One of the side-effects of working for a much smaller company is that I'm now solicited for input into marketing things. Copy, images, scripts, videos, etc. I realized not long after starting that I really shouldn't comment on them because I never have anything constructive to say about them. Constructive criticism is good, simple negative criticism is to be avoided unless it's to illuminate something egregiously offensive that could reflect badly on us (which has happened, this is a cross-check that worked).
This is in large part because I've been in a job title that gets pitched by vendors hoping to get my organization to drop five or six figures on a nice little bit of technology (with attached annually renewed maintenance contracts), so I'm cynically familiar with what that looks like. The cynical bastard bonus I get to my save vs. marketing is impressive, I say um, no. Just.... no really, really easily.
A very large part of how I grew into this impressive bonus is having spent 7.5 of the last 10 years working for a governmental organization. This means that my lead time for 5-6 figure purchases that are not part of a master-contract arrangement (tool of choice by civil servants everywhere for avoiding RFPs at all costs) is 8-24 months depending on how big it is.
That same time was also spent in a title that only has "recommend" or "influence" powers over purchases. Worthy of being pitched; but if I put up a fight, also worthy of doing an end-run around. Happily my bosses were even better at saying, "Can't do lunch, it's illegal. No." than I was.
Also, for most of those 7.5 years my organization was working from a place of fiscal austerity. It gets really easy to say no when there isn't any money to spend. And very frustrating when money needs to get spent, but isn't allowed to be spent.
Do you anticipate a need for this in the next [quarter|half year]?
Yes, but any purchase orders won't be cut until #{now.add(:months => 18)}, and that's after we get it pushed through the budget process. Sorry.
This awesome pricing I got you is only good until the end of the month, when our quarter ends. If you can get a PO cut by then, you'll be golden.
I'd love to, but due to fiscal austerity all purchasing decisions of this size are being routed through the state capital and our own Purchasing department tells me that the average lag time is 4 months right now. Thanks for trying.
We can come in and pitch it to the right people, help them understand the problem. We want to help you.
Very thoughtful, but I'm the right person to talk to for this, and the fiscal/political environment right now says we can't afford a solution like this even though we need one. Sorry. Talk to me next year, maybe the Legislature will give us more money by then.
All of this made me the wrong person to talk to about assessing the impact of marketing copy. If we were pitching to cynical bastards like myself, then I could definitely help with that. CB's like me are damned hard to pitch at since we dismiss so much of the presented information as we attempt to distill what is real out of the spit-shine. But we're not pitching to CB's like me, so I don't poke my nose in.
Happily, we have many people who don't have avoid getting sold stuff costing lots of money as part of their work-history so are able to provide this needed feedback. I celebrate them.
This is one trade I'm not a jack of.