Competitive Intelligence Newsletter: Double Your Money: Win Back Lost Sales…

In this week’s cover story, Mike Brose talks about the double benefit of winning back accounts that were never yours. And, don’t forget to download our recent webinar: Three Benefits of Win Loss You Can’t Ignore

Cover Story
Double Your Money: Win Back Lost Sales with Intelligence
By Mike Brose, Primary Intelligence
Too often, companies are willing to wave "goodbye" to lost prospects, hoping that, "Someday, they'll give us another shot." In essence, the effort that was put into selling is dismissed. Rare is the company that has a formal win back program. But these companies have learned very clearly just how profitable those programs can be... (For more, click here)

BlogCentral
Why is Competitive Intelligence Not Effective?
In short, does your company make changes to increase revenues and profitability based on your intelligence efforts? Based on our experience, if you are like most companies, the effect of your intelligence efforts are minimized and, often, substantially... (For more, click here)

The A-List
iLinc Wins Pfizer Contract with Mixture of Technology, Content and Customer Focus
Originally Published in December 2004.
Executives at Pfizer's Global Learning and Development Group wanted to upgrade its training and assessment tools for its pharmaceutical sales personnel. The three short-list vendors were required to submit proposals, which were evaluated by DeLosa and a team of Pfizer personnel from strategic services and healthcare systems training. Although the proposals were intended to be the main element of the evaluation process... (For more, click here)

Competitive Intelligence Webinar Wrap-up – Three Benefits of Win Loss

Last Thursday, Ron Sathoff and I co-hosted a webinar on the topic of Win Loss. Over the years, Primary Intelligence has conducted dozens of thousands of sales debriefs for our clients and some major benefits have bubbled to the surface. Yesterday, we took time to discuss each of the following topics:

1. Actionable Competitive Intelligence


2. Analytics to predict ROI


3. Win back programs

Of course, one of the prime benefits of Win Loss analysis is the fact that your sales teams can sell more effectively with intelligence. But, the benefits extend much deeper than that. When Win Loss is done properly, the competitive intelligence that it generates can improve marketing, product development and corporate strategy just while providing the competitive boost for sales.

You may also want to consider a test run of two free win loss reports, based on your own sales opportunities. If you are new to PI, you might qualify for a test drive. If you have some interested in this, send me an email and let me know (cdalley@primary-intel.com)

If you would like to download a copy of the presentation, please click HERE

Another Endorsement for Win Loss Analysis

One of our clients in the Blue Cross Blue Shield network was kind enough to provide an assessment of the success of their win loss program, which they have outsourced to Primary Intelligence:

“The real value of the Primary Intelligence System to us, is their uncanny ability to drill through Producers directly to Group Leaders and Group Decision makers and engage them at a level denied to us over and over again.

At that level, Primary Intelligence uncovered the truth, the real drivers of decisions on healthcare, and gave us the opportunity to address those directly the following year.

We won back 7 of the 30 losses the previous year and those wins were driven by knowing the truth.” - Senior Healthcare Intelligence Analyst

If you are considering a win loss program, you might consider the following:

How much more successful would your company be at selling new deals if you really knew why you win and lose?

How much revenue would you gain if your company could win back 23% of lost sales within 12-24 months?

What would the ROI be if you were able to create a more solid “win” and increase the likelihood that your current client base would stay with you longer?

These are the results that Primary Intelligence delivers daily. If you are missing out, let’s chat.

You can join our webinar tomorrow (2PM ET, Regiester HERE) or we can talk. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Protect Yourself from Mystery Shopping CI Efforts

Your company has to be prepared for major and minor efforts to infiltrate your confidential and proprietary information.

I'll share a couple of stories that touch on this topic.

Mostly, Sales Leaders HAVE to understand how much intelligence can be accidentally shared by their sales reps and how often it happens. Mystery shoppers are employed every day to drill into companies and discover everything they can.

