Testimonials

Mark Grossman has spoken at our Information Technology Alliance Collaboratives numerous times over the past 7 years. His sessions are always energetic, full of great information and well received by our members. At our most recent event in Las Vegas in December 2016, Mark presented "YOU Can be the Best Negotiator in the Room: Every Leader is a Great Negotiator." This session was the most highly rated session (4.83 on a 5 point scale) of the 30 sessions offered on our agenda. We always strive to make sure that our presenters provide actionable takeaways that our members can bring back to their businesses and Mark never disappoints by providing great content and real world examples and advice.

I saw Mark at the FLGISA Winter Conference in January of 2017. The presentation "YOU Can Be the Best Negotiator in the Room; Every Great Leader is a Great Negotiator" was wonderful combination of anecdotes, tools, and techniques that helped me look at negotiating as a skill that I did possess even though if you had asked me prior to the presentation I would have insisted that I did not. Mark was as entertaining and enjoyable as he was knowledgeable in his subject matter. It is clear that he has used these techniques, not just put together some slides about others and how they used them. He engaged the audience right from the start and was very accessible for questions afterwards. All in all, I would highly recommend that if you get the opportunity to hear Mark speak that you take advantage of it.

I've had the great pleasure of participating in not one but two presentations by Mark on negotiations. Mark's passion for making great deals shines through. This was apparent from the first time I met Mark at a local CIO event where he gave the keynote "YOU Can Be the Best Negotiator in the Room; Every Great Leader is a Great Negotiator". I next saw Mark present "Mitigating Risk in the Cloud - Negotiating the Provisions Required in Every SaaS & Cloud Deal." In both presentations, Mark presented real and practical advice to negotiations that could save any deal that you are working on. Why? Because his solutions aren't about playing games that could seriously backfire on you. That's right, no more good cop, bad cop scenarios. I don't want to give away too many details about Mark's presentations; particularly the ending of the story about buying a car with his daughter. I encourage everyone to attend one of Mark's presentations on negotiation because you can't get everything you need to be a Great Negotiator from my short summary. Additionally, you'd miss Mark's engaging way of speaking and humorous activities. Here are my top 6 take-aways from Mark's presentations: 1. Have a plan for the negotiations going in and know how you define success. 2. Ensure you have consensus from all parties on how the negotiations will proceed. 3. If it's not written down, it didn't happen. This can also be a reminder to be careful about what is written in an agreement. 4. Ask the right questions. This is particularly important for agreements related to more specialized products or services; such as the Cloud and SAAS. Know what's important to have covered in the agreement. 5. Don't rely on general statements such as "industry standard" or "best practice". Spell it out! What does that mean to each party. 6. Ensure the agreement covers every aspect of this business relationship; even the breakup.

I am the Executive Director of the South Florida Technology Alliance (SFTA) and was the meeting planner for a recent SFTA event. Mark Grossman was our keynote speaker and spoke for two-hours. His seminar was focused around how to negotiate the best cloud and SaaS deals for your enterprise. I found him to be extremely engaging, humorous and a wealth of knowledge on negotiating. I learned such a great deal of information in a short period of time. Since Mark's last seminar with us we have had many of our members request to see him speak again. Based on that feedback, the SFTA is planning another event just a few months after the last event and Mark will again keynote for two-hours. Mark also helped us market our event. He has a strong social media following and is an excellent marketer. He can help a meeting planner fill seats with that marketing ability and social media following. He makes a meeting planner's job easier and is a pleasure to work with. I look forward to Mark's next seminar!

Mark is a dynamic presenter whom I've had the pleasure to work with a number of times over the past few years. He's a true expert in his field, but is able to communicate not only with fellow experts but the novice attorney as well. He has consistently been praised by the hundreds of attorneys who watch his programs, which carry an average 97% recommendation rating. Among the praise are a few standouts, calling Mark "enlightening," "engaging," and "an excellent speaker [who] made this presentation one of the best." Still others say Mark has "a great and funny demeanor" and "presented the information in an interesting fashion," noting that they would "literally put this material to use today." I highly recommend working with Mark; his speaking skills are only enhanced by his professionalism and his commitment to producing excellent work.

