Competitive Intelligence Webinar – Key to Setting Up a Win Loss Program

Yesterday, Ralph Nielsen (Director of Research Operations) and I co-presented a webinar on how to set up a Win Loss program that works. We took the opportunity to talk about best practices, obstacles, unexpected value. If you are thinking about setting up an in-house effort or you work with a 3rd-party vendor for your Win Loss, we gave you a ton to consider.

Also, I have recently spent some time with our great clients talking about how they use Win Loss, to whom they distribute it and where it makes a difference in their companies. I turned the results of this work into a section in the webinar that I refer to as Seven Secrets of Making Your Win Loss Program More Effective. That’s kind of a long title, but it leaves little room for confusion.

If you would like to download the slides alone, you can find them HERE.

If you want to watch the entire webinar with audio and video, you can download that file right HERE.



Over the next few days, I’ll spend some time sharing the ideas from the webinar in the blog.

Also, we appreciate the many people that gave their time and attended. If you watch the presentation and have any questions or comment, let me know. Leave a comment on this blog, email me (cdalley@primary-intel.com) or give me a call (801.838.9600 x5050)

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

Competitive Intelligence Newsletter – Can Sales People Sell through Change?

This week, we examine the world of sales and the importance of monitoring their performance in the sea of change we call “their world.” Science has shown that many people (sales reps included) have difficulties accepting changes and variation that are common in business life. Primary Intelligence shows a way to head of problems before attitudinal issues hurt the pipeline.

As always, if you would like to a no-cost semi-weekly subscription to the Primary Intelligence Competitive Intelligence Newsletter, send an email to info@primaryintelligence.com with your name and email address. You will receive the next issue.

Cover Story
You Moved My Cheese! How Can I Sell?
By RoxAnne Loosle, Primary Intelligence
A company's desire to reduce sales force turnover and to develop a confident sales force make tracking a company's sales force's attitudes very important. The vocal minority aren't always the best source on which to base sales initiatives or policies...(For more, click here)

BlogCentral
Competitive Intelligence Tip #1 for 2008 - Make Your CI Produce Revenue
Information costs money? Intelligence makes money!” Essentially, any competitive information that a business manager acts on becomes intelligence...(For more, click here)

The A-List Archive
Bloomington Hospital & Healthcare Selects McKesson for Its Information Needs
Originally Published in March 2005.
Bloomington Hospital & Healthcare System's contracts for its health information systems were coming up for renewal, so the organization decided to reevaluate its options. It looked for a solution that could be integrated throughout the entire enterprise...(For more, click here)

Competitive Intelligence Webinar Archive

This year, we at Primary Intelligence have covered a number of topics in our webinar series. It has been our pleasure to show our clients and others understand a better way to stronger results from their competitive intelligence efforts.

All of our webinars can be downloaded from our archive page. Help yourself.

If you have any questions regarding any of these topics, let me know (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050). If you would like to receive invitations to future webinars, send me an email. And if you want to contribute a topic or work with us to co-host a webinar, let me know.

The following webinars are available at the archive page:

Three Benefits of Win Loss

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?

Cross-Functional Intelligence Teams

While information provides the fuel for strategic direction, how often does yesterday's "can't miss" intelligence initiative get lost in the shuffle of today's realities?

Overall, too many sales, competitive, and market intelligence initiatives are judged ineffective due to the fact that the intelligence is never used to increase sales, gain a competitive advantage, or capitalize on a new market opportunity.

Sales Confidence – 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.

Sales Intelligence in the Sales Force

Companies who use Sales Intelligence typically report an increase in market share and competitive performance by 10% or more. Yet, less than half of sales managers and reps claim to use sales intelligence of any kind.

Is your company taking the lead or are you falling behind your competitors in the use of this critical best practice?

How can your company go beyond general sales information to Sales Intelligence? Primary Intelligence would like to invite you to a Webinar on how to produce intelligence that actually makes a difference to both your marketing and sales personnel.

It was a dark and stormy customer satisfaction survey...