I’ll start with a story and follow-up comment:

"In the spring of 2005, Guy Enright, an accountant at KPMG Financial Advisory Services Ltd. in Bermuda, got a call from a man identifying himself in a crisp British accent as Nick Hamilton. Hamilton said he needed to see Enright about matters of utmost importance.

"Over the course of two meetings, Hamilton led Enright to believe he was a British intelligence officer, according to a person familiar with the encounters. He told Enright he wanted information about a KPMG project that Hamilton said had national security implications for Britain. Soon, Enright, who was born in Britain, was depositing confidential audit documents in plastic containers at drop-off points designated by Hamilton.

"But Nick Hamilton was not an agent of Her Majesty's secret service, and the documents never found their way to the British government..." (Continue Reading the Article)

Den Taylor, Strategic Insights, added his comments to the article:

"As a strategic intelligence professional, I am often asked to provide counter-intelligence counsel to deal with similar circumstances. What is invariably found in such cases is in today's global economy, intelligence gathering by any means is a simple fact of life.

"Unfortunately, many organizations do not convey this to their employees, making them easy prey to the entreaties of individuals utilizing simple forms of pretext. Interestingly, we have found that dealing with this problem is relatively simple.

"We recommend that clients conduct periodic education programs that cover the means by which outsiders gather intelligence. Such programs are often coupled with designating a knowledgeable intelligence person who can provide advice on how best to deal with unsolicited contacts. Although taking this step does not guarantee that valuable internal intelligence is never compromised, it does make the pursuit of such information much more difficult."

As a sales leader, have you thought about educating your company on the tactics employed by your competitors? You can start by identifying the behaviors of a mystery shopper and then branch out into other possible areas of espionage. Your company’s employees don’t have to be experts on espionage. They just have to be able to sense suspicious activity and notify the right people.

In short:

Your company has to have a plan to combat espionage and potentially harmful intelligence efforts

As a market, sales or competitive intelligence professional, you should have input into that plan, if you don’t manage it outright.

A list of suspicious activities needs to be prepared and distributed

Your employees need to know how to handle a suspicious call or activity. Do they escalate it to a manager or contact your department?

Be ready to prosecute. Illegal activity needs to be punished. (Your legal department should get a kick out of this)

If you have ideas or questions, let’s chat. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Competitive Intelligence Newsletter – CI for Sales, No exceptions

In this issue, you’ll find out how hunters and farmers can both use competitive intelligence to increase market share. Additionally, you can sign up for next week’s webinar (Three Benefits of Win Loss You Can’t Ignore) and take our “3 Second Survey by clicking the picture below.



Click on any of the titles below to read the story.

Cover Story
ORDER MAKERS V.S. ORDER TAKERS-Competitive Intelligence for All!
By Tony Randall, Primary Intelligence

Let me cut to the chase right up front. Yes, there is value created by both order makers and order takers. There, I've said it. Every organization which has something of value to offer to the consumer or business world via the sales process has either a sales team of order makers (outside sales usually), order takers...(For more, click here)

BlogCentral
How Can You Tell if Competitive Intelligence is Effective?
Your competitive intelligence is very similar to the electricity in your wires. You can produce as much sales, market or competitive intelligence as you like, but until someone uses it to power change in your organization, it really isn't effective at all...(For more, click here)

The A-List New!
AboveNet Sees the Future in Ciena's Long-Haul Communications Equipment
AboveNet, Inc, a competitor to AT&T, Level3 and Verizon evaluated a number of vendors before choosing Ciena Corporation to upgrade its legacy Lucent equipment. The decision was strongly based on Ciena's willingness to play the part of partner to AboveNet, helping AboveNet anticipate future needs, coordinate technology tools and maximize the value offered by Ciena's products. Additionally, Ciena was able to show AboveNet a compelling vision of future technology needs...(For more, click here)

Sales Intelligence and Competitive Performance Comparisons

It is no secret that your competition wants the sales as badly as you do. Sometimes, they may want a particular account even more than you. They are going to put forth their best effort, just as you would expect your team to do the same.

