Sales Intelligence from the Competitive Intelligence Expert Panel at SLA 2010

Posted on August 25, 2010 by ellendnaylor

I had the pleasure of moderating the Competitive Intelligence Expert Panel at SLA’s (Special Libraries Association) annual conference in New Orleans. All 3 experts were GREAT! Claudia Clayton has a strong marketing, strategy, and sales background as well as financial services expertise. Jan Herring is one of CI’s pioneers with a strong military intelligence background which he successfully transferred into corporations as he started one of the first CI programs at Motorola in the 1980s. Arik Johnson is a visionary in this field, the consummate consultant, always reaching out for what’s next, and the instigator of Competitive Intelligence Ning with almost 1500 members.

We spent 1 ½ hours taking questions from our live and virtual audiences. In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, I will share the panel’s wisdom through my blogs.

There were two related questions around Price to Win (PTW) and the trade offs of conducting win loss analysis using internal people versus outsiders.

Claudia says there are restrictions once the RFP is out, so much of the monitoring and analysis needs to occur in between RFPs. That way when the RFP is issued, your company will have a good idea of how low the competitor has the capability to bid. Jan recommends PTW guru, Michael O’Guin.  Michael wrote a couple of PTW articles for SCIP’s Competitive Intelligence Review in 1996, and presents at APMP (American Proposal Management Professionals) conferences. APMP is the society to join for PTW. The essentials behind PTW are to learn the competitor’s cost structure and the customer’s decision-making criteria. Arik recommended another PTW guru, Jim Mathews currently Director, Competitive Intelligence & PTW at TASC.

Claudia shared 3 ways to conduct win loss analysis:

  1. Use internal sources with/without assistance from a third party in development
  2. Use a third party while revealing your company’s identity
  3. Use a third party without revealing your company’s identity

Claudia prefers the third option to learn more objectively what the buying manager was thinking when s/he awarded the contract. If you chose option 2, sometimes the buying manager will give the ‘party line’ due to their bias around who is asking for the interview. I like option 2 since it is biased: your customers are biased in their decision-making. A skilled interviewer gets past that bias so quickly. I like to include Sales in this process to identify the gaps between Sales and their customers as to the customer’s decision making criteria and values. Sales can share their customer’s personality and motivation so I get the maximum value out of each interview knowing the customer’s preferred communication style.

Some companies split their win loss interviews among internal sources and a third party. The benefit of using internal sources is they know your products, your company’s culture and can keep building a relationship with that customer. All panelists agreed NOT to have Sales conduct win loss interviews since you won’t get an honest representation of what really happened! Jan’s best practice for win loss analysis: your company conducts its own win interviews and a third party conducts loss interviews. I think a third party should do some win interviews to avoid being blindsided by internal expectations.

Most importantly, use the results and take action. It’s remarkable that only 20% of companies even do win loss analysis given its great insight into customers and competitors, and many of these companies do nothing with the findings and analysis!

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, SLA, win loss analysis | Comments Off on Sales Intelligence from the Competitive Intelligence Expert Panel at SLA 2010