Mark's presentation was full of useful insights for negotiating cloud service contracts. The audience was full of senior IT executives who were both enlightened and surprised by some of the content. The talk was full of valuable and important information for anyone contracting cloud services and shows that "Being forewarned is being forearmed" is true in the IT world as well. Mark is an entertaining and engaging speaker and the feedback on his talk were universally positive. We would recommend him highly as a speaker.

I have seen two of Mark's presentations in the last year and sat in one of his seminars on SaaS agreements. I find his speeches enlightening and well delivered. He consistently presents his message well and with enough humor to make it enjoyable while the core message is not lost. As I have had to move a large part of my business to the cloud over the last two years these lectures have been critical for our contracts, and while the topics he has covered are somewhat dry, he finds a way to pull you in and make the subject both interesting and useful.

I am Associate professor of Information Systems at Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University. Apart from my other academic responsibilities I organize Fordham CIO Roundtable, a group of IT Executives and Fordham faculty members that meets to discuss current challenges in IT management. Mark is a regular member of the group. We have all learned from his participation in our discussions. We also had Mark speak to the group twice over the last few years on structuring and managing IT outsourcing and SaaS contracts. I have also had pleasure to attend a SIM New York Metro dinner meeting where Mark was a panelist. His talks have been very insightful and very well received by the audience. He can take a subject like contract negotiation and deliver an entertaining talk about it. Mark is a true speaking professional who consistently delivers a high quality talk filled with great information. I have invited him to speak at the June '17 meeting of Fordham CIO Roundtable. I am looking forward to his presentation then.

Most contracts for IT services are terrible. That was my first takeaway from Mark Grossman's lively and entertaining talk "Negotiating SaaS deals Painlessly" at the NJ Society for Information Management (SIM) on March 9 in Morristown, NJ. Mark is a New Yok City lawyer who specializes in technology issues. His talk covered a wide range of timely and important topics for CIOs, such as the ownership of your data in the cloud, negotiating service levels, and finding the right balance between risk and cost. Mark used many cases of real contracts that included "gotchas," giving NJ SIM members important practical advice on dealing with IT vendors. Although vitally important for modern IT operations, IT service contracts seems like it would be a very dry topic, but Mark's wit and audience engagement made it an enjoyable as well as informative evening. I highly recommend this talk!

Mark's talk was great. I thought I knew how to negotiate contracts, but clearly I had a lot to learn. I deal with a lot of contract negotiations in my role, and I look forward to using the insights gained from Mark's lecture and his book. Correctly negotiating all of the details of a technology vendor contract is as important as the price, especially in a SaaS environment. I hope other IT leaders will increase their leverage in these situations by reading Mark's recommendations and applying them thoughtfully in their vendor management roles.

SIM had a great initial meeting in South Florida this past month due to great attendance from various organizations and as well to Speaker and Lawyer Mark Grossman. Mark captivated the group with negotiation best practices for complex technical solutions. The group left with practical knowledge they could apply immediately … Mark kept the session engaging and remarkably entertaining! Many thanks to Mark, Society for Information Management and St. Thomas University for hosting the event … Looking forward the next SIM event.

I attended a talk on Negotiating SaaS Deals at a Society of Information Management South Florida Chapter meeting from Mark Grossman that changed my mindset about IT Contracts. Mark explained that contracts should be written for when partnerships fall apart and agreements are not met and not for when everything goes according to plan. He insisted that contracts should not let it "up to what the law says" as many times laws are vague and the cost of litigation can be high or unaffordable for many organizations. I highly recommend Mark's talks as they can offer you many insights and can change how you negotiate IT contracts in the future.

Mark Grossman recently spoke at the Tampa Bay Chapter of the Society of Information Management on October 12, 2017.  His title was: “YOU Can Be the Best Negotiator in the Room; Every Great Tech Leader is a Great Negotiator.”  The audience was captivated by Mark’s command of the stage – balancing invaluable insights on negotiations with a light sense of humor that made his message salient and engaging.  It was a pleasure working with Mark in planning his presentation, coordinating logistics and observing a master on stage.  I would highly recommend Mark as a speaker and teacher for one of his many highly valuable topics.  I took copious notes during Mark’s presentation and have been thinking about numerous ways to leverage his techniques and strategies since listening to his wisdom.  Thank you, Mark, for an outstanding presentation!