Foundational meeting dynamics
When I was new to the industry and still learning the ropes as an SE, I remember visiting one of my most important customers at the time, United Parcel Service (UPS), up in Mahwah, New Jersey. I had prepared properly for the meeting and everything was going great. The whiteboard session went well and the product demonstration was interactive. I was feeling all around pretty good about things! Toward the very end, when I was addressing questions about hardware replacement as our solution was appliance-based, the customer wanted to understand how our return merchandise authorization (RMA) process worked as well as the turnaround time to receive new hardware. Well, I was prepared and I knew those answers. I confidently stood in front of the whole conference room, including the executive buyer, and let them know that we would FedEx appliances with a proper RMA within a 48-hour turnaround time as per our service-level agreement.
The executive buyer looked...
