It is not a shame to be deceived, but to stay in the deception

I have been selling connectivity for almost a quarter of a century and if there is one thing that has remained constant in this industry, it's the preoccupation with price and cost.

It doesn't seem to matter how good or effective the product is,  how feature-rich the service is, or how responsive or reliable the support is... at the end of the day, most people simply want to know how much?

As I have discussed throughout the site, the focus for IoT connectivity vendors over the last 15 or so years has been about differentiation. Making themselves stand out from the competition in an extremely competitive industry. And, because the customers' focus is invariably on pricing and cost, this is where a lot of clever marketing comes into play. 

The manipulation of mind is the sole objective of marketing. To entice someone to do something or to take action. When it comes specifically to connectivity, the intention is to create a sense of value. But in my experience, this is where the customer is usually deceived.

There are many ways to pay for your connectivity service. PAYG, Pay monthly, PRE-Pay, End-user top up, Bundled data, Pooled Bundles, flat rate etc, etc. All of them have been designed because of a customer demand or requirement, but not all of them are suitable for an IoT use-case. I have lost count of the number of client's who have defended their position of choosing one type of payment model, only for me to highlight how they have been misled.

As much as we can confidently say that all Marketing and Sales is manipulative (to a degree), what I struggle with personally, having been selling for a long time, is the intentional selling of unsuitable or incompatible products or services. Yet I see this time and time again with my IoT clients.

Vendors that they have engaged with have pitched their particular product in such a way as to avoid any obvious incompatibilities, or worse, to highlight a value proposition that simply doesn't exist. This intentional and misleading practice may not be so much of an issue for a product that can easily be replaced... but for IoT connectivity, where the cost to swap out potentially 1000's of SIMS or devices would be extortionate, it is simply unacceptable.

I have seen so many examples of product incompatibility that nothing surprises me now when I evaluate my clients incumbent vendor. In fact, I can even tell most client's what their problem will be simply from knowing who their Connectivity supplier is. And that is a sad and disappointing situation. But until connectivity vendors are willing to walk away from opportunities and inform their prospects that there are more compatible solutions available to them, I fear this will always be the case.

Do not fall victim to the Honey Pot of perceived value. Allow me to give you the right tools with which to understand what is being offered or suggested, and to advise you if it is the right solution or not for your particular IoT use case. Remember, all of my services are free to you.