There are three major problem areas for firms using sales automation software: First, customizing your sales automation software and tailoring it to your company’s specific needs is crucial in order for your sales process to be as clean and efficient as possible. Also, how data and/or sales intelligence is integrated into your CRM is important to keeping the sales process streamlined. Finally, getting your users to adopt a particular process and to accurately record data when using your sales automation software is critical for allowing information to flow freely.

 Tailoring your sales automation software to your company’s unique needs is paramount. In addition to integrating the CRM system into the culture of your firm, the system itself needs to reflect the needs of your company. Defining which metrics are important, integrating the information your company needs, and creating custom reports detailing critical information/metrics are the most important things to customize. Adjusting the interface and making customized dashboards, and even managing phases of the sales cycle and implementing work-flow rules that help increase productivity are also necessary. Effectively designing and implementing these facets of your firms sales automation software will dramatically increase efficiency. The graph below depicts a number of different solutions and the percentage of companies who currently have them in place. Best in class companies represent the top performing companies of those that were surveyed. All of these solutions are customized to fit the company who is employing them.

 Integrating data or sales intelligence into your CRM system not only gives sales reps contextual information and contacts, it also reduces the amount of time reps spend searching for this information. Whether this means the sales reps reaching out to others through email or searching on the internet for this information, without integrated sales intelligence the sales process typically slows to a snails pace.

 Creating a culture in the workplace that revolves around your sales automation software is also vital. Meaning, the sales automation software needs to be the primary way that sales reps record data and share information instead of just an extra book keeping mechanism. Increased visibility, accurate forecasting, and comprehensive reporting are extremely difficult to achieve without sweeping adoption of sales automation software by a companies sales force. Qualifying leads and closing deals becomes a much more streamlined process with widespread usage of sales automation software by your firm’s sales team, mostly due to the lack of availability of information to individual sales reps.

This integration of CRM software into the daily regimen of the sales team’s workday requires leadership, or influence from the executive team. In a survey conducted by Aberdeen research, out of 212 companies surveyed, 72% of best in class firms (best performing in year over year revenue) have executive level support for their CRM system as opposed to only 54% of those firms who are under performing. Executive level support is necessary to instill the mindset that accurate and thorough usage and data recording in your firm’s CRM system is critical to its success. Without Executive level leadership, widespread adoption of sales automation software among sales reps is unlikely.

While sales automation software is an exceptional tool which can dramatically increase sales efficiency and streamline the flow of information, it needs to be used properly. To be effective, your sales automation software needs to be fully adopted by your users, fully customized to your business, and data needs to be seamlessly integrated into the system. If these three things are done, your sales optimization software will yield impressive increases in efficiency and much higher ROI.

Top companies typically have sales reps with much higher average deal size and larger revenues per rep than the industry norm. It comes as no surprise then that these companies typically invest larger amounts in external training for their sales reps, as evidenced in this recent poll conducted by Aberdeen Group:

 

“Cutting training programs puts your sales force at an extreme disadvantage and will directly effect revenues. A recession may be the worst time to cut these programs,” commented Colleen Honan, SVP of Global Sales at OneSource.

The constantly evolving online world mandates the constant training of sales reps. Without regular training and exposure to new techniques and trends, a sales force will fall behind and the entire firm will have to bear the consequences.

“I view sales training as I would any other form of training.  If you want to get better, you need to challenge yourself and leverage the best techniques available.  As an organization we conduct internal training to continue to reinforce and enhance our team’s sales skills, but we find it very beneficial to bring in outside training consultants when we are looking to have a more impactful session and provide more than a refresher,” said James Cabral, VP of Sales North America at OneSource.

 Are the rumors true? Is the old-school method of telephone lead generation really extinct? Critics say: cold calling is obsolete and a waste of time…that it simply doesn’t work…or does it?

There is a good case to be made for personal contact, and there are some smart strategies that can underpin a successful cold call campaign: 

• Target, Target, Target! 
  The marketing “rule of thumb” says that 40% of results are driven by the list; this holds true for cold calling, as well. Are you calling on the right level contact, in the right industry with the right offer?
• Consider Cold Calling as Part of an Integrated Campaign
  Cold calling is often most effective when complemented by email and direct mail. Have you used integrated campaigns for demand generation?
• The Right Offer Based on the Right Understanding
  Are you calling with an offer that is compelling–one that addresses the major challenges that prospect is likely facing? Researching and knowing who you are calling and understanding their business is critical. Consider tapping into a sales intelligence service in order to boost sales effectiveness and cut down on sales rep time spent researching prospects.

