Podcast: Sales Intelligence + Sales Team = Big Success

Recently, Dave Stein (CEO of ES Research Group) interviewed our CEO, Ken Allred on the affects of sales intelligence: competitive intelligence that can be brought to bear on all aspects of the sales process. His goal was to understand how Primary Intelligence uses intelligence to increase sales close rates.

As Mr. Stein’s company focuses on the evaluation of sales training and enhancement companies. His reports detail the performance of key players like Miller Heiman, The Complex Sale, The TAS Group and dozens of others. His goal is to help companies that want to sell more find the right resources to meet their needs.

To this end, Mr. Stein took time to understand how the right kinds of intelligence can be leveraged to provide:

Competitive advantages

Increased visibility into your company’s performance

Identification of your competitors’ movements

The audio program is 25 minutes long and can be downloaded here.

If your responsibilities include sales management, sales training, competitive intelligence or marketing, this podcast is well worth your time.

And, if you feel like you’re not sure where you stand in relation to the competition, you’ll find usable insights and take-aways you can use today.

Upcoming Webinar: Keys to a Win Loss Program that Works

Your company knows that it needs feedback from the market to perform and a Win Loss program makes a lot of sense. Marketing can make adjustments. Sales can target their training. Product Development can build it closer to what the clients expect. Just one question:

What is the most effective way to run a Win Loss campaign to develop all of this information?

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 huge increases?

Primary Intelligence invites you to a presentation that will show:

How sales and marketing can work together to build a world-class program

Common obstacles that derail Win Loss initiatives in the early phases

Tactics that increase interview response rates

Real-world stories from successful Win Loss practitioners showing their innovative uses of results

Register Here

Keys to a Win Loss Program that WorksDate: Thursday, January 24, 2008
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
Duration: 1 Hour
System Requirements:PC-based attendees: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, VistaMacintosh®-based requirements: Mac OS® X 10.3.9 (Panther®) or newer


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

Growing your Sales Skills with Feedback from Prospects

Over the past couple of months, I have spent a good deal of time speaking with our clients (past and present) about their use of our services. For those not familiar with Primary Intelligence, we are a company that produces Win Loss analysis, a specific form of research based on your company’s recent sales opportunities.

One of the reasons for the calls with our clients is to understand how they assimilate our data into their processes to be more effective. While we have many notions (based on assumptions) of how our clients should be able to find value in our services, it has been fascinating to “observe” how they are putting this program to work, either as a standalone or holistic sales intelligence program.

When I finish this exercise, I’ll create a Sales Intelligence best practice report. Not only will in include best practices, it will also include some outlying innovations create by our base. If you would like to receive a copy of this, please send me a message (Chris, cdalley@primary-intel.com)

In many of our most successful implementations, the sales group is in charge of the Win Loss program. While this might seem like a natural thing, Marketing and Competitive Intelligence departments are also interested in Win Loss for their own purposes.

Those that are most committed to using research and client feedback to make improvements have implemented regular debriefs with the sales rep and their manager. These meetings do not have to be long and they certainly are not meant to devalue the efforts of anyone in the deal. Instead, the sales operations or sales training representative uses the client feedback to illustrate the real needs of prospects, talk about trends that are emerging from deals all over the company and reinforce specific skills that have been trained in the company.

In these cases, sales reps are becoming more effective. And, interestingly, the more engaged the sales rep gets with the feedback, the more willing they seem to be to offer up more of their opportunities for review. Once they see Win Loss for what it is (building, training and improvement) rather than a witch hunt, the entire tone changes.

Whether your company looks to 3rd-parties to deliver this feedback or maintains the program internally, I recommend that the client feedback be presented to the sales reps in a form that is as unfiltered as possible. Sales reps want to be more productive. If their efforts with prospects can show them how to be more successful in the future, why wouldn’t they get behind this type of effort?

How Does Walmart Affect Your B2B Sales Opportunity?

