It’s all too easy to assume that by briefing the lead analyst on a vendor or on a coverage area, your job as AR professional is done.
Don’t…
While some firms have robust sharing practices, such as repositories for presentations and vendor briefing teams that check which other analysts may be interested in a briefing, you can’t rely on those for the following reasons.
- You know best what you’re trying to say.
Vendor briefings follow the firms’ coverage model, and it usually works. However, you might want to brief some analysts in a “new” area, as you’re about to launch a new product or respond to new trends. Think for instance of Cisco entering the servers market, Oracle launching apps for the iPhone, etc… - Politics hinder the information flow Some topics breach the usual silos within analyst firms and as a result you need to brief several analysts. In an ideal world, we would all be working in happy-family-like-companies and all work together towards achieving the highest customer satisfaction. However, some analysts may not view positively others stepping on their coverage area while others may not spontaneously and proactively share the information. It’s not only job protection, it’s also the fact that they tend to have incredibly busy schedules, with some targeted to produce over 15 notes per year, in addition to the briefings, the sales calls, the events and the customer engagements.
- Metrics can prevent analysts from collaborating
The way people are incented can also play a role. In some firms analysts get more brownie points for notes they write solo (which is IMHO as perverse as incentives for long notes). So, do make sure you tell everyone what you’re up to to facilitate collaboration (but don’t force it).
- The coverage model may not work for what you’re trying to say
For instance, if your are doing AR for some products that are not part of a firm’s coverage map but may impact the edges of some analysts’ interest areas. There are also firms that have decided to cover “roles”, which can mean that they won’t effectively cover industries. In those cases, try to find a theme that’s of interest to some analysts or propose vertical case studies to horizontal analysts.
Key learning point: look further than the “obvious” analysts, remember your job is to sell ideas and not everyone’s buying off plans!
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Agreed, the role of AR is both to go both deep and wide… deepen knowledge and relationship with key analysts while also expanding awareness and baseline knowledge within key analyst firms. There are many benefits: helps breaks downs the silos that often exist in analyst firms and aids in any collaborative reporting; it ensures that analysts moving into new coverage areas have at least a baseline knowledge of your company and products. One other benefit… it increases the number of analysts that can talk to press and customers about you (ie, reporters don’t always contact just the analysts you talk to).
A challenge though… some analyst firms and analysts may decline briefing invites if they don’t see themselves as the lead analyst in that space or don’t see a “return” on the time invested in taking the briefing. So communicating its value in the invitation is important (and hopefully having an existing relationship will help). It is also helpful to have one of your key analysts help promote participation with other members of his/her team.