Unfortunately, that’s how too many executives think about industry analysts.

It’s down to AR professionals to wean your executives off the mentality that every touchpoint is a “vendor briefing.”

No matter where they meet an analyst — tradeshow, event, private dinner or even the coffee line — they see an opportunity to bang the drum. “Before the food arrives, I brought just a few folios to walk through…”

Effective Analyst Relations is almost the opposite.

Here’s a five-point myth-busting guide to coach spokespeople:

1. Recognize that interactions are more than a briefing in disguise. Put an exec in a roundtable or multi-vendor dinner and their first reaction is often: “I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known competitors were in the room.”
   They’re assuming the purpose is to pitch. The real value is listening to the analysts’ view of the market. Tell your execs this in advance.
2. Treat inquiries as springboards, not dead ends. A good inquiry reveals weaknesses and reinforces strengths. Explore the negatives via follow-up briefing, a referral to a better-aligned analyst, or a new line of questioning. Don’t let spokespeople treat any inquiry as a one-off Q&A.
3. Impactful AR is nuanced: I love running a warm-up with a Tier 2 analyst before execs sit down with the T1s. Often in the debrief the exec says: “That went really well, right?” Then I ask:
   “How many questions did you ask?”
   “How many times did you validate your key points?
   “Did you ask how competitor X is winning deals against us?”
   Cue the pause… “Oh. Right.”
4. Help executives understand analyst context. Executives hear a keynote and assume it’s “about us.” They don’t realize analysts present a big picture distilled from hundreds of markets and tens of thousands of data points. AR’s job: translate that context into something the business can use.
5. Recognize AR as more than a meeting scheduler and note-taker. It’s down to AR to sell the quiet choreography:
   Orchestrating who meets whom, when, and in what format
   Turning every interaction into the next interaction
   Coaching execs to listen, test hypotheses, and ask better questions — not just talk

Everything about AR must be learned. As an industry, we’re not great at educating executives.

So no, not every analyst interaction is a chance to tell analysts how great you are.

Every interaction is a chance to:

• Learn something real about how and why your market is changing
• Validate (or puncture) your cherished assumptions
• Set up more, perhaps more valuable, conversations

That’s where the real value of AR lives.

How do you coach your execs to stop “briefing” and start using analyst interactions properly? We’d love to hear your insights.