Just Another Pretty Face

Greeting, from Dallas, TX!
I've been in the Lone Star State for the past few days at a summit. I came out a day early to provide some extra training to one of my user groups and also in hopes of getting Dallas Cowboys gear for the Dallas fans of the family....mission accomplished.

Thursday and Friday consisted of all day meetings to talk about different applications that are trying to satisfy multiple user groups that are basically performing the same job function. Their job title denotes that they are one in the same. But among that title, they are broken up into several segments. And then within those segments, they're further broken down by regions and then so on and so on. Four years on my tool and numerous conversations with different users will tell you that you're not going to get one tool to satisfy all these people.

There were about eight tools that presented in total. Among them, I only consider two others my main competition. They were scheduled to present before me so I would've rounded out the three that are really in the main running to become the main tool of this user group. For the first of the two to present, I skewered him alive. The presenter was up there and I asked my pointed, well thought out questions and stared him down with my most intimidating look. Do you know what I wanted to do after he was done presenting? I wanted to look at him and do the 'You're Fired' cobra-like, Donald Trump hand gesture- that's what it felt like. Then the second guy presented the second tool. This is where things got sticky. The presenter was NOTHING like we thought he would be - this guy is young (early 30s) and good looking - think Robin Thicke with no facial hair and brown eyes or a very young Rupert Everett. Most of the summit attendees are women. All I could think was 'DAMN - he's going to get him on his looks alone.' I wasn't able to ask as many pointed questions to this guy because I wasn't as prepared for him as I was for the first guy. Frankly, I, too, was drawn in by his good looks. But I got some questions off and tried to derail him as best I could....don't know if it worked.

Well my presentation got pushed to the first presentation the next day - that was fine by me. I needed time to regroup, think about my game plan, how I was going to make believers out of these people and make them forget that good looking guy in the room. What ended up happening at the end of the first day? A seafood dinner, lots of girl talk and a shot of Tequila to end the night. I think that was the better route. But during dinner, I got the support I really needed and it became more apparent, through discussions with Mr. Good Looking (who ended up at the same restaurant) that he isn't all that.

In this business, you need to get out there and listen to the people as a whole - he's only listening to them on a case-by-case business. Dude, that's not going to win you any fans. My presentation went really well - I covered all the points that those other guys were lacking. My usage numbers blew their usage numbers out of the water. And what conclusion did I come to at the end of my presentation? Mr. Good Looking is just another pretty face in the crowd. He didn't win me over with any substance and that's all he's going to be to me. All face, no substance....sigh!