The high tech industry analysts aren’t making much headway among the SMB decision-makers, according to this week’s Sage Market Pulse from Chadwick Martin Bailey. In this survey, independent consultants and colleagues lead all other types of external advisors on IT needs and solutions.

You can see that SMB decision-makers are a smart bunch. They set up a well-balanced decision ecosystem for themselves. They distribute their attention among 3 primary groups — independent consultants, colleagues (peers), and the combined sales channel — direct, VAR, SI, outsoucing providers.

The CMB Sage Market Pulse is a free weekly email blast. I’ve subscribed to it for years, long before CMB acquired Kathryn Korostoff’s Sage Research. Good read for marketing and sales. Highly recommend it.

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Advisory Councils are one of the most effective venues for building strategic relationships between leading industry analysts and vendor executives. According to Rob Enderle, one factor that determines the effectiveness of analyst advisory councils is the degree of goal orientation and planning. Councils that are effective tend to have clear, concise goals that are collaboratively set with both the host company and the analysts.

The more effective councils also meet regularly.

By contrast, less effective councils usually lack goals or overlook the analyst expectation to participate in goal-setting as well as ongoing, stable dialogues and processes.

“In other words, beating analysts to death with foils on a whim seldom works,” says Mr. Enderle, who participates in several advisory councils for vendors such as AMD, Clear Cube, Dell Computer, HP, IBM and Toshiba. In his experience, the high tech vendor executives who achieve the most value from their industry analyst advisory councils are those who involve analysts upfront in goal setting and planning.

Mr. Enderle offered numerous candid insights on building executive advisory councils and their impacts on industry analyst influence and objectivity during a live interview with Sam Whitmore Media Survey and Tekrati on November 4, 2004.

Enderle Group white paper: Download the related Enderle Group white paper (PDF): Enderle Group Advisory Council Report, 2004-11-04

Reprinted from Tekrati

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