Then our COO asked me a question that put it all into perspective…

He said, “For 2-3 times the price, it would mean a difference of tens of thousands of dollars each year. For that price, we could potentially hire another person in marketing. What do you think is worth more: the extra MA functionality or another human to help execute our campaigns?”

Once he put it that way, it was a no-brainer. Of course I’d rather have a person to help write emails and coordinate campaigns! Would it be nice to have the added MA functionality too? Perhaps. But we’re just getting started with marketing automation, after all. The likelihood that we would “hit the wall” with the more economical solution in the first couple years and need a more advanced system that quickly is very unlikely. Plus, even if we didn’t hire another person in marketing right away (which we don’t plan to), I would still feel silly putting all that money into software that we couldn’t get the full benefit from for many months or even years to come.

So I picked up the phone and called the vendor with our final decision.

We decided to go with… drumroll please… Pardot!

We were more than happy with the features and functionality Pardot offered us, and for the price, it really couldn’t be beat. Their software had everything we had wished for, and more.

While we haven’t revealed the names of any of the other solutions in this diary to date, I thought it was only fair to share the marketing automation solution that we ultimately chose. Not because we think it is the best choice for everyone (because no software is one-size-fits-all), but because sharing the final choice helps validate that our journey— and the challenges along the way—were real-life struggles many companies face when buying software.  And that, believe it or not, buying software can be a fun and educational experience, when done right!

Where do we go from here now that we’ve made a decision, you might ask? Good question! Where to start…

• For one, we need to start transitioning off our email marketing software so we aren’t paying for two systems at once. That means importing email lists into Pardot, re-creating landing pages and email templates, and downloading reports of our past email campaigns.
• Secondly, we need to start mapping out requirements and building our API so we can have the Pardot data integrated with our CRM.
• And third, we need to start writing! (Funny, I thought that’s what I was doing now).  Content is the fuel that drives marketing automation campaigns, and while we do have a lot of great content already, we’ll need to create much more now that we can better personalize our nurture campaigns to software buyers and vendors.

So it looks like it’s going to be a busy summer in Cabo San Marketing (Capterra’s balmy side of the office, where Besa and I sit). Thankfully everybody will be out on their beach vacations while we’re experimenting with our new software—not that anything could go wrong, of course

Hopefully our guidance throughout this process can help you along your search for marketing automation software too, wherever that may take you! Please feel free to give us a shout if you ever want to talk through your marketing automation decision.

Rewind 1 week …
We had done our five demos and thought we had a pretty good idea which one we ultimately wanted. Based on our research, the chosen solution seemed reasonably priced for all the functionality it offered.

Then, out of left field, another marketing automation vendor calls and says that they saw this blog and thought we should at least consider their solution before making a final decision. Humph. But they weren’t on our short list for a reason, right?

After some initial debate, Besa and I decided to do a quick demo (if only to help us learn more about the MA software industry, even if we didn’t like what we saw). Unfortunately (fortunately?) we did like what we saw. Plus, the company is a leader in the industry and was very eager to win our business.

On the one hand, we had a bargain-priced option with all the functionality we needed, and on the other hand, we had a very robust system that we could use in more dynamic ways, but would cost 2-3x more annually.

Hmm… But maybe it wouldn’t have to cost us that much?

Time to Negotiate
Part of our strategy of waiting until the end of the month to make this decision was that we know software vendors are more eager to make their monthly quota, and thus more likely to discount pricing around that time. That in mind, we approached both vendors with our remaining questions and concerns about their systems. We also told each vendor who their competition was. They quickly responded with their rebuttals, and both explained that, while they respected the other company, their solution was a superior choice for our needs.

Then we did what any reasonable buyer would do… we asked how much they could cut the price. The bargain-priced vendor said that they don’t ever discount their prices, but that they could throw in an extra “add-on” feature if we signed by the end of the month. We were happy with that offer since we weren’t really too concerned about the price of their system anyway.

The more robust vendor said they’d have to get approval for special “friends and family” pricing, and that they were going out on a limb to try to win our business. We weren’t sure what that meant since we literally had just met them two days ago, but we’re friendly people, so “friends” it is! We were trying to guesstimate what they would come back with, but unlike the other vendor, it was not very clear how typical pricing was even determined.

