Taking vendor briefings is a big a part of an business analyst’s job. Analysts take briefings to find out about distributors of their protection; perceive choices, consumers, and tendencies; and inform their analysis. Briefings are a part of the analysis course of and assist us keep present on vendor choices and capabilities. Distributors don’t need to be shoppers to transient analysts, since briefings are designed to extend the analyst’s understanding of the seller, its choices, and the market. You possibly can study extra about briefing Forrester analysts right here.
Former Forrester analyst Josh Zelonis blogged about the best way to ship profitable vendor briefings years in the past. I’m updating his weblog with my very own ideas as a “recovering marketer,” Forrester analyst, and analysis director. This weblog is a set of my high ideas for briefing analysts, with contributions from different safety and danger analysts.
Promote Your Briefing
Analysts get a whole lot of briefing requests — loads. They’re additionally time-starved and should select the briefings which are going to be most impactful for them. Subsequently, they don’t say sure to each briefing request. When submitting your briefing request, make sure to let the analyst know:
- Who you might be. Be certain it’s clear within the briefing request what the title of your agency is. When you’re utilizing a 3rd occasion to schedule briefings, it’s not all the time clear.
- What you do. When you haven’t briefed the analyst beforehand, inform them what your organization does and what issues you resolve. You’d be shocked at what number of briefing requests I’ve seen the place I needed to lookup the seller and what it does.
- What the briefing will give attention to. Give the analyst a brief snippet of what you’ll be speaking about within the briefing. First briefings ought to give attention to the corporate and supply an summary of the answer. Replace briefings ought to focus on what’s new with the corporate, its technique, and its answer. It may be a few novel assault method or exploit uncovered by the seller. It could possibly be buyer case research and examples to make the answer actual for the analyst. Make it attention-grabbing! Would you spend half-hour or an hour on one thing if it wasn’t?
- The way it’s related to them. Clarify how the briefing is related to the analyst, their protection, and the shoppers they serve.
- Why now. Let the analyst know why the briefing is important now and the way it will assist their information of your organization and the area.
Don’t be shocked or get offended if the analyst declines the briefing request. Analysts decline briefings for a lot of causes, equivalent to being too busy with analysis, shopper supply, or journey. They might additionally not see a necessity for a briefing on the time in the event that they’ve talked to you pretty just lately or there’s nothing new they must be up to date on. Supply to ship them info by way of electronic mail in the event that they don’t have time for a reside briefing.
Additionally, briefings are designed to be one-way interactions. They’re for distributors to teach analysts about themselves and their options. Don’t count on the analyst to provide you real-time suggestions throughout the briefing or present market insights, that are higher left to advisory for in-depth suggestions and inquiries for questions in regards to the market (these are sometimes restricted to shoppers).
Use The 5 W’s And An H
Former Forrester analyst John Kindervag typically used poet Rudyard Kipling to speak about knowledge wants for conducting safety investigations. He quoted Kipling’s poem, “I Hold Six Trustworthy Serving Males,” which begins with:
I hold six trustworthy serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and The place and Who.
Apply these six inquiries to your analyst briefings as follows:
- What:
- What are you promoting?
- In what market(s) do you compete?
- What are your distinctive differentiators/what’s your distinctive promoting proposition?
- What improvements are you introducing?
- What’s your technique?
- Why:
- Why are you briefing me at this time?
- Why are clients shopping for your answer?
- When:
- What’s new now?
- What’s coming within the subsequent six to 18 months?
- How:
- How are you successful?
- How do you worth your answer?
- How is it deployed (on-prem, SaaS, hybrid)?
- How do you promote (direct, channel, combo, market)?
- The place:
- The place do you promote globally/regionally?
- Who:
- Who’re your clients? Are they enterprises or SMBs? Which industries are they in?
- Who’re the client personas inside your buyer base?
- Who’re your rivals?
Perceive That, Sure, The Briefing Is “Solely” 30 Minutes
In my 10 years at Forrester, my expertise is that distributors typically waste time in a 60-minute briefing. I solely do 60 minutes after I’m actively researching a subject, am taking up new protection, or have to do a deep dive with a vendor I’m not acquainted with. In any other case, briefings are half-hour. It’s as much as the seller to make the very best use of these half-hour.
Getting essentially the most out of the half-hour requires self-discipline and preparation. Inform the analyst what the details are, do the demo, and depart room for questions. When you’re doing a demo, break down the briefing agenda (see beneath for a extra detailed briefing agenda) as follows:
- Greetings and firm/product overview — quarter-hour
- Demo — 10 minutes
- Questions — 5 minutes
Forrester analysis signifies that 10% of deliberate briefing time is misplaced as a result of an unproductive begin. Don’t take time introducing everybody on the decision or asking in regards to the analyst’s protection. When you’re ready, you already know who the analyst is and what they cowl.
Our web site supplies analyst bios. Ship them to briefing attendees so that they study in regards to the analysts’ backgrounds and focus areas. Analysts typically speak extensively about their protection, which may minimize into your presentation time throughout the 30-minute assembly.
