Reviewing Early Chapters of “Competitive Intelligence Advantage”

Posted on March 18, 2010 by ellendnaylor

I am reading Seena Sharp’s book Competitive Intelligence Advantage. In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, I am reading a couple of chapters at a time and will share what I like in this blog.

Her introduction is compelling. Seena enumerates what questions a person might ask who will benefit from competitive intelligence. Here are my favorites from her list of 12:

Have you been blindsided by the loss of a sale to a competitor—especially one who is unknown, emerging or to a substitute?

Do you question if your assumptions are still valid about your industry, competitors, customers and products?

Have you noticed possible signs of an opportunity, but aren’t sure if it makes sense for your company?

In her first chapter Ms. Sharp explains the dilemma we face when we deal with company executives who are often arrogant and overconfident and don’t want to hear bad or contrarian news (even though that’s what they pay us to do in competitive intelligence). While those who lead companies are often brilliant, all can benefit from better intelligence when making strategic decisions.

I particularly enjoyed chapter 2 which provides the most thorough definitions around competitive intelligence (CI) that I have read anywhere. In an effort to describe and define the benefits of CI, Seena describes other more commonly understood processes such as knowledge management, market research, scenario planning and business intelligence. I especially appreciated her distinctions between market research and competitive intelligence. Both include research on the market while market research tends to focus on consumers or business customers and is more quantitative while competitive intelligence is more qualitative and future oriented as it looks at what is emerging in a market or an industry, and considers other external factors in addition to customers.

Did you know that only 38% provide correct phone numbers all the time? 60% don’t always provide accurate info about their company’s size. 45% do not always provide their company’s true name. These are interesting facts in connection around how consumer technology buyers fill out registration forms, a common form of market research. (Source: a survey by Marketing Sherpa and KnowledgeStorm.) These findings make me question the validity of market research findings taken in isolation. That is why it’s often valuable to include market research as a component of CI. I recall our market research team at Verizon benefited when we added some competitor questions to their major annual survey to our strategic customers.

Also in chapter 2, I enjoyed Seena’s example of knowledge management which started as a simple suggestion box at a company. Due to the company’s sharing and expansion of these suggestions at lunchtime sessions, this process was encouraged and became engrained in this company’s culture. People who made suggestions were positively recognized. This reminded me of similar programs that companies have put in place to gather good sales intelligence from Sales about competitors, emerging competitors, product development and industry trends. If you give employees the freedom to communicate their ideas and drill down deeper, it’s amazing what you learn, and a little recognition and thank you goes a long way.

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, D. Sales Intelligence Articles, product development, research | 2 Comments »

SCIP 2010 Meskerem: A Mopping Good Time

Posted on March 11, 2010 by ellendnaylor

Following the first full day at the SCIP 2010 Conference, a large group of us competitive intelligence managers enjoyed an Ethiopian dinner at Meskerem which was organized through our Intelligence Collaborative group. For the uninitiated, you mop up your food by wrapping the spongy bread around the food you want to eat. So the bread replaces all eating utensils. So no worries about bad manners. We were all eating Neanderthals! My favorite foods are the vegetables, although I seemed to eat everything that was put in front of me: chicken, lamb and egg. It’s communal dining at its finest as our large plate was shared by 4 of us, and we each had our own piece of flatbread for mopping!

Lest you think we’re a stuffy bunch check this out. 14 of us firmly RSVP’ed at the Intelligence Collaborative event site, so I figured 25 would be about right…and we had 37 diners! This is very #intelcollab, as we don’t want too much structure lest we be mistaken for anything that resembles bureaucracy! In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, here are some of the cool people that were there!

I sat with my new friends from Tokyo, most notably Masaaki Hasegawa who has been a SCIP member since 2001! His colleague, Yoshihito knew one of my best friends, Masa Asai, Professor Emeritus from Nihon University’s psychology department. The world continues to shrink: Nihon University is Japan’s largest and the odds of these men knowing each other is pretty remote! This story reminds me how you always keep reaching and stretching in life since you never know the connections you will make!

