Stop Explaining. Start Proving.

In 1844, a company called Wenham Lake Ice did something revolutionary that most tech vendors still haven't figured out.

Instead of writing pamphlets about their ice's "pristine clarity," they placed a block of ice in their shop window, with a newspaper behind it.

Londoners could read the headlines through the ice.

No presentations. No feature lists. Just irrefutable, instant proof.

It went viral. Queen Victoria demanded it at Buckingham Palace. All because Wenham Lake Ice understood what most channel teams still don't:

Nobody believes what you say. They only believe what you prove.

The Psychology Behind "Show, Don't Tell"

Our brains are wired to trust what they can see far more than what they hear or read. This isn’t just instinct — it’s backed by science.

Psychologist Allan Paivio introduced the Picture Superiority Effect, which shows that people remember 65% of visual content after three days compared to just 10% of written content.

Visual proof isn’t just helpful — it’s unforgettable. That’s why before-and-after photos hit harder than someone saying, "I lost 30 pounds." Seeing is believing.

Equally powerful is the concept of Cognitive Fluency, described by psychologists Adam Alter and Daniel Oppenheimer. Their research shows that when information feels easy to understand, our brains instinctively believe it’s more true.

This is why simple, clear messages stick — and why "Got Milk?" worked better than "Are You Consuming Adequate Calcium for Optimal Bone Health?"

The takeaway? Partners aren’t won over by complexity, they trust what’s clear, simple, and undeniably real.

Your Partners Are Drowning in Explanations

Your MSPs and VARs don't want to hear about your network monitoring capabilities.

They want to see how those capabilities translate to faster deployments and higher margins.

Yet we keep hitting them with phrases like:

• Our platform leverages AI for network anomaly detection (translation: "our product does stuff!")

• Our automation streamlines configuration management (translation: "please stay awake during this presentation!”)

• Our threat intelligence improves security posture (translation: 'same pitch, fancier fonts!')

How to Turn Technical Features into Undeniable Proof

When Apple launched the iPod in 2001, they didn't talk about "5GB of storage."

They said: "1,000 songs in your pocket."

The genius wasn't just the simplified language – it was that you could instantly visualize what that meant for you.

You could see your entire music collection in a device smaller than a deck of cards (and finally ditch that CD binder you swore would make a comeback someday).

What if:

Instead of: Our SD-WAN solution offers zero-touch provisioning.
Make them see: Set up a blank device in front of them and have their entire branch network configuration complete before they can finish their coffee. When they look surprised, simply say: "That's what your customers will experience too."

Instead of: Our security platform reduces false positives.
Make them see: Show a partner's actual alert dashboard before and after implementing your solution – with the ‘before’ cluttered with hundreds of alerts and the ‘after’ showing only the five that actually mattered.

Build Your Own "Walkman in a Bottle" Moment

When Sony wanted to prove their Walkman was waterproof, they didn't provide an IP68 certification document. They sold the Walkman inside a bottle of water.

Game. Set. Match.

Every great proof creates an "aha" moment where explaining becomes unnecessary:

→ What if your next security demo began with you deliberately infecting a test environment with ransomware, then having partners watch your solution automatically detect, isolate, and remediate the threat while their current solution was still sending the first alert?

→ What if, instead of explaining how your network management simplifies multi-vendor environments, you set up a challenge where partners race to troubleshoot a complex problem using their current tools versus yours – with a large digital clock counting the time saved for things they'd rather be doing?

If your top-performing partner had to prove your value in 30 seconds—without slides or jargon—what would they actually show?

That's your ‘ice block.’

Find it. Show it. And let your partners see why you're worth betting on (and if you can't find your ice block moment, consider the terrifying possibility that you might be selling lukewarm water with good marketing).

Because in a world where everyone is explaining, the ones who are proving are the ones who are winning.

The "Prove It" Partner Value Optimizer

Ready to transform your feature explanations into undeniable proof? Use this AI prompt:

Create a Partner Value Demonstration Plan for my solution:

Current solution explanation challenge:
- Feature I'm struggling to demonstrate value for: [feature]
- Current explanation method: [how I explain it now]
- Partner objections/confusion: [what partners don't understand]
- Ideal outcome: [what I want partners to believe/do]

Generate a "Prove It" plan that includes:
1. A 30-second visual demonstration that requires zero explanation
2. A comparison scenario showing "before/after" or "with/without" outcomes
3. A memorable analogy that makes the value impossible to misunderstand
4. A "Walkman in a bottle" moment that would make the value undeniable
5. Three questions to ask partners that will reveal the pain my solution solves

Outthink. Outplay. Outlast.
// Ann-Louise