How to become an expert in primary intelligence: Interviewing

The first step in primary collection regardless of whether it’s a standard interview, elicitation or some combination is preparation. Do not skimp on this upfront time. Often conversations and interviews don’t go as planned. If you have done your preparation, you can more easily be flexible. Lay aside your preconceived notions. Many of us listen for what we think is the ‘right’ answer or for what we want to hear. We don’t listen to the full story that the other person is telling us. Listen and put your ego aside if you want to be good in primary collection.

Maximize Your ROI through Competitive Intelligence

This blog focuses on maximizing your ROI (return on investment) while providing competitive analysis.Competitive intelligence is a support role. You need to shelf your ego. I learned that I portrayed a cooperative attitude aka "cooperative intelligence”, which opened up the floodgates of sharing from Sales in particular. I was fortunate in that I came from field Sales, so I knew I could improve our company’s ROI by helping Sales win more deals. I could connect individuals who were combating the same competitor, and let them strategize together, then share their success story.

Competitive Intelligence in 1985

This is the first in a series about how I evolved in my career in competitive intelligence, and what I have learned over time. Overall I am glad I had a start back in 1985 for the critical thinking and deeper relationships I developed. I am glad to still be in this field today where I can reach out to sources quickly that I would never have dreamed even existed in 1985, thanks to social networking.

Timing is Everything in Win/Loss Interviews

In a recent webinar I learned a few new things about the psychology behind conducting win/loss interviews. I have always told clients to makes sure that the sale is complete and implemented before handing them off to me to interview. Win/loss learning is often more about the failure of the selling process rather than selling the product. if you just have one time to conduct win/loss interviews, wait until after implementation or a rule of thumb is wait 2-3 months after the sale closes. If you wait too long, they’ll forget the details around the sales event that you are trying to collect and analyze.

How Intuition Can Guide Your Research & Research Business

Critical thinking and intuition are two skills that are often overlooked in this information explosion. We often jump to conclusions with more certainty without testing our conclusions by standing back and questioning our assumptions in a broader context. Likewise, many have lost touch with our intuition, which I consider the barometer of veracity. I have been in business for almost 20 years, and still make mistakes when I don’t listen to or trust my intuition. Listening to your intuition saves you time in the research and competitive intelligence processes, and can help you qualify your sales prospects and deal with people authentically.

Personality Profiling: Gauge Your Competitor’s Management Team

Another great analytical tool is personality profiling. Most often companies study their competitor’s management team or key employees such as the head of R&D. Usually their strengths and weaknesses follow them from job to job. It’s good to understand their predisposition; what mistakes they have made in the past; and what blind spots they might have. Don’t just focus on their professional experience as their personal life is just as important, and often highly influences their professional decision-making.

12 Tips to Guarantee Your Success in Collecting Intelligence from Sales

Recently I gave a webinar for SCIP chapters in Mercyhurst and Ohio on how to capture competitive intelligence from Sales by using cooperative intelligence skills. I love serving Sales Reps since I can easily translate what I provide into an ROI benefit, namely more sales. Serve Sales well and you will have job security even in a tough economy since they are the company’s revenue producers!

Six Things you Can Learn from Conducting Win Loss Interviews

I am always surprised that more companies don’t have a formal win loss program.
To conduct win/loss, interview your customers or lost customers shortly after the sales event to find out why they chose to do business with you or decided on a competitor. The data gathered combines knowledge from sales, customers, competitors, and your marketplace. Those companies that do win loss claim do improve their win rate by 15-30%. That’s a nice return on investment.

Connecting with Business Colleagues in Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time for sharing, caring and expressing gratitude. In the spirit of cooperative intelligence and sharing, I recently was a panelist in an SLA Competitive Intelligence division (CID) webinar on “Integrating Marketing and Sales to Capture & Deliver Intelligence.” While this is an SLA CID member benefit, all four of us panelists posted our slides on Slideshare, which follow. Likewise we just concluded a series of Colorado Future Ready blogs on SLA’s FR365 site which features a blog a day. This blog contains the list of authors and links to each blog. Don’t forget to read the Thanksgiving poem, “Thanksgiving….More Than a Day by Karl Fuchs.

Reviewing “Win/Loss Reviews”

Win Loss Reviews is real-time intelligence collection from selected sales events. Author, Rick Marcet describes how he established a scalable win loss process using technology that hangs off Microsoft’s sales force management system. I particularly appreciate the psychological aspects Mr. Marcet weaves throughout this book to engage Sales as so many in marketing and competitive intelligence fail to motivate Sales to share! This book is a must read for anyone in sales management, marketing especially customer insight, and competitive intelligence.