Yoshihito

Masaaki

Here is a picture of August Jackson who is our leader at SCIP 2010! He also recommended the Meskerem, right on August!

August Jackson

Below is Max Nelson and a lovely lady, whose name I forget!

Max and friend

So we wound up our dinner and some of us headed over to the Bossa Bistrot & Lounge as recommended by Eric Garland. I was asking Arik Johnson where Eric was hiding out as he was nowhere to be seen at our table. Unbeknown to me, he was the lead guitarist in the band! Way to go Eric!

Eric at play!

So tonight there are more festivities related to our SCIP Conference. I’ll be joining the Fellows in welcoming our 2010 Award winners: Martha Matteo, Jonathan Calof and David Gibson over dinner at Café Paradiso. There will also be a fun party at the Marriott Wardman Park in DC hosted by Aurora WDC which celebrates its 15th birthday and the promotions of its key officers, Derek Johnson as CEO and Arik Johnson as Chairman. Congratulations guys!

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, SCIP | 1 Comment »

Assess Your Effectiveness at Trade Shows

Posted on March 5, 2010 by ellendnaylor

In honor of my competitive intelligence colleague, Jonathan Calof, I am writing this post on his subject of expertise, trade shows! Jonathon just won SCIP’s esteemed Fellow’s award which will be officially presented at SCIP’s annual conference in Washington, DC which takes place from March 9 – 12. Trade shows are one of the best venues for cooperative intelligence practices since if you display cooperative connection and communication skills, the floodgates of knowledge will be yours!

Most discussion around trade show analysis measures their effectiveness in ROI terms:
How many sales did we close as a result of connections at our booth? How many new connections did we make that represent customer prospects?

Many of the other benefits are more squishy to measure:

How much scoop did we collect on the competition, market trends, technical innovation, product development, or new technology that helps us develop a better strategy or adjust our sales tactics?

What infrastructure do we have in place to quickly report our findings to those in our company which might engender further collect during the trade show? And after we return from the trade show?

What infrastructure do we have in place to qualify prospects for our business?
This can start right at the booth as you can qualify the better prospects and have coffee or drinks later, since you don’t want to spill all your company secrets right at the booth area since you never know who might be listening in who is not a prospect, but might be collecting on your company!

I like to prepare a cheat sheet which helps me qualify customers when I exhibit. It’s kind of cumbersome, but it is fail proof since people’s answers to these questions guide me on how and if we should further our relationship.  Remember customers aren’t the only great connections at trade shows. For example, industry experts, newspaper reporters and bloggers help sell your company too. They have their biases just like anyone else, and you want to influence them to favor your company and your products and services so they write good things about you. Think: who else do I want to connect at this trade show mecca where people are so pre-disposed to share what they know?

Lastly, I assess if this was even the right show for the company to exhibit at. Many companies don’t think about this as much.  We tend to exhibit at shows since, “We’ve always had a booth at ‘X’ show.” Each year I like to assess our effectiveness at trade shows we’ve attended. Sometimes I use an ROI calculation. Sometimes I realize I can’t afford not to be at a trade show since all my competition is there connecting with a finite number of potential and existing customers. At other shows, product announcements are made: can you afford not to attend this type of show and blow your horn? Where it gets gray in decision-making is when results are gradually getting worse: do you just pull out of the show or do you change your behavior and tactics in hopes of improving your results? Marketing through social networks is also competing with in-person events like trade shows, which could be the subject for another day.

How do you assess your effectiveness at trade shows?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, product development, SCIP, social networks, trade show | Comments Off on Assess Your Effectiveness at Trade Shows

How well do you Emotionally Connect?

Posted on January 29, 2010 by ellendnaylor

I enjoyed Seth Godin’s blog a week ago on “too much data leads to not enough belief.” His bottom line is, “relying too much on proof distracts you from the real mission – which is emotional connection.”

I have noticed in my fields of research and competitive intelligence that we have this tendency to drown our customers with data, and while they might be impressed that we dug up all this information, they usually don’t want the details. We also talk the language of competitive analysis, which most people don’t resonate with, and there is no emotional connection—since competitive intelligence is not the issue. Solving a business problem or uncovering and entering new markets or product development are the issues.

