Vendor presentations

docrice

[rant]

So for the last few months I've been meeting with various vendors who want to sell my company gadgets and ice cream. While it's fortunate that I have a budget which makes this possible to begin with, I'm also an extremely busy guy. I have a long laundry list of things to get done that can't be done soon enough. So as many of us are probably familiar, this is how it goes:

- receptionist notifies you that folks from BigVendor are here
- people sit in conference room, exchange business cards
- warm-up small talk: "Yeah, I went on vacation to the CheapHutInTheMiddleOfNowhere last year too!"
- projector connection fumbles
- the slides
- some questions
- some answers, along with, "Let me check with my Engineering team about that one..."
- and finally, "So let's get an evaluation unit shipped to you..."

I'm too busy for fluff, and here's where the presentations and buzzwords start getting on my nerves:

- "Best thing since sliced bread!" I like sliced bread, and it's extremely rare that vendors live up to this. There better be good meat in that sandwich.
- "Here's a slide with a hundred large customer logos who use our products!" I don't care what other people use; I only care if it fits my business needs. By the way, do not mention my company name to anyone else. No one needs to know what we use.
- "Gartner says that we're in the Magic Quadrant..." Really? Like they're the authority on anything? Is that quadrant like near the neutral zone?
- "Here's a copy of the NSS Labs report who top-rated our xyz model!" Virtually every. Single. Vendor. Has one of these. Kind of irrelevant after a while.

I really appreciate it when the sales engineer can own up to shortcomings of the product. Don't advertise it to me as something which will wash my car on the weekends. All technology sucks. Yours will suck in very well its own way. I completely understand that. Admit it and move on. If you try and shy away to a tangent topic, I will return to the original question with additional emphasis and harder, more pointed questions.

Now I understand that this is a sales call. Vendors have to push their stuff. Great. You got quotas to meet and impressions to make and that's how business gets done in the corporate world. But I'm a discriminating, extremely busy, and impatient potential customer. Don't waste my time. I don't like too much fat with my steak. Be realistic with your statements. Get to the point - skip the marketing fluff with obscure definitions and misleading statements. I'm that kind of customer.

[/rant]

anobomski

anyone from the other side in here? lets here your take