Friday Rant – I Love Adam “Roud” – The Importance of Competitive Intel

It’s critical to have competitive intelligence. There are a number of ways to get competitive intel – One of the tried and true techniques is to contact a competitive organization, pretend to be a prospect, and ask pertinent questions. The following is a story of such an attempt:

While I was on vacation in NYC, I received a voice mail from a gentleman named Adam Roud (If you’ve read my posts before, you’ll know that I always change the names to protect the innocent) from a company named “Sequento” (Google it…it doesn’t exist). Adam’s voice mail asked a pricing question about an application component that could not be purchased alone – This would be similar to calling the Mercedes dealership and asking the price of the drivetrain (”No, I don’t want to know anything about the car, just tell me how much the drivetrain costs.“). Immediately I realized that this question doesn’t pass the “Smell Test” (e.g., if it doesn’t smell right, it probably isn’t right), but I called Adam anyway, to try to get an idea of what he was hoping to accomplish, and determine if my company’s solution might meet his needs.

Cell Phone, with no company name provided – things are smelling worse.

I left a VM asking for a time to chat and determine exactly what he was looking for. Qualify young reps – Qualify. Since he didn’t call back, and for all of the items I’ve identified above, I considered him a junk (unqualified) lead, and I set a 30 day follow up in Salesforce.

When I saw the reminder earlier this week, I thought back to the Smell rule, which prompted me to search Adam’s name in LinkedIn. Lo and behold – Adam works for a competitor. I called the competitors office, asked for Adam, and let him know that I would love to chat with him, since it’s always good for competitors to get to know each other. At the time of this posting, Adam has not called me back, and has likely joined the witness protection program.

So here’s my point – Competitive Intel is King, so how can you get it?:

1. Act like a Prospect – Note to Adam’s boss – Get him acting lessons, because if he’s as bad of a sales support engineer as he is an actor, you should probably cut him loose.

• Make the Cover Story fit – In the era of Google, it’s probably a bad idea to name a company that doesn’t exist
• Pretend to be someone else – With resources like LinkedIn, Spoke and JigSaw, you probably shouldn’t use your real name.
• Ask relevant questions – Back to the Mercedes example – You should probably ask questions about the solution as a whole, and sound like an educated prospect (”After looking at the BMW, I feel this Mercedes is the better buy because it has Leather, Sunroof and Heated Seats for the same price…but I’m curious about the drivetrain?”).

2. Research on the Internet – Again, in the era of Google, you should probably just search for your the information you seek.

3. Post-Mortem Follow Up’s – Talk to your customers who you’ve won during a competitive procurement, or wrap up with prospects you’ve lost. Always preface with – “I don’t want you to cross any ethical lines, but…..” Satisfied customers can provide insight about the competitive landscape, and prospects who didn’t select your solution can tell you why they went with someone else.

In the end – Adam – I love your moxie. You did the right thing, but you aren’t getting any Academy Awards from me.