Companies pay competitive intelligence professionals to provide them with what’s relevant and to weed out all the excess, which is most of the information that’s out there. Most of the time your customers will connect if you put together a crisp set of information and persuasively articulate your findings, and include some analysis, if it adds clarity and persuasiveness to your recommendations.

But whoa, remember everyone that you’re addressing has a different communication style, and it’s really all about them and not about you. This is a guiding principal of cooperative communication a key element of cooperative intelligence. Some people do want the details, and not just access to them “later”. You better present them and be ready to be grilled since they will have questions! Companies need these type of people to bring balance to decision-making and to avoid being blindsided. Not everyone can or should be a visionary!

Cooperative communicators know that they’re talking for their audience not TO their audience. Their attitude and practice is to listen to their audience, and to query ahead of time about how to connect with the key issues and concerns of their audience (or clients), and in a way that will stick with them.

There is another problem with all that data: it’s historic. The reams of research are helpful however, if you’re trying to put together some scenarios, since you need to be pretty thorough in developing scenarios to include all the factors that might change the scenario, to observe the patterns in the marketplace, including the competition and to conclude with a scenario that you believe is the most likely.

You ultimately want to get out your crystal ball and forecast where the market is heading, right? And better yet, be visionary and LEAD the market!

Back to Mr. Godin: emotional connection is what happens when you engage people. That doesn’t happen with some myriad of facts and figures. It happens because they believe. How do you communicate to make them believe?

Filed under: communication, competitive analysis, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, product development, research | Comments Off on How well do you Emotionally Connect?

Integrate Emotional Intelligence & Selling into Competitive Intelligence

Posted on January 21, 2010 by ellendnaylor

Colleen Stanley

Last week I attended a webinar to improve my selling skills led by Colleen Stanley, Founder and Chief Sales Officer of SalesLeadership, Inc. Effective selling will help competitive intelligence professionals, product management and researchers gain respect, cooperation and appreciation from internal peers. Since many of us have no reporting employees, selling yourself is even more important in this “new economy”.

People obtain more knowledge than ever through the Internet, so they may feel like they don’t need you to provide them competitive intelligence. Due to the recession more people want to see a visible ROI for your solution. This isn’t always possible in competitive intelligence, but be creative and you can develop an ROI solution often enough. People are more skeptical due to the scandals which triggered this recession so really don’t like to be pushed into decision-making–not that they ever did.

Find the pain points and match your communication style to the decision-makers and key influencers in the buying process. This works for every business function I can think of!

People who are optimistic outsell those who aren’t by 33%. When bad things happen they realize that this is just temporary and their self-talk reflects this as they expect positive outcomes since they’re happy. They often find humor when others would be dragged down by unfortunate circumstances or stress. They live with an attitude of gratitude. Optimism must be real: people will see right through you if it’s feigned.

To really be successful in selling, your prospect needs to admit that they have a problem, and identify what it is costing them. This outlook works very well in competitive intelligence. I often ask what it will cost if we do nothing. Sometimes there is a very low cost to do nothing, so it’s not important enough to fix compared to bigger problems where we can more readily measure the impact of success or failure.

I loved Colleen’s Principles of Expectation:
1. Can the Sales person pass the pop quiz test? Make sure all parties in the meeting clearly understand the objective of the meeting.
2. Is there a Mutual Fit? Is the solution we’re discussing mutually good for all parties?
3. Examine your Intention. Are you there to Impress or to Influence? Influencers are intent on understanding customer’s issues; impressing is just selling.

Sales people with high emotional intelligence outsell those with low EI. I think high EI benefits anyone.

Here are some tippers to improve your EI:
Improve your Self-Awareness. Most people don’t take enough downtime to be reflective and introspective to learn why they react a certain way to situations. Solitude triggers the right brain where creativity often kicks in.
Be Assertive: Express your feelings and ask questions without being aggressive or abusive. You have the right to ask for what you need to know to do your job whether sales, marketing, research or competitive intelligence.
Delayed Gratification is usually worth it: Look beyond the immediate. Adopt a long term outlook when selling as relationships are always in development. Be a planner and work on time management towards connection and building these relationships.