Remeber that cold calling offers additional benefits:

• It saves time. By using the telephone in your sales prospecting strategy, you can contact a large number of prospects in a short amount of time. The telephone also cuts down on the cost and time involved with traveling to meet customers and prospects.
•  You can conduct business research. The telephone is one of the easiest ways to research businesses. With one quick call, your lead generation team can collect the most accurate and up-to-date information on the companies you want to call on.
• You can add a personal touch. Unlike an email, a telephone call allows you to deliver your sales message personally and persuasively. Use your personality to get your point across, and use your patience and empathy to answer questions and concerns.
• Companies can get to know you. Even if your prospect isn’t ready to buy, the telephone offers an excellent opportunity to introduce your company. By promoting brand awareness and leaving a positive image, you can plant the seed for future sales.
• You have a direct line to the decision-maker. The telephone gives you the opportunity to find and speak directly to the decision-maker. Remember, if you’re not speaking to the decision-maker, you’re not making the sale. That leads to the question: How to get past the gatekeepers?

Getting past the gatekeepers

There are two types of gatekeepers – individuals who are “chartered” to block or prohibit access to the buyer, and those who are self-designated gatekeepers.

Personally, I love the former and stay far away from the latter.

I use different techniques depending on the type of gatekeeper. For administrators and assistants, it’s important to ask them something very specific, such as referring to a speech or presentation given by the person I’m trying to reach. I also tell them I do NOT know their boss. No point in pretending you do when they know everyone their boss knows! Also, I never ask questions such as, “Who would your boss recommend I speak to…?”  Rather, I ask, “Who do YOU recommend…?” Their referral is often every bit as valuable. 

• Question: What are some techniques that you have used with any type of gatekeepers to solicit their help while achieving your goal of getting “access to power”?

Therefore, optimizing your sales territory design and aligning your finite resources with the best sales opportunities is more important than ever before. The good news is, sales territory design is completely controllable and can be altered in line with your changing business needs.

When designing or revising sales territories, I recommend this three-step process:
1)    Start with the opportunity and work backwards
2)    Determine your coverage and touch strategy
3)    Design your sales territories

1) Start With The Opportunity & Work Backwards

Effective territory design starts with identifying your sales opportunity and working backwards. A sales opportunity analysis will identify where your sales are most likely to be generated from and what specific characteristics make a company more or less likely to buy your products.

These factors include industry/vertical, employee size, location, buying and consuming patterns. There may be certain geographic markets where you have a greater or weaker value proposition and competitive advantage.

At the highest level, your sales opportunities will fall into three categories: existing/renewal business, winback business and brand new business. Then, leveraging data and analytics, you need to drill down into more specific “buckets” of opportunity.

For example, you may uncover that your best opportunities lie with customers in financial services, with more than 500 employees located on the East Coast. Or, your best new business prospects could be very small real estate firms, with less than 20 employees in Florida and Georgia.

If you are a Sales Leader in charge of the United States sales region, trying to cover every possible company that may buy your product is simply not feasible or wise. Completing a detailed opportunity analysis is critical in identifying where your company should focus their attention and align their resources for the best return. And, it should also provide direction on where NOT to align resources.

2) Design a Coverage & Touch Strategy

Once you know where your opportunity is, consider what type of coverage and touch strategy is appropriate. The coverage strategy considers “how” and “how often”…. Whether the business requires face to face visits, telephone calls or a “self service” approach to best cover the opportunity. And, how often and how much time salespeople will need to touch customers.

Factors that will impact your coverage or touch strategy include: size and number of locations for target companies, complexity of your product or service, average deal size and type of sale- new business versus renewal business.

Your coverage strategy should be as specific and quantifiable as possible, so you can feed this information into your territory design models.

For example, you may determine that all active customers with 5000 or more employees and a spend of $25,000 or more will have a Field Rep assigned to them. After accessing your company’s CRM, you identify that there are 200 of these and they all reside in New England.