Boost Competitive Intelligence Effectiveness through Databases

Posted on May 7, 2010 by ellendnaylor
Last month I blogged about “5 Tactics to Research Your Marketplace using Competitive Intelligence Skills” originally published by Adam Sutton of MarketingSherpa.  As promised, I am focusing on each tactic. This week’s is #4.
Tactic #4 Build an information database
I look at building two databases: one as a repository of data that you gather on the competitive environment either through daily monitoring or analytical reports which can include material that is externally generated such competitor data, industry reports, relevant articles, regulatory trends, technology trends, distribution channel news, financial reports and relevant economic news as well as internal reports such as competitor profiles, win loss analysis, trade show analysis, product plans, strategic plans, technical assessments, wargame results, scenario planning results…all the material that you need at your finger tips for those quick turnaround projects as well as to detect patterns in the marketplace that make you pause, stand back and say “ah ha, something is up” or “something doesn’t look right”.
When selecting a software solution, you need to keep in mind the technology your company is already using, and piggyback off something that already exists, such as salesforce.com to get the scoop from Sales. Perhaps PR uses software for delivery of the news, which you can extend off of. Perhaps your industry relations folks get financial reports from Thomson, which you can build from. Get a grasp of what’s already out there and build rapport with your IT people since you will need to work closely with them for installation, depending on the size and complexity of your software solution. There are competitive intelligence software providers you might consider: I have a partial list here.
There are a few things I look for when building an information database for competitive intelligence other that installation and cost!
1. How easy is it to browse and find what you’re looking for?
2. How easy is it to update the system and refresh the data? How much time and expense do you need to factor in for updating? Many people underestimate both, so the system becomes outdated quickly and loses credibility with users for obvious reasons.
3. Is there a process to delete data when it becomes outdated?
4. How will the system maintained?
5. What are your security considerations around a software system?
6. Who will you allow to make changes to the system?
7. How will you control the integrity of the data?
8. How will you encourage people to make contributions?
A contact database is the second type of database and is crucial for competitive intelligence personnel and anyone who does research. This database contains contacts both internal and external to your company who are great sources of information about your industry, the marketplace, the competition… Mine is organized by skill set, and how and where I met each person. Perhaps your company’s directory lets you do this: you still need to connect with external contacts continuously to keep from being blindsided.
Quick access to people and information greatly speeds up your research timeline! I also keep track of my projects through my contact database, and specific topics my clients have queried about. That way when I find cool stuff, I can quickly sort those people who are interested in this topic, and communicate with them directly. Clients appreciate this since I don’t send them irrelevant stuff, but rather build on what they’ve asked for in the past. This promotes cooperative intelligence since it’s cooperative communication. I like to use ACT! http://www.act.com/ for my contact database although there are plenty of options: just pick one and learn how to use it!
Social media has opened up ways to connect and be found. I also use Twitter’s Tweetdeck to sort comments by the category where they’re an expert, which I perceive as another form of connection. LinkedIn groups are another great source of connections by subject matter expertise. You can use LinkedIn’s advanced search option.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, LinkedIn, research, trade show, Twitter, win loss analysis | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

Capture Win Loss Analysis Cooperatively

Posted on April 15, 2010 by ellendnaylor

Last week, I shared a summary of “5 Tactics to Research Your Marketplace using Competitive Intelligence Skills” originally published by Adam Sutton of MarketingSherpa. As promised, I am focusing on the first one, and will cover Tactics 2-5 individually in future blogs.

#1 Conduct win loss analysis
Win loss interviews and the ensuing analysis are one of my favorite cooperative intelligence tools, since it’s a win/win. Your company receives valuable information from your customers and prospects, and you make them feel important since you care enough to query them and give them an opportunity to provide honest, candid feedback on what they like and don’t like about you, and what they like about the competition, for example.

During these interviews, uncover the motivations behind their decisions and learn from what they impart to improve product development, tweak your existing products or service, change your marketing message, learn how and when in the sales process your competitors are successfully unseating you and so much more.

Many companies ask me to develop their win loss analysis process, and just want to focus on their losses. This is a shame as they get an unbalanced view of their win loss track record. Let’s face it: loss customers are gone, unless they buy other products or services from your company. In all cases those who continue to be your customers often care for your wellbeing, and usually give deeper answers that you can use towards product development. Remember they want you to continue to be successful since your product/service helps them in their business, especially B to B.

I recommend you conduct these interviews in cooperation with your sales force, rather than behind their back. Building trust with Sales is the biggest reason to include them as part of the win loss analysis process. Additionally, Sales can save you so much time by telling you how the people you’re going to interview are motivated to share. You only have a short window to conduct this interview, so having sales intelligence, recognizing Sales’ bias is a good use of time. Wow, that reason alone is enough to work with Sales. I shared this point last week since some clients want me to conduct win loss interviews without letting sales know we’re even querying their customers. This is such a bad idea. Sales will find out soon enough that this is going on and will often feel betrayed.

On a final note, it is also demoralizing for Sales if you conduct only loss interviews with their customers. How would you like it if only your losses were being queried and amplified about the company? I feel like Darth Vader when I am reduced to connecting with Sales only around their losses. They know when I call it’s always in connection with another loss. Is that how you want to treat your sales force? I don’t think so!

Here are a couple of articles I have written about the benefits of conducting win loss analysis:

Win/Loss Analysis: The Cooperative Angle + Increasing Sales through Win Loss Analysis

What has been your experience in conducting win loss analysis? Do you conduct it in cooperation with Sales? Do you prefer to conduct win loss analysis blind, where people don’t know the identity of the company you represent and Sales doesn’t know this is happening?

Be notified when our book, Win/Loss Analysis: How to Capture and Keep the Business You Want is published.

