The Amtower Report

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In this issue:
1) Amtower Off-Center Observations
2) The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Resume Puffery
3) Smart Pay Update
4) Events Worth Attending

AMTOWER OFF-CENTER OBSERVATIONS

Item: The GSA Alliant program folks have a video at the GSA web site discussing the emerging contract. This is an excellent way to disseminate information, but I would suggest that a little training before being taped would be good. One presenter has a deer-in-the-headlights look, and most could use a little enthusiasm. Overall, though, a good effort. Take a look at http://www.gsa.gov/alliant .

Item: Thanks to the 30 or so people who attended our first Maryland session of Government Marketing Best Practices, including the 2 from Pennsylvania and 1 from Colorado. The addition of Max Peterson (CDWG, discussing sales goals being integrated into marketing plans) and Joab Jackson (Government Computer News, talking about how to develop relationships with reporters) helped make this a great event. This session was video-taped and the entire program will be available in the members section of www.GovernmentMarketingBestPractices.com .

Item: Question: Is anyone out there using LinkedIn or similar online business networking services successfully? If you would like to share your experience, send me an email at amtower@erols.com .

Item: The first place nearly everyone goes for information is the web. Is your web site where it needs to be? Over the last two months each of my web sites, www.FederalDirect.net , www.GovernmentExpress.com , and www.GovernmentMarketingBestPractices.com has been redesigned – and traffic has picked up. Now I need to work on making each site easier when it comes to finding information. If your web site is not the best it can be for information, navigation, overall ease of use and ordering, you need to attend the Ultimate B2B Web Site Makeover on April 19. Amy Africa (who is on both my personal Board of Advisors and my client Board) is a leading web expert. Amy has pioneered many successful web marketing initiatives in navigation, email marketing, shopping carts and abandoned carts that are making her clients much more profitable. She is one of the best web marketers today because she combines incredible direct marketing skills with proven web techniques. Her clients include American Express, Dell, Microsoft among others. Amy has consistently rated a top speaker at all events where she presents, both for style and content. This is her only DC appearance for 2006. See Events, below, for details.

Item: Several people wrote in last week regarding the departure of Dendy Young from GTSI, all agreeing that Dendy has been a major contributor to this market. One point of clarification, though. When I said Dendy was the right man to head GTSI in 1996, GTSI was in serious legal and financial trouble. Very few people, then or now, would have had the skills set to address these issues, clean up the morale problem from previous management, and set a course for the company, all at the same time. Dendy had, and has, those skills. There are very few people in this market that have the breadth and depth of experience he has, so if you are an IT company looking to enter the market, grow marketshare, or just looking for increased bandwidth on your Board, I have this friend….

Not that I have an opinion.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY: RESUME PUFFERY

If you walk in a horse paddock, you wear boots and watch where you walk. If you are looking for interim managers for a company in the government market, wear boots and check references.

Back in 2004 I wrote about a top level management change at DLT Solutions, at the time an 8 year old company with sales of over $225 million. When the owner died, the president (and prime reason for the growth), Craig Abod, was unceremoniously let go. A crisis/interim management company came in. The firm was Alvarez and Marsal, and I questioned their ability to work in a market where they had no demonstrable experience.

Well now I know what their expertise is in: resume padding that would make the antics of the Radio Shack CEO seem mild. Here is what they write at their web site about their view of their DLT experience (the next paragraph is a direct quote – see for yourself at http://www.alvarezandmarsal.com/en/managing-directors.asp?id=121 ):

Previously, Mr. Rosefsky (the Alvarez interim CEO) was CEO of DLT Solutions, Inc., a leading technology solutions provider to the U.S. Government. While at DLT, Mr. Rosefsky navigated the company from successful startup to an established middle market player with $300 million in revenues, building the company's financial infrastructure, developing and implementing its first business plan, and establishing its first credit facility with a global financial provider.

