An engineer of a company called me saying: “Our COO wants us to evaluate your software for our product design”. Then we set a meeting with him and the COO.

This morning I went there; a first technical meeting with the designers, before seeing the COO. They said the software would be used as an on-off application on a single project. They found the software difficult to learn, therefore they asked me for a quotation for a consultancy project. Then, the COO joined the meeting. I resumed what I was asked by his engineers, and this is what he said: “I don’t need you to design my product, I want my engineers to do that for all our products”. His engineers nodded in agreement.

Customers lie, for many personal reasons. Rephrasing the Newton’s law of inertia:

An object (an engineer) at rest (working in Research & Development) will remain at rest (will use the same technology, methods) unless acted upon by an external and unbalanced force (unless their boss twists their ears).

How do you call your customer?

Consumer companies refer to retailers as direct customers. I think this may create a mindset where satisfying the intermediary matters most. B2B companies refer to accounts.  Though account is synonym of client, it also means: “a record of debit and credit entries”. Account is misleading too, as it figures a relationship mainly made of formal business arrangements.

Boss. Why not calling your customer boss. You can call me boss manager, then.