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperation, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, D. Sales Intelligence Articles, product development, win loss analysis | Tagged: | Comments Off on Capture Win Loss Analysis Cooperatively

5 Tactics to Research Your Marketplace using Competitive Intelligence Skills

Posted on April 6, 2010 by ellendnaylor

Recently I was interviewed by Adam Sutton of MarketingSherpa, and in the spirit of cooperative intelligence I am sharing some highlights. For the full article you need to subscribe to MarketingSherpa. Check out MarketingSherpa’s free trial. It is chock full of marketing information, studies, white papers and current articles like this one. I will summarize each of the five tactics, and then blog on each of them individually this month.

Tactic #1 Conduct win loss analysis
Interview new customers and prospects you lost to the competition. Your goal is to uncover the motivations behind their decisions and to learn whatever great information they impart to help improve product development, tweak your existing products or service, change your marketing message, learn how your competitors are successfully unseating you and so much more.

I recommend you conduct these interviews in cooperation with your sales force, rather than behind their back. Building trust with Sales is the biggest reason to include them as part of the win loss analysis process. Sales can save you so much time by telling you how the people you’re going to interview are motivated to share. Wow, that reason alone is enough to work with Sales.

Tactic#2 Talk to internal and external experts
Use a cooperative approach when connecting with internal and external experts. People inside your company tend to know a lot about your industry and can connect you with external contacts who might be helpful. Be sure to thank your experts and send them information you come across that they might find helpful. This two way communication and connection is invaluable to your knowledge pool.

Tactic #3 Use trade shows as fact-finding missions
Trades shows are the biggest Meccas for competitive intelligence. No where are there more people who want to share their knowledge and insight with you: industry experts, prospects, competitors and journalists.

Do your homework: Prepare a game plan before the conference. Study the exhibitor floor plan and all the presentations and decide how best to use your time and write out the questions you will ask to the various audiences.  Keep the plan rough as you’ll need to be flexible since you’ll need to jump on opportunities as they arise, which you can’t predict.

Be observant. Most people think about gathering competitive intelligence from competitor’s exhibit areas and formal presentations, but sometimes the best intelligence is gathered at informal settings such as the conference coffee shops, the conference hotel cafe, the elevator, cocktail parties, the bus ride to the airport, even in the airplane.

Tactic #4 Build an information database
Build a database for all the information you have on the competition and the marketplace that can easily be browsed and that is easily kept up-to-date. Also build a database of contacts both internal and external to your company who are great sources of information about your industry, the marketplace, the competition…and make this sortable as well! This quick access to contacts and information greatly speeds up your research timeline!

Tactic #5 Remain ethical and avoid deception
Make sure anyone you use to collect information is operating under the same ethical standards as held by your company. Check out SCIP’s website for its code of ethics.

Remember I will provide more detail about each of these 5 tactics in future blogs.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, product development, research, SCIP, trade show, win loss analysis | 5 Comments »

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 »

Tips on Setting up a Competitive Intelligence Process

Posted on September 16, 2009 by ellendnaylor

I was recently asked by a prospective client to summarize how I could help his company develop and implement a competitive intelligence process. While I tend to follow certain steps in setting up a CI process, I was taken aback since this company’s industry is such a specialized niche within financial services, and I am not a “one size fits all” consultant.

Here are some of the takeaways that apply to any industry:

Determine the most important areas to track and analyze or what we in competitive intelligence refer to as Key Intelligence Topics (KITs). You can’t focus on everything or you won’t do anything well. Within in that, focus on the most essential KIT immediately and make a big splash within your company. Your company executives and marketing people will have a lot of good ideas about KITs, but don’t just rely on them. Ask people in other functional areas so you gain balance and aren’t blindsided.

Don’t forget to market and position your CI initiative. Start by letting people know what CI is: what you do and don’t do and set up ethical boundaries. Nobody owes you anything in the busy workplace. Present CI in the context of what they do and how you can help them, and that will go a long way to gaining their cooperation. Create a logo so people can readily identify what you send them by its look, and share only quality stuff and not too often.

I think most companies are close to parity when it comes to conducting secondary research, that is monitoring competitors, market trends including and all the components of the STEEP analysis:

S=social
T=technological
E=economic
E=environmental
P=political

However, where excellent companies stand out is in connecting with people who are responsive both inside and outside their companies across a variety of disciplines. The initial challenge is to locate these connections, and then keep track of them as they move to different areas within your company, leave your company, or start at your company. It’s even more of a challenge to track your external contacts. I use both ACT!, a great contact database to keep track of my contacts, as well as Outlook.