Combine these emotional intelligence practices and selling with the collection skill of elicitation and cooperative intelligence, and watch your effectiveness as a competitive intelligence professional soar!

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperation, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, creativity, emotional intelligence, product development, research | Tagged: | 1 Comment »

Cooperative Listening

Posted on January 7, 2010 by ellendnaylor

Happy New Year! My intention during 2010 is to get better at listening generously to the people who cross my path whether friend or stranger. I hope this poem engages you to be all you can be in the New Year!

The Art of Life
The most precious Art I know of
Is the art of life.
It can be expressed without
Hammer, brush, banjo, pen or clay.
Yet whoever shares this art of life,
Brings a sparkle to other’s lives.
He sees and doesn’t draw;
She listens and hears, yet doesn’t sing or strum.
Theirs is the art of listening and caring,
Choosing to be present for friends and strangers alike.

This is the message behind cooperative intelligence, particularly cooperative connection and cooperative communication. Cooperative connectors value every connection they make with people, and the other person knows that they have the cooperative connector’s undivided attention. There is no multi-tasking or day dreaming while listening to another person’s woes or stories.

A cooperative communicator is a generous listener, not too caught up in his own life that he is waiting for the earliest opportunity to get in the next word without really listening to what the other person is saying. While a lack of good listening is a strong tendency in the American culture, I find it’s more relaxing and engaging to let the other person share what’s on her mind without interruption, while fully listening to what she’s saying: his words, her tone of voice, body language, and what she’s not saying that you might have expected.

Interestingly enough I have found that this ability to communicate cooperatively is invaluable in research, competitive intelligence and sales. In this hurried world we live in, if you just allow the other person to share what they know, they really appreciate this opportunity, whether it’s a scheduled interview, a sales call, a cold call or someone you meet at a trade show.  This dedicated listening engages me to think of creative questions and comments to keep the conversation flowing, which often uncovers valuable information I would never expected to learn. It’s also a lot of fun to listen and learn from others.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, research | 4 Comments »

The Present of Presence & Listening

Posted on December 28, 2009 by ellendnaylor

Yesterday our excellent homilist ended with a story I had read on the Internet several times, yet it hit me differently due to the recent loss of my Dad. An old man had recently lost his wife, and was so heartbroken that he just couldn’t do anything. A neighbor’s little girl saw how sad he was, just sitting on the porch staring out into space, and ran to him and sat in his lap. The old man was delighted and told the little girl’s family that she had brought him back the will to live. They asked: “What did she say?” And he replied, “Nothing. She just sat on my lap.”

This story reminded me of the hours I had spent with my Dad in those last weeks, quietly sitting with him, particularly late at night when he couldn’t sleep even though he wanted to. Sleep deprivation particularly haunted him in the hospital with all the disturbances, noises and lights. I like to think he just didn’t want me to go home. After he came home I continued to sit with him when it was my turn, quietly watching TV, and sometimes while he slept during the day or the night. I stayed up with him the last night he was on planet earth, and I think Dad took great comfort that I was there with him, quietly sitting close by and periodically touching him.

I think this phenomenon of being quiet is also very valuable in business as part of cooperative communication, one of the arms of cooperative intelligence. Sometimes, people just need us to listen to them, and not offer any advice. It is a difficult thing to do: to just listen and listen and perhaps at the end of their ranting just wish them good luck. Often just allowing the other person to talk and talk allows them to release some steam, but also can be used more constructively. If you stay quiet, the other person may share some great ideas to improve your business practices and unleash their creativity. This practice also builds incredible trust and connection between two people since you think enough of the other person to stay quiet and listen.

In my fields of research and competitive intelligence, knowing when to be silent is a great gift, since there aren’t enough listening ears, especially these days with all the downsizing in America. When I call people, even cold calls, I will initiate the conversation, but then I will be silent and give the other person a chance to share what they know. Many of them are so grateful that someone cares enough to ask their opinion, even a total stranger, that a number of them have invited me to call them back any time. I have made them feel good about themselves and warmed up their life just a little bit by asking and caring.

