Advisory Insider: For AR Leaders, Strategic Selling is a Blind Spot

Analyst Relations teams have direct sales responsibility, but don't often act like it.

Inarguably, Analyst Relations is a critical resource in producing effective corporate marketing/communications and driving world-class solution management practices.  Acting as a conduit between their businesses and analyst organizations, AR teams position their firms’ strengths to influencers and distill voice-of-customer inputs from influencers to drive compelling market differentiation, build defensible value propositions and compress cycle times in corporate go-to-market efforts.  AR has tangible impact on building better products, identifying lucrative buyers/markets and driving sales.  

It is not difficult to observe the role AR plays in marketing and solution management.  It is also easy to visualize the role AR plays in sales as they oversee how their customer facing initiatives (client events, PR, advertising, lead generation, etc.) leverage influencers to generate revenues. 

AR teams are deeply trained in project and program management.  They are totally fluent in market development, messaging, and offer/product management processes.  But there is a significant blind spot in how AR teams prepare themselves to engage influencers.  Namely, how many AR teams have gone through formal Strategic Selling training?  The irony here is that many AR organizations have a “we versus them” dislike (disdain?) for advisory salespeople, sales processes, and sales activities – while at the same time they are perpetually selling to analysts.  In short, AR teams do not think of themselves as salespeople.  But they are.

At its core, the strategic selling process is all about prospecting, engaging, qualifying, advancing and closing opportunities.  Strategic salespeople understand that the buyer has limited resources (budget) and they work to position their solution in a way that the buyers understand how it uniquely solves a critical problem for them.  If the cost of your solution is less than the impact of their problem you have a defensible value proposition that the buyer can support. This applies as much to AR teams as it does to the very sales teams that carry quotas for the products AR promotes to analysts.

For AR teams, you are the salesperson and the analyst is the buyer.  You are selling them the belief that your solution is compelling for end users … that understanding, appreciating and recommending your solutions will make them more successful and impactful analysts.  You are presenting an offer to the analyst -- and the asset that analysts have to spend on you is TIME. 

The total budget of a typical analyst is roughly 2,000 hours a year and you want them to spend the appropriate amount of that limited resource engaged with you to fully appreciate your unique value proposition and then to spend as much time as possible producing research or engaged with buyers accurately positioning your strengths. 

What many AR leaders have not grasped is that you are not buying their time.  You are selling them on the idea of them spending time on you. 

What are you up against?  First, your rivals want the same thing you do and are often are already doing exactly what you do.  Second, for the influencer, it isn’t just a choice between meeting with you versus a rival.  It’s you versus write a research note.  It is you versus doing personal research and learning to get better at their role. It is you versus doing an advisory day with an end user.  It is you versus do more inquiries. They have 2,000 hours a year to spend and you want them investing that time with you.  Their budget is fixed and there are myriad alternatives competing against you for their time.

It is not uncommon for a typical analyst to have between 300 and 600+ hours a year dedicated to inquiry (prep, delivery, post-call).  Add to this another 500+ hours for research design, production and delivery.  Personal and career development adds another 100+ hours.  Events and conferences can consume another 100-200 hours.  Corporate obligations (training, reporting, upskilling, etc.) is another 100 hours.  That leaves about 25% of their total hours for you to engage.  Your research contract does not guarantee access to this time or obligate the analysts to meet with you. 

So, why is it better for them to spend that limited remaining time with you instead of with a rival or on some other priority?   It comes down to understanding the value selling process and the key tenets of value

1. The customer defines value:  For AR, the analyst is your customer.  You may be the customer of the Analyst/Advisory firm, but in the case where you are working with an analyst, the analyst is YOUR customer.  Change your mind set on who is the buyer and the seller in that scenario first. How does the analyst define YOUR value?  Is it clear as to why they should spend time with you? 

-          If you think they need to meet with you because YOU are the customer, stop.  You have it backwards.  Think of them as your customer.

1. Value is not what customers are buying, it is what they think they are buying and what you must believe you are selling.   In the AR cycle, analysts need speed, efficiency, clarity, and vendor interactions that map to their research agendas.  Make it easy for them.  Make them smarter faster.  Give them access to your customers so they see real-world business scenarios.  Have your visionaries/domain experts engage as peers.  

-          If you think that you are the peer of the analyst, stop.   They are your client. You are not peers.  Analysts believe CIOs, CIO-directs, and your senior executives are their peers, not AR. You can have professional relationships. You can have personal relationships. But in the end, they are your customer. And like any customer, they have the power to say, “No” and will have constantly changing needs, requirements and expectations that you need to react to.

1. Value is a moving target.  Building a compelling AR/Analyst engagement program is hard, but its longevity is severely limited.  Members of your team leave and take best practices with them to your rivals.   Analysts observe best practices and coach other AR teams about what is working.  What makes your AR program a world-class operation today will be table stakes tomorrow.  

-          If you think that your AR program and analyst engagement plan is a compelling long-term solution to ensure analysts stay engaged, stop.  The only way to ensure analysts keep spending (time) on your firm is to have a finely tuned analyst listening system.  You need to constantly change and adapt.

2. Value = Performance/Cost.  The only want to adjust to a moving target is to either continually increase performance and/or to continually decrease cost.  In this case, analysts define their performance across all the time investments they make (advisory, publishing, research, etc.)   What can you do to drive better quality, expertise, and productivity?  Cost in this case is the time they need to spend to accomplish their responsibilities.  How can you help them compress cycle times?

-          If you do not talk to analysts about how they are measured and what their goals are, Start.  What performance can you help drive and what cost (time investments) can you help reduce. This is a never-ending cycle.

3. Past value does not guarantee future value.   Regardless of how strong your AR program is today; you cannot assume that it will be successful in perpetuity.  What delights influencers today will be expected behaviors in the near future and soon copied by rivals. 

-          If you are not continually looking over the horizon to see how analysts define the value of their relationships with vendors, Start.  Analysts love to talk about their role, duties, responsibilities and vision. See how your AR value proposition ties.

These value tenets are core to many strategic selling methodologies.   Training your AR leaders in strategic selling processes and re-envisioning the seller/client relationship through the eyes of your customer (the analyst) is key. In my career as marketer, researcher, consultant and sales executive I’ve been certified in several value selling methodologies … but the one I always got the most help from was ValueSelling Associates (for what it's worth).