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

Improve Your ROI by Integrating Marketing & Sales Intelligence

Posted on February 25, 2010 by ellendnaylor

 

I (Ellen Naylor) will be giving a 2 hour session at the American Marketing Association’s Spring Marketing Workshop which takes place in Denver, Colorado from March 22 – 25 at the Westin Tabor Center. My talk, “Improve Your ROI by Integrating Marketing & Sales” will be given on March 23 from 2:45 – 4:45 pm, about a week before my birthday.

The Marketing Workshop allows attendees to mix and match sessions according to the following topics:

• Marketing ROI
• Pricing Strategy and Tactics
• Social Media and Marketing
• Branding
• Sales and Marketing Integration
• Customer Loyalty and Relationship Management
• Search Engine Optimization

Below is the write up which is buried in the AMA’s 20 page marketing workshop e-booklet.

Sales and marketing are often at odds. This workshop will focus on tools and techniques that are tried and tested, which integrate the smarts of sales, marketing and product development employees. Elicitation is usually used to collect competitive intelligence. Learn what elicitation is and how it can be used to improve your company’s sales intelligence by closing more deals and enabling Sales to collect valuable information from customers to boost your company’s knowledge about market trends, customer needs and the competition to name a few. Likewise, learn how win loss analysis and trade show analysis integrate sales and marketing often with the voice of the customer and other market intelligence.

You will learn:

Elicitation: what it is and why it’s a more effective means to collect information than direct questioning for interviews
Close more sales deals and collect valuable customer insight through the practice of elicitation
Implement a cooperative win loss analysis process that integrates feedback from sales, marketing and your customers
Improve both your sales lead generation and collection skills at trade shows

Matt Kelly, VP Business Development at Strategy Software will be presenting, “Competitive Affairs: Leveraging Competitor Information to Drive Revenue and Increase Market Share. His session takes place on March 24 from 8:30 – 11:30 a.m. Matt is an engaging speaker who I have known for years through SCIP.

I wanted to share this is the spirit of cooperative intelligence as it is pretty rare for the AMA to host events in Denver. March is also a great month to visit the Rocky Mountains if you like to ski as it’s our snowiest month.

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, D. Sales Intelligence Articles, Denver, Elicitation, product development, SCIP, win loss analysis | 1 Comment »

SCIP Denver/Rocky Mtn Chapter Meeting Feb 19 2010

Posted on February 18, 2010 by ellendnaylor

In the spirit of cooperative intelligence I want to share the news about our SCIP Denver Rocky Mountain Meeting which takes place tomorrow.

I also want to thank Lynnette Woolery our Chairperson who has been leading our chapter for more than 5 years! She has worked in competitive intelligence for US West, Qwest, Ericsson and Xcel Energy. Now she heads Xcel Energy’s product development for alternative energy. Thank you Lynnette!

In a similar vein, thank you Tom Seward and Richard Caldwell for taking the reins to run our chapter now! I look forward to the programs that you’ll develop!

Here is the logistics for the meeting and Tom and Richard’s biographies.

Theme: Network & Discuss What Members Want from SCIP Meetings
Friday, February 19, 2010    11:30AM – 1:30PM
Qwest Building 1801 California Street
Conference Room 3, 13th Floor Denver, CO  80202

Tom Seward has over nine years of professional law library experience and over 15 years of research experience.  During this time he earned an MLIS from the University of Denver and a Paralegal Certificate from George Washington University.  In the last few years he has formally started focusing on competitive intelligence work, primarily in the service industries.  He works at Ballard Spahr, LLP.

Richard Caldwell is a 23-year Air Force Veteran.  His primary career field was Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance or C4ISR.  He currently works at Northrop Grumman working Competitive Intelligence for the Department of Defense customer set and doing market analysis for specific locations.  Rich has many ideas on how to grow our chapter via such things as a better use of networking tools and reaching out to local colleges and universities.

Registration Fees: (Box Lunch, Presentation and Networking Included)
SCIP Members:  $10.00
Non-Members:  $15.00

Registration

I regret that I won’t be there since I am still in Washington, DC, in the land of much snow! I wholeheartedly endorse our new leadership!

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, Denver, leadership, SCIP | Comments Off on SCIP Denver/Rocky Mtn Chapter Meeting Feb 19 2010

Competitive Intelligence Case Study Initiative

Posted on February 18, 2010 by ellendnaylor

In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, I would like to share a competitive intelligence case study initiative that my colleague Tom Hawes is leading.

He saw a need for more sharing in the field of competitive intelligence. In many cases people don’t share since well it’s the competition after all, who might be reading or listening to what I share. So he decided to create case studies for people to comment on. The first example is a story in a competitive intelligence manager’s life where he has to organize and prepare a presentation for his executive management about how a competing company is ramping up its R&D initiative. The story goes on for six days and takes a person from getting the assignment, doing a needs analysis, getting the information, making the final presentation, and dealing with people issues and communication.

The idea behind the case study format is to draw people out of their shells to discuss how they would approach the issues that this CI manager faces. It is thought that people will more readily share what they know and how they do competitive intelligence, if we’re talking about a hypothetical situation rather than their company’s particular issues.

