Thanks to Mike Rothman for locating this entertaining, but very informative post from Dark Reading that prints some of the top complaints managers have about security vendors. (HERE)

From my time as a Product Manager, I saw this problem from both sides. It’s hard to make round pegs fit into square holes. It should be the Sales Rep’s job to properly screen their prospects. But week after week I got pulled into presentations with prospects that represented “million dollar deals”. I have to admit it was often fun and educational for me to see Real Prospects and talk to them. That’s important, too. But if some reasonable percentage of those prospects had actually bought product we would all have been rolling in stock options and driving Porsches.

On the other side, vendors still contact me to pitch their solutions without knowing how, or even trying to find out anything about what my real problems are (or my Clients’ problems).

So, even though it can be a fun diversion from the daily routine to sit through a vendor pitch, or to get out of the office and present your latest technology to an unqualified prospect, your time is always better spent thinking about what you can be doing to make the most impact on your business, and then doing NOTHING ELSE until that’s taken care of. That will not only help your organization “get to secure” faster, it won’t hurt your career either. For that matter, it’s usually a faster way to get to the car dealer.