I had an interesting meeting this morning with the buying manager of a multi-national. Naturally, part of his role is to play hardball and not to care about anything much beyond his financial bottom line. But, after putting forward our proposition, I thought of a useful analogy:
If I'm selling you a vacuum cleaner your natural question is why mine is better than Hoover or Dyson. But if you've never seen a vacuum cleaner before I've got to start further back and convince you that there's a better alternative to a broom and dustpan.
We've built something that breaks new ground and pioneers a new way of doing things that cuts costs, increases revenue and delivers competitive edge. But because there's no Hoover or Dyson to compare us to we've got to find the visionary, pioneering early adopters who are willing to steal a march on their competition and get ahead of the game.
Challenging. And a longer sales cycle than I'd like!
