Mobile GIS & LBS Matt Sheehan
Matt holds an MSc in Geography and GIS. He has been working with clients solving problems with GIS for over 17 years. Matt founded WebMapSolutions whose mission is to put innovative, intuitive GIS driven applications into the hands of new and existing users. Please GIS Expert Shut up and Listen!March 3rd, 2016 by Matt Sheehan
Will you be offended if I tell you to shut up and listen? Good then prepare to be offended (you’ll be better off for the experience believe me). If there is one thing we are all good at, and that is talking about ourselves, and our products. As soon as a potential customer comes knocking at our door .. off we go… blabbing on and on. Did you know it does this … and that …. and oh we are quicker and slicker and 3″ longer than our competition. Please! Please GIS Expert Shut up and Listen!What does a potential customer (this is for both internal and external customers) care about? Ask yourself that question. They care about solving a problem. Now if your product provides a potential solution to that problem .. a potential customer might just be curious. And how do you know if you have piqued their interest? Somebody is curious when they start asking you questions Let me tell you a story. I attended recently a tech conference. I was on a learning mission. Part of that mission was listening to sales and tech folk as they spoke to attendees. What did I find as I walked around … a sales word puke fest! Truly. Potential customers being drowned in words. Admittedly this was not a GIS only conference but we GIS experts can be tech blabbers. Start with the Problem end with the SolutionLet’s start by understanding the problem and end with the solution. Let me share one recent conversation I overheard: Caller: We need an ArcGIS CRM integration Responder: Why? Caller: To map our data. Responder: For what purpose? Caller: To help our agents. Responder: What is the benefit to your agents? Caller: To help them assess and sell properties. Responder: How do your agents work today? Caller: They use paper, spreadsheets, charts. Responder: How will this help your agents? Caller: They will have data and visuals at hand quickly which means more deals and more money I think you get the idea. Ask questions. Don’t launch into a product onslaught. Start with understanding their world today, their challenges and goals. If we as GIS experts don’t understand the problem fully how can we build out a solution for our customers? During initial conversations around GIS implementations, keep the current problem front and centre. In the back of our minds we might have thoughts about wider use of the technology. Other organizational problems which GIS could solve. With this first problem solved that may then move us to discussion around a location strategy. There that was not so bad. No bad words used. Its true we are all guilty at times of talking at others. We all need to tell ourselves at times to shut up. As Adam Carnow says “these are golden times for GIS”. Success is based on listening and understanding. Interest in our approach? Contact us on 801-733-0723. RelatedTags: arcgis, GIS, listen, location strategy, technology last, understand Categories: ArcGIS Online, cloud GIS, Mobile ArcGIS, Mobile GIS, Web and mobile GIS This entry was posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2016 at 6:15 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. One Response to “Please GIS Expert Shut up and Listen!” |
Thank you for putting forth your thoughts, Matt. Software and system design strategies have served me well in setting clients up with valuable systems which operate over a long time period. I haven’t found too many others who look to these areas of specialty. This is obvious (at least to me) because user requirements are often missed.