To maximize the opportunity, you want Field Reps to make 4 visits per year, that take 6 hours each in planning, driving, presentation and follow-up time. This set of customers will need about 4,800 hours devoted to them in the next year (200 customers X 4 visits X 6 hours = 4,800) Since there are roughly 2,080 work hours in a year, you would need approx. 2 Reps covering these accounts. (4,800 / 2080 = 2)

3) Design Your Territories

Now that you’ve completed your opportunity analysis and designed your coverage strategy, you’re ready to divide and create your sales territories. There are many options…

Geographic Distribution: Geographic or “geo” territories are designed by strategically grouping a set of zipcodes, DMAs or states together to form a defined territory.  For field sales reps, you can bring this design down to a science by leveraging mapping software such as Callidus or  Territory Mapper to plot out a maximum driving area you want reps to cover. This is often called a “radius” design.
•    Sales Reps can become experts in their geo territory and can leverage local information, local events and regional trends within their sales process and discussions with customers.
•    When firms have both Field Sales and Inside Sales teams, geographic designs help enable teaming between inside and outside personnel.

Vertical Specific: Vertical or industry focused territories are aligned based on grouping together customers and prospects that have the same or similar verticals or industries. Examples: Financial Services, Healthcare, Government. Your opportunity analysis should uncover whether this makes sense for your line of business. Adding dedicated groups will often add cost to you sales model, so you need to ensure you have the appropriate return on investment
•    With Reps who have expert knowledge on a vertical of industry, you should be able to sell more and better retain and service these customers.
•    A dedicated group may help you better compete and add to your unique value proposition.

Best Customers: Best Customer, Key Account or Strategic Account territories are often created for an established business that can identify the accounts that spend the most, have the most future sales opportunity and/or are very high profile, ex, “Google”. Many companies like to align their best, most experienced salespeople with their best customers. If you grow and retain OR lose just a few of these customers, it may have a significant impact on your business results.

Hunter & Farmer: The skills and work required to generate new business are very different than retaining and growing existing business. Therefore you may want to create new business specific often called Hunter territories and separate active customer or Farmer territories.
•    Hunter Reps focus 100% of their energy on bringing in new business for your firm without getting tied up in customer service and administrative work, often required to retain existing business. These Reps get in, close the business and move on to the next opportunity.
•    Farmer Reps are masters at relationship building. They are the face of your company and likely why your active customers are loyal to your product or service. These Reps focus on long term account management.

Campaign Specific: Every customer or prospect does not need to be part of an official sales territory. Instead you may want to leverage a campaign approach. In this scenario, you group types of customers or prospects together based on a set of criteria and ask salespeople to make contact with them during a set period of time with a specific message or offer.
•    The campaign approach allows you to test different types of offers or approaches and may work well when introducing new products or moving into new geographic areas.

Which one is for you? Some companies use just one type of territory design, while others use a combination of methods. The right territory design for your firm is the one that best aligns your resources with your opportunities, meets your budget requirements and supports your overall business plan and objectives.

Using Experts to Help

If you need help, there are companies that specialize in territory optimization and forecasting. Some of these include:

• ZS Associates
• TerrAllign
• InfoGrow

Doing It Yourself with a Business Information Service

Many companies already subscribe to a business information service that provides information on companies and contacts (often used for sales prospecting and research).  Using one of these services, you could export lists of companies, states and other data elements and complete analysis using Microsoft Excel.

If you are already subscribing to a business information service, this approach can help you get it done without spending any additional hard dollars.  If you don’t already subscribe to such a service, but are considering one to help with sales prospecting, then the ability to also use the service for territory optimization may provide the additional value that helps you justify the purchase.

Data and analytics are required in every step of territory optimization and for the final step of tying everything together to determine the ideal number of salespeople and territories required to maximize your sales opportunity.

I recommend partnering with your Marketing and Finance colleagues to build a formal “what if” model that allows you to plug in variables and test different outputs.

What You’ll Gain

By optimizing your sales territories; aligning your important selling resources with your best and most valuable opportunities, Sales Leaders will be able to “do more with less” and be more successful in growing sales, retaining customers and meeting profitability metrics.

Submitted By Marci Reynolds, Author of The Sales Operations Blog.  All Rights Reserved.

Economic Challenges No Surprise, But Lead Quality Trumps Lead Quantity

What is pressuring sales leaders, and what actions are they taking in response?

