Six Things you Can Learn from Conducting Win Loss Interviews

Posted on December 15, 2011 by ellendnaylor

I am always surprised that more companies don’t have a formal win loss program.
To conduct win/loss, interview your customers or lost customers shortly after the sales event to find out why they chose to do business with you or decided on a competitor. The data gathered combines knowledge from sales, customers, competitors, and your marketplace. Those companies that do win loss claim do improve their win rate by 15-30%. That’s a nice return on investment.

Filed under: competition, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, product development, research, Sales Intelligence, win loss analysis | 2 Comments »

Connecting with Business Colleagues in Thanksgiving

Posted on November 24, 2011 by ellendnaylor

Thanksgiving is a time for sharing, caring and expressing gratitude. In the spirit of cooperative intelligence and sharing, I recently was a panelist in an SLA Competitive Intelligence division (CID) webinar on “Integrating Marketing and Sales to Capture & Deliver Intelligence.” While this is an SLA CID member benefit, all four of us panelists posted our slides on Slideshare, which follow. Likewise we just concluded a series of Colorado Future Ready blogs on SLA’s FR365 site which features a blog a day. This blog contains the list of authors and links to each blog. Don’t forget to read the Thanksgiving poem, “Thanksgiving….More Than a Day by Karl Fuchs.

Filed under: Cooperative Intelligence, leadership, Competitive Intelligence, cooperative, research, Denver, competitor, SLA | Leave a Comment »

4 Steps to Plan for Successful Win Loss Interviews

Posted on August 26, 2011 by ellendnaylor

While many people ask me to share the templates I have prepared over the years, when I conduct win loss interviews, actually it’s the upfront planning that matters more. If you don’t have all the salient facts around the sales situation or a good value proposition as to why the customer or prospect will want to talk to you, you’ll never get that communication off the ground!

Filed under: communication, competitor, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, LinkedIn, research, Sales Intelligence, social networks, win loss analysis | Tagged: | 3 Comments »

Real-Time Competitive Intelligence

Posted on June 3, 2011 by ellendnaylor

Competitive Intelligence has historically focused on strategic and tactical forms of intelligence. While CI is an important input to strategic planning, and companies benefit from scenario planning, many companies miss the boat by not conducting and communicating CI in real-time.

Filed under: AIIP, competitive advantage, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, LinkedIn, SCIP, social networks, trade show, Twitter | 4 Comments »

Real-Time Competitive Advantage

Posted on May 13, 2011 by ellendnaylor

I am enjoying David Meerman Scott’s book, Real-Time Marketing & PR. He explains the competitive advantage to companies and individuals of being responsive to events that affect them in real-time. No longer can you just monitor the news: you have to take action! So many companies are stuck in the past and the future and forget that we operate in the NOW!

Filed under: communication, competition, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, connection, SCIP, social networks, Twitter, win loss analysis | Leave a Comment »

Your Employees are Your Competitive Advantage, REALLY

Posted on March 16, 2011 by ellendnaylor

How many companies say “Our Employees are Our Most Important Asset,” but their actions don’t match these hollow words? This is not the case at Southwest Airlines, where employees are valued in all phases of their relationship with the company’s management, and provide the company its competitive advantage!

Filed under: ASP, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, leadership | Leave a Comment »

Improve Your Competitive Intelligence Skill: Move out of Your Comfort Zone

Posted on February 23, 2011 by ellendnaylor

How often do we get stuck in patterns and either make mistakes or don’t see events coming? In competitive intelligence, we look for what isn’t or what looks odd or out of place since oddity often is a precursor to change. There is always surprise in life and business. How we prepare ourselves for it is what separates the excellent from the average. I find I react better to surprises if I get out of my comfort zone more often.

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, competitor, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, Denver, LinkedIn, research, trade show, Twitter | Leave a Comment »

10 Tips to Find Competitive Intelligence Online

Posted on February 12, 2011 by ellendnaylor

Read about 10 top tips recommended by Arthur Weiss of Aware shared in a recent AIIP webinar. These will help you no matter what type of research you do. Aside from sharing some great websites, browsers, social networks and Internet people sites, I like Arthur’s framing of research. Learn exactly what you are looking for and put yourself in the target company’s place as plan for and conduct the research. Also think laterally. Look for oddities and things that don’t look, feel or sound right.

Filed under: AIIP, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, connection, Cooperative Intelligence, LinkedIn, research, SCIP, social networks, Twitter | 2 Comments »

Ethics and Competitive Intelligence

Posted on October 20, 2010 by ellendnaylor

In competitive intelligence we have more issues than most when building and maintaining trust with our customers. Many think our work is only COMPETITOR intelligence which doesn’t help the cause. The other more obvious issue is many consulting firms are experts in a certain industry. What are your best practices and ethics around a company asking you to research their competitor, who might be your customer?

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, competitor, connection, opportunity analysis, product development, research | 1 Comment »

Do You Question Your Assumptions?

Posted on September 16, 2010 by ellendnaylor

If you want to stay in business for the long haul, you need to be observant about your marketplace, question your assumptions, and be willing to make changes! Dr. Redelmeier, a physician researcher says, “Do not get trapped into prior thoughts. It’s perfectly OK to change your mind as you learn more.” While his world of research evolves around behavior, his practice of questioning and researching around your assumptions, and his willingness to change based on learning, will benefit researchers of all types and including those running a competitive intelligence operation.

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, competitor, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, leadership, research | Leave a Comment »

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