Point one; DLT was eight or nine years old when Alvarez took over, hardly a start-up, and DLT was already in the top tier of GSA Schedule 70 resellers -something a start-up never achieves. DLT was already a middle-market player, and growing rapidly. Point two: The financial infrastructure was in place – the company was generating massive amounts of cash and had low overhead. On the GSA alone in FY 2004 DLT had $122 million is sales, and considering the other contracts in place, it is not likely Alvarez folks had anything to do with any financial growth. Need for a credit facility – none, unless there was a finders fee for Alvarez. Point three: the business plan was in full swing, as is evidenced by points one and two. Alvarez and Marsal came in, baby-sat, then did a Stalinistic revision of history as we know it with the hopes of catching some other poor, unsuspecting sucker in their hyperbole-filled self-serving drivel.

When seeking outsider help, check the references carefully, or you may find yourself neck-deep in horse droppings.

(Amtower note to readers: This is not about the current management team at DLT. This is about the group that preceded them.)

The results for the first four months FY 2006 results are in for the SmartPay small purchase program. The results for the small purchase card from Oct, 2005-Jan, 2006 are $5,376,837,839.05, about $150 million ahead of the same period last FY. For the first time since November, 1997, there are fewer than 300,000 cardholders (298,723). With fewer cardholders there are fewer transactions with a higher average per purchase, approaching $800 on average.

Beware of the schlock vendors, producing minimal value events, events that eat your money with no significant return! The events listed below are among those I think are worth your time, money and effort. Just because an event is not listed below does not imply it is not worth attending. If you want my opinion on a specific event or producer, call me. This topic is addressed more thoroughly in the members section at www.GovernmentMarketingBestPractices.com.

February 28 - March 1, 2006 FAA IT/ISS Conference, Denver, Colorado www.fbcinc.com

March 7-9, 2006: FOSE https://www.itaa.org/events/registersec.cfm?EventID=1438www.FOSE.com 
This will be the thirtieth anniversary of FOSE.

March 8, State of the Government Market Research, VAR Business, Grand Hyatt, Washington, D.C. 7:30-9:00 AM. Call Heather Stein at 516-562-5294 for details.

March 22-23, EFFECTIVE IT PERFORMANCE: Keys to Successfully Managing Government Projects, Continental Ballroom, Cafritz Conference Center, George Washington University 800 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC (Foggy Bottom Metro Stop) www.digitalgovernment.com

April 18, FEDERAL CHANNELS, Denver www.fbcinc.com  If you have not been to a Federal Channels event and you are in the Denver area – attend this event!

APRIL 19, 2006, Tower Club, Vienna, VA. Amtower & Company presents the one and only Amy Africa and THE ULTIMATE B2B WEB SITE MAKEOVER. For those of you who do not know Ms Africa, she is perhaps the most sought after web consultant in the world, and we have sixty seats available for her first ONE DAY session focusing exclusively on maximizing the impact of B2B and B2G web sites.  www.FederalDirect.net/ultimatewebsitemakeover.html

April 20, 16th Annual OSDBU Procurement Conference, Upper Marlboro, MD http://www.fbcinc.com/event.asp?eventid=Q6UJ9A00AJ0N

April 25-27, GovSec, DC Convention Center. Among the keynoters, one of my favorites, Commander Richard Marcinko, former US Navy Seal, founder of Seal Team Six and Red Cell. Another highlight for those, like me, who collect signed first editions from favorite authors, seven authors will be signing their respective books on security, terrorism and more.

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As always, your comments, questions and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks
Mark Amtower

The Amtower Report is published by Amtower & Company, and is written for companies targeting the government marketplace. The opinions expressed are those of Mark Amtower unless otherwise noted. Contact us at Amtower & Company, PO Box 314, Highland, MD 20777-0314 (301-924-0058). This material is copyrighted and may not be duplicated, reprinted or otherwise replicated without written permission of the publisher. Email subscriptions are free by request: sign up at www.FederalDirect.net