Years ago, I attended a meeting with a prospective client and an SME who worked as a network and information security operations manager. The SME was brought into the meeting to help convince the customer that they should entrust their company data center services to the SME’s company. The SME was highly qualified and intelligent. He came across as confident and professional. It was obvious to me that the client believed the SME could accomplish what the company thought they needed. Toward the end of the meeting, however, a client representative said, "I think your team may be overqualified. You can obviously do far more than we need at the moment."

In response, the SME changed the customer’s vision. He said something like the following: “I can see how you might think that, but I hope you’ll allow me to challenge that thinking for a moment. You need the skills of the people in this room, and then some. It is not the problem you are facing today that you or I should worry about. It is the problem you will be facing tomorrow. It is that problem, tomorrow’s problem, the problem that is bigger and more urgent than today’s problem. It is that problem that should be addressed today, and we are the team who can address it. If you only want to worry about today’s problems, then you might be right. We might not be the team for you. But if you want to get in front of tomorrow’s problems then I believe we can help you, and we can do it today.”