Seeing is Believing

I'm learning a lot about how people think in the back office of the financial services world. I talk to a lot of people about the problems they wrestle with, and have frequently heard the quote "There has to be a better way to do this". And yet at the end of the day, they are resigned to the fact that they have to "get the job done", there is no other way to do it on the horizon, and turn around and hammer through another manual spreadsheet the same they did it last month.

I was talking with one gentleman, and he really liked what we were talking about, but he had stuff to get done, and was about to put the new solution on the back burner "to think about" until I explained to him a very simple concept. What if, instead of seeing a generic demo with fake data, he could see the actual solution running with his own data, without effort on his part.

The tone in his voice changed. He realized there might be a way out of doing the digital equivalent of carrying sandbags one more time. He said, sure let's setup a webex and take a look.

No more manual data munging. Click a button to process invoices and see reports. No budgets to worry about. No IT hassles. No 6 month implementations. He would be able to show his boss a great way to get things done, save money and cut risk.

And sure enough, he will be able to see it working with his own data. No limbs to step out on. No risks to take. No time spent, until he actually sees it running.

And that's what's called "Seeing is believing".