By Philip Winterburn

Your inbox is flooded, your voicemail consumed with exhortations from sales people.

Their product is the best. They just want five minutes. They are relationship-focused and so different from all the rest.

The system is broken!

There are thousands of technology companies out there trying to sell their products and services, and thousands of consumers seeking these exact same products and services. And yet the successful marriage of supply and demand is still a very hit-or-miss affair.

Having worked on both sides of the vendor/client relationship, I understand the frustrations that both sides face. As a service provider, you believe in your service and want to expose it to as many potential clients as possible. As a consumer, you want to understand the breadth of services on offer so that you can find the perfect fit for your organization.

We surf the Web, read analyst reports, reach out to contacts—and still only scratch the surface of what is available.

Ultimately, it is not companies that have relationships, but people. I have certain account managers, sales people, and recruiters that I know I can trust to be responsive and maintain a high-quality service, so these are the people I turn to. And when they move to new companies, invariably my business moves with them.

Recently I have had the pleasure of the following desperate attempts to gain our business:

• One chap managed to engineer his way through security and up to reception by posing as a deliverer of bagels. The bagels were great, the conversation very brief, and at the end of the day he was offering just one more staff augmentation search service.
• Another “just happened to be in the area” and wanted to drop off a coffee mug with his company’s name emblazoned thereon.
• And lastly, the delivery of an information packet with an enclosed Starbucks gift card. Am I supposed to feel obligated to call someone if they send me $20? It all felt very sordid, so I threw the card away… I guess the only winner in this instance was Starbucks.

Surely there is a better way, something that makes better use of everyone’s time, some way to ascertain a degree of match before we talk. Maybe the business world could learn from some of the successes at Match.com and eHarmony.

Philip Winterburn is CIO of Denver-based Rivet Software, the pioneer in standards-based business reporting and analytics.