By Drew Moore, Executive Director and General Manager, Dell Rugged Mobility Products

It’s hard to tell your story if you’re in a crowded stadium of screaming voices. In competitive industries, such as the technology industry, that’s exactly what organizations are facing. Every company has a marketing team, PR team, sales team and they’re all pushing a message: to media, to analysts and to prospective customers. When every organization is making bold, hyperbolic claims about its products, the entire process loses its potency. A much more effective alternative is to have some of your most satisfied customers tell their stories; how a product or solution directly improved their business.

In that crowded stadium full of organizations shouting how they offer the best solution, a third party that provides real-life examples of how a solution worked for them stands out in a major way.

At Dell Rugged Solutions, the innovations we make in new generations our ruggedized notebooks—which provide elite computing performance in the harshest conditions—are based off intensive feedback from our customers, who detail what they need to excel. We keep our customers involved in the design phase and we keep them involved when we seek to gain visibility as well.

A key vertical for ruggedized computing solutions is law enforcement and first responders. We have the pleasure of working with fantastic law enforcement customers and do not hesitate to get them involved in our events. When we launched our newest notebook in September in San Francisco, The Sunnyvale Police Department was a short drive away. We invited representatives to come to the launch event and explain directly to attending media how they are using our products to better protect and serve.  For our annual customer, media and analyst conference, Dell World, we had the LAPD on hand – at their request --with a fully equipped squad vehicle to demonstrate how Dell Rugged Solutions easily dock to enable officers to stay connected on the move.

We also have strategic partnership with influential ‘rugged’ personalities—mountain climbers, adventurers and more. For example, Melissa Arnot—who has summited Mt. Everest five times—takes a Dell Rugged notebook with her when her team embarks on a climb because of performance advantages our products provide. Having her show and tell how our technology enabled mission critical work on the snowy peaks of the Himalayas is a far different kind of endorsement than a traditional sales sheet.

It’s implicit that your organization believes in its products. As an additional approach, seek out unique and successful customer stories to provide more genuine examples of why new customers should seek your products out. It’s a lot more effective than continuing the shouting match.

Drew is the Executive Director and General Manager for Dell’s Rugged Mobility Product line, with cradle to grave responsibility for the development, marketing, service and customer experience of these products designed to thrive in the harshest of work environments. Learn more at Dell.com/Rugged.