A picture is not always worth a thousand words

A picture is not always worth a thousand words, cyber security vendors please take note

Question: When is a picture NOT worth a thousand words? 
Answer: When it has no context

Just like my photo, it has no context and therefore would by of little interest to anyone who wasn’t on the same trail with me two weeks ago. 

I recently participated in a 30 minute presentation for a vendor solution; For the first 15 minutes I learnt about the company background, I learnt who they partner with and I even learnt where they operate and who their customers are, unfortunately I did not learn anything at all useful to me. 

15 minutes is a long time!, quarter of an hour that I will never get back – as a 50+ year old any time I have left is precious and I’d rather go fishing than listen to sales pitches that may not be relevant.

For the second 15 minutes that followed, I did finally learn about the problem and the product – too late for me, I had already lost interest, though I am not a TikTok user I appreciate the value of short, sharp and succinct presentations.

Vendors, if you are selling to me, do your research and know who I am within the business, if you are selling a product to my employer then I am NOT the right contact so don’t waste your time or mine.

Presenting to me, your customer

If you get to the point of presenting your solution to me then please use this approach: 

• I want to know what the problem is that you solve first
• Then I want to know how you solve the problem I have
• And then I might want to know who uses your solution
• Finally you can tell about your business

Doing the above will ensure that at all times during our interaction we are both giving each other the feedback that is needed to successfully complete an engagement.

What will this do for you, the seller

The benefit to both parties:

• I learn what you do straight away, this lets me think about the problem too
• We can stop the meeting as soon as we identify we are not aligned, simply having a meeting is not a measure of useful time spent
• We get to have an engaging meeting right from the start, I can ask questions immediately and we both build understanding of one another

I want all my pictures to be worth at least 1000 words and I want your pictures to be worth more than 1000 words when we interact next. Good luck out there selling, it is hard today!

Please feel free to reach out if I can assist in any way, the better we work together in the industry, the better our security posture will become.

Please reach out here if I can assist.