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A favorable showing in an industry analyst report can result in millions in new sales. Being a laggard can mean you won’t even get invited to pitch your product. So, how can you make sure your company’s product moves to the top?
The two most influential analyst reports for B2B tech buyers are the Gartner Magic Quadrant, aka “the MQ,” and the Forrester Wave. I’ve been briefing analysts from these two analyst firms for many years now. By way of credentials, my teams and I have moved three products from Visionary to Leader in the Gartner MQ, and two products from Strong Performer to Leader in the Forrester Wave. Three more products moved up and right in the Leaders’ quadrants. Two products (shown below) rose to the very top in the Leaders’ quadrants, one in the MQ and one in the Wave. Full disclosure, I did have one product drop from Leader to Visionary; that experience taught me a valuable lesson I’ll also cover below.
Figures 1 and 2: Two great wins from my teams at Imperva (Forrester Wave for DDoS, 2017) and Exabeam (Gartner MQ for SIEM, 2021)
Showing well in an analyst report takes good analyst relations (AR) and is a lot of work. It doesn’t start and stop when you have submitted your answers to the questionnaire for the annual report. Teams that do AR right do it year-round. Here are six of the most important things you should do to win the AR game.
- Business First, Tech Second – The biggest mistake I see teams make is spending too much time on tech and not enough on business. Analysts want to know how your business is doing even more than they care about your latest features or roadmap. Start your briefing with a review of your revenue, new logos, customer retention, and customer expansion. Show them that you are a winner.
- Review Why You Win – Include a section in your briefing deck on key wins. Show the customer logos, deal sizes, and reasons why you beat the competition. Focus on deals that underscore your competitive advantage. You may also want to demonstrate traction in a new geography or with a new G2M partner. I’ve even included losses in a few presentations when I wanted to illustrate price pressure from a competitor. The more you can be a source on market dynamics to the analyst, the better.
- Dealbooks – I learned this trick from a colleague during my time at Symantec. Since you may not always have a timely briefing with an analyst, send them a quarterly summary of your business and key wins. This is known as a dealbook. The advantage of the dealbook is that the analyst can spend more time with it and refer back to it (maybe even during a briefing from one of your competitors). When you get to a large number of new customers per quarter, it’s okay to focus on a handful and simply list the rest.
- Facetime, In Person – It’s not the money you spend with an analyst, it’s the time that’s important. As I said above, your key analysts should hear from you throughout the year, not just when you give your product demo for their annual report. Also, try to get time with the analyst in person. People like people, and in-person is much different than over the phone or Zoom. If possible, try to book a whole-day session (often called a strategy day), and bring several members of the team to deepen the connection. I’ve even flown teams to meet analysts who were too busy to fly out and meet us. Last little tip: Go out to lunch. Get them out of the building for an intimate lunch with your CEO or head of sales. Talk about their kids.
- Influence Before the Questionnaire – If you do what I’ve outlined above, you will already be influencing the analyst before the questionnaire. If not, well, good luck. If a new capability is listed on the questionnaire and you don’t have it, you will be penalized. Ideally, schedule your in-person strategy day six months before the questionnaire comes out so you can get a read on where the analyst is heading and have enough time to make adjustments to your product or go-to-market.
- Don’t Forget About Reviews – Online reviews are becoming more and more important for B2B tech sales. Sites like Capterra, G2, and IT Central Station are used by prospective buyers who don’t talk to analysts, e.g., small businesses or developers. In 2015, Gartner got into the game with Gartner Peer Insights. I really admire this move from Gartner in that they recognized that their analyst model was limited. That said, Gartner analysts do look at reviews on Peer Insights to get more color. Gartner has even started integrating data from Peer Insights into Magic Quadrants. So, make sure your customers are leaving reviews.
If you do the six things above, you will be ahead of the game and likely on your way to winning. Here are two things that can hurt you.
- Fulfill Your Promises – Remember above where I mentioned my product moved downward? That was because we’d assured the analyst that we were going to integrate two products into one, addressing a concern he had about ease of management. Well, the engineering schedule slipped and we didn’t do it. He’d written about our commitment and it didn’t happen. He looked bad. Never make an analyst look bad.
- Be Careful Arguing – Analysts don’t know everything. They rely on smart people, like those at your company, to make them smarter. Nor are they are not always right. But – and this is a big but – you need to be careful when you have a difference of opinion. Winning an argument with an analyst on a call may be a pyrrhic victory. Maybe he or she took your point, but at what cost to the relationship? It’s much more effective to inform, listen, and fulfill on product vision and business execution. Said another way, influence the analyst, don’t argue with them. If you have a strong-willed CEO or founder, I would advise you to limit their time with analysts, bringing them in where appropriate, like the lunch at the strategy day.
I’d be remiss if I gave all the credit for our showings in the MQ and Wave to my product marketing teams. A good showing is not all due to good AR execution. You need to have a solid product and a good sales team that’s winning in the market. I’ve been lucky to have worked with some of the best product managers, engineers, and salespeople out there. They certainly made my job easier.
There are many more details that go into having a great AR program. How you answer questions on surveys is key. Great demos go a long way. Customers willing to talk to analysts are gold. But, in my experience, being ahead of the game and shaping the market far outweigh these.
Have another tip to win at AR? I’d love to hear it.
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