Economic challenges and the increased knowledge of the competitive landscape were the top two pressures identified in the report—by 47% and 44% of respondents, respectively.

While the economic landscape is beyond the control of sales leaders, preparing reps for successful discussions with better informed prospects is a major focus for successful executives.  According to the survey, the emphasis on effectively overcoming budget objections and addressing cost-benefit concerns is a contributor to sales effectiveness–enabling reps to focus on fit and competitive advantage.

Three in four respondents—across the board—cite improvement of lead quality in the sales pipeline as their primary strategic action in response to economic and competitive pressures. With just over half of respondents citing it, database segmentation and analysis to identify profitable customers was the second most common action item designed to increase sales effectiveness.

Sales Leaders Cite Lengthening Cycles as Key Concern More Often Than Peers

One in four (27% of survey respondents) cited lengthening sales cycles as a primary business challenge; but nearly half (46%) of “best-in-class” organizations indicated this as a top-three pressure.

Why are these top flight organizations more concerned about longer sales cycles than their peers? The data suggest that these companies are proactively identifying a major drag to revenue generation and developing strategies—including the use of sales intelligence—better preparing reps and aligning their messaging with the business challenges of their prospects. These activities reduce the “getting to know you” phase of discussions, enabling sales reps to work the opportunity more effectively at converting prospects in a compressed sales cycle.

What Common Characteristics Are Hallmarks of Top Performers?

Three common characteristics mark best-in-class performers:

• 72% currently have a process for tracking prospect engagement
• 64% have a centralized repository of marketing and product information
• 51% currently have executive-level support for the use of third-party information providers within sales

Other Performance Keys

The report identified other critical considerations in driving sales effectiveness, including: consistent, repeatable prospect management and sales processes, attention to data management issues (e.g. centralizing information, unifying customer information) and the incorporation of sales intelligence–critical company and competitive insights—as part of the sales process.

Download a full copy of the report…

*Aberdeen’s criteria for “best-in-class” included year-over-year improvements in:

• Lead conversion rates
• Percentage of reps achieving quota
• Sales cycle time
• Time spent researching relevant company/contact information

Do you foresee changes in the way that businesses will be utilizing business information in 2009, given the state of the global economy?
Everyone is suffering in this economy, of course, but there are pockets and sectors that are still prospering. Being able to target those effectively is important. For sales executives this could mean deploying account managers to address these opportunities; for marketing executives this may require specialized list development and advertising efforts. Because of these challenging market conditions one could argue that now, more than ever, having the best – the most accurate and complete -business information is critical to success.

As you travel and speak with customers globally, how do you see organizations using business information to uncover those pockets of market opportunity?
They’re sizing and comparing market places and sub-sectors, exploring dynamics and looking to replicate successes. Businesses are using business information tools in order to understand how to repeat market success, while reducing risk. By analyzing market dynamics, assessing viability and preparing an entry strategy – with the right information – their chances of success are markedly improved.

What other strategies do you see being embraced?
Businesses are also seeking to leverage existing customer relationships in new markets. By using family tree information and by drilling down across a given organization there are often opportunities to gain wallet share within current accounts. Customers also see that global markets are not equally affected; there are still opportunities in some markets. It’s important to use a resource that is broad enough to support the global market, and is deep enough to provide information on specific market segments. Using resources that provide extensive news and analysis, can help companies stay on top of the trends in those particular markets – resulting in a significant competitive advantage.

Do you think that it is the larger organizations that may already have a global footprint that are moving more aggressively to internationalize their business – or do you see many smaller, domestic organizations looking to the global marketplace for growth?
Some of those already in global marketplaces are definitely “doubling down” to be more aggressive in pursuing global business. Indeed, we have done this ourselves, adding significant expansion in global business information content to meet the needs of these organizations. In terms of domestic businesses, I’m not sure if they are looking globally; in many cases I think that they may be “hunkering down” and tightening the corporate belt, instead. This is a bit contrarian, in a way; you might expect that with some global markets still growing – even while many US markets are flat or shrinking in some sectors – that businesses would look abroad to identify strategic opportunities.

Are there areas where you aren’t seeing the recession affecting businesses to the same degree?
The recession feels to me like a deeply structural phenomenon; it doesn’t seem to me that the services industry is suffering that much by comparison with some types of manufacturing, for instance.