In the end, the prospect has to decipher substance from fluff and make a decision. What are the factors in play? Nearly everything. Whether conscious or subconscious, the prospect is evaluating dozens of dimensions of combinations of influencers and decision-making drivers. These might include:

Company
Financial Viability
Industry experience
Reputation
Company Size

Product
Overall solution cost
Ease of use
Scalability
Solution flexibility
Complete solution set
Functionality
Integration
Turnaround time

Sales
Demonstration
Existing Relationship
Integrity
Product knowledge
Responsiveness
Sales relationship (relationship with the sales team)
Presentation
Professionalism
Understanding needs (grasp of business)


The prospect is spending a ton of time evaluating your performance and that of the competitors in each of these dimensions, again, whether or not they recognize it consciously.

How well are you able to identify the prospects’ perception of your company and the competition in each of the following performance areas?

Benefits
A great company is one that is willing to accept the brutal facts. Individually or in aggregate, how does your company perform versus the competition in the most essential performance areas? The answers to these questions, coupled with analytics to show the areas of greatest impact and highest ROI, will provide your company with sustainable competitive advantages.

Marketing
You can’t improve that which you don’t measure. Convert your reports of competitive strengths and weaknesses from anecdotal to reliable measurements. Predictive analytics provide the illumination necessary to make the best use of the data.

Sales
Measurements of sales performance will provide quantitative data to sales management. Future training will be focused more directly on the current problems and identified strengths can be emphasized. Most importantly, the performance of the “eagles” can be measured and, with proper help, broadcasted to lower performing sales professionals.

Recommendations

Measure your performance scores and competitive gaps over time to track changes in competitive advantage.

Employ analytics to determine areas of highest impact on your future market share.

Create lists to measure company, solution, and sales performance.

Primary Intelligence offers both win loss and account retention services to measure your company’s performance in high-impact areas.

…not to mention predictive analytics that add ROI projections to all of these measurements.

Webinar Invitation - Three Benefits of Win Loss You Can't Ignore

In the last five years, Win Loss analysis has gone from a little known niche project to a recognized best practice. In the most progressive companies, executives demand that sales, marketing, and product development listen to Win Loss feedback and work together to become more competitive.

The opportunity to increase your sales and marketing success sits right at your doorstep. But, do you have everything you need to achieve the greatest potential? Can you make simple changes that will result in gargantuan increases?

Primary Intelligence would like to invite you to a presentation that will show:
• How to increase market share with predictive analytics
• Competitive Intelligence with insight rarely seen
• Win back programs that really work

Date:
Thursday, October 25, 2007

Time:
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT
1:00 PM - 2:00 CDT
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM MDT
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PDT

REGISTER HERE

Those that will benefit include:
• Marketing leaders
• Market research managers
• Market and Industry analysts
• Product development managers
• Sales leaders
• Corporate leadership positions (CEO, CMO, CSO)

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now

https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/913347113

Sales Intelligence and Win Back Campaigns

There is always an element of uncertainty in the purchase decision. Prospects are always concerned that they are being sold a bill of goods rather than a real solution. Of course, there are many processes in place to evaluate competing vendors and their products, but it is difficult to be 100% certain until the product, service, or solution is completely installed and integrated with all of the other processes in the company.

You know this is true. A certain percentage of your clients wonder why they chose you. Sometimes, it takes Herculean efforts to keep new clients happy until they can realize the potential of your offering.

If this happens to you, it must also happen to your competitors. And within that reality resides the opportunity.

New prospects can be very tender, having not yet built up a loyalty toward their new vendor. It is during this time that they may be most susceptible to a renewed sales effort from your company. At the least, you should procure as much feedback as possible to understand how you can compete more effectively next time around with the same company. After a lost sales attempt, how capable are you of knowing your chances of reacquiring that prospect in the near future?

