Sales representative, consumer goods company

· Finally, salespeople also know a lot of stakeholders who might be close to customers, such as suppliers, customers’ partners, and so on. Those players are great sources of intelligence about customers’ and competitors’ projects. For example, internship reports from college students fall into the hands of people who may not be the intended readers. Such reports tend to be informative and insightful. On another note, during hiring processes, interviews likely include competitors’ salespeople or sales man- agers, which might reveal interesting information about their previous company’s strategy.

· Salespeople’s Strategies to Collect Competitive Information

· Among these pools of potential informants, customers are the most impor- tant, regular sources of high quality competitive intelligence. Three main strategies enable a salesperson to collect relevant competitive information:

· 1. Being given competitive information

· 2. Asking for competitive information

· 3. Smartly investigating to find competitive information

· Being given competitive information. The best way to obtain high quality information is to receive it directly from the client at the moment it is needed. Three methods can lead customers to grant competitive informa- tion to salespeople, which we refer to as (a) Did you know, (b) This might interest you, and (c) I give you this for you and me.

· The (a) Did you know way means that the customer directly informs the salesperson, on his or her own initiative, that something is happening or will happen soon. This route is the quickest to high quality competitive information. It comes about largely as a function of the relationship quality between the salesperson and this customer. Such a client cares so much about its supplying salesperson that he or she wants to keep the salesperson constantly informed about details that might be important to him or her and his or her company. It also might mean that the trusted salesperson has asked this customer to share anything that happens in the field.

· “I have two customers who will call me whenever they see some- thing happening. I don’t even have to ask them, they’ll call me and inform me about what my competitor is planning. They are good friends of mine and they know what is important for me!”

· —Sales representative, B2B company

· The (b) This might interest you way suggests a customer offers interest- ing information to a salesperson without any request, but usually in an appealing way. Customers know that confidential information cannot eth- ically be sold or stolen, so they might just make it available or put it on display.

· “Sometimes, when I’m sitting in my customer’s office, he’ll tell me: I just received you competitor’s proposal, it’s right here on my computer screen, I was reading it…. I have to go to the bathroom for a minute, please feel comfortable if you want to make a phone call or take a look at something…. Of course, with such invitation, I usually get very interesting information!”

· —Sales representative, service company

· Finally, the (c) I give you this for you and me way means the customer directly shares information with a salesperson not only to help him or her but also to receive something in return. For example, a customer might share a competitor’s price in the hope that the salesperson will match or beat it.

· “Some time ago, a customer called me to help him negotiate the price of five elevators from X and make a proposal. It is a typical situation where you need to ask the foreman to go there, check everything, and write the proposal. This takes a lot of time, so you must validate the customer interest first before doing anything. I told my customer, either you want to make X lower their price and I’ll make you a proposal subject to a technical diagnosis and it will be quick, or as I just lost three deals to X, I can give you an interesting offer I’m already authorized to have, but you also help me win the deal without decreasing too much the market price. And I got it!”

· —Sales representative, B2B company

· Asking for competitive information. Many salespeople are reluctant to close the deal and ask for the order; many of them similarly are afraid to ask directly for competitive information from their customers. Closing is an art and a technique, with several routes to getting customers to agree. Yet at this important stage of the sales process, salespeople may become fearful, worried that asking for information might embarrass the customer. Instead, they hope the customer will initiate this process or give the go- ahead. But if they are sufficiently prepared, this step can produce a lot of interesting information. A candid technique tends to work best with customers with whom the salesperson already has good relationships, which then can be subjected to three types of requests: (a) Please do it for me, (b) Remember what I did for you, and (c) I want to make sure I always serve you better.

· The (a) Please do it for me way plays on a customer’s feelings; it also evokes an implicit promise to help the customer with favors in the future. Thus, this approach promises to help both sides.

· “They perfectly understand how important this kind of informa- tion is for you. I tell them I need this to advance myself, get recognized in my company, make my boss happy, it is impor- tant for me. I have customers with whom I get along very well and I can ask them anything! One day, I was in a customer office and I saw a competitor’s product notice on his desk, I told him, ‘Are you going to trash this, I’d rather put it in my bag…,’ and he gave it to me! You can also have great relationships but never ask for anything. If you don’t ask, you don’t receive!”

· —Sales representative, consumer goods company

· The method we call (b) Remember what I did for you refers to initiating a conversation that causes the customer to recall happy affect about some- thing the salesperson has done recently. Therefore, the customer is in a positive mood and ready to reciprocate and provide something of interest to the salesperson.

· “Sometimes, I also obtain information as a favor to a favor I gave. I tell my customer: I am glad I was able to obtain this rebate for you from my boss, it really helped achieve your target last quarter. I know my competitors are bit tougher on this kind of issues…. By the way, what are they up to these days?”

· —Sales representative, consumer goods company

· Finally, the (c) I want to make sure I always serve you better way means making the customer feel that sharing information with the salesperson will help the sales organization match competitors’ strategies, thus providing better service to the client.

· “A good way to get interesting information is to make the customer think that you’ll use it for his benefit. I sometimes ask them: What did our competition recently do for you, what kind of interesting projects they have coming? I want to make sure I can match what they are doing and continue to provide you with the best service I can.”

· —Sales representative, service company

· Smartly investigating to find competitive information. When relationship between a customer and a salesperson is not fully established, the latter still can use diverse strategies to collect important competitive information, including (a) Proactive and (b) Detective tactics.

· The (a) Proactive way refers to a well-thought-out question approach and strategy designed to obtain information from the customer. It usually demands a lot of courage from the salesperson, because he or she must probe customers with queries about competitors’ action, faking knowledge to get the truth, or cross-validating information from multiple potential sources in the field.

· “There is also a way to ask, preaching the untrue to get the truth, or fake that you already know what you don’t…. For example, one day in a store a client was asking me about our new products, and then I asked him: And what about you? What’s new? He then told me about competitor’s coming product, and then he said, no never mind, it’s not for now…. But I knew he was trying to tell me something…. Then with another customer I faked knowing that this product was coming, so that he was not revealing a secret, and he gave me the whole story!”

· —Sales representative, consumer goods company

· The (b) Detective way implies the use of subtle questioning tactics to trick the customer into revealing competitive information. This “Detective Columbo” approach works very well if the salesperson remains focused on his or her main goal, that is, to get the customer to talk, by circling around the information he or she really wants.

· “There is the discovery phase where I ask my customers about what’s coming, what’s new, what they are up to? But then at the end of the call I have something I do which I call the Columbo technique! I say, oh, I forgot to ask you … you’ll soon receive this from our competitor, right? How are you going to promote it? In fact, once you are done with the sales call, the atmosphere is different and we are not negotiating anymore. This is when you get interesting infor- mation. During the sales call, you are a salesperson, he is a buyer, but after, we are not really working and negotiating anymore, and quite often this is when you get interesting information you cannot get during a negotiation. In 80% of the cases, it works great!”

· —Sales representative, B2B company

· As we have thus outlined, salespeople can take advantage of at least

· eight different approaches to acquire information from the field and their customers. These strategies can be influenced further by appropriate man- agerial tools and processes.

Sales representative, consumer goods company

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