How Vendors Self-Sabotage

Hey Friends,

Have you ever heard someone mutter “...and we can put a man on the moon” under their breath?

It’s a great way to express the frustration of seeing incredible technological advancements all around us (like the moon landings) yet being stifled by archaic systems in our daily lives.

The smart building industry is no stranger to man-on-the-moon-isms. We have the technology, expertise, and case studies to show what incredible things can be done within our buildings, yet so many building owners have yet to adopt these solutions.

In the Buyer<>Vendor Symposiums at NexusCon, we discussed the tricky relationship between vendors and buyers as the key obstacle to quicker technology adoption. In the closing keynote, James shared how both vendors and buyers have their ways of self-sabotaging what could otherwise be the next successful project.

Given our role as community builders at the nexus of buyers and sellers, we thought it would be useful (and fun!) to coin terms around the vendor and buyer self-sabotaging that’s holding us back. In this mini-series, we will propose some terms for how vendors and buyers self-sabotage new tech adoption within smart buildings. We’ll start with vendors and then make our way to buyers in a follow-up newsletter.

Sorry in advance for the call-out, vendors; we hope you consider it constructive criticism. 🙃

Vendor Self-Sabotage Method #1 — “ShamWowing”

Who remembers ShamWow? The washcloth with the over-the-top infomercials. You could almost feel the salesmanship oozing through the television. We often find smart buildings technology vendors ShamWowing by overdoing the hype and hyperbole. These vendors' websites and pitch decks can look like the next SpaceX, but dig just a bit below the surface, and it can be hard to understand what their products actually do, how they work, and where they’ve been successful. ShamWowing often includes a sprinkling of the phrases AI, machine learning, cutting-edge, and unprecedented, to name a few. ShamWowing also attempts to attract buyers towards the shiniest thing, like celebrating money raised instead of problems solved.

Vendor Self-Sabotage Method #2 — “Grandstanding”

Grandstanding is when a vendor focuses too much on self-promotion before proving out their category of technology. They’ll often refer to themselves as the only company or product capable of doing something or explain how their solution can do everything for your building. Grandstanding is mistargeting other vendors as the primary competition when, in reality, the first layer of competition is the status quo: doing nothing. Most building owners are simply ignoring their offerings altogether, not working with their competitors.

In The Nexus Marketplace, we often see Grandstanding in the form of vendors claiming to be in dozens of categories or refusing to be contained to any specific category. These vendors would be better off trying to educate buyers on how their technology category works: how you can buy it, who can service it, what the pricing model looks like, etc, rather than trying to separate from their peers. A great example of avoiding Grandstanding is how electric vehicle manufacturers are collaborating on the production of EV chargers, rather than trying to compete against one another. Mercedes explains the concept HERE.

Vendor Self-Sabotage Method #3 — “Risk-Triggering”

The majority of buyers will not implement new technology until it feels like a safe bet. Vendors can self-sabotage by unintentionally triggering these buyers by saying things that sound risky.

Risk-triggering typically includes sweeping past technology failures under the rug and adding empty promises into their offering, like the 5-second install. In the short term, Risk-Triggering can often include a first implementation requiring stringent IT permissions or complicated contracts littered with vendor lock-in clauses. In the long-term, Risk-Triggering includes a lack of clarity about maintenance and serviceability. The easiest way to avoid Risk-Triggering is to introduce building owners to successful implementations of the same solution, especially implementations well beyond the pilot phase.

Vendor Self-Sabotage Method #4 — “MadScientisting”

At Nexus Labs, when we use the term buyer, we’re referring to anyone who spends money on smart building technology, as opposed to making money on smart building technology. That means these “buyers” make money in a different industry and, therefore, don’t spend all day thinking about smart buildings like vendors do [gasp]. So when you explain the nerdy nuances of your technology offering to the decision maker who may not be a smart buildings nerd, you are MadScientisting.

MadScientisting is the opposite side of the spectrum from ShamWowing. While ShamWowing is all flash and no facts, MadScientisting is death by a thousand details. Vendors need to focus on finding the balance and understanding the audience. While it’s important to be able to go deep into the details to prove you know what you're talking about, often, the eyes of the buyer glaze over, and the real value of the solution is lost in the details.

We see MadScientisting come from founders and engineers who are unapologetically passionate about what they’ve created and turn pitches into science-fare style presentations rather than focusing on the practical outcome for the buyer. MadScientisting involves using uncommon acronyms and live demos that include too much time in the back end.

What do you think of our Self-Sabotage Dictionary?

Did we capture these self-sabotage methods accurately? Have another one to add? Will you bring these new terms into your organization’s vocabulary? Hit reply here to let us know.

Let’s develop the self-sabotage dictionary together to put language to the obstacles slowing down our industry.

— The Nexus Labs Team

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