What are proactive things that you can do to minimize the damage when you know an analyst report is coming out that will make your product look bad compared to the competition?

Question

Daniel Kuperman · Accepted Answer

The key in this situation is to be uppfront with your internal teams and provide them with the right messaging to steer conversations with customers and prospects.

The negative placement can happen in a number of scenarios. Maybe a competitor released a game-changing capability that no one else has yet; or there was a major acquisition in the market making a competitor leapfrog everyone else; or maybe there's one area of your product which didn't perform well acconding to analyst expectations during your demo.

First, you have to identify the reason for the discrepancy. Was it something under your company's control or completely unexpected? Based on what is the primary reason, you then have to prepare your sales team and others in the organization to address this with customers if the issue comes up. Share an internal communication that:

1. Addresses the results of the report, outlining what is the current placement and how it changed from the last time;

2. Guides your internal teams on how to interpret the results and what to tell customers;

3. Outlines a plan for correcting the placement by the time the next report comes out.

The right positioning will help give the right context for a customer or prospect and minimize potential damaging effects.

Nikhil Balaraman · Answer

These things are bound to happen, but the good news in today’s world is that customers are likely getting their information from multiple sources. If I were in rapid response mode, I’d probably start by lining up some blog posts and customer testimonials that address the perceived weakness. Perhaps even hosting a webinar and running a counter narrative that goes directly in the face of the report…something like “Analyst X says we’re terrible at this…attend this webinar to find out why they’re wrong!”.

Longer term, it comes down to communication. The analyst community can only write about what they know. So if you’re not communicating early and often with them, then do not expect things to change. Ideally, you bring them along on the journey when you’re launching new product or updating your positioning so that they can both feel included, but also so they’re not surprised when you launch and one of their clients calls them on launch day to get their take on what you’re up to.

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