Been a long week. 200 mile drive late Sunday, 2 hotels and a total of 650+ miles and i just got back (Thursday).
Today ended with a 5hr meeting with a customer - a slightly unhappy one at that. Having spent $2m on technology from us they are struggling. A number of reasons but at the end of the day the past is the past and we have to look forward. For 5hrs i had observed some smart technologists ask us some very technical questions. Not a problem with that. But some of the business folks were adamant that they knew what they wanted to do and that they were not going to change. It was the technology that was at fault. It was obvious that internally the business and the technology sponsors were not aligned. The main sponsor - new to the customers company - asked everyone to leave the room apart from us - he asked our opinions directly! I had to tell him straight and direct. If he didn't align his internal folks - his company would be screwed and the effects would not be nice. Technology would be deployed but i was not convinced the company would achieve their business model goals. Not a threat - just observations. I explained my reasons with passion and facts.
After the meeting the team i was with did a debrief away from the customer. Conclusion was that it was risky calling it out and being direct, but the outcome we believe is positive and we can make progress. Interesting dynamic in the team - going in we were expecting the worst - but the outcome was different. We earned respect and trust. We can see a way forward and we believe that we can help the customer achieve their business goals. The team felt great.
At the end of the day - you've got to tell it straight.
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2 comments:
Nice one! You clearly did the right thing and sounds like you got the right outcome. Just a shame that things had been allowed to reach the stage where you got called-in to fix a wildly out of control situation not of your making.
Bet it won't be the last time you have to do that though! Tsk. Customers, eh?
I did do the right thing. Impact should be positive. What worries me is that I find more and more of these issues every week - some caused by us, some by the customer. I seem to be spending all my time on work where i dig the company out of trouble! Gotta do it, but it would be nice to be a bit more proactive and get in earlier in the sales cycle. Changing the sales force is a real challenge!
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