Tom has gone to a lot of trouble to professionalize this case study approach by even creating a website for these cases. Tom is also creating additional cases to draw people in. I agreed to comment on the 6-day case study, and am offering a cooperative intelligence perspective to my comments. Arik Johnson and August Jackson are also offering their comments for the 6-day case study.

There are three ways you can contribute to this initiative to improve communication among competitive intelligence folks:

Read and respond to the case studies and commentaries that are posted. Volunteer to write a case study. Volunteer to be an expert commentator and share your problem-solving ideas.

PS If you’re a SCIP member, look for these case studies in the next 3 Competitive Intelligence Magazines!

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, SCIP | Comments Off on Competitive Intelligence Case Study Initiative

Beating Down our Deepest Fears

Posted on February 12, 2010 by ellendnaylor

I have been reading Seth Godin’s blogs with more interest lately as he talks about our resistance to change and fear of success which he refers to as the lizard brain. While many of us are programmed at a young age to strive to be successful in our lives, we have problems with the little steps getting there, like prioritizing what we should be doing to progress, versus what we almost aimlessly “do” to get through our day, such as emails, Tweets, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. While these daily actions help us create our brand ID and make new connections, and stay in touch with colleagues and friends, we need to have the confidence to move forward with why we’re here and how we’re going to leave our mark to humankind.

I have three practices to share with you in the spirit of cooperative intelligence which help me keep balance in my life. I can get even more sidetracked since I am intellectually curious, which enables me to be a great researcher, but also makes me predisposed towards irrelevant pursuits.

1. Create a list of what you want to do each day, each week, each month and each year and review them periodically. It’s interesting how things that were so important last week aren’t anymore. This helps me keep perspective and my sanity.

2. Take your emotional temperature several times a day. Your attitude drives you, but often it’s hidden away since you aren’t paying attention as you’re blindly doing. This also helps me stay focused on the bigger picture of life since I strive to bring gratefulness and optimism to the forefront.

3. Keep words and/or pictures close at hand, which help draw you to where you know you need to be. Examples for me are the Prayer of St. Francis and the Mother Teresa’s Do It Anyway prayer.

Seth’s blog about the lizard brain resonated with me, as I often resist doing what I need to be doing to move ahead by sharing my ideas about cooperative intelligence in a bigger way than just blogging. I am now driven to “Our Deepest Fear”  by Marianne Williamson, which explains a lot about how the lizard brain can hold us back, but also how to get past that resistance and move forward by realizing that there is so much more to life than just your drive, and as you let your passion and love shine through, you are gifting others who feel this and bring it into their lives.

Our Deepest Fear
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”, Harper Collins, 1992. Fr Chap. 7, Section 3, Author: Marianne Williamson

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Filed under: cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, research | Comments Off on Beating Down our Deepest Fears

Improve Your Cold Calling

Posted on February 5, 2010 by ellendnaylor

I was writing an article for FUMSI and editor Marcy Phelps suggested that I add a list of ways to be better at cold calling. It was a challenge since most of my experience with cold calling is following my intuition. However, in the spirit of cooperative intelligence I will share some of the practices that I have developed over the years as a researcher. Like anything else, practice makes you a lot better. I am always thinking about ways to empathize and be more sensitive to the other person. I am most effective when I focus on the person I am speaking with, think emotional intelligence, and forget about myself. I also strive to keep an eye on the clock to respect their time.

Think and Do
How do you think they’re motivated?
Why would they want to talk with you?
Can you guess what they’re like based on their occupation?
Read up on their profession if you don’t know it.
Prepare a good intro about yourself: short and crisp.
Be ready for their questions about you. Decide what you won’t share.
Prepare the list of questions you need to have answered.
Why would they want to answer these questions?
Which questions might be easier for them to answer?
Make sure you have some open ended questions to start.
Do you want to mix your interview tactics with questions and elicitation? (that is getting a conversational interview rather than questions and answers)
Can you learn about them on LinkedIn, Zoom Info, Jigsaw or other social media?
Warm up the call up with this information: do you have something in common?
Or is it easier just to call the person without taking the time to research who they are?

How to Be
Psych yourself up: envision and expect them to share with you.
Be interesting on your end, even if you’re horrified!
Smile as you talk: your optimism travels through your tone of voice.
Think confidence: this comes through the phone line too.
Psych yourself up: what’s the worst thing that will happen? (They’ll hang up or ask you too many questions & you’ll hang up.)
Prepare yourself for the call to go differently than you had planned so you’re not taken by surprise. Some of my best intelligence collection comes from being open when the call takes a unexpected twist!
Learn what works with every phone call & tweak your approach accordingly.
If you listen closely to their tone, their words, their silence and confidence, you’ll be amazed at your creativity to probe in different ways.
Leave them feeling good about themselves: it’s always a good practice. Making them feel good also leaves the door open for future communication!

What are you doing to improve your cold calling?

Filed under: communication, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, creativity, emotional intelligence, research | 1 Comment »

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 »

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