BFTP: Advice to vendors

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post May 11, 2006.

A small task force of teachers, principals, librarians and techs from our district spent yesterday afternoon reviewing five different interactive white board (IWB) products. Our task is to recommend a "standard" product that will  be installed over the course of the next 5-10 years in all our district's 250+ classrooms. In other words, the folks demonstrating their wares yesterday had much to gain from doing well.

First of all, each vendor came prepared. Each took his/her job seriously. Each had a good product that had one or more unique qualities that may have made it more desirable than the other four.  But were I coaching these folks, here is some advice I'd offer:

1. Make sure you know your product inside and out and that it works EVERY time it's demonstrated. Seems like a "yeah, duh" piece of advice but one vendor definitely had problems, including a software freeze-up that required the computer be rebooted. Every teacher sitting there saw him/herself in front of 30 rowdy kids waiting in the same situation.  I am amazed at how often this sort of thing happens in tech demos. This like a psychiatrist who is trying to help a patient overcome his fear of snakes having a cobra poke its head out of his pocket.
2. You can't sell a product on:
   1. price alone
   2. software alone
   3. hardware alone
   4. charisma alone
3. Don't "over" demo. Each vendor had 45 minutes. One demo'd nearly the whole time, full speed, non stop. I was pretty sure this product would slice tomatoes and squeegee your car if she'd gone on another 15 minutes. While this was great fun to watch, I could see folks try to follow her rapidly tapping fingers dancing intricate sets of steps that looked nearly unmasterable by the average Joe or Jane. A slower "look how easy" approach may have convinced more teachers.
4. Don't be a smug or sarcastic or superior. Even if your product is great, we may sufficiently dislike you that we'll find reasons to buy another product.
5. Find a way to "connect" with the teacher in each of us. Whether sharing a "has it ever happened to you" story or a simple "here's a fun thing to do with your kids" activity, show you've had some classroom experience - assuming you have. If you haven't, share stories or activities from real teachers.
6. Be prepared to answer questions about costs - definitively. As long as it is taxpayer money, we will be balancing function and price, getting the most features for the dollar. It makes us mad if you can't be straight forward and immediate about prices.
7. Don't even bring up vaporware. How did W put it? Fool me twice shame on you; fool you once shame on me... or something like that. On a related note, if you want me to be a beta site (or first alpha site in the state or in the public schools), you'd better be prepared to make some huge monetary concessions. Otherwise, we will go with the tried and true.
   
8. Bring treats. OK, we  don't take bribes and even if we did, a couple doughnuts or a cookie won't sway us. But I'll bet there is a subliminal effect that the gift of food brings to such an event.

Were I a salesman and dependent on commission, I am sure we'd be living on the LWW's salary. I couldn't sell air to a drowning man. But if I were in sales, I know some things I wouldn't do.

Oh, do we make the same mistakes trying to "sell" new technologies or methods or materials to teachers ourselves???

So what ticks you off and keeps you from buying?

Oh, I'm thinking about the things I like and dislike about vendor booths at conferences like ISTE. Your thoughts?

Comments

[Jim Randolph]

One thing that keeps me from buying is crappy websites. I buy most of my books from a big vendor. Some of the smaller vendor reps come in and try to get me to use them. Everything seems great until I check out their site. Ugh. And most of them are kinda the same. Why be the same as the other crappy ones? Put some effort into the website or just give me a catalog and a phone number. Really, it's not worth it.

[Susan E]

I am curious to know what vendors you heard and which you chose.

Our district is entirely Promethean ActivBoards, we were the first district in the U.S. to adopt the boards district-wide. I love mine but what I DON"T love is the fact that every "upgrade" of software and hardware does not allow the previously purchased accessories (clicker devices, doc cameras, etc.) to work. You have to spend more money to get the "newest version" of the devices. What a money hungry move, in my opinion, especially when a set of the clicker/voting devices costs a few thousand dollars!

[Susan E]

P.S. I hate the "Can I scan your badge?" move at ISTE. :) I have to have my "city walk" on (eyes ahead, make no eye contact) until I get to the vendors I want to hear. :)

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Susan,

We went with Smartboards district-wide. We liked the large repository of shared lessons and that no special device was needed to write on them, making them more adaptive/adoptive devices.

I as I remember, we looked at Promethean, Mimio, 3M and Interwrite as well. But remember, this was 5 years ago. We've been happy with our decision.

Doug

Oh, I didn't know what you called it, but I also try to avoid eye-contact with vendors in exhibition halls. Sort of like walking past panhandlers on the street!