Susanne Dansey’s Blog

Hello all,

I reluctantly went shopping today; yes that’s right, I don’t really enjoy shopping unless I know exactly what I want. Today, I went to Bluewater to shop for a dress for my friend’s wedding next weekend. After a few hours of getting fed up touring the shops to find nothing but beach and casual clothes, I found a little boutique that had the perfect dress which meant that I could buy it and get on with the rest of the day.

I’ve just got back into playing rugby (it’s only pre-pre-season at the moment) so that, combined with my running, has put me in the mood for making the most of the good weather and get more active. It’s been ten years since I left my trusty mountain bike in the garage where it supported numerous items that slowly accumulated on top of it and it was time to bring it back out into the daylight.

It was looking great! The tires were flat and they were cracking a bit; the saddle had split, and I needed new break pads but that was about it. I got the bike when mountain bikes first came out so the frame is heavy and the handles aren’t exactly state of the art (blister maker)! So I popped it in the car and took it down to the local Halfords for the bike specialists to cast their expert eye over it.

After a few minutes it transpired that about £80s worth of work and parts would be needed to bring it up to working order but I might like to look at a new model where prices start at a similar level…. Remember that. £80. Okay?

The shop assistant took me over to the first bike which was around £140.00 and explained exactly what the bike was capable of doing and compared it to my old bike. It certainly seems that bike technology has motored on since I got mine and this guy who is a passionate cross country cyclist told me that the newer models are far more robust than what I may have been used to. So a £60 quid increase, with my little knowledge, seemed understandable.

He then asked me what I what type of cycling I planned to do. At some point I’ll be popping over to Wales to give the Taff Trail a go (thanks to Tim!) and I’ll be spending whole days exploring my county and beyond so I needed something that would be able to do that. This meant the £140.00 was out of the question as in his experience they were only suitable for the odd ride. Remembering that £80 still?

So we moved on to the next range, slightly higher in price (I’m going to stop telling you how much or else you’ll say ‘you bought what?!’ to me!) but with all these features that I didn’t understand I was assured that it would be just what I needed. Then he showed me some higher priced and snazzier bikes but told me that I would only need to look at those if I was wanting to do more with the bike in a few years time. So I turn back to the second bike he shows me and although I understood what he was saying enthusiastically I had to ask my brother (who had popped in) what he thought and he said, which wasn’t particularly helpful, ‘it’s up to you’. Hmmm…

It was time to think about what I wanted to do with the bike and whether I trusted an enthusiastic stranger?

I looked at my £80-to-repair bike, thought about what I wanted to do this year and based on experience, agreed that it wouldn’t stand the pace. I looked at the £140 bike and thought that there must be a reason why it’s that price and there must be a reason why the one I’m considering is much more expensive.

And I realise I sound like a prospect who comes to me asking for a new server/pc/network/anything ICT-related that they don’t really understand and trust me to help them with. Because of my lack of understanding about the technology I was basing my decision predominantly on price! That’s my worst nightmare when prospects do that to me!

Sometimes I forget that trusting an ‘expert’ when you don’t know what you’re dealing with is a really big deal. It doesn’t matter whether the salesguy has 1, 2, or 20 years experience under his belt; it just has to feel right and you believe what he is saying is true.

I remember once we had a client who had trusted us on what we recommended to them and they bought it. They had nodded and said ‘yes’ in all the appropriate places so we assumed they understood the technology satisfactorily. That was until they rang up one day and told us that they had a new person starting the following week and therefore they needed a PC. Rather than purchase a new machine, they wanted to know if two users could share one PC.

Helpfully, I explained that they could with different user accounts, and they responded with hesitant silence…

‘You mean they both can’t use it at the same time?’

After explaining the immediate problem of who would have control over the mouse and keyboard (it could be interesting!) I realised that what I think is standard IT knowledge isn’t necessarily so with everyone else.

The same went for me today when purchasing the bike.

I still don’t understand everything about it but all I want to know right now is can I ride it tomorrow and that it won’t let me down?!

We’ve all spent many times troubleshooting for clients and have all come up against the mistake of overlooking the obvious. I laugh when I remember the lady who couldn’t work out why her colour printer wasn’t printing in yellow until we asked her to use plain white paper and not yellow paper.

Not only did I buy a bike worth far more than £80 but I bought the accessories (helmet!) but I do know that I have a bike that is going to take me off road through my local dirt tracks competently. If I have any problems I’ll know who to call as well.

My old bike? It’s in the garage right now and I’ll prep it so that I can take it out at times when if it gets stolen then it won’t be as bad as losing my new one.

I made a good purchase today (the dress was a good one too!) but I made sure I went to a specialist who I could trust would help me and know that if it went wrong I could take it back and they would help me.

Sound familiar? That’s right, sounds like a Partner!