Webinar Wrapup - Does Your Sales Team Have Heart

Yesterday, Adam Dunford (VP Product Development) and I presented an answer to that very question through our webinar. The idea is that the performance of the sales team, how they think and feel about their products, services, and management team clearly impacts their efforts, success, and $$$. It is common sense that if the sales team is demoralized, win rates and pipelines are bound to suffer.


In response to that idea, Primary Intelligence has developed a product called Sales Confidence Index. The following description will help you understand the purpose of this system:

• Consumer Confidence Index - The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) is defined as the degree of optimism on the state of the economy that consumers are expressing through their activities of savings and spending Economists closely track consumer confidence because consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity.

• Sales Confidence Index - Companies closely track salesperson confidence because sales team efforts account for the economic activity of the firm. The confidence of the salesperson, loyalty, his or her competitiveness, confidence in the strategic direction, value delivery, and innovativeness measures the sales person’s outlook over the next six months.

If you would like to watch a reply of the webinar, the recorded version is available here. If you’re willing to watch that demo, talk to me about the possibility of the offer extended at the end of the presentation. (801-838-9600 x5050, cdalley@primary-intel.com)

How Does Your Software Match Up with Client Needs?

In an evaluation of CRM/SFA vendors, we interviewed a company that needed more flexibility than its existing vendor could provide.

What was the compelling event that caused your organization to seek a
solution?
“It wasn’t a specific event. [Our current SFA vendor] does not allow us to perform necessary functions like categorize our customers by past purchases or by equipment they own that we’ve sold. It is unfriendly in allowing us to do campaigns. It is not possible to integrate it seamlessly with our ERP solution. It does not allow for workflows to be organized. That’s a small snippet, but it’s really a glorified contact management solution.”

When it came down to evaluating products, SellMore* was the better match for this company, even though SellMore’s solution was newer to the market and not as integrated with common ERP offerings as other, more seasoned competitors:

What were the primary reasons you did not select Salesmaster?
“I don’t like their interface. You have to go through too many windows, and Salesmaster is the opposite of SellMore. Our financial people really liked Salesmaster, and the reason is that in ERP—ERP is the financial software side—you do things one way because there are best practices in finance. On our side—marketing and sales and customer service—we do things in our own way. It’s completely unique to our company, and it has to be that way. Every six months or so, we’re making major changes. We have to have a flexible solution. Salesmaster is designed to be a static solution, and it’s very difficult to change. They say you can change anything, but you need a programmer. It’s also difficult to host—I need somebody who is an Salesmaster expert, and we don’t have one. We’d have to hire people for that, whereas I do have people who are experts in SQL Server, which is what SellMore runs on. I really didn’t like the interface because it was too cumbersome and difficult, and we had to teach our people to work around the software rather than getting the software to work around our people.”

What would you do if you were Salesmaster? How would this feedback change the way you identify your ideal prospects? How would you qualify leads? Does hearing this client perception of your solution change the way you approach the rest of the leads in your pipeline?

If you said “yes” to any of these questions, you are the kind of sales rep that effectively uses sales intelligence. And, that means that you are probably more effective than your counterparts.

Maybe, Primary Intelligence can take your sales intelligence initiatives to a higher level. Let’s chat and see if there is anything we can do to make your sales job easier. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)


* Company names changes to protect the identity of our clients and competing vendors.

How will Sales Intelligence make me more effective?

After all of the preliminaries are in process (introductions, relationship, etc…), you will have to answer the following questions in order to do business:

• Who is the prospect?
• What does the prospect value?
• How can we provide a solution?
• Is there a pain or problem that needs to be fixed?
• What can the competition do to solve that same problem or pain?
• Where does our company usually rate vs. the usual suspects… er… competitors?
• How does [company] like to buy?
• How have they approached other purchase like this in the past?
• What is [prospect]’s market like?
• Why are you the best choice? (If you don’t know now, you’ll find out later why you weren’t)
• Should you even be in this deal at all or would your time be better spent somewhere else?

All of these questions have very valuable answers. The answers may come from a number of sources, but they exist.

More importantly, sales is growing more sophisticated every day. Sales Operations, Sales Support and Marketing in some companies are pushing this information directly to the sales reps in “just-in-time” systems to ensure that sales teams run as effectively as possible.

How does your company approach the problem of trying to really, truly, deeply understand your prospects and current clients? If you are like 70-80% of the companies out there, you probably are just getting started at some level. In my estimation, only 5-10% of the businesses in the United States are what I would consider to be “cutting edge” in their practices. And their results are proof that their systems are working.

