You're Lying: You Can Pay For It. You Just Choose Not To.

People Lie Through Their Teeth

They do it all of the time. They tell me, "Yeah, things are really tight right now. I love your service but, yeah, I don't have the money right now." And that's a bald-faced lie.

They do have the money. They've got to pay for the gasoline in their car, don't they? Or for food? Or for their mortgage to keep a roof over their head? Or to pay their employees.

It's never a question of whether or not a business has the money to do something. They've got the money. It's just that they've prioritized it for something else. Rational people prioritize their expenses.

Prioritization isn't bad. In my line of work, though, it befuddles strategic thinking, because my potential clients can either pay me today, or pay me tomorrow, or next month, or next year, but eventually, they'll pay me, and inevitably, they'll pay me more if they don't prioritize me.

Yeah, it sounds pretty smug but here's the idea: either we spend a little money right now to safeguard the IT asset, or, we'll spend a lot of money later to recover the IT asset. Safeguarding and implementing basic risk management principles is a whole heckavalot cheaper than disaster recovery. 

So they're lying. They're always lying! They could pay for it if they felt pain but they're not feeling pain now so it's not a priority. Once the pain hits, though, they're throwing money at me to solve their problem. To ease their pain. To make it go away.

And this just isn't tech. It's in any discipline where the consumer needs to prioritize spending today to have managed outcomes, whether or not that's automotive repair, dentistry, health care, chiropractic care, whatever. The consumer must be convinced to think strategically: in the long-run, it's less expensive to pay for mindful precaution than a panicked reaction. 

Therefore, there are two approaches to honing your strategic decision-making (or, convincing togethers to prioritize spending on you right now):

1. You can create a condition where the consumer feels pain now. Ethics, anyone?

2. You can convince or educate the consumer to avoid future pain by prioritizing their spending now. Perhaps more ethical, less coercive. 

Think about it. What's your strategy?

R