It turned out that their initial proposal had underestimated the number of users we would ultimately need, and only included one person in training (which Besa and I were both hoping to attend). So when they came back with their “discounted” price the next day, it was  even higher than their initial quote–and still nearly three times the cost of the other solution.

Weighing the Two Offers
You’re probably thinking, “Three times the price?! HA! What’s to think about?” Well, a lot, actually…

• For one, what if the bargain MA can do everything we want today, but in 6 months or a year we discover that we need some functionality that it doesn’t offer? Do we run the risk of “hitting the wall” with the less expensive MA?
• For two, what if we grow so awesomely fast after implementing MA that the bargain software can’t keep up with us? Are we being shortsighted about our needs? (That would be a nice problem to have.)
• For three, what if we end up sending a lot more emails now that we have automation? The bargain software is priced by number of emails, not by number of contacts, like the more robust software. So which do we think will grow more quickly: our database or our email sending habits?
• And finally, what kind of training do we really need, and who will do it better? The bargain software only offers online support and a few phone calls over the course of the first 3 months, but it’s free. The more robust MA offers a personalized training class that we would travel to (but again, we’d have to pay for it).

Man, this whole software-buying process is pretty complicated. And we’re supposed to be experts! If we’re having this much trouble making a decision, what do marketers who’ve never bought software before do?

We’re calling some of our references back with final questions, and hoping to have an answer by the end of the week. Stay tuned for how we make our final choice in a few days!!

So after completing our Marketing Automation wish list for Tech last week, Besa and I had finally narrowed down our MA decision to just two remaining contenders. That’s when we decided it was time to call some of their reference customers.  I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to say, so before I picked up the phone, I jotted down this list of ten questions…

1. How many people are in your marketing department?
   (To see if they had a similar amount of time and resources, since it’s just me and Besa in Cabo San Marketing at Capterra)
2. How long have you been using this marketing automation system?
   (To determine if they were newbies that were still figuring it out or veterans who could share how the software has evolved over time)
3. Did you look at any other solutions when you purchased MA? Which ones?
   (So they can offer some comparisons if they considered the same solutions we had)
4. Why did you ultimately decide on this software over the others?
   (Try to sell me on it…)
5. Who is/are your target audience(s)? Explain how you market to them using your MA.
   (Would we be using marketing automation in a similar way? Maybe we could borrow some ideas from similar businesses in our space.)
6. How smooth was your implementation? Did the system easily plug into your existing technology environment?
   (Is this going to take us forever or just a few days like all the sales guys are promising?)
7. Is there anything you wish you could do with XYZ software that they either don’t have the functionality to do, or you’ve found difficult to accomplish through the software?
   (So we don’t regret our decision in a month, 6 months, or even a year from now)
8. What kind of ROI have you achieved so far? Do you feel the cost is justified/fair for the results you’ve generated?
   (If you really don’t think it’s worth it, then we need to know that before we drop a few thousand dollars)
9. Have you seen the kind of results you expected/were promised, or do you feel you could be getting more from the system?
   (Because we’ve had many promises made throughout this buying process)
10. Did you find your training to be worthwhile? Any recommendations on how to prepare?
    (Are we going to have to pay for it? Who should attend? Was it hard to learn the software?)

I ended up speaking to two users of each of our two remaining MA software options, one referred by the company and one we found independently, for a total of four reference calls. I think the trickiest question for the references was the ROI one (isn’t it always?). While most people could quote how their email deliverability, or time to set up a landing page, or some other factor had been impacted, it was hard for them to tie that back to revenue (even if marketing automation is supposed to help with that). Yet the second part of that question- do you feel it’s worth the investment- actually generated some of the most helpful answers. As suspected, the people referred by the MA vendors had nothing but positive things to say about their experience with the software, whereas the ones we found independently were more willing to gripe about some of the shortcomings. Those shortcomings were great to hear though, since some would definitely impact our decision whereas others weren’t that important to us.

What would you ask a marketing automation reference customer? Is there anything you would add to this list?

Ok, so maybe it’s time to think about this a bit more. Tech needs to know specifics about the types of emails we want to send, what landing pages we would host on the MA, which fields we need to integrate with our CRM, what we hope to do with the information the MA tool gathers, and a long list of other questions that we really should ponder before making a decision.