So, you are selling a multi-million dollar health care plan covering nearly 100,000 lives and right in the middle of things, Wal-Mart throws a wrench in the works.

How can that be? Wal-Mart doesn’t sell health insurance. But, still Wal-Mart becomes the pivotal factor in a sales loss for Vision Care:

Primary Intelligence: What were the primary reasons you did not select Vision Care?
Vision Care: “We were impressed with Vision Care’s overall solution and bid, but it just did not provide that much in addition to what we had with the incumbent, FocusCare. The costs and plans were very close, but we did not really see anything in the Vision Care plan or the Vision Care pricing that would compel us to make a move.

We weren’t unhappy with FocusCare. One thing that was a bit of a concern with Vision Care was one of the major vendors that our employees use, Wal-Mart, was not in the Vision Care network. If our employees don't get much of a break, but have to change their provider, that costs the company.”

Everything else being nearly equal, Vision Care loses because it doesn’t have the right providers in its network. All other value propositions were met and the rates were competitive.

If Vision Care wants to be a serious contender, selling to multi-billion dollar enterprises, this information has to be pushed up to the executive boardroom immediately. This feedback, delivered in a timely fashion, will make a huge difference in the future.

What are you doing to consistently collect sales intelligence? How far does this information travel within your organization?

Let’s talk about Primary Intelligence’s ability to provide feedback on all of your sales opportunities. Your prospects are waiting to tell you how to win next time. (801-838-9600 x5050 - Chris)

Why Do Sales Teams LOSE? – Rely solely on face-to-face interactions (9-10)

As mentioned, I’m going to present reasons why companies win and lose sales deals. These reasons were outlined by Ron Sathoff, a colleague of mine, in a great article for SAMA magazine called “Five Ways to Bolster Your Strategic Account Strategy, and Five Ways to Sabotage it.” (The article is available for download HERE)

This article was written to help answer the ultimate sales question, “How can we win a lot more deals?” In order to find the answer, Ron started by addressing the questions, “Why do we win and why do we lose?” Each of these points were taken from a library of thousands of win loss sales debriefs and compiled into performance rankings.

9. Rely solely on face-to-face interactions.

In the movie “Jerry Maguire,” a sports agent is referred to as the “King of the house calls. Master of the living room.” It seems that many sales representatives see themselves in this same light, assured that they can make the sale as soon as they can get some “face time” with the customer. However, you can’t be a master of the living room if you don’t get invited into the house, and according to many of the respondents, the most common invitation that gets lost is the RFP. The complexity of a strategic account requires a well-thought-out plan, and many customers determined the organizational skills of a supplier by the proposals that it submitted. By treating the RFP as a mere hoop that must be jumped through, account managers damaged their chances of success.

Some of the responses indicated that problems in response to an RFP were a sign that the supplier did not understand the situation or the project requirements, that the supplier did not have experience creating proposals or, as one respondent explained, that the supplier was trying to hide something:

“When we issued the RFP, [Company 1] was the only one that declined to offer pricing. It presented a nice package, but declined to give us this information. When I saw the pricing, after I threatened to reject them out of hand, I understood why it didn’t want to give it to me.”

In cases like these, the account managers would have to work extremely hard to rebuild the confidence and trust that was lost due to poorly constructed responses. Personal interactions are important. You cannot build a strong relationship without them. The opportunity for a personal interaction may never occur, however, unless you have built a strong case for why the customer should consider meeting with you in the first place.

Why Do Sales Teams LOSE? – Failing to Do Homework (8-10)

As mentioned, I’m going to present reasons why companies win and lose sales deals. These reasons were outlined by Ron Sathoff, a colleague of mine, in a great article for SAMA magazine called “Five Ways to Bolster Your Strategic Account Strategy, and Five Ways to Sabotage it.” (The article is available for download HERE)

This article was written to help answer the ultimate sales question, “How can we win a lot more deals?” In order to find the answer, Ron started by addressing the questions, “Why do we win and why do we lose?” Each of these points were taken from a library of thousands of win loss sales debriefs and compiled into performance rankings.

