Elena Hutchison - Analyst Relations Explained
08/17/23 • 37 min
Our Guest: Elena Hutchison, formerly an Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Medallia, is now the Founder of Up/Right Analyst Relations. The firm offers coaching, consulting, and fractional analyst relations services, specifically designed to enhance companies' engagement with Gartner, Forrester, and other industry leaders.
Episode Topics:
- Understanding the analyst relations function beyond quadrants + how analyst firms serve their own customers
- Elena’s insights on the accuracy of Gartner’s Magic Quadrants and Forrester’s Wave
- Elena expands on her “Most Important Sales Cycle of the Year” post
- Should companies always participate in an analyst Request for Information (RFI)?
- How can early + mid-stage companies best work with analyst firms?
- How analysts evaluate emerging vendors within categories + significance of vendor financial stability
- The value of customer stories around ROI when collaborating with analysts
- How to gain buy-in for an analyst relations program?
- Understanding the timeline for tangible, positive results from an analyst relations program.
- Elena’s insights on the differences between the largest analyst firms and niche analyst firms.
Resources:
https://www.uprightar.com/blog/your-analyst-evaluation-is-the-most-important-sales-cycle-of-the-year
https://www.uprightar.com/blog/debunking-five-myths-of-analyst-relations-for-startup-ceos
https://www.saasboost.io/outsourced-sales-blog/top-saas-directory-and-review-sites-complete-guide-2023
About Cloud Radio by Cloud Ratings:
Made for "full stack" cloud + SaaS operators, Cloud Radio is a SaaS podcast covers all aspects of the business of software.
Our host - Matt Harney - is active on Twitter @saasletter and writes "SaaSletter", an investing-oriented SaaS newsletter on Substack.
https://cloudradio.cloudratings.com/
https://twitter.com/SaaSletter
About Cloud Ratings:
Cloud Ratings is a customer outcomes-focused, data-driven software research analyst firm. We exist to allow organizations to make more confident, lower-risk software purchasing decisions.
Our Cloud Ratings Category Reports combine user reviews with verified vendor data to impartially identify leading software products. Recent report examples include: Lead Routing Software, Sales Training + Onboarding Software, Sales Conversation Intelligence Software, and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Software
Built upon investigative customer interviews, our True ROI Reports quantify and provide 3rd party validation of a software product’s business value.
Our Guest: Elena Hutchison, formerly an Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Medallia, is now the Founder of Up/Right Analyst Relations. The firm offers coaching, consulting, and fractional analyst relations services, specifically designed to enhance companies' engagement with Gartner, Forrester, and other industry leaders.
Episode Topics:
- Understanding the analyst relations function beyond quadrants + how analyst firms serve their own customers
- Elena’s insights on the accuracy of Gartner’s Magic Quadrants and Forrester’s Wave
- Elena expands on her “Most Important Sales Cycle of the Year” post
- Should companies always participate in an analyst Request for Information (RFI)?
- How can early + mid-stage companies best work with analyst firms?
- How analysts evaluate emerging vendors within categories + significance of vendor financial stability
- The value of customer stories around ROI when collaborating with analysts
- How to gain buy-in for an analyst relations program?
- Understanding the timeline for tangible, positive results from an analyst relations program.
- Elena’s insights on the differences between the largest analyst firms and niche analyst firms.
Resources:
https://www.uprightar.com/blog/your-analyst-evaluation-is-the-most-important-sales-cycle-of-the-year
https://www.uprightar.com/blog/debunking-five-myths-of-analyst-relations-for-startup-ceos
https://www.saasboost.io/outsourced-sales-blog/top-saas-directory-and-review-sites-complete-guide-2023
About Cloud Radio by Cloud Ratings:
Made for "full stack" cloud + SaaS operators, Cloud Radio is a SaaS podcast covers all aspects of the business of software.
Our host - Matt Harney - is active on Twitter @saasletter and writes "SaaSletter", an investing-oriented SaaS newsletter on Substack.
https://cloudradio.cloudratings.com/
https://twitter.com/SaaSletter
About Cloud Ratings:
Cloud Ratings is a customer outcomes-focused, data-driven software research analyst firm. We exist to allow organizations to make more confident, lower-risk software purchasing decisions.
Our Cloud Ratings Category Reports combine user reviews with verified vendor data to impartially identify leading software products. Recent report examples include: Lead Routing Software, Sales Training + Onboarding Software, Sales Conversation Intelligence Software, and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Software
Built upon investigative customer interviews, our True ROI Reports quantify and provide 3rd party validation of a software product’s business value.
