What about an article on selling written by a top sales expert?  Or the online edition of the Wall Street Journal?  What about a research report providing you with an in-depth, comprehensive assessment of your major competitor’s strengths and weaknesses and advice on how to outsell them? If not that, what content would you pay for on the Internet?

Fifty-percent of ESR’s revenues are derived from online sales of our research reports.  As a result, we have an ongoing debate at ESR about “fee versus free” Internet content.  A significant percentage of people we speak with believe they can get any content they want—including what we publish—for free on the Web.  So why should ESR subscribers, Gartner, Wall Street Journal online, Lexis-Nexis, Hoover’s or Consumer Reports subscribers pay for content when 99 percent of what is online is free?

There are three reasons:

First of all, it’s the completeness of the content.  You get to see the front page of Wall Street Journal Online for free.  Want the rest?  Pay.  Consumers Reports gives you information about some products to some level of depth.  Want the rest?  Pay.  Dozens of sales experts continue to write hundreds of articles on selling.  Include me in that group.  Those articles are free.  They’re a form of advertising.  Do we tell the truth?  Sure.  Do will provide you with all you need to know to achieve sales mastery?  No way.  That would require considerably more than anyone could provide in an article or a book.  We charge for that. 

Secondly, it’s the quality of the content.  If you want content from trustworthy and experienced sources that have conducted methodical research, interpretation and analysis and have issued conclusions, recommendations or advice, you’ll likely have to pay for it.  If that’s what you need to run your operation, or buy the right car, or the right ERP package, take out your credit card. Or, hope that the site posting relevant and accurate content is making enough money from paid advertising to support a staff of experts. 

The last reason you’ll need to pay is that you can’t find everything for free on the Internet.  I founded ESR because there was no content available, fee-based or otherwise, that evaluated and compared sales effectiveness programs and the companies that provide them.  If you need what we provide, you’ll have to pay for that as well.

Now that I’m publishing fee-based content, I’m skeptical about what’s free. Some of it is terrific. A lot isn’t—a large percentage of white papers, for example.  To me, free could mean real value, but it could also mean biased, self-serving, incomplete,  one side of the argument or just plain wrong.

Help me through this logic, please.

Ann All (with ITBusinessEdge.com) posted an entry in her blog today about the optimistic outlook for CRM sales.  She wrote, “Datamonitor, KensingtonHouse, CSO Insights and Gartner are among the companies with an optimistic outlook on CRM.”  She then added AMR Research to the list.

I won’t dispute the prediction. 

What I will say is that progress is painfully slow with respect to CRM meeting the requirements of salespeople.  Help me through this logic, please: 

• CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, right? 
• Sales, Customer Care, Marketing and Finance managers all need their reports from the CRM system to do their jobs managing customers, right?
• Who inputs a fair amount, if not most of the data?  Salespeople, right? 
• They have to be prodded, threatened, incentivized and shamed into keeping their information up to date, right?
• Follow me on this, please.  If the salespeople don’t sell anything, there aren’t going to be customers and customer relationships for a CRM system to manage, right?
• So, why isn’t there anything in it for the salespeople?  In fact, don’t most of your salespeople use your company’s CRM system for little more than basic contact management? 
• So why does the task of keeping the CRM system up to date at the expense of their selling time make any sense at all? 
• Why don’t the CRM companies design systems help salespeople sell more?  Because salespeople aren’t their customers.  Management is.

What we need is more companies like White Springs and The TAS Group that understand the size and the impact of the CRM problem and are providing solutions.  And we also need CRM companies to start adding capabilities that will contribute to, rather than hinder, a sales person’s ability to sell.  When that happens I guess we should call it CRM 2.0.

Too many companies (especially SMEs–small to medium-size enterprises) have either no formal analyst relations function or one that is managed by someone who is not qualified for the job. An approach like that leaves those companies unprepared for the ongoing and very competitive battles for positioning that take place within some industries.

How a company manages their analyst relations function can be the difference between no coverage (or much worse, negative positioning) and having the powerful endorsement for your company and products from an influential industry analyst. Sales people will tell you that a positive analyst report makes some aspects of selling so much easier.

Analyst relations professionals we know have the experience to be able to answer these and other critical questions:

1. What are the ten deadly sins NOT to commit when working with an industry analyst firm?
2. What are the typical characteristics of an industry analyst that will enable you to more effectively work with him or her?
3. As a vendor, when should you be humble and when should you position yourself as an expert?
4. Does subscribing to an analyst’s research improve coverage of your products or company?
5. How are research briefs created and what impact can a vendor have on their content?
6. What are the three highest-level benefits you can enjoy from an effective analyst relations approach?
7. How can you best capitalize on industry analyst “rules of engagement?”
8. Precisely what homework must you do before you brief an analyst?
9. How do vision and ability to execute relate to how an analyst sees your company?
10. During a briefing, how do CEOs, VPs of sales, PR firms and VPs of marketing impact how an analyst sees your company?

The technology sector is most familiar with industry analysts (Gartner, Forrester, Meta, etc.), You’ll find them in other markets as well, e.g. Frost & Sullivan, KLAS,  JD Powers, Jane’s (and, of course, ES Research Group).

Here’s a start: Consider the leading analyst firm that covers your industry to be the most important strategic account your company has. If you view the relationship in that way, you’re moving in the right direction.