12: All about selling to CIOs

This week. the talk is about the IT buying process and mis-perceptions thereof. Paul’s been spending a lot of time with CIOs recently and has some observations to share about how they look at vendors. David actually spent some time working in large IT organizations. Both agree on a few things: CIOs look for trusted partnerships more than products; they rely on their peers and staff for advice on what to buy; and the best route to the CIO’s office is up from the lower levels in the organization. In other words: stop focusing your pitch solely on CIOs because that’s a lousy way to actually reach them!

In Cheers and Jeers, David applauds Google’s acquisition of Feedburner while Paul puts in a good word for Facebook as the young people’s social media site that most deserves marketers’ attention.

Listen to the podcast (right click to download): 14:09