If you have a success story, let’s chat. I appreciate talking to advanced practitioners of Sales and Competitive Intelligence. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Webinar Wrap-up – Putting Sales Intelligence into the Sales Force

Yesterday, I co-hosted a Webinar with Ron Sathoff, a member of the product development group. We appreciate the time that our attendees shared with us and hope that the presentation was beneficial.

The main takeaways were:

• The definition of sales intelligence
• Benefits and ROI of effective sales intelligence
• Obstacles to the adoption of sales intelligence by sales groups
• Examples of solutions that increase sales intelligence usage

If you are a practitioner of competitive intelligence, this Webinar was geared specifically to making sure that your company receives the biggest market gains from your efforts.

The Webinar slides can be downloaded here. The actual Webinar recording will be available on our Primary Intelligence home page later today. The file may be a little large, but can be easily navigated once it is downloaded.

If you would like to receive an invitation to our Webinars in the future, please drop me a line at cdalley@primary-intel.com. Also, I’m happy to explain any of the concepts presented if you would like to discuss.

Competitive Intelligence – Rusting Away in the Toolbox

Primary Intelligence is in the middle of a research project. We are trying to understand where competitive intelligence fits in the sales organization. It is our contention that a) competitive intelligence is one of the most effective tools for increasing sales effectiveness and b) sales organizations don’t feel the same way.

Initial results from our study would indicate that many sales organizations use competitive intelligence, but it rarely ranks near the top.



Yet, according to CSO Insights, easy access to intelligence may increase overall sales effectiveness by 8% or more. I don’t know how much of an improvement in effectiveness is gained by SFAs or spreadsheets, but competitive intelligence has an ROI potential that can’t be ignored.

Now, if you have a way of introducing your competitive intelligence into the SFA, spreadsheets or other commonly used sales tools so that the information were available on demand, you might really have something.

Stay tuned to this blog. Watch Primary Intelligence as we introduce sales tools specifically for making competitive intelligence useful in the sales organization.

If you have any thoughts on this, let me know (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Do You Know Why You Win Sales Opportunities?

It is very common that companies approach us at Primary Intelligence requesting the answer to “why do we lose?”

At Primary Intelligence, we strongly recommend analyzing won sales opportunities with the same diligence as your losses. The benefits are too strong to ignore:

• Without win information , it is difficult to understand what you are doing right. How can you replicate your best practices if you don’t really know what they are?



• Good information on your wins will provide a story you can tell to other prospects in similar situations.



• You can increase your library of reference information with some detailed win information.



• Using the same interview guide, you can measure performance gaps between the wins and losses. Eventually, you will identify consistent weaknesses that can be addressed.



• With wins and losses, you can populate predictive analytics to create strategic plans.

In one of our recent wins, we were pleased to find that part of our selling cycle differentiated us from our competitor:

QAD recently chose to contract with Primary Intelligence for win loss and competitive intelligence service because of its familiarity and positive prior experience with the vendor. The Company also considered [a competitor], but Rod Sidrow, competitive strategy manager, said that there was not much of a sales cycle involved and that selecting Primary Intelligence was a straightforward choice. He recognized the strength of PI’s product, asserting that once he had seen what it had to offer, “[He] didn’t need to look any further.”

Part of what made Primary Intelligence’s offering so appealing was that Sidrow got to experience what the actual product would look like before making the purchase. Primary Intelligence offered him two free sample opportunities written specifically for his business to review, but Sidrow had trouble even obtaining a sample of [the competitor’s] past work.

Sales and Marketing were both pleased to find that the sales tools and messages worked even better than anticipated. This type of feedback (along with hundreds of other data points) have helped move Primary Intelligence into a leadership position in Win Loss, Account Retention, Target Profiling and Customer Loyalty. With information from our wins, we understand what our clients value and how we can leverage our strengths to make the strongest sales case possible.

I recommend that losses be studied, lessons learned and corrective action taken. But, don’t ignore the wins. They can teach you just as much.

Let’s chat about this sometime. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

What is the ROI of sales intelligence?

According to CSO Insights, Sales Intelligence may provide as much as an 8% gain in sales, according to over a thousand sales managers. (See post of Wednesday, 6/13/07, for substantiating info.)

What does this mean in dollars?

“For the sake of discussion, let’s consider the performance of a mythical sales rep who has a $2M annual quota, selling deals that average $100K each. To close 20 forecast deals, a rep with a 47% win rate needs to have 43 deals in his or her pipeline. If the win rate on those pipeline deals could be increased to 55%, that rep would close at least 23 of those 43 opportunities. Multiplying those 3 extra deals by $100K each, the rep’s revenue would increase by $300K – and improvement any CSO would crave.” (Dickie, Jim and Barry Trailer, Proactive Sales Intelligence: The New Requirements for Getting Into the Game, CSO Insights (2007), page 5)

Take that increase across the board. If you could increase your pipeline output by 7% using the same resources, what would that mean to your company? Your sales reps? Your bonus?