8. Fail to do your homework.

Another criterion associated with the Strategic Account Manager that had a negative gap was understanding and addressing the customer’s business needs. As with responsiveness, meeting the business needs of the customer was more often noticed when something went wrong. In these cases, account managers damaged their chances of a success when they failed to take the time to research the customer’s industry, company and particular situation. As one respondent commented, the first step to understanding the business needs of a customer is asking the right questions:

“I sat down with [Company 1] and said, ’Here are the 17 technical things that I am concerned about.’ They came back and asked more questions to understand how we do business and then gave me responses, whereas when I sat down with [Company 2], they said, ’Yes we can do that,‘ and I just didn't feel that same comfort that it was really taking the time to understand how we do business.”

By choosing not to take the time to fully understand the needs and requirements of the customer, an account manager can ensure that his or her organization will not be selected, or that there will be major problems later on if the company is selected. On the other hand, account managers who do their homework about the needs of the customer and the problems it faces can address those issues directly, reinforcing the value of the offering.

Why Do Sales Teams LOSE? – Lack of Responsiveness (7-10)

As mentioned, I’m going to present reasons why companies win and lose sales deals. These reasons were outlined by Ron Sathoff, a colleague of mine, in a great article for SAMA magazine called “Five Ways to Bolster Your Strategic Account Strategy, and Five Ways to Sabotage it.” (The article is available for download HERE)

This article was written to help answer the ultimate sales question, “How can we win a lot more deals?” In order to find the answer, Ron started by addressing the questions, “Why do we win and why do we lose?” Each of these points were taken from a library of thousands of win loss sales debriefs and compiled into performance rankings.

7. Take your time responding to requests.

One of the surprises of this study’s findings was the fact that many of the criteria associated with Strategic Account Managers (SAMs) (such as responsiveness, the relationship with the account team and presentation) showed negative gaps. From these findings, it appears as if the best account managers often go unnoticed, whereas any negative behavior in the sales process is remembered by the potential customer. Nowhere is this more evident than in responsiveness. Very few respondents mentioned the responsiveness of the SAM as a reason for selecting a supplier. Problems with responsiveness, however, were noticed and mentioned as a primary reason for eliminating a supplier from the evaluation process. An example of how to create a negative impression was provided by a respondent, who explained:

“[Company 1] was slow in getting around to pricing. The people that put on the presentation basically said, ’We will have to get back to you on that,’ and they never got back to us on that. It seemed very lethargic about getting back to us and getting us figures. It was like it was saying, ‘Let us go back and sharpen our pencils some more and take another two or three weeks.’”

The issue of responsiveness seems to be like a car engine: you don’t notice how it is performing until something goes wrong. A lack of responsiveness could quickly erode any sort of relationship that has been carefully built, regardless of other factors. Customers want to receive value sooner rather than later, and if the customer experiences responsiveness problems during the evaluation process, it can indicate that there may be problems with the supplier later in the relationship.

Why Do Sales Teams LOSE? – Clients Think “Price” Rather than “Value” (6-10)

As mentioned, I’m going to present reasons why companies win and lose sales deals. These reasons were outlined by Ron Sathoff, a colleague of mine, in a great article for SAMA magazine called “Five Ways to Bolster Your Strategic Account Strategy, and Five Ways to Sabotage it.” (The article is available for download HERE)

This article was written to help answer the ultimate sales question, “How can we win a lot more deals?” In order to find the answer, Ron started by addressing the questions, “Why do we win and why do we lose?” Each of these points were taken from a library of thousands of win loss sales debriefs and compiled into performance rankings.


