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Don Farber

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Our Department of Unwanted Customers has heard from Don Farber of KnowledgeSync about an inquiry from the Strategic Air Command.

As you may know, the KnowledgeSync tool monitors activity and generates alerts. Event A occurs and, bang, an alert flies off by email, text, perhaps even ICBM. New sales inquiry? The tool can even issue a reply.

What could SAC want to do with such automatic alerts? Don, who is VP of sales and marketing, recalls saying to his boss, “‘You can take this customer if you want to, but do you really want to take that support call?'” Nope.

He and I went on to fondly recall those two 1962 films, “Dr. Strangelove” and “Failsafe.”

Recession: value of alert messaging resonates

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KnowledgeSync automates the kind of routine tasks that skilled staff disdain: issuing simple invoices, inquiry followups, low-inventory alerts, etc. It’s a BI specialty that cuts cost fast. VP of sales and marketing Don Farber says that, considering the economy, he’s pleased with just a five- to seven-percent dip in sales this year.

The benefits are resonating well this year, he reports. Where companies might have had 50 leads in the pipeline during good times, they might have just 15 now. “You might have been able to miss one before,” he says, “but you can’t afford to miss any now.”

This is one in a series of posts on the recession and BI.

What have you observed of the recession’s effects on BI? Tell me here.

Does jargon sell tech products or not?

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Those of us in the tech world who shun jargon may forever remain an underclass. We may never rise to the mainstream, where today tech-centric vendors rule. So I’m delighted when I meet another one of our clan who declares proudly his rejection of tech-speak.

Don Farber, vice president of sales and marketing at KnowledgeSync, says that to reach business customers, you have to use words they understand. For many buyers in the mid-market, that means avoiding any jargon at all.

Here’s how he orders a steak: “I ask for ‘pink in the middle.’ When the waiter asks me, ‘Rare?’ I say, ‘I don’t care what you call it, just give me a steak that’s pink in the middle.'”

We have to be careful, though. Some buyers in the mid-market watch for tech words as if it were a secret handshake. One insightful Datadoodle reader read about Farber’s approach last week and posted a reply that began like this:

This is so true. And it cuts both ways. Larger midsize companies have IT teams who are knowledgeable about BI, and if you don’t use all of the most proper complex jargon with them, they think you’re a lightweight solution that doesn’t do what they need or, worse, that you’re a team of idiots who just happened to create what they wanted the first time…

Take that, Strunk and White (Elements of Style).