01 / Operator track

Buy Right the First Time

Roughly 60 percent of small businesses regret a software purchase they made in the last 18 months, and they mostly blame the implementation, not the product. That is the most expensive mistake on this list, so I give you a way to avoid it. You learn to test a tool against your own workflow before you pay, to recognize enterprise software that is 90 percent right and 100 percent priced, and to run the demo instead of letting the demo run you.

What you will be able to do

• +Evaluating a tool against your real workflow before you hand over a card
• +Spotting enterprise bloat and the features you will never once use
• +Per-seat pricing traps and the multi-year contracts worth walking away from
• +Running a vendor demo on your terms, with the questions they hope you skip