The Conclusion to The Rules Are…
WMMM #009 - A real-life sales story provides a view into the competitive world of mainframe system software sales.
Cardinal Initiatives Newsletter Mar 25, 2023 8 min read
In this week’s newsletter, I share the thrilling conclusion of “The Rules Are There Are No Rules,” a real-life sales story that provides a view into the competitive world of mainframe system software sales.
With the odds seemingly stacked against him, our newcomer, guided by his experienced team, has managed to establish trust with the crucial decision-maker, Sandy.
As they work to gain a competitive edge, addressing the concerns and challenges at hand, our protagonist discovers “Darken the Skies” and “The Class Ring” to overcome obstacles and utilize behavioral science to shine the light on the best solution for his account.
This conclusion is filled with invaluable lessons that inspired and enlightened me. I hope you enjoy it.
Picking Up Where We Left Off
It was up to me to soften Sandy and warm her to the idea that “underdog” Software AG might have something special for their SIS project.
We had to assume she was in the Cullinet camp for now. [9]
Darken the Skies
We chose the “Darken the Skies” approach.
This involved running a daily mail campaign to smother the account with information about Software AG: analyst reports, user success stories, and performance benchmarks.
One instrumental piece was ghostwriting for one of our customers, something to this effect: “I looked at Cullinet, ADR, and Software AG and chose Adabas and Natural. I am glad I did and happy to speak with you if I can be of any help as you perform your due diligence. Speaking with users was the most insightful when we were where you are today.” I’d then call the account, read this letter to them, and ask their permission to send it on their behalf. [10]
We would use Express Mail to deliver a daily package to every executive and data processing management contact we had.
This tactic was genius of Gary. He had it ready to go.
All I had to do was execute.
So, I made the calls and prepared the packets.
The Lunch
I called Sandy and scheduled a meeting with her early the following week.
When I landed at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport that morning, I called Sandy to let her know I was on my way, and she suggested we meet offsite. I remembered her mentioning a place she liked eating in the town square. I offered the Post Office, and we met there for an early lunch.
When we were seated, she asked me if I was responsible for everyone receiving the Express Mail.
Uh oh. I immediately wondered if I had done something wrong. [11]
She put me at ease and said the onsite IBM team was a little pissed about it, but most of the school’s IT team thought it was fun.
They liked the attention.
She also said that no one had ever done anything like that before, and they thought it was impressive. [12]
I felt like we made progress at lunch.
Sandy was gaining a better appreciation of the value a 4GL could have on their SIS.
She also saw the depth and extensibility of our data dictionary.
Sandy heard some customer stories in Higher Ed. [13]
And, possibly most importantly, she witnessed my urgency.
I had wanted to impress upon her how we felt we had “so much to do and so little time” to make up for the time we lost at the front end of her evaluation. [14]
John Norris Maguire
In 1969, IBM unbundled software programs, separating software from hardware.
That very moment is now recognized as the birth of the software industry.
Software had changed from a giveaway to a competitive commercial product.
In the three-year timeframe that followed, John Cullinane founded Cullinane Corp., John Imlay founded Management Science America, and John Norris Maguire founded Software AG of North America.
These three “Johns” were widely recognized as the founding fathers of general-purpose software.
There were others, but these guys were the customer-facing “pied pipers” of those early days.
Our strategy was firing on all cylinders as the RFP’s release neared.
We had expanded our efforts and now had the MIS Director, Manager of Application Development, Operations Manager, and a few others covered by mapping teammates to each.
I was working on the Registrar.
We remained on edge.
Had we neutralized Referential Integrity? HQ in Germany? No customers in Arkansas? Analysts ranking us 3rd?
Gary had an idea: “Can you get John Maguire into that Bidders Conference?”
Wow, what a great idea: our chairman flying into Fayetteville.
Hmmm. I was excited at the possibility, but…
More “Rules” to navigate. [15]
The RFP draft had limited each bidder to two representatives at the Bidders Conference.
Since it was merely a Q&A session to help you prepare your proposal, the school envisioned their salesperson bringing their system engineer to the meeting.
Is this the right play, the right moment?
Gary went to work getting John, and I worked to get him in there.
The Class Ring
The RFP was released, and Referential Integrity remained in their feature list, but they had changed it from a “required feature” to a “nice-to-have.” No way!
Momentum was shifting, and we had John Maguire coming in a few days.
I went into Fayetteville early on the day before the Bidders Conference.
I had my go-to SE Jeff with me.
