Relationships Trump Vision – Solution Design Responsibility

done

It was a great first evening of discussions. There was one item, in particular, that struck me tonight that I want to share:
responsibility when designing and delivering solutions for schools.

As educational solutions developers, we have the responsibility to know more about the needs of the schools before creating and implementing our products. During our conference table discussions, we had the chance to hear from Justin Reilly and Anthony Moore of Fronter UK. Anthony emphasized how they approach setup and implementation at Fronter. In one example, he mentioned a head teacher who wasn’t interested in implementing Fronter because her biggest need (“pain point”) was deficiencies in writing skills. She did not see how a “product” like Fronter would make a difference. Anthony explained how they worked with this head teacher to understand how it could make a difference. So, what I liked about Anthony’s story was not so much the specific example of building writing skills but his emphasis on market and implementation research – attempting to truly understand the needs of the teachers and students.

After attending a leadership conference this past August, I wrote the following quote on the whiteboard in my office:

“Relationships Trump Vision”

Now to some, that supports a common strategy in sales that emphasizes the need to develop relationships with customers because they will buy based on trust. In other words, regardless of how great your solution (vision) is, you won’t be able to sell it if the customer does not believe in and trust in you.

I agree with that. However, when I heard that quote and wrote it on my whiteboard, here’s what it meant to me:

You have a responsibility to develop relationships with the students and teachers that you’re designing solutions for because you can have all the vision in the world, but it won’t do you any good if it doesn’t match the “true needs” of students and teachers.

In other words, you have a “responsibility” to do true market research. This matches another quote that I grabbed from a book called “Tuned In“, and I like to use it during meetings in our office: “Your opinion, although interesting, is irrelevant“. That may seem a bit harsh, but it’s true. It doesn’t matter what we believe unless it based on true market research. If it’s just your opinion and not based on research gathered from students and teachers, it’s irrelevant.

Then, when solutions are based on real research relationships and you are working with schools to develop strong sales relationships, you have no problem building trust because you already share “their vision”.

We have that responsibility.

- Steve Nordmark, VP, Solutions Management & Development, netTrekker