Katie and I called a meeting to hash it all out, but with so many people involved in the purchase (Sales, Marketing, Tech, our CEO), our meeting was going on too many tangents, so we decided to start a shared spreadsheet instead. Each team could list what they wanted the software to do, and tech could ask questions to determine which of the four remaining systems would work best with our existing business processes and tech infrastructure.

We gave ourselves a week to finish this step in the buying process.

First, each department entered their potential marketing automation use cases into the wish list. It was a fascinating brainstorming exercise that forced us to think about all of the things we would do if we had the time and capabilities. We started getting that giddy feeling about all the possibilities of marketing automation. It’s easy to forget how exciting this is when you’re bogged down in the process.

Next, the tech team responded to each line item with comments and questions. Things like:

• “How quickly does this need to happen?”
• “Do you envision yourself looking for this in our current CRM or in the marketing automation tool?”
• “Is this something that can be taken care of entirely in the MA system?

The teams responded to those questions, and we also entered information on which of our wish list items were possible with the vendors left on our short list. If something couldn’t be done, we made a note of how complicated the workaround would be.

When all of this was over, our list of four was whittled down to two finalists! (I’m having a Ryan Seacrest moment here). Just one more elimination until we crown our next American Idol—I mean, Marketing Automation winner.

What did we learn here?

1. Simple questions don’t always have simple answers—especially when the simple questions come from your tech department.
2. Defining your wish list for marketing automation software is a valuable exercise.
3. The wish list spreadsheet is a great way to narrow down your contenders.
4. I am not Ryan Seacrest… more like Paula Abdul.

What struck me as the biggest difference between the demos was not—as it probably should have been— the various software products, but rather, their respective sales guys. Each sales person’s presentation style was drastically different from the last.  To prepare you for all the flavors of sales people we encountered, here are three caricatures of who you can expect to meet in your marketing automation search …

 (Please note: All names have been changed to protect their original owner’s identity. Plus, almost every sales person we talked to was actually named Matt.)

Friendly Frank

Frank starts the call off with questions about your weekend, whether you have any kids, and asks if you want to join him for Happy Hour when he’s in town visiting a client next week. When he pitches his marketing automation software, it’s clear he’s done his research on you, because it seems like he knows you better than your best friend. Sure enough, when you login to LinkedIn, there is Frank’s name on “Recent views of your profile.”

• Pros: He’s done his homework and understands your business, so he can better pitch the product to fit your needs.
• Cons: It’s so easy to talk to Frank, you might get caught up in the details of your weekend and not come away with a good impression of the software (other than “I really like that guy!”)

Pushy Pat

Pat starts the demo with a carefully designed PowerPoint on the background of his company before he will show you the actual product. He stresses things like, we have X bajillion customers and we just got $100 billion in funding. Pat asks up-front whether you have seen any other demos, and when you tell him yes, he’ll tell you why they all pale in comparison to his software. He’ll also be the first to tell you why your marketing process is all backwards, but not to worry… his software can help!

• Pros: For Pat to be so sure of himself, he must work for a reputable software company. The strong financial performance and growth in customers shows that these are probably products worth at least considering.
• Cons:  It takes so long to get through Pat’s spiel that you only spend about 20 minutes going through the actual product (which is inter-spersed with a lot of details he already mentioned in the PowerPoint). In order to get through it all, the call lasts 2 hours.

Generic George

You don’t even know George’s real name until you login to your placeholder webinar demo that happens every Tuesday and Thursday at 2 PM ET (11 AM Pacific). George reads off his script and says things like, “If you work for an ad agency, you might be interested in this feature! If not… bear with me here for a second.”  He’s on a tight schedule (but don’t worry… there’s time for questions at the end). George will follow up with an email 2-3 days later (if you’re lucky) to get a sense of what you thought about the demo. If you liked it, then you get to do another hour-long demo with George that’s all about you!

• Pros: If you just want to get a quick idea of whether this solution is worth more of your time, George’s demo is great. You can talk with your team during the call and you don’t have to answer any questions.
• Cons: If you already have specific questions and a good idea of what you need in a marketing automation system, George’s process is a waste of time. You’re better off calling the sales line directly and skipping the placeholder demo.

Because all of these sales styles were so different, I found myself wondering…

Am I basing my impressions of these marketing automation solutions on their features and functionality or on how well they are being pitched to me?

