Product Development

Motivation: Treat Them the Way They Want to Be Treated

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I am most fascinated by what motivates people to share, and how to figure this out quickly, especially during a telephone conversation where you don’t have the benefit of body language. Contrary to what I have been taught: “Do not treat others like you would want to be treated.” Treat them the way THEY want to be treated.
I have applied Johari’s model to classifying those we talk to in the collection process. It’s helpful to be aware of their pre-disposition towards sharing versus what they know. My classifications are: Egocentric; Deeply Knowledgeable; Intellectual and Helpers.

Competitive Intelligence Software Integrated into Salesforce.com

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Compelligence recently introduced the Compelligence App which is the only competitive and market intelligence software that integrates seamlessly within Salesforce.com. It builds off the strengths of Salesforce.com in that it helps sales close more deals since it extends the reach of Salesforce.com to include data from the competitive marketplace. Armed with this information at their fingertips, account reps have even more time to sell.

How to Incent Sales to Share Competitive Intelligence

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The key to success in communication to and from sales is to understand your company’s sales culture, and what might be fun and engaging for them to be cooperative in sharing what they learn in a timely manner. Go to where sales is to get them to engage. Many sales people travel extensively, so they have time in the car or airplane to write, tape or text about what they’re learning. They also value information from their peers. Maybe you can facilitate more sharing among peers, even informally. In my experience it takes a couple of years to get sales information to flow. You have to earn their trust to build that relationship.

How to be a Competition Detective: Motivation

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This is the first in a series of blogs to improve your collection skills. Figuring out how others are motivated is a great start. Even if you’re cold calling, you can get a hint of how they might be motivated by learning more about their profession. People like that you appreciate their occupation, and I have found this to be a prime motivator to get people to open up to me regardless of their profession. It also pays to be polite regardless of which profession you are targeting. So many people are rude these days, especially to trades people, who feel they are taken for granted.

Six Things you Can Learn from Conducting Win Loss Interviews

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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.

Reviewing “Win/Loss Reviews”

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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.

How to Encourage Cooperative Communication from Sales

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Many competitive intelligence, marketing, research and product developers complain about poor communication from their sales force, who has a direct conduit to your customers—one of the best sources of knowledge about what your company is doing right and wrong as well as ideas for new products, services and tweaks to your existing products that can be revenue generating!

So how do you encourage cooperative communication from Sales?

Use Rivalry to Spur Innovation & Competitive Intelligence Sharing

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While GE uses rivalry to stimulate innovation, I believe it can also be used to support other functions such as competitive intelligence in the case of war gaming, in particular. Another group that responds well to healthy rivalry, if you publicize their contribution, is Sales. People are naturally competitive and want to be the best, so healthy rivalry that advances your company’s goals for innovation, improved competitiveness and winning more deals—is a good thing!

Connect Cooperatively to Internal & External Experts

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Use a cooperative connection approach with internal and external experts regardless of how you reach them. A good way to think about who to connect with internally is: who is dealing with my competitors, customers, the investor community, suppliers, distributors, regulators or attends trade shows? Externally, you need to consider who tracks the marketplace you compete in, in all its aspects: technology, innovation, the environment, economic conditions, politics/lobbyists, regulatory, social issues and the competition.

Capture Win Loss Analysis Cooperatively

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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, 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.

© 2024 Ellen Naylor