Professional services: such as law and consulting firms, seem to be doing fine. In general most of the advisory firms seem to be doing well on the back of serving customers’ global needs. Some firms in the IT sector are also doing well.

Given this discussion, where are you investing?
First, we continue to expand the breadth, depth and quality of our business information; for example, on the European front we are adding a wealth of information on German, Italian and Spanish firms and those markets.

Second, we are expanding our professional services offerings. By facilitating flexible delivery of critical business information, often through integration with the customer’s existing infrastructure—a sales portal or CRM system, for example—we help firms to realize maximum value from all available business information.

In the UK we launched a credit analyzer product that allows for creation of a custom credit score. The professional services team uses financial data to create a customized financial score based on the condition of the target organization. Because the Professional Services team can customize the report to a particular model, or a particular approach, it helps the customer understand credit worthiness in a way that is relevant to their business.

The Market Analyzer is a popular application for those seeking the truth about where the best revenue and profit opportunities are in their markets. It’s very useful in helping businesses segment their marketing–understanding where they are currently, or can be, most successful.

Indeed, according to a recent corporate travel spending survey by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), 33 percent of the 131 companies surveyed indicated they would be spending less on travel year over year.

But oftentimes there’s no substitute for meeting a prospect in person – especially if your competition is going to make the trip. Deals are made on relationships because customers want to work with vendors they know they will be able to trust, and familiarity through face-to-face meetings helps build that trust.

So while web meetings and video conferencing may play a role, they are not a substitute for meeting in person. Does that mean that organizations cannot save on sales travel? Well, they might still be able to save through smarter planning of sales trips.

A Better Approach

If you don’t want to risk deals by reducing face-to-face meetings, and you still need to save on travel budgets, your best option is to optimize trips to meet as many customers or prospects during a trip. Here are some steps to accomplish that:

1. Develop target lists by metro area using radius searches
2. Pick a travel window for each metro area and start planning early
3. Call prospects by geography and use your planned trip as a reason to meet

Of course, one of the challenges to this type of approach is that not all of the prospects you will be meeting are going to be ready to purchase something from you. After all, you’re arranging this trip based on your schedule, not their purchasing plans.

But there’s a way to address this issue.

1. Spend the weeks up to the trip using web conferences and phone meetings to build interest
2. Adjust meeting lengths to spend more time with the most interested prospects
3. Start planning for a future trip 3 months out for prospects early in the cycle

Using this approach, you can build a regular rhythm of trips to particular metro areas and really get the most out of each visit by planning ahead of time and meeting the greatest number of prospects. And because you’re building a regular schedule beyond just one trip, you can plan where each of your prospects is in the pipeline and what you need to do in the next meeting to move them forward.

And, an added benefit is that you can save on travel fares by booking ahead of time, since you will be planning these regular visits more in advance and on a more regular schedule.

Adjusting for Your Sales Cycle

In the example noted above, a 3 month return trip was used, but you may need to adjust this for your sales cycle. If you sales cycle is short, you may need to return more frequently. If you have a longer sales cycle, you may adjust it up slightly, but be careful not to push it too much on the other end. After about 3 months, prospects may start to forget about you. If you do a great job staying in touch with the prospect between trips, you can probably push it to 4 or 5 months, but getting beyond that can be tough.

Putting it into Practice

To get going on this type of approach, start by looking at your pipeline and see where you would potentially want to have some trips about a month out already. Also look at your territory and see where your prospects are concentrated.

If you work with an inside sales rep or a telemarketing rep who helps you set up your sales meetings, it’s critical to discuss this approach and build out a plan jointly with that person.

Some companies have gone so far as to evaluate and document their stakeholder analyses in a document called the “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR) report.  These can be really valuable for Sales as well as Research Professionals.

Here’s a quick example snapshot from the GE CSR – the full report has much more detail on each of these areas and also dives into specific business initiatives where GE will be spending money to address corporate citizenship goals.

CSR analyses cover many topics including:

• Environmental impact (e.g. Pollution, Carbon Dioxide Emissions)
• Global Vendor Sourcing (e.g. Plant Safety, Wages, Child Labor)
• Social (e.g. Charitable Donations, Employee Community Involvement)
• Industry Specific Concerns (e.g. Tobacco Company Marketing, Mobile Phone radiation)

If a sales or business development rep can tie their product or service to one of these objectives, they have a strongly focused, company specific selling point (e.g. Your CEO set a 2012 goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20%, our logistics software helps…)  CSR goals can also be useful for business development directors, underwriters, lawyers, investment bankers, and consultants.