Ultimately, I think there’s no way to be 100% immune to the pitch (no matter how much you think you are). I also think it’s worth noting how the company pitches their product, because that is typically some indication of the company culture. Company culture can, in turn, give you clues about their customer service philosophy, software development schedule, and whether you want to work with these people for the next several years. On the other hand, you may just click with a particular sales person’s style and be turned off by another, and it has no bearing on whether that is the best marketing automation software for your company.

How can you tell the difference? Well, hopefully our caricatures will prepare you for what to expect, and you can be the judge of what floats your boat!

Have you met Frank, Pat, or George on a sales call? (Oh no…Are YOU Frank, Pat, or George?!?)  Which style do you prefer, and is there anybody else you’d add to the list?

1. Software demos cover a ton of material in very little time. Thank goodness I took notes!
2. It’s probably time we had that meeting with our sales team to talk about what they need in a marketing automation system.

We had scheduled our first two demos in such quick succession that we needed time to catch our breath and think things through with the help of our Biz Dev Director, Jeff, and Lead Gen Expert, Danny.

A lot of the questions I asked them had to do with their day-to-day processes. I wanted to understand how Marketing Automation might impact their day-to-day and what would make their lives easier. Since we have our own in-house CRM, many of my questions revolved around how that system worked and how they use it.

Here’s a brief recap of our convo:

Me: What fields do we have in our CRM?
Jeff: We have three main areas for each account- DONAs (Date of Next Action), Notes, and Contact Info.
Me: So do we list all of that information under the account page or do we have separate pages for each specific contact we speak to?
Danny: It’s all listed under the accounts, but we mention in the notes which specific person we reached out to and on what days.
Me: How do you set the DONAs?
Jeff: They are self-assigned by the sales reps immediately after they reach out to a prospect.
Me: What about new contacts we’ve never talked to before? How do we set DONAs for them?
Danny: Once I pass them over to sales and we create a profile for their software on Capterra, a welcome message is sent automatically through the system, and the DONA is auto-assigned to the correct rep.
Me: Okay, and what about our existing customers? Do they have DONAs too?
Jeff: Yes, they should all have a DONA set by their account rep. New customers have an auto-DONA set up for 2 days after signing-up.

Okay… so I now had a better insight into what those guys were doing poking around on CapMain (our CRM) all day long. The problem was, it didn’t seem to align very well with the way the marketing automation vendors were talking about integrations with out-of-the-box CRMs. Our process is a little different since Danny identifies the interested leads and gets them set up on Capterra first, and then the sales reps decide how and when they’ll prioritize follow-up. Marketing really doesn’t have much of a hand in this process, but it sounded like we were going to once we implemented Marketing Automation software.

We decided to list our main concerns with the CRM integration and approach all of our vendors with these issues (including the two we’d already talked to). Hopefully the API can work around some of these concerns!

As for prioritizing sales follow-up, I knew marketing automation would make that process much easier. While I already had a basic understanding of how Capterra scores our leads, I wanted to be crystal clear so I could show marketing automation vendors how we would need to set up a lead scoring model in their system.

From what I’d heard, most marketing automation lead scores have two components:

1. Demographics/ Fit Score— the “who” part of the equation. What company? How many employees? Annual Revenue? Job Title? Etc.
2. Behavioral/ Activity Score—the “why” part of the equation. Has the prospect opened/clicked our emails? Signed up for a webinar? Downloaded a white paper? Clicked on our advertising page?

Jeff and Danny explained how they identify and score leads manually. Our demographics/fit score revolves around whether the software company uses PPC advertising on search engines (since that makes them a more likely candidate to succeed with Capterra’s PPC advertising), and, secondly, on the quality of their website. Higher quality websites (with a strong offer and a short sign-up form) indicate that the company is online-marketing-savvy and will likely convert more leads through Capterra.

Our behavioral/activity score has to do with a person’s incoming source to our website (whether they came from an organic search, social media, PPC ad, email, etc.), how many leads their software company has purchased from Capterra in the past, and their general interest level based off of our past interactions (a grade of A means they are serious and ready to buy, whereas a D grade means don’t waste your time).

Having this conversation to clearly define each element’s importance was invaluable- not just in terms of finding MA software, but for being a better marketer in general. After all, if marketing is all about reaching people, then good marketing is all about reaching the right people!

Do you know the ins and outs of your sales team’s process for qualifying and following up with leads? If you’re thinking about buying Marketing Automation software, it might be time to take your VP of Sales out to coffee and pick his brain!