If you establish cooperative relationships and disciplined communication with relevant people you will have a competitive advantage. You will keep your network informed and over time, those people you connect with will think to inform you when they find nuggets that they know you value.

Trade shows are often overlooked as a means to obtain competitive intelligence and so much more. Dig into your company’s trade show strategy and engage those who are attending to become collectors of CI. Sales is often conducting some form of win loss analysis, and is a great conduit to your customers, a great source of CI if recorded.

Lastly, don’t forget your competitors are collecting against you, which we call counterintelligence. Influence your company to take steps to protect your company’s important information like R&D, product development & intellectual property.

For lots more detail about setting up a CI process, I suggest you buy SCIP’s intelligence guide book, Starting a Competitive Intelligence Function.

Find out how we can work with you to develop a competitive intelligence program.

Win/Loss Analysis book gives you a process to learn why you’re losing business and how to keep more of it!

Receive our 6-page Win/Loss Cheat Sheets

Connect on LinkedIn  Connect on Twitter

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperation, cooperative, win loss analysis | 1 Comment »

Who Says Librarians Can’t be Analytic Competitive Intelligence Professionals?

Posted on July 29, 2009 by ellendnaylor

I taught a couple of courses about analytical tools and techniques to librarians as part of SLA’s (Special Library’s Association) competitive intelligence certificate program.  I was amazed at how quickly these librarians built off their information expertise and applied it to analytics.  Here’s an example of how they dove into win loss analysis, my favorite sales intelligence tool. We used the scenario that they sold for Dialog and were losing cases to Lexis-Nexis.

Approach
First we would identify all the products that both vendors sell by geography and their perceived value proposition to our customers. We would divide sales according to our market segments to learn which segments are growing and shrinking. We would also consider our product bundling, and would ask Sales about this. We also would look to Sales and Customer Service for their perception of client’s needs versus wants and our competitor. We would tap into our Customer Service people to learn what problems they deal with and how they resolve them. We would incorporate strategic changes to our product line and how projected new releases would affect our position in the marketplace.

This information would help us develop a profile of our product and positioning versus the competition and identify the important issues so we ask the right questions in win loss interviews.

Start-up Issues
How often do we conduct win/loss interviews? We should conduct these interviews within 3 months of the sales event so people remember. Do we involve Sales in the process or do we conduct these calls anonymously without Sales’ knowledge? The argument for anonymity is that you will get less biased answers with neutrality.  However, you might get less deep answers since the customer isn’t sure where this information is going, even though you promise confidentiality. In all cases, we must stress the confidentiality of customer’s answers.

Is Sales already doing some form of win loss analysis or did they do it previously and discontinue it “for some reason”? If you involve Sales, they have great insight as to what questions we to ask since they know their customer’s decision-making criteria.  They also can help us target the right person at each account who has the most knowledge. Overall we thought it would be better to have sales involved in helping us develop questions, to tell us who to call and some facts about their dealings with this customer, their customer’s personality, motivation and communication style. Sales can also tell us why they think they won or lost a sale. Sales might not be as strong in developing questions around product development.

We needed to have the support of senior management all the way down to Sales if we include Sales in this process. We also need to be sensitive to Sales’ relationships with their customers. Perhaps win loss analysis was conducted before and it was not a positive experience for sales, so we need to find out why and overcome those objections and make it cooperative, a win:win for all, which if done correctly, win loss analysis is!

Questions for Win Interviews
Why did they select us? Was there a particular deal swinger?
How close a call was our “win”? Was this new business or a larger contract or was it harder to win than before? Was there some hesitation to continue business with us or to maintain the same level of business?
Did they consider competitors? Who?
What do we do well that we better continue to do if we want to keep their business? What does the competition do well that we could adopt or build on?
What improvements can we make in how we conduct business?
Are there specific wants or needs that we’re not addressing?

Questions for Loss Interviews
Why did we lose? (not in those words)
Who did we lose to?
Were there also other competitors & if so, how did we rate? Why?
Terms: price and contract duration
What was the customer’s budget for this service?
What improvements can we make in how we conduct business?
Are there specific wants or needs that we’re not addressing? Is there anything we could have done which would have caused us to win the business?