6. Let the customer think in terms of “price,” rather than “value.”

The number one reason for not selecting a supplier was price, which in and of itself is not particularly surprising. When examined in relationship to the criteria of “value offered,” however, an intriguing pattern emerges. Price, on its own, had a significant negative gap score, meaning that price was mentioned more often when discussing reasons why a supplier wasn’t selected. Value, on the other hand, had a positive gap score; in fact, value was only mentioned when respondents explained why a supplier was selected. In other words, when eliminating a supplier, respondents thought in terms of price. If the respondent thought in terms of value, they were more likely to select the supplier in question. This corroborates the ongoing movement in strategic account management to create value for customers.

As some of the previous examples in this article illustrate, customers were often willing to ignore the strict price of offerings if they were able to see the overall value of the partnership. Customers make decisions based on the value that can be created for the enterprise. A focus on price indicates that the customer is unsure of how the offering will create value—how it will solve a compelling need or produce a desired result. Customers who are unsure about how the product will do either of these are more likely to think in terms of price than in terms of value.

Of course, whether or not a customer thinks in terms of price or value was not entirely dependent upon the whims of the customers themselves. SAMs who do not construct a strategy based upon showing the overall value of the partnership (whether through ROI, added value or other means) do themselves a disservice, and seriously handicap their ability to develop successful accounts.

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

Use Competitive Intelligence to Determine Positioning in Sales and Marketing

In a standard win loss project, one of the exercises we at Primary Intelligence perform during the interview process is to allow the respondent (a recent decision-maker that evaluated our client) rank the top three company, product and sales performance areas. The result is often a chart that looks like the one below:

Quickly, our client was able to see how to rework the sales message to be more effective. They changed their talk from customization and implementation to technology, functionality and integration. They used those topics to build the value proposition and outmaneuver the competition on cost.

It should be noted that, in this case, our client was one of the higher-end vendors. If they addressed price in the first sentence, they rarely made it to value.

Interestingly, Technology was rarely rated as the #1 criteria, but it was the second most mentioned criteria in the list overall.

Do you have this kind of visibility into your sales and marketing messages? If not, let’s do a couple of post-sales analyses free for you. Give me a call and let’s set something up. (Chris, 801-838-9600 x5050, cdalley@primary-intel.com)

Competitive Intelligence - A Quantitative Evaluation of Your Sales Team's Performance

Every sales manager uses a grading system of some type for individual sales reps and the collective sales team. One of the most interesting measurements we have found is based on feedback from outside the organization. At Primary Intelligence, we let the prospects tell you how you are doing as a company. If the measurements are gathered consistently from enough sales opportunities, we have the ability to show you the strengths and weaknesses of your sales team in up to 30 different performance areas.

The table below shows a sample report from an actual client. The measurements are based on 30 opportunities where our client won and 30 where the prospect chose a competing vendor. (Click on the image below to enlarge)


It is important to note that these measurements are most effective for planning changes to tactics. Strategic insight would be better displayed through Primary Intelligence’s predictive analytics. You can email me about the analytics or read back through some older posts for more info.

Anyway, when reviewing scores like those above, the positives are your current competitive strengths and the negatives represent your overall weaknesses.

As a VP of sales, I would use this competitive/sales intelligence to show that overall, we need to emphasize our industry experience. I would also recommend that the company implement a program that helps sales reps understand the business of their prospects. These are both fairly simple to solve, require very little money, and have nothing to do with price.

Primary Intelligence could also bring some training to the table to develop the improvement plans and increase sales team effectiveness in these two areas of sales performance weakness.

Do you know what your prospects think of your performance? Maybe, it is time to ask. We can help you. We’ll show you how to do it and we’ll provide an end-to-end solution if you need one. I can give you details (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Why Does Your Sales Team Lose Opportunities? Ask the Prospects.

In a recent study for a prominent software company, Primary Intelligence talked to companies that recently evaluated their enterprise offering, but selected a competing vendor. Below, you’ll find a list of the most common reasons why the other vendor was selected:


Notes to Consider
• Respondent companies were able to choose more than one reason
• Percentages don’t necessarily add to 100% due to an abbreviated list of most common responses
• A series of interviews with clients that did choose this vendor indicated many positives

So, let’s understand these data for what they really are. The prospective clients were evaluating this company’s offering. Most likely, they had a pain or other bothersome business issue that caused them to seek a solution. The prospects needed something other than status quo to move forward.