You can sometimes find a bit of this content in news releases or on corporate websites.  The glossy version of the annual report may have this information as well (you’re more likely to find it there than a 10-K annual filing).  One way to get comprehensive access to CSR information is through a business information service.

1. Get the “Golden Nugget” Before the Call

30 seconds. That’s the most time a caller has to hook the prospect into a more in-depth conversation. Getting the golden nugget to make the hook is critical.  The ideal nugget is a quote from the prospect you are trying to reach, but those are not always easy to find.  If you find one, and it’s relevant, you’re in good shape.  If not, then by combining networking with a smarter way to do research, you can still hit the bullseye.

2. Network – Not Just for Who they know, but for What they know

Using the best research sources can give you some good ideas about what matters to your prospect. Add to that insight by calling other people in the company – perhaps peers or even people that work for the prospect.

• Call other people in the organization not to sell to them, but to understand what motivates your prospect, to get the right hook for that critical call
• Use these calls in conjunction with your company research to truly understand needs at the corporate level as well as what is important to your prospect.

3. A Smarter and Faster Way to do the Research

Everyone knows how important it is do research before calling, but doing research is time consuming, so we often don’t do enough.

If you don’t have access to a business information service, bookmarking your favorite financial research sites can be helpful to quickly gain access to SEC filings and company reports.

Business information services can be a big time-saver (and cost-saver). A good service can offer searchable company profiles, financial metrics, executive biographies, analyst reports, and relevant news – and even pull data directly into a CRM system with the click of a button.  Having more comprehensive research resources speeds up the calling process, allowing companies to reach more prospects with targeted and relevant messages.

• The incumbent: Who is the incumbent?  If this is a new product or service for the prospect, which of your competitors has a prior relationship with them?
• The mindshare leader: Is there a vendor that has a strong brand in the marketplace and is usually included in the vendor mix (e.g. Salesforce.com for hosted CRMs)?  Do they show up often enough that you should assume that they are included in the mix?
• The “quadrant” leaders: If your prospect is using the language and posing the key questions of the technology market research firms (e.g. Gartner), who are the top vendors according to these firms?
• Desired Value Proposition: What are the dimensions they are emphasizing (e.g. Price, Total Cost of Ownership, Support, Quality, Up-Time, Leading Edge Features) and which firms position to those dimensions?
• The RFI / RFP / RFQ: Unless your firm was directly involved in shaping the RFP, you should look closely at the questions.  Are they asking for services or features that are provided by your key competitors?  What terminology are they employing?  Do they use any trademarked or company specific terminology?  Also, if there is a pushback process for clarifying the RFP, the questions are generally published to all participants with the answers.  While the source of each question is generally non-attributed, you can often determine your competitors by the positioning of the questions.  If the sales rep cannot discern at least one competitor from the RFP and pushback processes, they should forward the RFP and pushback Q&A to a Competitive Intelligence manager for interpretation.  Much can be discerned from the shadows cast by the RFP process.
• Public Data: Governments publish the request for bids and contract award histories.  This can be used to identify incumbents or competitors that have a strong relationship with the RFP publishing agency.  For example, the US FedBizOps database will provide award histories and has a taxonomy for product / service types.  FedBizOpps covers bid opportunities beginning at $25,000.  You can find this data through subscription news services, company research services, government RFP services, or via the FedBizOpps website.  The feds have even gone so far as to make the FedBizOpps database available via FTP as a daily XML file!
• Questions asked during demos: Are they regurgitating the positioning points made by your competitors?  Hopefully, your company provides training on traps (to lay for your competitors) and landmines (set by your competitors and how to diffuse them).  If not, you should integrate these topics into your standard training along with the appropriate tools.  With this knowledge, sales reps can discern likely competitors, avoid their landmines, and lay traps for them.
• Decision makers: Are you interfacing with only one or two members of the review team?  If so, firms will often assign different individuals to manage each vendor.  If you can get some one-on-one time with the other individuals on the decision committee, they may let slip (either directly or via terminology) some of the other vendors’ names.