Many times, I’ll have a vendor of a product try to talk to me about their product, and how it can help me. I respectfully let them know that I’ve already got something that fills that need. They then go on to tell me why I need to choose THEIR product. Again, I respectfully tell them, no thanks.
This is not me being closed-minded. I agree that some products have better features than others. I understand that these vendor’s are trying to get their products out to the market. I even concede the fact that prices vary. Sometimes, I’ll listen just so I can learn more about it, in case a need comes up in the future.
But, my “not listening” is not bigotry, arrogance, or stubbornness. It’s an assessment.
Let’s say I have a company trying to sell me one of their products. They tell me what an ADC can do. I tell them, that’s ok, I already have an ADC. They switch gears and start telling me why theirs is better. Maybe it is. But, I have already invested CapEx, OpEx, and time (training, building, etc) for my current box. It is a hard sell for me to just drop it simply because you say you have something better. Maybe I would, if I have the time and the money. But, nowadays, with IT getting more lean with “doing more with less”, time and money are hard commodities to come by.
Honestly, unless I have a “challenge” with my current product, it’s not very likely I’ll choose something else because it’s new or has a neat feature. You need to be able to fill a gap that we are currently missing. It’s true, that I may not know what that gap is, until you tell me. But, if I’m not aware there is a problem, then it’s technically not really a problem from my perspective, is it?
Now, this isn’t my hard rule. There are grey areas, such as my mood, my stress levels, and my work loads. But, generally speaking, I just wanted to clarify my decision-making.
