War Stories Archive
During a final presentation to win a $100 million piece of new business, the marketer for an investment firm made the following statement several times: “We manage money for many organizations just like yours.” The marketer opened the presentation by discussing a list of the prospect’s specific goals for the mandate — goals such as “enhanced returns with risk control” and “establishing a relationship with a long-term partner.” The marketer closed the presentation by saying, “This would be an important relationship for us.” The CIO of the prospect company later complained, “I wonder what they think an ‘organization just like yours’ means, exactly? They tried to pretend they knew who we really were by using certain stock phrases, but all we heard were generalizations and abstractions. It would have been better, frankly, if they just hadn’t bothered to pretend. If they had just given us a straight investment presentation and spared us all the false customization. We sent them an RFP with detailed information, but it was clear that they just hadn’t done their homework on who we were and what we were looking for.”
Moral: There are no shortcuts — do your homework!