The prospect is likely to solve their problem with one that eliminates the pain or removes obstacles. If your offering causes as much or more pain than it solves. They aren’t going to buy. Likewise, if your offering is better than status quo, but more painful or problematic than the competition’s, you are going to end up on the outside looking in. These are fundamental value equations.

We can look first at the top reason: Price. You would expect price to rank near the top when interviewing losses. Most of the time, our experience shows that price is really a way of saying, “I didn’t see the value in the offering.” In other words, if the solutions does what it is expected, value increases and price is less of an issue. After dozens of thousands of opportunity reviews, I would guide the reader toward the top 3-5 reasons other than price. (I’ll let you read and interpret the chart as you will.)

“So what,” you might ask. “Neat data. What do I do about it?”

Do something about it. Coordinate this competitive intelligence between sales, marketing and product development to create an evaluation scenario that eliminates the most prominent reasons and increases the odds that the next prospect will form a favorable perception of your offering.

Why study something if you’re not going to use it for change?

I have more ideas on making the most out of competitive intelligence, sales intelligence, market intelligence. Let’s chat if you have a few minutes (801-838-9600 x5050, cdalley@primary-intel.com)

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)

Same Vision Insurance Plan, Different Model

It was easy for our client to go into the sales opportunity. They were pitching a comprehensive vision plan to a multi-billion dollar computer systems vendor. They had the right people. They said the right things. They had a price advantage of six figures.

But, (based on this opportunity review by Primary Intelligence) it wasn’t enough to knock out the incumbent:

What were the primary reasons you did not select VisionPlan?
“Network disruption was the primary reason. The business model for VisionPlan is strategically different than the business model for RIGHTEYE. RIGHTEYE’s model relies on incorporating individual, independent ophthalmologists and optometrists across the nation. VisionPlan utilizes chains like Optical Mart. When we did a network comparison between the physicians within the respective zip codes of our employees, the disruption was more than 80 percent. That would mean, if I were currently a patient of Dr. Jones and we selected VisionPlan, Dr. Jones may not be a part of the VisionPlan network. The cost model was very compelling, but we weren’t willing to disrupt 28,000 people and their family members to save a couple hundred thousand dollars.”

Was this a case of not having the right service, communicating poorly or staying in deal too long when the chances of winning were too slim?

What do you think? (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801.838.9600 x5050)

Clients are Not Stuck in Today

If you have ever had to worry about this quarter’s numbers (and what sales rep hasn’t), it is easy to lose sight of the long-term picture. But, I guarantee that the client has very little interest in the next 90 days. They are talking to you with a year, two or five in mind.

In the example below, our client, Trilight, lost a deal, even though they were comparable in most every way. Primary Intelligence learned the reason why:

What were the primary reasons you did not select Trilight?

“Actually, the decision came down to the very end. Everything seemed to be very similar. We felt, and this was a team decision, that Manifesto had the depth and breadth to do the job. We thought that our account exec at Trilight was phenomenal. We knew she could get the job done, but we weren't sure about the actual corporation or the company. With Manifesto, we were more impressed with the company than the account execs. There wasn't a point of improvement or anything at that point.”

What were the primary reasons you selected Manifesto?

“They presented to us differently. We went to on-site visits at Trilight and at Manifesto. When we went to BI, the difference was we saw more of what they could do for us. We toured their buildings and stuff, but it was more than that. They brought representatives for each department into the room to present. They would come in and do their key element and then leave. At Trilight, we walked around and we saw a lot, but Kelly answered all the questions for the most part, not the so-called experts in that area.