Benefits
A large percentage of buyers surveyed who recently dismissed a key supplier reported choosing another supplier that offered basically the same product or service. This finding indicates that the lost account’s needs have not changed and can still be filled by the dismissed supplier.

Importantly, buyers also report their dismissed suppliers do not even attempt to win them back. Only 25% reported the dismissed supplier offered an apology and only 14% of buyers said dismissed suppliers adopted a keep-in-touch strategy with them.



Marketing
Proper post-decision systems will reveal whether a “prospect that got away” is content with its new vendor. While most prospects make the “right decision” for their company, a surprisingly large group are either disenchanted or outright disgusted with their new vendor. With this in mind, identifying these companies while the sales relationship has not yet cooled may provide greater opportunities once the existing contract ends.

Sales
Provide a sales professional with a list of companies that would likely defect from their current vendor and you’ll have a friend for life. After all, your sales organization already has a relationship with the prospect and probably made it to the final cut. If your company can assure the prospect that you were all set to deliver on the sales promises, the sales success rate increases.

Recommendations
Make a consistent effort to capitalize on spent sales efforts. A win-back program based on those sales opportunities that were almost yours may be a productive source of business in the near future.
Use a third-party vendor to consistently gather post-sales data and improve response rates.
Consider how unbiased feedback will provide realistic expectations for your company.

Sales Intelligence: Post-implementation Analysis and Client Loyalty

Your new client just finished an install of your product, service or solution. They are ramping up on understanding how to gain the ROI that was promised during the sales pitch.

Or, in a different company, they chose your competitor’s product. Your former prospect is trying to figure out what they have purchased and whether it will actually function as promised.

In either case, it is imperative that you gather feedback from the prospect to understand how they feel about their new vendor and the odds that they will stick with you or defect from the competitor. This type of loyalty information will help you understand where problem areas may exist with your current client base and with those of your competitors. In the end, if you can keep 10% more clients in the fold, your revenues and profitability have increased significantly. And, if you can steal away 10% more of your competitors’ defectors, you have gained market share at their expense.

So, after a lost sales attempt, how well could you say how pleased your former prospect is with their vendor selection?

Benefits
Post-implementation analysis will uncover discrepancies between your competitors’ sales messages and the reality of their solution. Arming your sales professionals with this knowledge will provide them with ammunition to direct the prospects’ questions during reference calls.



Marketing
Asking these questions of both your lost prospects and newly won clients will help solidify your position as an industry leader. With this intelligence, you will be able to identify and fix areas where your company falls short versus the client’s expectations. You will also be able to identify problem areas in the competition’s execution. Never underestimate the power of this type of intelligence.

Sales
While sales should not be a mudslinging contest, sales professionals are always on the lookout for information that will help destabilize the faith a prospect may have in a competitor. Sometimes, a prospect needs a little coaching on the types of questions to ask the competitor’s references. These tidbits can be a great benefit.

Recommendations

Be willing to listen to the feedback from your clients and prospects about your company’s ability to deliver according to the expectations set during the sales process

Develop an executive champion that will make improvements based on this feedback.

Review the objectivity of a Primary Intelligence Win Loss Analysis opportunity analysis and determine the relevance to current strategic objectives.

Sales Intelligence – Increase Market Share (Learn from Past Mistakes)

The sales world is an interesting place, especially in a complex sales environment. So much effort on the part of so many people comes together to accomplish the goal of selling a measure of value to a prospective company. In reality, the only thing a business can do is create revenue and profit. The services and products offered are the tools to accomplish the goal of the business entity.

But things don’t always work out as you would like. Prospects often zig when you expect them to zag. Sometimes, a lost sales opportunity looks like wasted time and expense. But, there is much more to a lost sale than lost time. There are lessons to be learned. Improvements in performance should be made. If mistakes caused the sales opportunity to die, those errors should be corrected. Otherwise, they will end up being very costly mistakes indeed.