Save time previous to the briefing by sending over an electronic mail with the attendees and their roles. Even when introductions solely take 3 minutes, that’s 10% of your half-hour gone. Additionally, don’t waste time lamenting that the briefing is “solely half-hour.” The analyst already is aware of this, and there have been two selections: Give you half-hour, or decline the briefing request.
Give The Analyst Some Credit score
Most analysts spend years learning their fields, with prior expertise as practitioners, working at distributors, or each. I’ve labored in cybersecurity for 20 years — 10 years on the seller aspect and one other 10 at Forrester. Belief me, I do know the dangers on the web. There’s no want so as to add a number of slides explaining how hackers goal methods.
The exception to that is if your organization is doing one thing new or defending towards a novel menace kind. If this is applicable to you, use one slide to clarify what the menace is and who it impacts earlier than heading into the remainder of your presentation.
My Different Analyst Briefing Finest Practices
Be prepared to your subsequent analyst briefing and wow the analyst by:
- Displaying up on time. Get all of the individuals who might be a part of the briefing to point out up on time (or somewhat early). Numerous briefing time will get wasted ready for spokespeople or demonstrators to reach. More often than not, analysts can’t prolong the briefing, as they’re on back-to-back calls.
- Being acquainted with the screen-sharing platform. Numerous briefings are stalled as presenters strive to determine the best way to screen-share or obtain software program updates. Test this stuff forward of time.
- Offering visuals. Put collectively a presentation that addresses the important thing objects you’re overlaying within the briefing. Ship that presentation to the analyst on the conclusion of the briefing.
- Specializing in the way you resolve buyer issues. Don’t focus solely on product options; make the analyst perceive how clients use them.
- Not stopping to ask if the analyst has questions. If the analyst has questions, they’ll ask them or they’ll wait till the top.
- Leaving out quotes and outcomes from different analyst companies. No analyst cares what one other analyst agency or “unbiased” safety testing firm stated about you (this consists of any evals you participated in). At greatest, it’s info that might be ignored. At worst, you’re insulting the analyst you’re talking to.
- Planning your briefings forward of time. Take a look at your product roadmap and plan briefings forward of necessary product releases or massive occasions. It might generally take weeks to schedule a briefing, so plan for that. Don’t wait till the week earlier than the product announcement to request the briefing.
- Making ready your audio system. Be certain your audio system know what the aim of the briefing is, what their position in it’s, and who they’re speaking to.
- Working towards your presentation. Have your spokespeople assessment the content material forward of time and set expectations with them about how lengthy the briefing is (“it’s solely half-hour”).
- Understanding what analysts do. Analysts write analysis in regards to the markets and options they cowl for consumption by end-user shoppers. I cowl cybersecurity, so my analysis is focused at Forrester’s CISO and technical chief shoppers. We additionally present steering to clients and use the data gleaned from briefings to tell these conversations.
- Not anticipating the analyst to reply your questions in regards to the market. Briefings will not be your alternative to pepper the analyst with questions in regards to the market or rivals. They’re your alternative to showcase your organization — use the time correctly. Forrester supplies advisory for deep-dive suggestions and strategic recommendation and inquiry periods for shoppers with the intention to get your market questions answered. These interactions are the locations to ask market questions.
Comply with This Pattern Briefing Agenda
No analyst desires to see a 50-plus-slide presentation in a briefing. You additionally gained’t have time to cowl that a lot content material successfully in half-hour. See beneath for a pattern presentation agenda:
- Slide 1: Give an organization overview. When you haven’t briefed the analyst beforehand, give an summary of when the corporate was based, how a lot funding you’ve raised, what your income is, what number of clients you will have, and what number of workers you will have.
- Slide 2: Describe the issue you might be fixing. Do that briefly, with an understanding that the analyst already is aware of the issues within the area.
- Slide 3: Introduce your answer. Present the way it solves the issue you’re addressing. Embody your key differentiators. Clarify why you win.
- Slide 4: Present some buyer examples. Present how clients are utilizing your answer.
- Slide 5: Clarify how the answer is deployed. If it’s a service, clarify how shoppers work with the service.
- Slide 6: Describe the market you’re in. Embody info equivalent to buyer measurement, business verticals, and areas wherein you’re working. Title key rivals.
- Slide 7: Talk about your go-to-market. Let the analyst know should you’re promoting direct, by way of the channel, or a mix of each.
- Slide 8: Element your pricing and packaging. Inform the analyst the way you bundle, license, and worth your answer. Present your common deal measurement.
- Slide 9: Overview your technique and future roadmap. Clarify the place you’re going. Speak about improvements and enhancements you’re planning to introduce and the way you’ll get there.
- Demo: Present a quick demonstration of your answer. Deal with how clients use the answer and get worth. Spotlight distinctive or differentiating options.
Get Assist
In case your agency doesn’t have an analyst relations (AR) particular person, get some exterior assist. Analyst relations is a separate self-discipline from PR, so search for AR execs who might help information your AR program. When you’re an AR professional searching for further sources, Forrester supplies analysis, schooling, and peer engagement for AR execs.
Request A Briefing
Able to transient us? Request a Forrester analyst briefing right here.