“Manifesto’s method was more appealing because we could see that there was a team of other people to do the work. Our account executive at Trilight, Kelly, was wonderful. She knew everything from front to back, but if Kelly ever left, we didn't know what would happen. Could the other people do the work? We knew she could; she's been there since the start of her career and she's grown up there, but we didn't know, if she decided to leave the company, that they could do as good of a job as she did.”

While Trilight had equivalent services and a good relationship, they lost because the sales experience did not convince the client that they would have adequate resources to service them over the long haul.

Moral of the story: Think long-term with your prospects. You can talk about the price they will pay today, but it is better to show how valuable you will be to them over years of service.

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

Sales People Need Competitive Intelligence

In some recent studies from Primary Intelligence, we have asked representatives from various industries and company sizes "Who has access to the competitive intelligence data?"

For the most part, Competitive Intelligence is distributed to executives and marketing managers. Sales receives the information to a lesser degree.


From our observations:

-Execs receive the data. Generally, they are sponsoring the research

-Point of the lance (Sales Reps) are not being included

-Indicates a predominance of strategic intelligence over tactical intelligence?

From my point of view, I think that it is an interesting phenomenon that the sales reps are not receiving the competitive intelligence as often as other departments. If they are front line, I would want to push out a little more information to them and help them be more competitive. If I were a sales rep, I would ask for more of this information.

I am curious about your experience with the executive group. What do they ask for the most? And, in your experience, do they use the information you provide? My experience is that many CI initiatives are reactionary ("Why did we lose that deal?!?!? When did [competitor] start selling widgets to compete with ours?!?!?!") By the time the Competitive Intelligence has been compiled, so much time has passed that the data can't be used.

If you had competitive intelligence, would you use it? If you asked for competitive intelligence from the marketing department, would they produce it for you?
Think about the competitive knowledge that would provide a competitive advantage. Write it down. Ask for it.

And, call Primary Intelligence. We provide the intelligence that helps sales people sell more. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

You Got a Check. Did You Really Win?

In last week’s post, I gave an example of a company that won a deal, but learned something very important about its pricing structure.

Below, I’m going to share a little more about the deal. After reviewing this information, tell me if you think this company is winning business or not.

“They don’t demonstrate their products. I have never met a representative from FlashNet* in person, and that has a lot to do with my rating. They have never shown up. They are definitely not getting the share of business that they could get because of it. I can guarantee it. “I’ll give you an example: we bought a 20 TB storage area network. 10 TB is currently installed, and were looking at upgrading it. They’re in the storage networking business, so they wouldn’t come see us; they were not even in the list of potential vendors because of that reason. It’s that simple.

“Lunch meetings do make business. They have never visited us. I’ll give you an example: I probably spend about $1 million to $2 million in Cisco equipment a year. Last year, I only spent about $60,000 with FlashNet; this year, I probably spent about $200,000 with them. For the last four years, they have only had a small portion of my overall Cisco business, and when you look at it from an enterprise perspective—for example, we just spent $20 million on a new clinical information system—out of $20 million, FlashNet received no money from that project. We have a budget of $30 million, and FlashNet received just $60,000 of that. It’s because they will not fly anybody out here.

“They don’t have a presence out here, and that’s unfortunate for them. They are a good vendor; it’s unfortunate that they will not come out to meet their customers.”

*Name changed to maintain confidentiality

The fact of the matter is that FlashNet got a check and sold some stuff, but they received less than 1% of the total budget and 0% of a project where they had a potentially strong solution. FlashNet is probably getting a little money just because it is an incumbent in some part of the client's business.

This is probably not a unique case. How many times is FlashNet losing because of a short-sighted decision not to travel and visit? There may be logistical reasons, but this client is located in a suburb of Portland, Oregon; hardly the backwaters of the B2B sales world. Last I checked, Portland has an airport and rental car services.

Do you think that FlashNet will make any changes to its processes based on the information above? I hope so. I hope this information goes to the executive level rather than being shelved with all of the other dusty reports. I’ll probably never know. But, if I were an exec, this is the kind of intelligence I would need.