Most companies perform some sort of sales debrief with the sales reps involved in the lost opportunity. That’s a start, I suppose. But, really? Shouldn’t you spend your time with the prospect, understanding your company’s performance from their point of view? After all, they have the money. Who cares what the sales reps say? The only perception that matters is that of the prospect. So, ask yourself, “How well would you be able to understand how to win a similar account in the future based on your experience in this recent opportunity?”

Benefits
Market share is built one account at a time. An increase in sales win rate today will equate to significant increases in market share in the near future. Great companies are those that learn from past experiences and translate them into future successes.


Marketing
Understanding those things that work most consistently in different industries and segments ultimately provides your company with the ability to execute more effectively. Would you rather be a company that follows best practices in your industry or that establishes them?

Sales
The least likely outcome of most sales losses is a thorough, honest debrief from the prospect. By the time most deals are done, the sales professional has moved on to the next opportunities and the prospect is unlikely to proactively reach out on their own to provide feedback on the sales performance. However, a consistent feedback program has the potential to show a sales professional how to be more effective next time around.

Recommendations

Make time to follow up on a large percentage of recent sales opportunities

Establish an expectation with sales management that these efforts will be distributed to the sales professionals

Review sample win loss opportunity profiles from Primary Intelligence to determine whether the intelligence is useful and packaged in a professional format.

Sales Intelligence: Fixing the Pain Points with Value

It is said that a company makes a purchase decision for one of two reasons. Either, the company has a problem that is painful enough to be solved or the presented solution offers so much value that it would be foolish not to purchase. This is the most basic of sales. But, the problem that exists over time is that marketing believes it understands what the value proposition SHOULD be when, in fact, the prospect sees things in an entirely different light. In fact, the prospect could not care less what you think the value of your solution is. They are only concerned with how the solution will apply to their own problems within the workings of their own company.

Have you ever undertaken a 3rd-party evaluation of your value proposition and compared the findings with your current messages? How often are you able to identify the factors that were most important to the prospect in the decision-making process?
Benefits
At their root, businesses don’t make purchases (especially substantial purchases) without either having a strong pain that needs to be fixed or pursing a vision that will bring great benefit. The vendor that solves the problem most elegantly is likely to win the value proposition battle.


Marketing
While most marketing departments focus their message on the accepted value proposition, few of them look to recent sales successes to discover those specific nuggets that are making the difference for their company right now. It’s one thing to understand which messages play well among the marketplace. It’s another level completely to know what is tipping the prospects’ decisions in your favor.

Sales
With this intelligence, sales can bring pressure to bear directly on the pain points. Communication will revolve around the highest areas of value with peripheral differentiators being brought into play. The best sales professionals know how to communicate value. Now, you can provide more consistency.

Recommendations

Look to your current new client base and understand what caused them to choose you over the competition.

Interview those companies that chose the competition. Discover their perceptions of all value propositions in play and refine your message. Then, push it down to every sales professional in the organization

Consider the fact that Primary Intelligence generates more sale intelligence with measurable ROI.

And, if you have an thoughts along these lines, let's chat. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801.838.9600 x5050)

Sales Intelligence - Misalignment between You and Your Prospect

The greatest chance of sales success for your company is to propose a solution that clearly matches the needs of your prospect. In a perfect world, the only thing that would matter would be the product, service or solution your company offers. But often, the sales process hits a snag.

Where you thought an opportunity was headed down the right path, suddenly, it is stalled, or worse… you are informed that your role in the sales process has ended. This is a reality of sales, but do you ever really get the feedback you need to understand what happened and why? How well is your sales management able to identify when something unusual happens during the sales process to help or hinder your chances of success?

Benefits
For an organization to succeed, intensely managing service quality is absolutely essential. It is only through customer alignment that the organization is on track toward a single, shared vision of customer focus and customer value—a vision that energizes people and the organization to accomplish extraordinary things. The point at which your company ceases to show tight alignment with the prospect during the sales process is likely to be accompanied by the sound of a door closing.