If these results are interesting, you may want to speak with Primary Intelligence. Sales Intelligence is what we do. And, if you use the best Sales Intelligence possible, you’re likely to increase sales output by more than 7%.

The report can be downloaded from CSO Insights here. Registration is required. The registration form can be accessed here.

If you would like more information, please let me know. I enjoy the chance to chat about these topics. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Webinar: Does Your Sales Team Have Heart?

“The first sale has to occur in the sales rep’s heart.”

This statement has always been true, but often it is difficult to get an accurate measurement of your sales team’s attitudes and their level of confidence in your company, your products, your competition, and their own abilities.

Primary Intelligence would like to invite you to a Webinar explaining the Sales Confidence Index (SCI), a Web-based metric that can be used to analyze your sales team’s level of engagement and provide insight into the areas that will help you create and maintain a dedicated, confident, and effective sales force.

Through this presentation, Primary Intelligence will show you how you can use SCI to:

• Pinpoint the most important confidence and attitude factors in your sales force
• Measure and monitor your sales reps’ level of engagement before the performers defect to the competition
• Identify areas of risk and opportunity before they become critical issues in your sales channels
• Ascertain your sales channels’ knowledge and outlook about your competitors
• Develop better-informed strategies for improving sales and training programs
• Monitor the impact of company initiatives, programs and policies

Date: Thursday, June 21
Time 2 PM EST (11 AM PST)
Duration: 1 Hour
Cost: Free

To register, click here: https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/727867237

Those that will most benefit from this discussion include:

• Sales VPs
• Sales Directors and Managers
• Regional sales leaders
• Business development leadersCEOs/CFOs/CSOs

Sales Intelligence, More than Ever

According to the CSO Insights report “Proactive Sales Intelligence: The New Requirements for Getting Into the Game,”

-The number of reps achieving quota is down
-Converting initial conversations into presentations is down
-Lead gen is tossing more leads in the hopper, but the conversion rate is dropping.

Why?

Buyers are bypassing the information stage of the game. Websites and available information are taking the initial stages upon themselves. The buying process has evolved. The buy cycle is starting much earlier than the sell cycle.

So, how does a company get into more sales opportunities and move them through to the presentation?

Turns out that sales intelligence may provide a benefit. According to CSO Insights:

“Firms that excel at Sales Intelligence not only get into the game more often
than their less-effective counterparts, they also win the game more often.” (Dickie, Jim and Barry Trailer, Proactive Sales Intelligence: The New Requirements for Getting Into the Game, CSO Insights (2007), page 3)

To demonstrate this point, CSO Insights found that the availability of Sales Intelligence seemed to measurably improve win rates of forecast deals:

Easy access to SI – 55.1% win rate
Limited access to SI – 49.2% win rate
Difficult/No access – 47.1%

If you do the math, sales reps can be substantially more effective across the board if Sales Intelligence is provided.

The report can be downloaded from CSO Insights here. Registration is required. The registration form can be accessed here.

If you would like more information, please let me know. I enjoy the chance to chat about these topics. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

What is Sales Intelligence?

Great question! Now, go sit down and stop thinking so much. You'll give yourself a headache.

Seriously, there have been many attempts to understand the line that delineates sales data from intelligence. Sales intelligence exists as a subset of competitive intelligence. It covers a broad array of potential information. And, there are a dozen different definitions. However, a recent report from CSO Insights indicates their feelings on the matter.

According to Jim Dickie and Barry Trailer, sales data is very common. It would include information such as company names, contacts, phone numbers, revenue and any other identifying pieces of information. Sales intelligence, on the other hand, adds to these items and shows sales reps how they can be better positioned, the value proposition that is most likely to resonate, how their clients like to buy and turn-offs that may shut down the sale.

The CSO Insights report describes the benefits of providing sales intelligence rather than data:

1- Get into the game more often
2- Get out of losing games earlier
3- Win the game more often

The report can be downloaded from CSO Insights here. Registration is required. The registration form can be accessed here.

Primary Intelligence believes that sales intelligence can produce gains of 10%, 20% or more. Our clients believe this too. We go beyond sales data to show how companies can sell more effectively, distancing themselves from the competition, moving into new markets and creating new opportunities.

Jim Dickie and Barry Trailer are very smart guys. And, I am happy that their data supports our core focus: Helping sales people sell more.

