It’s not uncommon for Sales reps to have the most up-to-date and valuable insights about competitors and customers. Unfortunately, that information is not shared in a timely or consistent manner. But what if all that changed? What if your organization could implement the tools and methodology to make it easier to access and share these insights. With a structured knowledge-sharing system in place and clear incentives for contribution, it will become evident for everyone that contributing insights has an exponential impact.
When organizations struggle with their field intelligence programs, it is typically not a matter of resistance among the reps, but a lack of structure and methodology. With Wide Narrow, our platform provides a seamless and structured mechanism for engaging with your sales teams where they do most of their work (Salesforce, MS Dynamics, Hubspot, and others):
With a capable toolbox, structured methodology, and well-defined process your field intelligence program will be on the right track.
A structured and easily accessible way of communicating your requests/needs with the sales reps is a crucial success factor, but equally important is the ease of making a field contribution.
If you say, “anyone who hears something interesting about the competition, please email me here:”, it is likely that the response rate will be minimal. Instead, if you communicate that you are interested in learning about a particular company's launch date for a particular new product that is in development, the response rate and quality of feedback will be much better. For example, "Please help us confirm if their planned Q1 release is still on track”, the likelihood of feedback is going to be exponentially higher. The more specific questions you ask, the higher chance someone will accept the challenge and try to find that answer for you.
Make sure to add the origin of your competitor insights – if the same information was submitted from several reps, it is imperative to take the time to name them all. An easy way to “positively charge” the field contributions is to connect them with other process steps, like a win-loss program. When the rep fills out a form about their “New Logo Win”, that form should include questions about which competitors you were up against, why you won, insights on product features, business models, pricing, and any other insights about the competition gained during the process. When you publish the “New Logo Win” by Lisa Smith, Lisa is will be proud to be acknowledged for this new logo win. The competitor insights added to that announcement come with minimal extra effort.
An easy way to keep your sales teams engaged is to add an element of gamification. Rate their contributions with a scoring model with points, and present the top 5 or 10 contributors on your Field Intelligence Dashboard. Allow them to vote on the most important competitor insights every month. Challenge your teams to “have at least three reps” from their team on the Top 10 contributor list. When the Pacific Northwest team continuously has more reps with a high score on the scoreboard, the Mid-West and the South-East teams will see this as a challenge, sparking increased field contributions.
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