Category: Analytics Solutions

Analytics Tool for Sales #2 – Competitor Landscape

IMG_1833Another blind spot for a lot of business leaders is knowing their competition. Most have some sense of where they stack up on price and know what the competition offers, but few put any real data and analysis behind it. They make a lot of business decisions based on personal observations and historical knowledge. Very few mystery shop or put together a competitor landscape.

Per Wikipedia, competitiveness pertains to the ability and performance of a firm, sub-sector or country to sell and supply goods and services in a given market, in relation to the ability and performance of other firms, sub-sectors or countries in the same market. You take data points on the various aspects of products and services and you visualize them to see where you rank. Based on your ranking and the variances between competitors you can have a more focused business strategy and make more data-driven decisions.

Competitive data can be gathered off the internet, by phone and in person mystery shopping and surveying your own customers. Its a very powerful piece of information to know what your own customers are buying from your competition and why. When I was at Wells Fargo, I build a competitive landscape of all the primary money transfers business and monthly updated the management team with our rankings and trends. We would often use this information to adjust pricing and launch new marketing initiatives.

Do you know who your competitors are, where they are better than you and how you stack up in your own customers minds? DMAI offers a suite of business intelligence solutions to small and medium sized business including building and maintaining a competitor landscape for your business.

Analytics Tool for Sales #1 – Demographic Profiles

philippines-outsourcing-teamOne thing that amazes me is the lack of knowledge most sales people have about their current, former and potential customers. Who are they? Where do they come from? What do they look like? What are there habits? What appeals to them? These kinds of questions are often answered by personal observation. Most business owners and leaders don’t take the time to understand the demographic data of their market and miss key opportunities all the time.

According to Wikipedia, A demographic or demographic profile is a term used in marketing and broadcasting, to describe a demographic grouping or a market segment. This typically involves age bands (as teenagers do not wish to purchase denture fixant), social class bands (as the rich may want different products than middle and lower classes and may be willing to pay more) and gender (partially because different physical attributes require different hygiene and clothing products, and partially because of the male/female mindsets).

In short, every business owner and leader should have demographic data at their fingertips so they can analyze which customers are the most profitable and what they look like. Then its a matter of developing marketing schemes to attract more of them using the underlying data. Know your market and the markets around you.

There are numerous sources of free, publically available data available online. The US Census Bureau has one of the most detail collections of demographic data ever collected. As do other US Government Entities like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Central Intelligence Agency. There are also numerous organizations that supply global data like the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Many countries also publish valuable data on their websites like Central Banks and Government Statistics Offices. The Philippines in particular has some pretty solid data available to use for demographic profiling.

DMAI specializes is building demographics profiles based on your customer data and the public data about the markets your operate in. Stop guessing and minimize lost opportunities by working with DMAI to get your the demographic data you need to make more data-driven decisions.

13 Months in the Philippines – Lesson One – Finding the Right People

Lesson 1 – May 2012 – Finding the Right People

Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines

I took a couple of trips to the Philippines in early 2012 to lay the ground work before committing 100% to moving there lock, stock and barrel. When I was there, one of the things I did was set up some interviews for my first BPO Elite employee.

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Now don’t get me wrong, I ended up with an amazing employee who would become one of my best friends. But the process itself had some serious flaws. Let me break them down. And even though I have extensive experience in recruitment and hiring, I made many of the same mistakes in the process that most managers make. They put it on themselves to do it all, they are the only ones in on the decision-making, and they don’t really look at the available data to help them.

When recruiting. I found out the true power of LinkedIn. I networked with a couple dozen candidates, and narrowed it down to six to interview based on e-mail conversations before I left the US. When I arrived, I set up phone screenings with the six and ended up then conducting two final interviews. Pretty standard stuff and thanks to LinkedIn, all the candidates where qualified to be my very first employee, a recruitment specialist. However, I did all this myself. And even though I have partners and an assistant back in the US, I took it on myself. That’s lesson #1, you cant always do everything yourself. It takes up a lot of time and it makes others think you don’t need or want your help. Next time I do this, I need to delegate and be more inclusive.

The next thing I did wrong was that I didn’t have one of my partners interview with me. I based my decisions on my gut. Now as an analyst, I am kicking myself about this, but as a first time business owner… its a very common mistake. There is tons of data that shows that candidates hired after interviews with more then one person as much as a 100% chance to stick around longer than those interviewed solely by one person.

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The final lesson that comes to mind is that I didn’t do a very good job of understanding the data available when it comes up to the recruitment industry in the Philippines. After being there a while and gathering data and insights, I over paid, I over promised and I over recruited. I hired two, at way more than the market price and I gave them pretty favorable terms. All things that more research would have uncovered.

So In the end it worked out, I got a great candidate who stuck with me thru thick and thin. I just wish I would have hired me the analysts to do the prep work for me the business owner. Hehe!

Analytics Tool > LinkedIn > http://www.linkedin.com

Analytics Concept > Marketing Analytics > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_analytics#Data_and_analytics

YouTube Resource > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jDjeNJrN14&feature=share&list=PL7EC252B253873D5D

My Analytics Story – My passion is solving problems by bringing together the best talent, cutting edge technology and tried and true methodologies. DMAIPH is all about empowering people towards better Decision-Making through the use Analytics and business Intelligence. This is what I do best. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly for a free consultation about getting more analytics into your career and your business.