It takes time, life experience and a certain amount of intuition to know when it’s right to just sit back, be quiet and listen. I am still learning and wonder what your experience has been with being quiet and listening.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, creativity, research | Comments Off on The Present of Presence & Listening

Are We Losing the Art of Conversation?

Posted on November 18, 2009 by ellendnaylor

As I spend more time at my parents watching my Dad drift towards death, I have less energy for blogging, but plenty of time to ponder.

I recently read a blog by Sarah Perez about a study from Pew Internet and American Life Project which finds that social media is actually social. Those who surf the web and use mobile phones are more social and better connected to the world at large than those who don’t.

But what is ‘social’? I find that the connections I make and the blogs that I read through social networking are shallow in comparison to the connections and knowledge I gain and exchange in conversation. Social networks provide snippets and tidbits of information. As a society are we losing our ability and culture of conversation?

While this is anecdotal, enough friends tell me they don’t like to receive or leave voice mails since they find the phone to be a waste of time. Maybe I am too old, but I find the phone to be a great use of time, since I both speak and listen to words a lot faster than I can type/read them. Granted I can only engage is one conversation at a time, but there is a depth of conversation that I can routinely get to even on the telephone that just isn’t possible through social networks or any Internet communication.

As a researcher I appreciate that I can find and connect with people I could never have previously reached through social networks. However, I also recognize that those connections can be shallow, and that some people take advantage of what they can get from you through social connection. I had one person lead me to believe that he wanted to do business. Instead he took my proposed solution and implemented it himself. I found this out when I saw his firm listed as a user of a database I had recommended. There is even less loyalty among social connections, since many people don’t really know you, and don’t want to know you. They just want to connect with you to get to your connections. That isn’t what I call social: but, this does extend one’s network beyond one’s known business connections.

As a society we have been creeping away from conversations ever since television became common, and many of us remain glued to TV even as we eat dinner instead of conversing about our day. Now we have the Internet with its many distractions, one of which is email.  We have so many choices of ways to connect such as text messaging, and social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest . There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t get several invitations to join various social networks or LinkedIn groups from people who have no idea who I am. I get so much spam through LinkedIn connections who are selling me something, asking me to endorse them or to join their LinkedIn Group. There is a lot of noise out there, and many distractions through an increasing number of social networks. I find that it’s a real balancing act to get my work done for all the noise.

But for now I’m having some deep conversations with family members. There is nothing like the impending loss of a loved one to draw out emotion and connection.

Filed under: communication, connection, conversation, Ellen Naylor, LinkedIn, research, social networks, telephone, Twitter | 4 Comments »

Introduction to Competitive Intelligence

Posted on October 19, 2009 by ellendnaylor

At a recent Denver joint SCIP and APMP chapter meeting, I was asked to put together some introductory slides about competitive intelligence to set the stage for the more sophisticated discussion around “Price to Win,” which is sophisticated analysis around bids/outcomes for major contracts, usually with huge government customers.

As I assembled my slides, I realized that very little has changed in the competitive intelligence (CI) process, while the execution of the collection phase of competitive intelligence has changed remarkably over the 20+ years I have been in the business with the advent of the Internet in all its iterations, e-mail, text messaging and more recently through social networks.  This also affects counterintelligence, since it is easier for your competitors—or anyone who is interested enough—to dig up information about your company that you consider proprietary. This information comes not only through electronic means, but through ex-employees, especially from all the downsizing in the last couple of years.

One common misconception is that competitive intelligence just focuses on the competition. Make no mistake competition is part of this: but you also want to take into account all the factors that affect the competitive marketplace such as economic conditions like the current unstable economy. In the US, the stock market has staged a quick recovery although the NYSE is still 4000 points below its peak in 2007. When you consider the stock market’s quick ascent after such a steady descent, you have to wonder how sustainable it is and how this will affect your customers, suppliers and competitors. Politics can affect the competitive marketplace. Were I in the US healthcare business, I would study all the ramifications of the proposed healthcare reform, and would conduct scenario planning exercises to prepare my company for change.