I particularly liked this question for both win and loss interviews: What do we offer, which is included in our cost, which is superfluous to our customers—that is they don’t need it?

Obviously we would reword our questions and perhaps incorporate some elicitation skills to be more conversational, but I was impressed that these librarians were so insightful!

Here is an article to supplement your knowledge in win loss analysis.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, cooperative, D. Sales Intelligence Articles, Elicitation, win loss analysis | 1 Comment »

Blogging about Competitive Intelligence from #SCIP09 in Chicago

Posted on April 20, 2009 by ellendnaylor

scip-09-chicagoThis week I will be blogging from SCIP’s annual conference, which takes place in Chicago from April 21 – 24.  While I will not be attending the pre-conference sessions on April 21 and 22, here is some more detail about them.

I will be attending sessions on April 23 and 24, and here is the detail about these sessions including titles, descriptions and speaker bios.  As an attendee, you receive a CD-ROM of all the presentation sessions.

Here are the 10 Random Things I am looking forward to doing at SCIP09 from the Competitive Intelligence Ning where you can check out other’s intentions.

1. I look forward to meeting my SCIP friends and making friends with new people, including some of you on the CI Ning who I only have met electronically

2. I look forward to Robert Bugai’s talk on “Meet the Press” since the journalistic perspective of probing and interviewing has always interested me. (11:35 p.m. Thursday…I just found out he WON’T BE THERE!)

3. I look forward to Bill Fiora’s active dialog on “Are we in a Rut?” (5 p.m. Thursday) This would be a great CI Magazine article.

4. I looking forward to Roger Phelps’ and Suki Fuller’s active dialog session on “Social Networking & Its Role in CI.” (11 a.m. Friday) That will make a great CI Magazine article, don’t you think?

5. Due to my interest in sales intelligence, I look forward to hearing Lisa Hicks talk about “Sharpen Your Sales Results with Win/Loss Analysis Best Practices.” (Noon Friday)

6. I think Eric Garland’s talk on “Keeping Positive: Using Competitive Intelligence to Find New Business Opportunities, ” will be a refreshing slant on using CI not just for threats. (2:45 p.m. Thursday)

7. I’m looking forward to spending some time on the Exhibit Floor, and my focus this year is competitive intelligence software providers like Strategy Software, Comintell, Digimind, Cipher, QL2 and Traction.

8. I’m looking forward to our WLC (Women’s Leadership Council) cocktail party which follows the opening reception in the exhibit hall from 7 – 8 p.m. on Wednesday.

9. I don’t have a booth this year, too much else that I have to do at SCIP09 which would take me away from my exhibit. So, if you want to plan a meeting, here’s how to do it:

Attend one of my talks:

Build a Sustainable Early Warning Process through Cooperative Intelligence (1:40 p.m. Thursday) or
Capture Ccompetitive Intelligence from Sales & Customers to Drive Lucrative Product Development (9:40 p.m. Friday)
I’ll be in the exhibit hall from 9:30 – 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, and some time after my talk around 3 p.m. or so.

Otherwise you can reach me at renaylor@wispertel or 720-480-9499

Or you can Tweet me at http://twitter.com/EllenNaylor as I’ll be part of August Jackson and Suki Fuller’s Twitter team following SCIP 09 (#scip09).

10. I will attend social events where we can meet up as well:

Opening Reception: 5:30 – 7 p.m. Wed
Reception: 6 – 6:30 p.m. Thu
Awards Breakfast: 8 – 9:30 Fri

There is a newcomer’s orientation just before the opening reception, which I usually attend, but I don’t see it on this year’s schedule.

If you participate in the Twitter network, check out our tweets on #scip09.  They can also be viewed through out Competitive Intelligence Ning.

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, SCIP, social networks, Twitter, win loss analysis | Comments Off on Blogging about Competitive Intelligence from #SCIP09 in Chicago

Think Before Win Loss Analysis: Stay Connected with Your Customers Before the Sales Event!

Posted on April 17, 2009 by ellendnaylor

I’ve been talking about the sales intelligence practice of win loss analysis a lot lately. It’s the process of interviewing your customers to find out why you REALLY win or lose business, and is one of the best values for collecting market intelligence from your customers. You can get ideas for product development, competitive intelligence, changing account reps, realizing that customers don’t value what you thought they did…the list is as endless as your imagination if you stretch it.