Am I missing something?

I wasn’t really sure what it meant not to be a “true” marketing automation solution, so I was intrigued to compare our next demo to the previous one. (I’ll call these two solutions Thing 1 and Thing 2 for simplicity’s sake.) So I scheduled a call with Thing 2, and Besa and I huddled around the computer to see what they had to offer.

I started to see pretty quickly some of the differences between the two systems, and while I still would consider both of them to be “true” marketing automation, there were some distinct differences. On the demo with Thing 2, we covered things like email nurturing, drip campaigns, landing page creation, social media, reporting, and sales enablement tools. Many of those functional areas were also available with Thing 1, but when we started to dig into how those features actually worked, it was like night and day.

Thing 2 was definitely more focused on emails and outbound-marketing tactics, whereas Thing 1 was more focused on inbound-marketing (blogs, content generation, etc.). I don’t think either one is better per se, but since our initial need for an MA arose from outgrowing our email marketing software, I immediately gravitated towards Thing 2.

And, to be fair, they both help with a combo of inbound/outbound tactics, but that got me thinking…

When we say “marketing automation,” what kind of marketing are we talking about? All of it? Or just certain parts of it? Because there are a lot of different forms of “marketing.”

You need to have your own definition before putting together your demo scorecard. Ask yourself: What marketing tasks and channels do I really need help automating? What takes the most time out of my day, and what’s the first thing I’d push off to another person if I could? For me, it’s primarily:

1. Segmenting email lists and customizing the messages for each group
2. Creating landing pages (In fact, I couldn’t do this even if I tried thanks to my less-than-stellar HTML skills)
3. Pulling visitor reports and calculating conversion data

As such, I was really focused on those features during the demo. On the contrary, I didn’t concentrate on the social media features. I love writing content and engaging in social media, but are those things that I want to “automate”? Not really. I don’t find it to be that big of a pain to have to login to a different platform to post a blog, and then login to Capterra’s Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn so I can share my new post on those three networks. Some marketers probably hate doing all that, but I got used to that cumbersome process and I’m okay with it. Plus, I like being able to use the native features in each social network (hashtags, posting to groups, tagging people, etc.), which I’ve always felt is difficult to do from one master application.

So, based on the marketing we need to automate, it seemed that Thing 2 was a better fit for us, but it will help to have some more reference points. I’ll probably have to come back to all five of the sales reps with more questions anyway before I can rule any of them out.

I’m curious though… in your mind, what “counts” as marketing automation? Are there certain features all MA software should have before truly being considered part of this category?

“How’d you like the first one you looked at?” (one of our sales guys)

“When are you going to pick something so we can get this thing rolling?” (business development dude)

“Can I see your demo scorecard?” (buyer advisor and office know-it-all—just kidding… sort of)

Doh! We forgot our demo scorecard!

Then, Smart Aleck sent me the link to his blog post on getting the most out of a software demo. But he’s right—how could we forget the thing we tell all software buyers to do when demoing software?!

The demo scorecard helps you evaluate software based on what truly matters to you, instead of getting swept in by all the cool things the sales person shows you or their charming personality. The scorecard also helps you keep everything straight because after you watch a couple of demos they tend to blend together, and you can’t remember which software did what.

What should a scorecard include? And what do the scores look like?

Your scorecard should be a list of what is important to you. Ours (the one we just now created) includes:

• Intuitiveness of the interface
• Ease of landing page creation
• Simplicity of the lead scoring
• Work needed to link to their API
• Fit with our existing workflow.

We will grade each of these items on a scale of 1 to 5 and find the average to help us narrow down our list of options.

Luckily, we’re grading ourselves and our marketing automation demos on an average, so even though we get an “F” for forgetting our demo scorecard we’re still hoping for an “A” when it comes to our overall selection.

