Posted on June 23rd, 2010 by Dave Stein
The sector that’s probably most familiar with industry analysts is technology. If you play in that space, you’ll know Gartner, Forrester, and Aberdeen, among others. You’ll find industry analysts in other markets as well. Depending your industry, you may recognize the names Frost & Sullivan, KLAS, Bersin and Associates, JD Powers, Jane’s, and of course [...]
Filed under: Industry Analyst, Marketing | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 18th, 2010 by Dave Stein
For those of you new to this blog, my firm, ES Research Group, evaluates sales training companies. We deliver our findings in the form of reports, which we sell on our website, and through consultations with companies evaluating sales training providers. First a bit of background. For us, gathering data about sales training companies falls [...]
Filed under: Account Management, Buyers, Industry Analyst, Methodology, RFP, Sales Training Companies | 2 Comments »
Posted on October 9th, 2009 by Dave Stein
I thought I’d bring you up to speed on a few things going on. First, several new books on selling have recently been published: Smart Selling on the Phone and Online by Josiane Chriqui Feignon. Josiane gets it. I normally don’t endorse books like this, but because inside salespeople so often don’t have the skills, [...]
Filed under: Book Recommendation, Industry Analyst, Presentations, Research, Sales Training Companies | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 18th, 2009 by Dave Stein
Years ago, as VP of marketing, I was responsible for industry analyst relations. Early on I made plenty of mistakes, but as time went on I figured out how to effectively manage my company’s relationships with industry research analysts, resulting in correct positioning, sales leads and plenty of positive coverage. I vividly remember the penalty [...]
Filed under: Account Management, Industry Analyst, Sales Strategy, Sales Training Companies | 4 Comments »
Posted on May 4th, 2009 by Dave Stein
What’s going on here? Sales training has been around for more than 100 years. Yet every year, new approaches appear with the promise of being “The Silver Bullet.” Old approaches—even those that are relevant to fixing the proble—are labeled “old-school,” and rejected. On Amazon.com there are 29, 469 books under the category of “How to [...]
Filed under: Account Management, Buyers, Economy, Industry Analyst, Professionalism, Research, Technology | 26 Comments »
Posted on December 12th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I received my regular opt-in email from BNET this afternoon. The subject was, “Discussion: Why Industry Analysts are Sales Tools.” Hey, I thought, that looks like it would be interesting! So I open the message and I see this link: Industry Analysts… from an Analyst. Now this really looks interesting. So I click. Turns out [...]
Filed under: Industry Analyst, Marketing, Research, Sales Training Companies | No Comments »
Posted on December 5th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Each year ESR publishes its annual Sales Training Vendor Guide. The 2008 Guide, which was published last December, compares and contrasts 19 leading sales training providers across many different capabilities such as depth and breadth of offering, program effectiveness, educational design, available customization, post-program reinforcement, learning technology support and measurement. Although the 2008 Guide came [...]
Filed under: Buyers, Economy, Industry Analyst, Measurement, Methodology, Research, Sales Training Companies, Technology | No Comments »
Posted on November 18th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I recently had an enlightening conversation with Walter Rogers (CEO) and Lawne Gerhardt (VP of Global Sales) at Baker Communications. ES Research hasn’t covered Baker because they weren’t a pure sales training play—sales training content makes up about half of their broad array of course offerings. You might not have heard of Baker. Even Walter admits they’ve been [...]
Filed under: Buyers, Economy, Industry Analyst, Methodology, Research, sales process, Sales Training Companies | 1 Comment »
Posted on October 14th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Jim Dickie and Barry Trailer, our colleagues over at CSO Insights, are currently in the process of launching their 15th annual Sales Performance Optimization study, the past results from which have been regularly featured in Harvard Business Review, Business Week, Entrepreneur Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Inc., CRM Magazine, etc. We at ES Research have also presented some of [...]
Filed under: Industry Analyst, Measurement, Research, sales process | No Comments »
Posted on August 13th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Last week I wrote a post about the panel I was on with Bill Friend. I referenced my colleague Olin Thompson. Olin is somewhat of a genius when it comes to sales and marketing strategy. At the present time he is VP of Strategy at Lawson Software. For a number of years Olin ran the “Credibility Forum” [...]
Filed under: Buyers, Industry Analyst, Marketing, Presentations, Research | 4 Comments »