Previous Episode
Forget The Funnel Founder + Author: Book Deep Dive
Our Guest: Claire Suellentrop recently published “Forget The Funnel”, a book outlining the Customer-Led Growth framework she and her partner Georgiana Laudi use in their consulting work with SaaS companies. Prior to founding Forget The Funnel, Claire was the Director of Marketing at Calendly.
Episode Topics - “Forget The Funnel” Excerpts We Dive Into:
- “Many marketing teams operate in a haphazard way, endlessly experimenting until something sticks. This is no way to generate long-term growth. In fact, it prevents sustainable and predictable growth. Most marketing teams don’t have time to stop, look around, and ask themselves, ‘Why isn’t this working?’”
- Customer Value Surprises + Disconnects - “Autobooks claimed to be an all-in-one tool - the research showed that only one feature set actually got small business owners through the door: online invoicing and payment processing.“
- Doing Too Many Customer Jobs To Be Done - “Step 4: Pick One Job. One of the biggest mistakes we see companies make at this stage is trying to solve all of their customers’ Jobs at once. That’s because each Job can represent vastly different customer needs and priorities.”
- Customer Value Mapping - “That’s the ultimate goal of the Customer-Led Growth Framework: making your customer’s experience quantifiable, unambiguous, and the bedrock of your organization: every department, every team, every decision.”
- And details on timelines and tactics for implementing Forget The Funnel at your company
Episode Resources:
https://www.forgetthefunnel.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Forget-Funnel-Customer-Led-Predictable-Recurring-ebook/dp/B0C386KSTG
About Cloud Radio by Cloud Ratings:
Made for "full stack" cloud + SaaS operators, Cloud Radio is a SaaS podcast covers all aspects of the business of software.
Our host - Matt Harney - is active on Twitter @saasletter and writes "SaaSletter", an investing-oriented SaaS newsletter on Substack.
https://cloudradio.cloudratings.com/
https://twitter.com/SaaSletter
About Cloud Ratings:
Cloud Ratings is a customer outcomes-focused, data-driven software research analyst firm. We exist to allow organizations to make more confident, lower-risk software purchasing decisions.
Our Cloud Ratings Category Reports combine user reviews with verified vendor data to impartially identify leading software products. Recent report examples include: Session Replay Software, Sales Compensation Software, Digital Sales Room Software, and Direct Mail Automation Software
Built upon investigative customer interviews, our True ROI Reports quantify and provide 3rd party validation of a software product’s business value.
Next Episode
Ben Schaechter from Vantage - Cloud Cost Optimization Explained
Our Guest: Ben Schaechter is the Co-founder & CEO of Vantage, a cloud cost optimization platform for AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, Datadog, Snowflake, Databricks, Fastly, and more.
Episode Topics:
- The current maturity level of the Cloud Cost Optimization cycle.
- The dollar threshold of cloud spending at which organizations should consider pursuing cloud optimization services
- Understanding how Vantage facilitates the process of cloud optimization.
- Ben's view on the hyperscaler cloud service providers' included cost management tools + looking at all elements contributing to cloud usage-based cost.
- Ben's take on the Morgan Stanley thesis that cloud cost optimization leads to greater spending / more workloads long-term.
- Do all optimization efforts lead to greater lock-in with the cloud provider?
- Commitment mechanisms + taking advantage of Enterprise Discount Program (EDP).
- The timeframe for yielding positive results after implementing cloud optimizations.?
- Ben’s commentary on trends outside the hyperscalers, including Snowflake, Databricks, and Datadog.
Resources:
https://www.vantage.sh/cloud-cost-report/2023-q2
https://www.vantage.sh/cloud-cost-report/2023-q1
About Cloud Radio by Cloud Ratings:
Made for "full stack" cloud + SaaS operators, Cloud Radio is a SaaS podcast covers all aspects of the business of software.
Our host - Matt Harney - is active on Twitter @saasletter and writes "SaaSletter", an investing-oriented SaaS newsletter on Substack.
https://cloudradio.cloudratings.com/
https://twitter.com/SaaSletter
About Cloud Ratings:
Cloud Ratings is a customer outcomes-focused, data-driven software research analyst firm. We exist to allow organizations to make more confident, lower-risk software purchasing decisions.
Our Cloud Ratings Category Reports combine user reviews with verified vendor data to impartially identify leading software products. Recent report examples include: Lead Routing Software, Sales Training + Onboarding Software, Sales Conversation Intelligence Software, and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Software
Built upon investigative customer interviews, our True ROI Reports quantify and provide 3rd party validation of a software product’s business value.
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