I would stop high-fiving the sales guy for winning $60K and start asking questions about why we’re not taking $5M.

If you feel differently, or if I’m missing something, let me know (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

And, if you want this type of intelligence on your new customers and lost prospects, Primary Intelligence does this kind of stuff every day.

Sales Feedback for Sales Execs

Sales leaders are always in a quest to win more business for the company. Some sales leaders even turn to statistics and research to determine best practices. The most successful implementation of these programs often brings consistency in the best practices to the middle and lower parts of the sales achievement pile. You don’t always have to make the eagles fly higher. It is often better to figure out how to get the sparrows and crows up where the eagles fly.

One of the most effective pieces of information is the answer to “Why do we win and why do we lose?” Many companies don’t yet know this answer objectively. Some are starting. In my experience at Primary Intelligence, very few have been scientific about this.

The best place to start to answer this question is to understand what went right/wrong in your most recent sales opportunities. There are many ways to gather this info. I’ll discuss a couple.

After the sales deal is done and you have won or lost, who do you turn to for feedback on the actual sale? Many say that they do a post mortem review with the sales rep or team involved in the deal and this is a good start, but let me tell you why this is a system that is bound to fail from the start.

1. Sales guys are naturally going to take credit for the wins. It is stereotypical, but sales reps are likely to take a substantial amount of credit for bringing in business. I can understand that fact, but the result of this exercise is not likely to produce a program that will help elevate the middle of your sales pack. There is only so much you can do with the message, “I won because I’m good!”

2. Sales guys are likely to deflect the blame for losses. “We were beat on price” or “the deal got fouled up when the owner’s brother came in with a different provider.” Again, you have to have a pretty strong self-perception to be successful in sales and taking the blame for deals gone bad does not help you much at all.

3. Sales guys may not know what went wrong. After all, if they knew exactly what the prospect wanted from the beginning, they would have been able to perform better or get out of the wrong deal earlier.

4. In the end, it doesn’t matter what the sales rep or team says. The only perception that matters is that of the prospect. I don’t care what the sales rep says nearly as much as what the prospect perceived throughout the sales engagement.

Personally, I recommend that you spend all of your energy gathering the feedback from the lost prospect or won client. If you want to know why companies select you or walk to a competitor, that’s the only information that really matters.

If you have successfully implemented a win loss post-sales analysis, let me know. And, if you would like to see a very nice compliment from one of our clients, check out my other blog here.

Talk to me about your thoughts. Post a comment or give me a call (801-838-9600 x5050, cdalley@primary-intel.com)

Tactical Sales Intelligence - Creating Competitive Advantages for Sales Teams

For a sales rep who deals in the tactical world, an objective measurement of strengths and weaknesses may be the difference between winning and losing a deal.

At Primary Intelligence we provide a view into the prospects’ perception of your sales efforts. We measure their perception of the sales team, company performance and product fit. These three areas are almost always considered in complex sales.

In a more transactional setting, we find that product and sales performance are the most important.

Recently, we completed a competitive intelligence analysis for a client and found that they had a number of competitive strengths. Their list of competitive weaknesses was relatively short, which was no surprise considering their prominent market position.


However, if there was an area of concern, it was in the performance of the sales team. There were a number of areas where, compared to the competition, their scores did not measure up.

Presentations, Subject Matter Knowledge and Understanding Business Requirements are all areas of some concern. The recommendation to the sales group was to improve the presentation style and delivery. Additionally, the sales team should spend a little more time practicing their listening and understanding skills. If they were to listen better to requirements, the presentations would probably improve as they became more targeted to the specific needs of the prospect.

Again, these are tactical improvements that need to be addressed right now to level the playing field. These are not strategic recommendations. For more insight on the data needed to make strategic plans at the executive level, see my other blog regarding impact-based competitive intelligence.

Do you see something in the data here that I’m missing? Let me know (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)