Capture Competitor & Market Intelligence through Elicitation: Webinar Follow-up

Posted on April 14, 2009 by ellendnaylor

Last Wednesday, I gave a webinar to give product managers a tool to improve their relationship with Sales. Teach Sales elicitation skills: they don’t get it anywhere else and it will help them close more deals and collect information to help your company develop better products. Elicitation is conversational communication that compels people to voluntarily tell you things without you asking. However, it does involve planning to make it work, since most of us grow up asking people questions directly to extract information. You can download the slides from Slideshare, but as of April 31, 2014, Slideshare will discontinue slidecasts, so I am uncertain how to transfer this to another provider.

There were some questions that got me thinking more over the Easter/Passover weekend.

1. What is the personality type of the ideal person who conducts elicitation?

The person who asked the question assumed that this person would be outgoing and extroverted. Actually some of the best elicitors are more introverted since they are likely to be more thorough in their preparation for elicitation interviews. In addition, introverted people are often better listeners than extroverts, who like to hear themselves talk, not what elicitation is about. Its focus is getting the other guy to talk!

Here are some other desired skills for an elicitator: natural gift for making friends; establish rapport well; practical psychological insight; broad general knowledge; good memory; two level listener; non-threateningly curious; appreciates cultural/national differences; understands subtleties of personal relationships; and is intuitive, spontaneous, and discrete.

2. Ethical Considerations around Elicitation

This always comes up when talking about competitive intelligence, especially collection tools, where elicitation fits. There are two codes of ethics that I point to: SCIP’s code of ethics and AIIP’s code of ethics. My own ethics are the most important to me and they are situational. The other thing to consider is practicality and conversation flow. For example, some people want you to disclose who you are, your company name, where you’re based, who your client is, and why they want to know “x”. Try scripting all this “stuff” at the start of a conversation: it is not natural and it’s too long. It’s better to let the person you’re talking to, ask questions and gradually tell them this information as the conversation flows.

3. Resources I recommend

Confidential  by John Nolan and What Every BODY is Saying by Joe Navarro for supplementary reading on elicitation practices.  I have also written an article entitled “Enable Sales to Elicit Market Intelligence”  published in SCIP’s Competitive Intelligence Magazine.

Filed under: AIIP, communication, Competitive Intelligence, D. Sales Intelligence Articles, Elicitation, SCIP, Twitter | 2 Comments »

Presenting at SCIP’s 2009 Annual Conference, April 22 – 25, Chicago, IL

Posted on March 6, 2009 by ellendnaylor

Whew, I just finished creating two presentations for SCIP’s (Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals) Annual Conference in Chicago from April 21 – 24. The first talk is “Build a Sustainable Early Warning Process through Cooperative Connection” and the second is “Capture Competitive Intelligence from Sales and Customers for Lucrative Product Development.”

scip-09-chicago

Early warning is one of the key processes behind a successful competitive intelligence operation. I notice that it is often developed almost “robotically,” and the importance of connecting with individuals is underestimated in favor of the easy way out through electronic monitoring, which while essential will never replace the information exchange and connection you will gain from people in dialog!

The talk on capturing CI from sales and customers to develop better products comes from a case study with a European client. Product developers were going nuts as they read sales reps’ customer reports because they could just see that the customer would have been willing to share so much information with sales, but somehow sales hadn’t asked for it. Sales had no idea what key information product developers were looking for. In fact I found that product developers had a hard time getting me to understand their precise information needs. I put together a workshop to teach sales and marketing people competitive intelligence skills like elicitation and reading body language. We had a discussion to clarify the product developer’s 10 key questions, and to consider how a customer might be motivated to answer these questions. Participants role played around each of these questions to test drive their newly developed elicitation skills. Sales is great at elicitation since they are spontaneous, own the customer relationship, and can be flexible if a customer doesn’t respond in the way sales had hoped they would. In addition to learning how to collect competitive information, Sales also benefited by improving their industry expertise and closing more deals!

In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, here are some more details on SCIP’s annual conference in Chicago from April 21 – 24. It takes place at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers.

The educational sessions are organized into the following 5 tracks:

– CI Offense/Defense
– Professional Effectiveness
– Critical Skills
– Innovation in CI
– Active Dialog

Here is the list of educational sessions which take place on April 23 & 24, and a more detailed description with speakers and times. SCIP also offers pre-conference workshops on April 21 & 22.

Take advantage of the special Early Bird Reduced rate, a $200+ savings until April 12th, 2009.  All that is required is that my name, Ellen Naylor, be mentioned on the attached form which should be faxed to 703-739-2524.

I hope to see you at SCIP’s annual conference! Feel free to ask any questions on this blog post and I’ll find answers for you.

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, SCIP | Comments Off on Presenting at SCIP’s 2009 Annual Conference, April 22 – 25, Chicago, IL

AIIP Annual Conference, March 26-29, Albuquerque, NM

Posted on February 20, 2009 by ellendnaylor

In the spirit of cooperation and sharing, here is some information about the upcoming AIIP (Association of Independent Professionals) annual conference from March 26-29 at the the Albuquerque Marriott Uptown, NM.

aiip-2009-conf-albq

Time for some strategic thinking, or free vendor training? Get both at a courtesy discount rate available to members of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) and the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP). Single-day, multi-day, and full conference registrations are available. The conference is preceded by a day of co-located workshops on March 25. (Registration for these workshops is handled directly through the presenters.)