In no particular order, these are the questions I would suggest knowing answers to before starting a Marketing Automation search:

• How many contacts do you have in your database? (The majority of Marketing Automation vendors base their initial pricing off of this number, so make sure you have this right)
• What is your monthly web traffic?
• How many new leads do you typically generate in a month?
• What are your main channels/methods for generating those leads? (PPC? Social Media? Email Marketing? Display Ads? Webinars/Live Events? Etc.)
• What’s your average conversion rate for new leads?
• How do you currently measure or track those conversions?
• How many emails do you send in an average month?
• What’s the average open rate for your emails? What about click-throughs?
• What CRM software do you use?
• Do you host virtual events? If so, what web-conferencing software do you use?
• What demographic information indicates a good lead for your company? (Job titles? Geography? Company Size? Annual Revenue?)
• How do you currently qualify leads? (In other words, what signals to a sales person whether a particular lead is worth targeting or proactively pitching?)
• How do you pass leads over to your sales team once they are qualified?
• What does your sales team do with those leads? How do they sort them out and prioritize follow-up? (I will stress: the more you understand about your sales team’s day-to-day processes, the better you’ll be able to evaluate Marketing Automation solutions and how they would fit with your existing workflow. It’s better to find a system that fits instead of trying to recreate your whole company’s work model. That would just lead to a lot of headaches and make your life more difficult, which is definitely not the point of MA!)

Most of these are pretty straightforward questions that most marketers should know about their companies. But, it can be tricky keeping so many numbers and facts straight.  Not to mention, some info, like web traffic, conversion rates, and database size change pretty frequently.

Thus far into our search, those would be my best suggestions as far as a demo prep list, but I’m sure as we get further into it there will be more gems to add to this list! For all you Marketing Automation veterans, did I forget anything?

Ready, Set, Demo!

We had our first demo today—one of five that we’re planning over the next couple of weeks. Mike (Capterra’s CEO) already had a scheduled call with this popular marketing software vendor, so he looped me in on the call to take a look at their software and see if it would be a good fit for Capterra.

After talking to Cari, I knew that we needed to get buy-in from our sales team and discuss how marketing automation would impact their processes. After all, this whole lead generation/nurturing thing has a lot to do with them. But we hadn’t scheduled the meeting with sales yet, so I was worried that we may have been jumping the gun on this demo. We’d thought a lot about what we’d like the software to do in terms of email nurturing and campaign tracking, but we hadn’t really thought at all about lead scoring or profiling (which is typically the first part of a marketing automation implementation).

Despite my hesitations, our first demo was very informative and definitely helped prepare me for future demos. The main thing Cari had told us to look out for was whether the system has an API (application program interface) so that we can integrate our marketing automation data with our in-house CRM system (called “CapMain”). Fortunately for us, the vendor did have an open API, so we’d just have to talk to our tech team about how the integration might work.

After going through the demo, I jotted down the pros and cons. We actually spent 1 ½ hours on the phone (will all the demos be this long?!), so I felt like I got a pretty good sense of the software, but I’m sure we’ll have more questions once we get further into the process.

Here were my take-aways:

Pros

• The interface is clean and seemed easy to use. Also, the system included features that marketers really need nowadays— like social media and blogs. We don’t necessarily need those capabilities since we’re pretty set in those areas, but it’s nice to know that the software is up-to-speed with the industry. There’s also great analytics and tracking so it’s easy to see who’s engaging with your content.
• SEO Optimization for blog posts (as you’re writing a post, it will look at your desired SEO keywords and suggest tags and “grade” your writing).
• Easy landing page creation that would not require help from our tech team. We can import existing landing pages or build them on a custom template. I could see us using this for content downloads, webinar sign-ups, contests- all sorts of things.

Cons

• They don’t have a survey tool. We create a lot of surveys with our email marketing software, so we would essentially be losing that functionality when we switched.
• The email tool seems a lot like our current email marketing provider, which is great, but the reason we’re looking for marketing automation is because we’ve outgrown that system. There is also a limit of 50,000 contacts. Tip- definitely figure out how many contacts you have in your database before you start demos!
• Trigger emails only come with the advanced package. Also, it didn’t seem like you could customize the email sender name based on the sales rep (that’s a huge time suck for us right now because we have to create multiple lists for each email we send based on our individual reps’ clients/prospects).
• Lead scoring is an external application, outside of their main marketing automation interface, and the tie-in with the CRM seemed difficult to me. We’d need to do more research on the API connection.

After this first call, I knew we needed to schedule a time to discuss with our sales teams how they would use/benefit from marketing automation. Also, I made a note to collect answers to all the questions the vendor had asked on our call because I knew I’d need that same info to share with subsequent vendors.

Stay tuned, because my next entry is going to share that demo prep list (and if you’re looking for MA, you’re gonna need it!)