PSO is the Penalty of Doing It Wrong

I was lamenting with a former co-worker and friend about Professional Services Organizations (PSO). If you’re unfamiliar with the term, you sure know the concept. A PSO is a company that makes money, gains clients, or keeps client, by supporting its flagship product with heavy customizations and installations. I am going to go out on a limb here, and say that for an internet company, operating on a “Software as a Service” business model, if you are a PSO you have failed your primary job.

For your failure you will suffer through pain. You will watch as your clients become your master. You will become beholden to their insane desires just to keep them as clients. You will have to hire dedicated people to support your customers and their customizations. This part of your company will run at a loss. It will chew up most of your time, and cause most of your headaches. Your client-facing people will do the least amount of work necessary to get the client off their phones. Your developers will go mad implementing customizations never dreamed up by the initial product creators. You will spend less and less time focusing on your product and your core code. This is the punishment for failure.

Now, let me explain how you have failed. You created a product. That product was liked. It solved a problem adequately. It filled a niche. People bought it. But you missed something. You missed the true need of your clients. You missed their expectation. You see, if you fulfilled their needs, they wouldn’t have these itches and pet projects to throw at you. Their itches are real. Their pet projects are wrong. You missed their itch. Their pet project is an attempt to design a software solution (which isn’t their job) to their itch. The second you give in to the pet project, instead of finding the itch, the game is over. The minute you do not incorporate the itch into your project pitch and vision, the game is over. You have to be willing to say ‘No’ to your client. If their itch does not fit into your product there are two possible reasons; one, you don’t understand the product domain, or two, you are not looking for that type of client. You cannot please everyone. Understand that.

I hope you have not yet found yourself in this kind of a situation. It is an uphill fight to recreate an environment in which your product matches the client need and expectation. It is an uphill fight to recreate an environment in which your clients will shut up and let you lead. Good luck.