Did I have permission to bring three to that meeting? Sometimes it is better to ask for forgiveness than it is permission.
I chose to take that risk.
Besides, I did not want to compromise Sandy or put her in a difficult position by asking.
They had Rules to be followed.
I had taken the liberty of sending one more Express Mail a few days earlier.
It summarized Software AG’s history and included a detailed background on John Norris Maguire. [16]
Everyone received that package, including the school Registrar, SIS’s business owner.
John Maguire received a Master’s degree from MIT and still wears his school’s class ring.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology class ring, aka the Brass Rat, has a gold bezel containing a beaver.
The beaver was chosen as the MIT mascot because it is “the engineer of the animal world.”
The ring is unmistakable, especially if you know the background or are a fellow MIT grad.
The Registrar’s father was an MIT grad. [17]
The Bidders Conference
In those days, the Fayetteville Hilton was the preferred choice for business travelers, and John and I stayed there.
I had wanted to give John the white glove treatment for coming in to help one of his sales guys.
He would have none of it.
He declined my offers to arrange transportation from the airport and schedule a quick run-through the day before.
We met for breakfast, and he told me why.
“I never want any of you to feel a burden to look after me when I come to town. You are busy enough, and I can take care of myself. Besides, I want you to feel free to use me often, anytime.” [18]
I remember that message like it was yesterday and adopted it as my own throughout my management career.
As I sat down, John was writing postcards.
They were to customers. He showed them to me.
It was a very simple but thoughtful gesture, handwritten notes. [19]
I was witnessing someone at another level.
He wanted oatmeal as he was watching his cholesterol. We ordered our oatmeal, and I briefed him.
When we arrived at the Bidders Conference, I don’t recall why, but there was no opportunity to make introductions to the evaluation committee.
The vendors all took their seats, like in a courtroom, while the committee sat together in a row, like at a congressional hearing (or a jury box.) [20]
Soon after the meeting began, John saw an opening and raised his hand: “I have a question.”
I jumped to my feet, saying: “Ladies and gentlemen, please meet the Board of Software AG Chairman, John Maguire.” [21]
After all the preparation and role-playing with Gary, Lee, and Jeff, those words were my last for the rest of the meeting.
John took over.
John’s question was about speaking with users of the technology. But it just opened the door for him to share stories of evaluations, customer use cases, and applications of our technology from all over the world. There is nothing like the experience of having a founder share their story of building a company one customer at a time. [22)
Of course, as he concluded his remarks, he asked the committee: “You have spoken to the University of Texas, right? You should not decide without speaking with them about their journey.” [23]
As soon as the meeting ended, the Registrar made her way over to John. They had a private but pleasant conversation for about ten minutes. I heard them laughing and saw John showing her his MIT ring. [24]
The following week, Sandy called and told me that the Registrar had called her counterpart at the University of Texas and wanted Sandy to arrange a visit through us. [25]
I was happy to accommodate.
We responded to the RFP on schedule. We hosted Sandy, the Registrar, and the evaluation team in Austin at UT.
We won the business two weeks later.
As for our competitors, Cullinet and IBM were the only two to attend the Bidders Conference and submit proposals.
IBM was obligated to, having so much other business with the school.
James of Cullinet was going through the motions in case something happened to us in the procurement process.
Bob, with ADR, saw early that the RFP was wired for IDMS.
Datacom DB, like Adabas, used an inverted list architecture and did not support Referential Integrity natively.
Bob may have also seen that the school was going to develop an SIS and knew the University of Texas story would be difficult to overcome. [26}
Bob and ADR’s response was “no bid.” [27]
Ultimately, the school made the best decision for its needs. Given that they were building a new SIS, using a modern DBMS/4GL to do it, getting assistance from Texas with design and best practices, and joining a built-in support system through Software AG’s Higher Ed SIG (Special Interest Group,) they were delighted that they selected Adabas and Natural.
Lessons
Cognitive Bias
Cognitive bias is the tendency to make decisions or act when our values, memory, or environment influence us.
There are ten types of cognitive bias, and at least five of them are present in this story’s twenty-seven (27) occurrences of bias.
1) Can you identify the biases working against the Software AG team?
2) How about the examples where we created influence techniques (bias) to help the school see the light?
3) For bonus points, can you name the types of cognitive bias on display here?
Drop your answers in Comments or Repost, making this more valuable for everyone.
Thanks for reading.
Want answers to the three questions above? Go here and look under Reference for Behavior Science and click on it.