According to conference coordinator Jocelyn Sheppard, “Topics covered here, such as search engine optimization, marketing strategies on any budget, and ‘getting things done,’ will be useful to a wide range of information professionals, researchers, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. Our program also provides plenty of time for formal and informal networking.”

Featured speakers include:

Doug Fine, author of Farewell, My Subaru — Reaching Beyond Expectations and Achieving Success Outside of Pre-Conceived Models (Fine will be signing copies of his book after his remarks.)

Stephen Abram, past president of SLA — “Will All Info Pros Be Private Practice?”

Mary Ellen Bates, president, Bates Information Services — “When You See a Fork in the Road, Take It”

Ulla de Stricker, president of de Stricker Associates — “‘So what do you do, exactly?’ — Tips on Branding for Information Professionals”

Char Kinder, principal at Discovery Works — The EQ Advantage – ways to “read” your clients better, successfully manage client relationships, and grow your business.

Links below for more detail:

Conference home page, Conference speakers, Pre-conference workshops (March 25), Vendor training (March 26), Poster sessions (March 26), “Tips on the Terrace” (March 27), Special interest group roundtables (March 29)

Complete schedule at a glance

Secure, online registration

++ Please share information about this conference opportunity with your colleagues. EarlyBird registration ends on Friday, February 20. ++

About AIIP: The Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) is the premier industry association for information professionals working independently. Members include nearly 600 business owners from more than 25 countries. Members’ firms provide information research and consulting services across a wide variety of industries. Learn more or contact AIIP headquarters at (225) 408-4400 or office@aiip.org.

Filed under: AIIP, cooperation, SCIP | Comments Off on AIIP Annual Conference, March 26-29, Albuquerque, NM

Best Practices in Competitive Technical Intelligence – CTI

Posted on February 17, 2009 by ellendnaylor

I am writing a chapter for the Competitive Intelligence Foundation’s upcoming book, Competitive Technical Intelligence. CTI seeks to identify competitor’s R&D strategy and innovation pipeline to identify the next generation of threats in the marketplace. CTI typically includes the analysis of patents, scientific publications, new sources, open innovation needs, and other technological, engineering or scientific sources. It focuses on identifying technological trends, opportunities and threats, and how these relate to competitors’ business strategies. In the spirit of cooperation, here’s a sneak preview from my chapter, a summary of interviews with CTI experts on “What are best practices for competitive technical intelligence?”

Best in class companies hire a person with the right education and experience to converse knowledgeably with scientists, engineers and business people.  They have the ability to manage relationships across all the company’s functions and with all levels of management.

Other desirable traits include:
– Translate science and concepts into business and marketing terms
– Leave one’s ego aside and work towards the company’s goals
– Have a reputation for seeking win/win outcomes
– Hold sources and information confidentially
– Have the ability to sit in the other guy’s chair whether interviewing or communicating deliverables to various CTI customers
– Be responsive to customers: make sure that KITs (key intelligence topics) you agreed upon are still valid
– Anticipate customer’s needs before they ask
– Work with the competitive intelligence managers and the business side

Organizations that are best in class have senior management who recognize the need for CTI. These executives provide the CTI analyst with relevant insight based on their relationships with industry C-levels.  The CTI staff provides data and analysis to support key executive decisions.

Best in class companies consider primary intelligence gathering a key practice. While technology has made great strides for information collection and organization, people are still needed, since critical thinking is absent strictly using technology. People who conduct R&D are experts in their field and have extensive networks. Tap into individual networks and get access to intra-company networks, company to government R&D organizations, and company to company networks (from conferences and presentations.) Another way to think about this is that everyone has access to published data. Your competitive advantage comes fromasking experts lots of questions and continuing the dialog regularly.

Successful organizations systematically track patents and other scientific or technical developments to identify technologies which might change the marketplace. They have invested in sophisticated database technology which not only collects competitor data, but also classifies it into relevant categories and in some cases maps it out.  This level of sophistication allows the CTI manager to spend more time analyzing the data and meeting with people.  Best in class firms also track changes in consumer attitude and behaviors which could be precursors to new technology acceptance.

Excellent companies support their CTI network with a relational database which links CTI analysts in multiple applications areas across the company.  The CTI team clearly communicates a project criteria list that everyone can understand, since CTI is not on the list of standard departments within a company.

Best in class companies systematically map technology from the earliest research phase all the way through product launch.  So much technology never reaches product launch. They opportunistically identify where and why it stopped in development.  For example, they might acquire the company that was behind the research phase to gain a competitive advantage in product development.

Lastly best in class companies have quality control around CTI deliverables.  Data is validated. One practice is to conduct team analysis before creating the deliverable.  The team would consist of marketing, sales, technical services application development, R&D, who all bring their different points of view of how they perceive information, also their different history.  In this way you don’t jump to conclusions and don’t decide too quickly.

The CTI book will be coming out at SCIP’s annual conference held in Chicago from April 21 – 24. In the meantime, here are two great books on CTI:

Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology: Technical Intelligence for Business by Bradford Ashton & Richard Klavans, 1997  ; and Competitive Technical Intelligence: A Guide to Design, Analysis and Action by Mathias M. Coburn, 1999. BTW, building on his CTI expertise, Brad Ashton is editor of CI Foundation’s Competitive Technical Intelligence.

How do you use CTI in your organization?  Do you have best in class practices to share?

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Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, competitive technical intelligence, cooperation, CTI, SCIP | 3 Comments »

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