Customer Satisfaction, Account Loyalty, Win-back, Win Loss, Client Retention and Defection. They all have one thing in common – Your customers are talking to you, giving you valuable clues about your business and your performance. And they know almost as much about your competition as they do about you.

The question is: are your competitive intelligence initiatives more like Sherlock Holmes...or Inspector Clouseau?

If your information about your competitive success or failure seems more like lucky bumblings than the result of clever investigation, it may be because you’re overlooking this key source of competitive intelligence.

Turning Competitive Intelligence into Revenue

Q: Are your competitive intelligence initiatives bringing a measurable and sustainable ROI to your company?
o Yes
o No
o Unsure
o Huh? ROI from CI? Our CI is more like a black hole from which no revenue can escape!

Unfortunately, many organizations find themselves having to answer “No” or “Unsure” to this question. If your company is one of these, you should download Primary Intelligence’s Webinar, “Competitive Intelligence with ROI.”

This Webinar will explore ways that you can transform your competitive intelligence efforts from simple data-gathering exercises into revenue-enhancing tools. We’ll be discussing simple evaluative criteria that allow you to select and prioritize your strategies for the greatest effectiveness, as well as tools and techniques for maximizing the ROI of your intelligence programs.

Keep tabs on us in 2008. We'll make sure to keep the good stuff coming.

Competitive Intelligence Newsletter – Tips for Beginners

This week, the cover story provides some of the basics that even seasoned competitive intelligence veterans need. You’ll also find information on why sales doesn’t receive as much intelligence as you might like. Finally, a report from ES Research Group will help your sales leadership make sense of sales effectiveness enhancement companies.

Cover Story
The Top Three Box Office Flops for Beginning CI Researchers
By Ron Sathoff, Primary Intelligence
For a lot of people (myself included), a good piece of Competitive Intelligence research can have all the beauty of a piece of art, such as a poem, a painting—or even a film. Like these art forms, CI can inspire or instruct those who take the time to understand it, and can even effect significant change. However, unlike a beginning filmmaker, whose poor initial efforts may only result in a bit of ridicule at a local film festival, a “flop” from a beginning CI specialist may have some significant consequences—for both the researcher and his or her organization (For more, click here)

Announcing the 2008 Sales Training Vendor Guide from ES Research Group
Corporations continue to spend a significant portion of their revenues on sales training. Unchanged from last year, enterprises spend between $4 billion and $7 billion per year training sales professionals. Of all the excellent sales training vendors out there, only a few are a fit for your organization. This ESR/InDepth™ Report is designed to help your organization increase the return on your sales training investment.
ES Research Group has compiled their findings into a 200 page report. This 3rd party evaluation is a “must read” for companies seeking sales performance enhancement.
For a free summary, CLICK HERE.

BlogCentral
Why Doesn't Competitive Intelligence Flow to Sales?
Only 56% of sales managers claim competitive intelligence as one of their tools. A higher percentage of sales reps (68%) say that they use competitive intelligence to sell. All this seems to beg the question… why isn’t the sales department organizing competitive intelligence initiatives more often (For more, click here)

The A-List Archive
A-List – R-G Crown Selects S1 over Fundtech for Online Banking Services
Originally Published in June 2005.
R-G Crown Bank acquired 18 banks from SouthTrust Bank in October 2004 and wanted to implement new online banking solutions in order to provide better service to its customers and satisfy federal banking regulators (For more, 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.

Download our recent webinar on the topic (click here) or we can talk. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

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

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

Webinar Wrap-up: Effective Competitive Intelligence

Last Thursday, Mike Brose and I hosted a webinar called, “The Sad Story of Intelligence that Didn’t Make a Difference.” That is a fairly lengthy title and I’ll work on being more concise in the future.

But I digress…

Over time, we have seen many organizations that spend money on intelligence initiatives. Those initiatives might be market, sales or competitive intelligence. Most every company conducts some form of intelligence gathering. Whether primary or secondary, the intelligence is deemed important enough to have an effect on the success of the business.

