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 »

18 Tippers to Improve Your Telephone Collection Skills

Posted on September 21, 2011 by ellendnaylor

Whether it’s for research, cold calling to collect information, competitive intelligence or win loss analysis, when you instigate a telephone call you are in the sales mode. You want information. This blog lists 18 tippers to improve your telephone collection skills.

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, LinkedIn, research, social networks, Twitter, win loss analysis | 1 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 »

Strategies, Techniques & Sources to Find Local Business Information

Posted on June 25, 2011 by ellendnaylor

Here are a few takeaways from today’s AIIP webinar, “Going Local: Techniques & Strategies for Finding
Local Business Information,” presented by Marcy Phelps, CEO of Phelps Research and author of recently published “Research on Main Street.” This includes many valuable links to sources for local US sources, and how to buy “Research on Main Street.” If you’re an Independent running a research, private eye, library or competitive intelligence practice, AIIP is the place to get invaluable advice and resources to help you start and run your business successfully!

Filed under: AIIP, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, creativity, LinkedIn, opportunity analysis, research, Sales Intelligence, social networks, Twitter | 1 Comment »

SLA Annual Conference Competitive Intelligence Division: Presentations, Fun & Book Signings

Posted on June 10, 2011 by ellendnaylor

The Competitive Intelligence Division (CID) of Special Libraries Association (SLA) has a great line-up of presentations and fun events at this year’s annual conference in Philadelphia from June 12-15. In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, I have listed the competitive intelligence (CI) events below in chronological order by date with book signings at the end. Look under Twitter #slacid for Tweets!

Filed under: cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, research, SLA, social networks, Twitter | Leave a Comment »

Research on Main Street: Find the Right Local Information to Make Strategic Decisions

Posted on May 20, 2011 by ellendnaylor

Research on Main Street is a must read for anyone seeking the right local information to make strategic decisions. Follow the advice in this book by author Marcy Phelps to boost your knowledge about local and regional events that may trigger change, such as a major layoff, a change in leadership, deregulation, new regulation or a technical breakthrough. The blend of case studies and expert interviews breathe life into the dry business of information gathering and analysis to support specific local strategic business initiatives.

Filed under: competition, research | Leave a Comment »

From a Good Sales Call to a Great Sales Call: Book Review

Posted on March 31, 2011 by ellendnaylor

“From a Good Sales Call to a Great Sales Call” focuses on improving Sales’ post-decision debrief process with prospects, referred to as win loss analysis in the competitive intelligence world. I like how the author, Richard Schroder, adds ‘post-decision debrief’ as the 7th element of the sales process. Apparently only 18% of US companies have a formal win loss program. Thus, in most new business situations, sales people don’t have a complete and accurate understanding of why they won or lost sales. If armed with such data, Sales can make behavioral changes to improve close rates by 15%.

Filed under: communication, competition, Competitive Intelligence, leadership, LinkedIn, research, Twitter, win loss analysis | Leave a Comment »

How to Encourage Cooperative Communication from Sales

Posted on March 26, 2011 by ellendnaylor

Many competitive intelligence, marketing, research and product developers complain about poor communication from their sales force, who has a direct conduit to your customers—one of the best sources of knowledge about what your company is doing right and wrong as well as ideas for new products, services and tweaks to your existing products that can be revenue generating!

So how do you encourage cooperative communication from Sales?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, win loss analysis, Sales Intelligence, cooperative, AIIP, research, Elicitation, product development, competition | 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 »

Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,592 other followers