Can You Trust the Reviews?

Please Note: This is an edit of a previous posting I did when RIM Playbooks and Google Chromebooks first came out.  With the advent of Windows 8, Windows Surface and now Windows Phone 8, I thought it was timely to revisit this topic.

I drink my coffee black.  I didn't always take it this way. When I started, I was like many who would enjoy a Timmee's DD (This is a Canadian colloquialism, it has nothing to do with cup size), but then I dropped the sugar.  Then the cream.

When I first decided to drop the cream, (to preserve my lean, lithe, pantherlike figure) I hated the stuff in the cup.  This was not coffee, it was more like a mixture of motor oil and camel spit.  (Not that I was speaking from experience, but I do have a vivid imagination.)

It took weeks for me to start appreciating the rich aromatic flavour of a good cup of coffee.  It got to the point where coffee with cream tasted bland, and there is no way I would ever go back to cream in my coffee.

So what does this have to do with hardware and software reviews?

How to sell to CIO's - 5 easy steps.

Perhaps you've read my previous post - The CIO’s Declaration for Potential Partners and know how effective I feel cold calling actually is.  In a recent discussion on Focus.com, I posted the "declaration" and received a great question back from Craig Rosenberg who asked: "if cold-calling doesn't work -- how can sales people get the opportunity to help you solve your problems?"

For someone who is starting their career selling products or services, this is a very legitimate question. If repeatedly pounding the door doesn't work (for CIOs like me) then how do they get our attention?  How do they get through the door when it seems as impenetrable as a bank vault?