However, we have also observed that many companies spend resources on the gathering of intelligence but have very little commitment to the use of that information. Rarely will a business spend so much money with so little regard for the potential return on investment. I take that back. Advertising seems to often fall into that category. But, that’s not the topic…

The topic of the webinar was based on helping companies make more effective use of the intelligence at hand. We expressed that we were not so concerned with the source or topic of the intelligence. Instead, we suggested how any type of intelligence might display more potential simply by making sure that it would be acted upon.

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


And, if you would like a summary, delivered in person, or would like to subscribe to our webinar notifications, send me an email and I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Upcoming Webinar – Making Competitive Intelligence Effective

Just wanted to let you know that I will co-host a webinar on September 27 with one of my associates, Mike Brose. The webinar will be conducted at 2PM ET (11AM PT) and is free of charge.

A summary of the webinar follows:

While information provides the fuel for strategic direction, how often does yesterday's "can't miss" competitive intelligence initiative get lost in the shuffle of today's realities?

Overall, too many sales, competitive, and market intelligence initiatives are judged ineffective due to the fact that the intelligence is never used to increase sales, gain a competitive advantage, or capitalize on a new market opportunity.

Primary Intelligence would like to invite you to a presentation that will show:

-Why competitive intelligence is often under-utilized
-How to generate findings that actually makes a difference
-How to start with the end in mind
-Different methods to ensure that the intelligence will provide a guiding beacon.

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

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/976829978

Date: September 27, 2007
Time: 2PM ET, 1PM CT, Noon MT, 11AM PT

Upcoming Webinar - The Sad Story of Intelligence that Never Made a Difference

Just wanted to let you know that I will co-host a webinar next week with one of my associates, Mike Brose. A summary of the webinar them follows:

While information provides the fuel for strategic direction, how often does yesterday's "can't miss" competitive intelligence initiative get lost in the shuffle of today's realities?

Overall, too many sales, competitive, and market intelligence initiatives are judged ineffective due to the fact that the intelligence is never used to increase sales, gain a competitive advantage, or capitalize on a new market opportunity.


Primary Intelligence would like to invite you to a presentation that will show:

Why competitive intelligence is often under-utilized

How to generate findings that actually makes a difference

How to start with the end in mind

Different methods to ensure that the intelligence will provide a guiding beacon.

Those that will benefit include:

Marketing leaders

Market research managers

Market and Industry analysts

Sales leaders

Corporate leadership positions (CEO, CMO, CSO)

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/162321711

If you have any questions, let me know (cdalley@primary-intel.com)

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)

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 can be downloaded here. 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.

Webinar: Putting Sales Intelligence into the Sales Force

Companies who use Sales Intelligence typically report an increase in market share and competitive performance by 10% or more. Yet, less than half of sales managers and reps claim to use sales intelligence of any kind.

Is your company taking the lead or are you falling behind your competitors in the use of this critical best practice?

How can your company go beyond general sales information to Sales Intelligence? Primary Intelligence would like to invite you to a Webinar on how to produce intelligence that actually makes a difference to both your marketing and sales personnel.

Through this presentation, Primary Intelligence will show:

• The difference between Sales Intelligence and sales information
• Why Sales doesn't make full use of Sales Intelligence
• Benefits of a coordinated intelligence effort
• How to bring intelligence to the front line effectively
• How your front line can solve most of your Competitive Intelligence needs

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

To Register, click here: https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/141819788

Those that will most benefit from this discussion include:

• Sales and Marketing leaders
• Market research managers
• Market and Industry analysts
• Sales reps and account managers

Webinar (Tomorrow) - Competitive Intelligence from your VOC Program

Tomorrow, I will co-host a webinar with Ron Sathoff. The presentation will be made on April 19 at 2 PM ET (11 AM PT). You can register by clicking here. Consider yourself invited.

The fact of the matter is that your customers know nearly as much about the competition as they do about you. They evaluated the competition before selecting you as their vendor. They are regularly courted by the competition and many of your best clients also have purchased from your competitors, either in the past or currently. Take a minute to see if your VOC program is generating competitive intelligence.

Come join us and expand your Voice of the Customer/Competitive Intelligence horizons.

If you miss it, we'll post it to our website later.