I made my first (of many I’m sure) cold calls today. You don’t often think that giving someone a call could be so nerve-wrecking. I got the lead form a friend of mine, saying that this company is basically using TFS for only source control (what a shame...). So I got this guy’s details (the Enterprise Architect), and did as much research on him as I could find. Then did the cold call prep.
You look at all possible scenarios, questions and answers that could rear its head in this call. You prepare a script, giving as much info in as few words and as clearly as possible.
Then the call...
I must admit the person was a lot more down to earth that I was expecting. He was polite and sounded very approachable. But BANG... the one scenario you did not prepare for. Panic sets in and you start darting around your script to try and find a quick question / solution / something to the response. Then after what seemed to be hours and as much seemingly pointless questions as I could stomach, it was over.
They’re actually getting rid of TFS due to a corporate policy to use open source tools.
In retrospect I should have realised the “corporate policy” card is usually something that is pulled because there was a problem somewhere or something did not work, or even just to get rid of the person on the other side (me in this case). I can think of a bunch of questions I should have asked – the biggest one obviously is what went wrong with TFS. Even in this I could have offered my services in moving from TFS to svn at the very least.
So a person lives and learns. I hope the next one will go better; at least I have some other scenario to plan for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.