Here are 10 points to consider whether you’re starting or leading an established CI operation regardless of how you’re organized or what country you work in. These points are timeless: I put this list together in the early 1990s. While technology impacts our lives far more than it did then, human nature has not changed, and that’s what’s behind these steps.

1. Identify primary users
2. Focus on critical users’ needs
3. Fashion products to meet users’ needs
4. Be mindful of the company culture
5. Identify & build on infrastructure that supports CI
6. Organize & expand your people network constantly
7. Promote communication
8. Don’t implement automation before people
9. Checkpoint performance always
10. Stay focused

I didn’t include cooperative intelligence when I started my CI career since I was too focused on learning how to do competitive intelligence. Cooperative Intelligence focuses on good communication, solid connections, and being respected as a leader by providing good knowledge and insightful work. CI is more of a back office function: CEOs don’t look to hire people in their c-suite with CI experience. However, many areas within a company do rely on good competitive intelligence–which if communicated well and in a timely fashion–does lead people to respect the CI manager. You can be the greatest executor of competitive intelligence, but if you can’t communicate relevant information and analysis to the right people at the right time, it really doesn’t matter. This is the core of cooperative intelligence in the context of competitive intelligence—being so connected with your internal customers, that you know what to provide when—and get feedback from them, so you stay on target.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, Denver, Ellen Naylor, leadership, SCIP, social networks | 1 Comment »

Meet August Jackson, Competitive Intelligence Podcast King!

Posted on September 30, 2009 by ellendnaylor

AugustJacksonI first met August Jackson several years ago when he was leading the Washington, DC SCIP chapter. Since then he has taken the program lead for SCIP annual conferences, a monumental task, and is one of the profession’s leading edge users of social media, which he openly shares. I was honored earlier this month when he interviewed me for a podcast on cooperative intelligence. I shared a lot of examples from my experience in sales, and relationship building to create a competitive intelligence process at Bell Atlantic, now part of Verizon. The first 20 minutes is all about how I got into the field of competitive intelligence since I wanted to win more deals as a sales person. The cooperative intelligence discussion starts after that, and consumes most of the rest of the podcast—the last 40 minutes. The right people connections and effective communication are what separate best in class competitive intelligence operations from the rest that rely too heavily on digital monitoring in its many forms and are less sensitive as to how people want to be communicated with.

As August was interviewing me I had the feeling that he had done a lot of podcasts! Check out his podcast postings which go back to 2005. I’ve selected some of my favorites, but there are more!

CI 2020 with Arik Johnson (2009)
Eric Garland the Futurist (2009)
Suki Fuller on Social Networking (2009)
Adrian Alvarez on CI in Latin America (2006)
Alessandro Comai: Mapping & Anticipating the Competitive Landscape (2007)
Roger Phelps on LinkedIn (the podcast) (2007)
Ben Gilad on Strategic Early Warning and Blindspots, & David Hartmann on Proactive Asymmetric Strategy (the podcast) (2006)

You can read August’s blog.  He shared a nice slide deck on competitive analysis in his blog on Sept 17th, from his lecture at Johns Hopkins.

August is a Senior Consultant and specialist in competitive market intelligence and analysis at Verizon Business. His area of expertise is emerging IT and communication (ICT) technologies and their impact on business. Working in the private sector as a competitive intelligence manager with British Telecommunications, AT&T and MCI, he created competitive intelligence materials to support executive scenario planning, to turn insights from sales cycles into priorities and recommendations for operational and product development; maintained industry, technology and competitor profiles for diverse audiences.

August has provided technology trend analysis which guided major strategic decisions, and has developed profiles and delivered training globally. He is also recognized as an expert in the application of advanced secondary research methods including social media in competitive intelligence practice. Just look at his podcast collection and download most of them here!

August holds an Executive MBA from the University of Maryland’s Robert H Smith’s School of Business and earned a BA Cum Laude from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. August can be reached at jackson.august at gmail.com.

Filed under: communication, competitive analysis, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, SCIP, social networks | Comments Off on Meet August Jackson, Competitive Intelligence Podcast King!

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