However, many people just interview customers when they have lost business. Be practical: How long will it be before you can do business with them again, unless this loss just represents a portion of the business you do together?

Interview wins since they will give you ideas for product development, and they are interested in maintaining a relationship with you, especially if you can offer products that better meet their needs over time.

Especially in these tough economic times, take the time to develop even deeper relationships with your customers to boost retention rates. This is a key cooperative intelligence practice since your account reps or inside sales will be seen as leaders, connectors and communicators, while the competition won’t since they may be operating with a reduced sales headcount.

If you have the cashflow, don’t lay off your sales force or inside sales: keep them busy connecting with your customers. Here are some processes that you might include in their hardship job description in addition to their periodic account visits:

1. Interview customers one month or a reasonable interval after implementation of the product or service. Keep them happy and engaged, right from the beginning. Work with your marketing and product development people to include some open ended questions so they can vent and you learn what’s on their minds without the bias of closed ended questions.

2. A year after implementation, interview your customers again. They will have had a chance to use the product or service enough to have formed some strong opinions. Listen to their ideas, and let them know that you are considering or have made changes to your product or service based on their feedback. Include open ended questions about market trends, new technology and the competition so you don’t get blind sided.

3. Six months to a year before the contract expires, come back to the customer with another set of questions concerning the product/service, your customer service, you know the drill. Your goal is to influence them to stay with you, and they will be more tempted since you’ve been staying in touch with them…and this is not a last ditch effort just before the sale.

The point it: don’t wait for the sales event and then conduct win loss analysis interviews afterwards to find out what you’re doing right and wrong. Include this as part of the account planning and sales follow-up processes and watch your customer retention soar!

What have you included in your sales intelligence process to increase customer retention in these tough economic times?

Be notified when our book, Win/Loss Analysis: How to Clinch and Keep the Business You Want is published.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, Cooperative Intelligence, D. Sales Intelligence Articles, leadership, win loss analysis | Comments Off on Think Before Win Loss Analysis: Stay Connected with Your Customers Before the Sales Event!

2014 Update: Books on Analytic Tools for Competitive Intelligence

Posted on March 20, 2009 by ellendnaylor

This is a 2014 update of new and updated books on competitive intelligence tools and techniques from a 2009 blog.

Business and Competitive Analysis: Effective Application of New and Classic Methods by Craig S. Fleisher and Babette E. Bensoussan, 2007.

Strategic and Competitive Analysis: Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business Competition by Craig S. Fleisher and Babette Bensoussan, 2002.

These above two books have not been updated, and are classic reference material and describe competitive intelligence analytic tools in great detail. These are written for the academic market as well as competitive intelligence, marketing and strategy professionals. There is no repetition of tools between the two books with about 50 in total. The authors also provide their assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of each tool. I have a copy of each book, since I use analytic tools when they help me tell the story of my research, interviewing or win loss analysis findings.

There are three more books on analytic tools and techniques which are a shorter and simpler read.  Analysis Without Paralysis was updated in 2012 and The Analysts’s Cookbook, Volume 2 was published in 2011.

Analysis Without Paralysis: 12 Tools to Make Better Strategic Decisions by Babette E. Bensoussan and Craig S. Fleisher, Second Edition, 2012

The Analyst’s Cookbook by Kristan J. Wheaton, Emily E. Mosco and Diane E. Chido, 2006. (Mercyhurst University) (paperback only)

The Analyst’s Cookbook, Volume 2 edited by Nicole Pillar and Dominic Vallone, 2011. (Mercyhurst University) (Kindle only)

Analysis Without Paralysis is a great book to have your boss read or someone who would like a simpler explanation of competitive intelligence tools and techniques without as much depth as Babette and Craig’s previous two books. In addition to updating techniques, the second edition has included 2 more techniques than the original did in 2006.

The Analyst’s Cookbook is another favorite since it is easy to read and understand. Kris Wheaton, leading author, teaches competitive intelligence at one of America’s foremost competitive intelligence colleges, Mercyhurst. They breathe competitive intelligence for a living and it shows as they clearly describe 16 analytic tools in 164 pages. Mercyhurst students published a volume 2 to their Analyst’s Cookbook series in 2011, available only in Kindle format.

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Filed under: competitive analysis, Competitive Intelligence, Cooperative Intelligence, Denver, Ellen Naylor, interview, research, win loss analysis | 3 Comments »

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