Having spent half of my career as a CIO and the other half as an IT solution provider, I have had the opportunity to sit on both sides of the conference table. One of the best things I learned in the process is the importance of listening.  Vendors can be incredibly knowledgeable about their individual areas of expertise, but if they are not good listeners they are unlikely to be good partners.

We all know there are many great technologies on the market today, but the technologies that bring real value are the ones that work for your business. As a CIO, I often marveled at how out of touch some vendors seemed to be; how they wanted me to stop everything and take the time to see the latest thing, without ever stopping to consider my needs and understand the challenges in my world.  The vendors that brought value to me were really not vendors at all… they were partners who truly listened, and then responded with relevant solutions that solved my problems in the right way and at the right time.

Clearly this concept of listening to the customer is nothing new.  Most vendors are familiar with the popular Epictetus “one mouth/two ears” quote that suggests we should listen twice as much as you talk.  Adam Gale,  President of KLAS, in discussing healthcare IT vendors and their relationships to CIO’s suggests some vendors use this principle better than others.  Among the many vendors Gale meets he finds one of the greatest differentiators is the vendor’s ability to listen. He asks:   “How many times have you enjoyed a visit by of one of your vendor executives where they clearly had an agenda?”  More often he finds the goal is getting the message out, rather than listening to what customers have to say.

It is such a simple thing, to listen, and yet some of us forget to do it.  The foundation of any good relationship is the ability to listen and the vendor-partner relationship is no exception.  It is not that we CIO’s know everything, but the one thing we do know (or should know) is our business. Partners who listen to our needs will better understand our business, and be able to contribute as an external member of our internal team. They will also have a better understanding of how we want to communicate, and how often.

For vendors this makes it really simple.  The beauty is if you listen carefully, your customer will tell you exactly what they need. No guesswork required.