Pitcher's Poker - Part 4: The Other Side of The Table.

How does all this look from the side of the customer?

Well, I'm the customer. We looked at 6 pitches. Surprise, surprise, they all looked great. Music, visuals, promises, promises. But unfortunately, I've been here before, I've seen fabulous pitches in the past and selected the company with the most fabulous pitch. That project cost us a lot of money – twice what we budgeted for it. In the end it got canned. We don't talk to that company any more. In my head, now, when I think of the budget for some new web project, I'm thinking – yes, but that's actually going to cost three times that isn't it?

So this guy turns up. He doesn't have a laptop. He doesn't have a pen drive. He doesn't have a presentation! He has a flip chart and a marker pen.
“In one sentence, what is it you want?” He says. There's four of us watching the presentation. It doesn't make me comfortable that we all say four different things. He writes them all down.
Now things get really weird.
“Who's the pig?” he says.
“We beg your pardon” we say.
He explains the difference between pigs and chickens. It's like bacon and eggs. The pig is committed, the chicken is only involved.
“Who's the pig?” He says again. Who's bacon is on the line? My boss starts preening himself. But the finance director and the HR director point at me. My boss doesn't say anything. They're right. It's me.
He makes me put stars next to the four things on the flow chart. Then he draws a ring around the two with the most stars.
“Give us X amount of money and we'll demo something that does these two things by the end of next week,” he says.

Then he picks up his flow chart and leaves.