You have to focus on influential analysts even if they are negative or unpleasant

An all too common comment from vendor executives is “That analyst is such a jerk, I don’t want anything to do with him.” Or maybe the executive thinks the analyst is out to get the vendor, an idiot, or just wants to extract money from the vendor. For whatever reason, the executive has decided not to brief or otherwise interact with the analyst because this influential analyst is unpleasant. 

On the other hand, this executive loves to talk with another analyst who is by no stretch of the imagination influential, but is nice, agrees with the executive’s points-of-view, and is just more pleasant.

A critical success factor for your AR program is getting your executives to understand analyst influence and to get on board with a plan to turn around negative or unpleasant analysts instead of just ignoring them.

SageCircle Technique:

  • Refresh your analyst lists to ensure that you know who are truly relevant to your objectives
  • Identify which influential analysts are negative and/or unpleasant and why
  • Develop a long-term plan for each analyst that needs to be turned around
  • Obtain executive buy-in to support the plan, including their time to spend with the analyst
    • Brief the exec on which analysts are considered influential and why
    • Brief the exec on why certain analysts are negative or unpleasant
    • Explain the plan that has been developed for each relevant analyst
    • Request the executive’s support

Bottom Line: One of the key mistakes vendors make is ignoring the influential analysts just because they are unpleasant or are perceived to be overly negative. Ignoring these analysts will not make them less influential or more positive toward you, it will just let a bad situation get worse.

Question: Have you had executives that refused to deal with certain analysts? Why? How were you able to change their minds and start interacting with the analysts?

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