Connecting with Sales & Marketing Colleagues in Thanksgiving

[Ellen Naylor]

Thanksgiving is a time for sharing, caring and expressing gratitude. I am grateful to have so many wonderful friends in business. In the spirit of cooperative intelligence and sharing, I recently was a panelist in a SLA Competitive Intelligence division (CID) webinar on “Integrating Marketing and Sales to Capture & Deliver Intelligence.” While this is an SLA CID member benefit, all four of us panelists posted our slides on Slideshare.

I will list us in the order we presented so you have the benefit of a good flow:

Susan Berkman: Producing Intelligence for Sales & Marketing

Marcy Phelps: Competitive Intelligence for Marketing Professionals

Ellen Naylor: Collaborating with Sales

Anna Shallenberger: Research & Analyzing Competitors

Sponsored by Aurora WDC aka Arik & Derek Johnson

 

In closing, here is a poem about Thanksgiving that one of my Facebook buddies shared today. Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow or not, I think it presents a good way to view life!

 

Thanksgiving…. More Than A Day

As Thanksgiving Day rolls around,

It brings up some facts, quite profound.

We may think that we’re poor,

Feel like bums, insecure,

But in truth, our riches astound.

We have friends and family we love;

We have guidance from heaven above.

We have so much more

Than they sell in a store,

We’re wealthy, when push comes to shove.

So add up your blessings, I say;

Make Thanksgiving last more than a day.

Enjoy what you’ve got;

Realize it’s a lot,

And you’ll make all your cares go away.

By Karl Fuchs

 

[Johannes Deltl]

Thank you very much Ellen for the reall useful slides of your presentation. What I´ve seen in many companies is that getting the sales guys in a "sharing mode" is very often tricky, and needed often a top down push.

Regarding win-loss it´s I often come across the situation that this activity still remains within the sales departments - so it´s very likely that the output is biased (as you know).

Last but not least - my suggestion for presenters using slideshare (not Ellen, your slides are excellent):
Think about the reader/viewer at home and include an explanation in the text section of each slide (not only showing few words per slide). Otherwise the presentation might not reach the audience.

 

[Ellen Naylor]

Hi Johannes,

You're right in that a top down push helps! I have learned that once you start giving to Sales, provided what you give is dead on what they need, they are pretty good about sharing. Figuring that out can be tricky and many in competitive intelligence don't have adequate knowledge of how sales people sell and/or the tactical detail around the products or services that the company markets, which is most helpful to Sales.

Yes Sales is biased in Win/Loss and so is anyone else, but in a different way since it's not their relationship like it is with Sales. I still want to hear what Sales thinks, since they know their customer better than anyone else since it's in their best interest to keep building relationships with qualified customers.

Slideshare can be tricky and I think the slides were organized around what each presenter verbalized, and as an SLA member of the competitive intelligence division, you have the benefit of listening to the audio at will.

Thanks for your sharing!

Ellen