Marketing
Alignment is one of the most important goals of marketing. When marketing can show how the company’s solutions parallel the needs of the prospect, lead generation efforts will function more efficiently, competitive forces will be weakened and commoditization avoided.

Sales
Sales professionals often know when they have lost a sales opportunity, but they rarely receive consistent, straightforward feedback telling them where their effort weakened and the competition surged ahead. Feedback on the moment of truth will help increase the likelihood of a positive result in a similar future situation.



Recommendations

Provide new clients and lost prospects the opportunity to discuss the event horizon of the opportunity.

Be ready to listen without defending misunderstood messages.

Primary Intelligence typically includes this question line in its Win Loss Analysis solution.

Perhaps, we should chat about a process that would help you find answers to this type of question. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Competitive Intelligence Newsletter – Make Intelligence Relevant

In this edition, Adam Dunford makes the case for intelligence that makes a difference. The blog entry backs up the idea by showing a case of intelligence that wasn’t effective, and wasn’t going to be from the start.

If you would like to subscribe to this free newsletter, simply send a request to newsletter@primaryintelligence.com with your name and email address. You can also register for the same subscription online in the margin of any of the stories below.

Cover Story
Justifying Your Existence (and CI's too!)
By Adam Dunford, Primary IntelligenceSo you've spent the last several weeks and months gathering your CI data. In your presentation, you nail every important point on each of your 40 slides and can answer every question you get asked. As you finish, you hear it's the "best CI presentation ever". A few days later, fresh off your triumph, you ask for the budget to expand your CI program, only to be told, "It's interesting stuff, but we got what we needed." Ouch.(For more, click here)

BlogCentral
You Couldn't Make Competitive Intelligence So Irrelevant if you Tried
If your idea of effective competitive intelligence is gathering a bit of information, consolidating that information into a brief doc (perhaps on an attractive company letterhead) and sending that doc off to a distribution list, please stop reading. Go back to your cube, surf some more web sites and live a happy life...(For more, click here)
The A-List Archive

Sun Microsystems Decides that Two Companies are Better than One
Originally Published in February 2005.
Sun Microsystems, which was already outsourcing many of its HR business processes, including its 401(k) plan, payroll, and benefits administration, wanted to explore the idea of outsourcing additional HR functions...(For more, click here)

Competitive Intelligence and Decision Cycles

How long has a prospect been in your pipeline? What are the odds that your company will make the sale after time has elapsed and is the likelihood increasing? And, do you even know how long it takes the average prospect in a given industry to make a decision? Your CRM/SFA doesn’t really tell you. You only know from the point that you are engaged; not the actual moment that the evaluation begins.

Benefits
How does a prospect make a decision? Do different industries or company segments take different amounts of time to come to a conclusion? How does your company decide when to maintain an engagement or withdraw from a low probability opportunity? The answer to these questions can save your sales department large sums by identifying those opportunities that are likely to move to decision vs. eternal shoppers.

Marketing
With a constant flux of prospects in a dynamic marketplace, it is difficult to remember that each prospect begins with the end in mind. To each company, the buying process is a discreet event that needs to be completed to solve a specific problem. If Marketing can shed light on this aspect of the buying process, your company can work to more effectively meet the evaluation needs of different companies in various industries.

Sales
The advantages are twofold: First, knowing the window of time when an opportunity is likely to close in your favor helps to identify when the pipeline is too full of non-producing fluff. Second, with this type of information, you can identify key events in the sales process that correlate with positive decisions.

Recommendations

Communicate with prospects to determine their start/end points in the buying process

The prospect may have engaged your company later in the sales cycle. Data from your CRM/SFA may not be accurate enough to show evaluation cycles.

Talk to Primary Intelligence. Our Win Loss Analysis and Account Retention solutions typically demonstrate where the key decision points occur in different industry and company size segments.