Over at Confidential Resource Richard McEachin takes exception to an amateurish attempt at CI (quote is from a post on B2B Sales Pipeline):
Adam…asked a pricing question about an application component that could not be purchased alone…
…this question doesn’t pass the “Smell Test”…
Called him anyway…Cell Phone, with no company name provided…
…search Adam’s name in LinkedIn. Lo and behold - Adam works for a
competitor. I called the competitors office, asked for Adam, and let
him know that I would love to chat with him, since it’s always good for
competitors to get to know each other. At the time of this posting,
Adam has not called me back, and has likely joined the witness
protection program.
After reading Richard's post I went to the source and found this:
So here’s my point - Competitive Intel is King, so how can you get it?:
1. Act like a Prospect - Note to Adam’s boss - Get
him acting lessons, because if he’s as bad of a sales support engineer
as he is an actor, you should probably cut him loose.
- Make the Cover Story fit - In the era of Google, it’s probably a bad idea to name a company that doesn’t exist
- Pretend to be someone else - With resources like LinkedIn, Spoke and JigSaw, you probably shouldn’t use your real name.
- Ask relevant questions - Back to the Mercedes
example - You should probably ask questions about the solution as a
whole, and sound like an educated prospect (”After looking
at the BMW, I feel this Mercedes is the better buy because it has
Leather, Sunroof and Heated Seats for the same price…but I’m curious
about the drivetrain?”).
2. Research on the Internet - Again, in the era of Google, you should probably just search for your the information you seek.
3. Post-Mortem Follow Up’s - Talk to your
customers who you’ve won during a competitive procurement, or wrap up
with prospects you’ve lost. Always preface with - “I don’t want you to
cross any ethical lines, but…..” Satisfied customers can provide
insight about the competitive landscape, and prospects who didn’t
select your solution can tell you why they went with someone else.
In the end - Adam - I love your moxie. You did the right thing, but you aren’t getting any Academy Awards from me.
Item one on the list pretty much puts him in conflict with the ethical standards set forward by SCIP. To wit the third item on SCIP's Code of Ethics: "To accurately disclose all relevant information, including one's identity and organization, prior to all interviews." I guess it doesn't matter if you view the SCIP Code of Ethics as an irrelevant nicety, or if you don't even acknowledge it, but if you're with a company that acknowledges it and purports to adhere to it then this would be no small matter.
For the record I have no idea if the author of the post is a member of SCIP but the point is that if you're engaged in competitive intelligence you may want to check the recognized standard of the association of CI professionals to make sure you're in adherence with accepted ethical standards.