If you would like more information, please let me know. I enjoy the chance to chat about these topics. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Tools Sales Managers Use to be Competitive

Sales Mangers are looking to gain an edge and make their team more effective. In an ongoing survey by Primary Intelligence, the following tools are the most commonly used:

79.1%-Sales Force Automation Tool
69.8%-Spreadsheets
55.8%-Competitive Analysis
53.5%-Webcasts
51.2%-Sales Prospecting Tracking
48.8%-White Papers

Just thought you might want to know.

If you have a different idea, let me know. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Does Your Sales Team Have Heart?

Multiples studies have demonstrated that the most important sale has to be to the heart of your sales reps. If they believe in themselves, their sales environment, product, management and company, they have a much higher likelihood of succeeding. Likewise, if they lack confidence in any of these areas, there is a predictable, measurable direct effect on sales performance.

Primary Intelligence has created an online tool that identifies sales confidence in 6 performance areas and 3 dimensions. The tool measures feelings of efficacy, ability and knowledge and translates the scores of the sales force into areas where improvements should be made to make the biggest gains in sales performance.

On Thursday, June 28, Primary Intelligence will host a webinar demonstrating the Sales Confidence Index. For more information or to register, click here.

Through this presentation, Primary Intelligence will show:

• Pinpoint the most important confidence and attitude factors inyour sales force
• Measure and monitor your sales reps’ level of engagement
• Identify areas of risk and opportunity before they become critical issues in your sales channels
• Ascertain your sales channels’ knowledge and outlook about your competitors
• Develop better-informed strategies for improving sales and training programs
• Monitor the impact of company initiatives, programs and policies

Those that benefit include:

• Sales VPs
• Sales Directors and Managers
• Regional sales leaders
• Business Development leaders
• CEO/CFO/CSO

SellingPower magazine Review of Primary Intelligence Webinar

SellingPower (the leading source of sales management information) gave Primary Intelligence top billing in its Sales Management Newsletter (Keeping Tabs On the Competition). Heather Baldwin, Contributing Editor, attended our webinar in April and provided a very thorough summary of our philosophy to create impactful competitive intelligence from your most productive information channels; your clients.

Give it a read. Most Sales Managers should recognize opportunities to quickly put simple competitive intelligence initiatives into play.

For more info, check out an early blog on our competitive intelligence, Voice of the Customer Should be Used to Collect Competitive Intelligence

Or, let's chat. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Getting to the Root of Your Sales Success (Win Loss Analysis)

Many companies want to know the best way to collect win loss information from their recent completed sales opportunities. While Primary Intelligence is happy to do this work for you, feel free to take away the following information and use it in your organization. These ideas (along with the past few posts) have provided information that should help anyone to successfully organize their first sales intelligence campaign:

Which accounts and how many accounts will be targeted for Win Loss analysis?
The accounts to be targeted for Win Loss review will be determined by you. Some companies choose to select specific key accounts for review, while most others elect to review a percentage of all their opportunities within a given time period.

Typically the number of accounts analyzed for a company in a given quarter range from a low of 10 to a high of 500. Ultimately the number selected should be based on your available budget or available resources for Win Loss and the goals you’re hoping to accomplish with this program.

How is the information collected?
For most Win Loss projects, the information is primarily collected via telephone interviews. We find this method to be the most effective. In some cases, a web-administered interview may be implemented, but the level of qualitative data ends up being almost nonexistent.

How many wins versus losses do we include?
Most companies use an equal number of wins and losses. The actual number of interviews will vary based on your specific project goals and your available data. While a few companies have chosen to focus on their losses, our experience has shown that it is very difficult to uncover best practices and seperate them from the weaknesses if you don't have quantitative proof of what is working well.

Can we get every account we win or lose to participate?
In some cases all opportunities targeted for review have participated, but in other projects it has proven impossible. The actual participation in every project varies based on a number of factors including, your sales relationship with the prospect, the amount of lapsed time since the decision was made, turnover and relocation of key persons in the accounts, types of questions asked, and the actual time to complete the interview.

Therefore, we have determined that a 50% response rate is a fair expectation. The final participation rate could be much higher or lower. The participation rate generally increases over time as your prospects and customers free up time on their schedule.

(And now, the plug for using Primary Intelligence...)

Why select Primary Intelligence to perform the Win Loss Analyses?
We understand the unique challenges faced by companies in today’s economy. Business as usual is no longer an option. Primary Intelligence solutions are based on structured, systematic, repeatable methodologies. Our extensive experience in performing Win Loss Analyses, execution ability and the quality of our work ensure the success of every program.

A few of our happy sales intelligence clients include companies such as Avaya, Microsoft, and Symantec among many others. The data collection methodologies and analytical tools used by Primary Intelligence provide a solid foundation upon which to conduct Win Loss Analyses in any industry. Additional references can be provided upon request.

We're here to help you be more successful. If you have any ideas, thoughts or a specific need, talk to me. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)