, or as a contributing author to the site, but they're working at all hours of the day to bring new and exciting features to IPVM.

"Is it like... a cultural shock?" Yeah, it is. I get asked that fairly often as well, because people who know me realize IPVM is probably a pretty serious place, and I tend to approach things with levity. On one hand, I've been surrounded by salespeople MOST of my professional life, and that's not a jab, just, you know, that's a discussion for another time, but now I'm surrounded by folks with a more advanced intellect. I will say, though, I think it's equally as tough for them to acclimate as it's been for me, namely when your new token sales schlub starts hurling puns and jokes you wouldn't normally share with the girls over tea and strumpets; God bless them all, this is a patient team at IPVM.

Having been on the manufacturing side of security for 26 years, imagine going from taking on an adversarial stance every time a competitor releases a new product and IPVM announces it or tests it, to waking up one morning and realizing you don't have to care now the way you did before -- If you know you know, and that's been a weird experience I'm still acclimating to. No longer do I look upon new product releases or innovation and think to myself "Well there go my sales, Brand X has THIS feature now." No, instead you can take a few steps back, contemplate what those innovations mean to the industry as a whole and how it can lead to the betterment of physical security overall.

Speaking of sales, that too has been a new and exciting experience. For those unfamiliar, in keeping with IPVM's ethical virtues, I am not paid commission, another first for me, and am instead paid a salary well above industry average. Not looking to start a debate here, not now at least, but I have always had a problem with the way sales teams are financially compensated and I think it's a real quandary for our industry in particular, so to be in a position now where I earn a steady and predictable income taking what's right for IPVM's customers into consideration before what may be right for me and my bank account, is a breath of fresh air. I'll likely post a rant discussion about security sales teams and commission to IPVM in the near future. But aside from being non-commissioned, the really exciting part of being at IPVM is the variety of existing and aspiring IPVM subscribers I talk to multiple times a day. I'm talking to founders and CEOs one minute, I'm on a a conference call full of national security personnel the next, global heads of security for Fortune 500s, the federal legislature of this country, the border patrol for that country... the list goes on and on, LOTS of diversity, it never gets boring! That's, I think, what IPVM subscribers don't realize... there are a lot of eyes on IPVM. There are folks from high places lurking, reading articles and discussions here on IPVM, not necessarily posting, and unless you're on the IPVM team you'd have no idea -- I think that's been the most eye-opening part of this experience for me.

Overall though, this has been the best onboarding experience I've ever had. Assimilating was a challenge at first, things are pretty fast-paced, but now that I'm 90 days in IPVM feels like that new pair of underwear you've washed a couple of times and is finally becoming a part of you. There are SO MANY great things coming to IPVM, I'm really excited to be an integral part of its growth and development, and I look forward to meeting everyone at IPVM's Annual Conference in just a few days!