Taking vendor briefings is a large part of an industry analyst’s job. Analysts take briefings to learn about vendors in their coverage; understand offerings, buyers, and trends; and inform their research. Briefings are part of the research process and help us stay current on vendor offerings and capabilities. Vendors don’t have to be clients to brief analysts since briefings are designed to increase the analyst’s understanding of the vendor, its offerings, and the market. You can learn more about briefing Forrester analysts here.

Former Forrester analyst Josh Zelonis blogged about how to deliver successful vendor briefings years ago. I’m updating his blog with my own thoughts as a “recovering marketer,” Forrester analyst, and research director. This blog is a collection of my top tips for briefing analysts with contributions from other Security & Risk analysts.

Sell Your Briefing

Analysts get a lot of briefing requests. A lot. They are also time-starved and must choose the briefings that are going to be most impactful for them. Therefore, they don’t say yes to every briefing request. When submitting your briefing request, be sure to let the analyst know:

  • Who you are. Make sure it’s clear in the briefing request what the name of your firm is. If you’re using a third party to schedule briefings, it’s not always clear.
  • What you do. If you haven’t briefed the analyst previously, tell them what your company does and what problems you solve. You’d be surprised at how many briefing requests I’ve seen where I had to look up the vendor and what it does.
  • What the briefing will focus on. Give the analyst a short snippet of what you’ll be talking about in the briefing. First briefings should focus on the company and provide an overview of the solution. Update briefings should discuss what’s new with the company, its strategy, and its solution. It could also be about a novel attack technique or exploit uncovered by the vendor. It could be customer case studies and examples to make the solution real for the analyst. Make it interesting! Would you spend 30 minutes or an hour on something if it wasn’t?
  • How it’s relevant to them. Explain how the briefing is relevant to the analyst, their coverage, and the clients they serve.
  • Why now. Let the analyst know why the briefing is necessary now and how it will help their knowledge of your company and the space.

Don’t be surprised or get offended if the analyst declines the briefing request. Analysts decline briefings for many reasons like being too busy with research, client delivery, and travel. They may also not see a need for a briefing at the time if they’ve talked to you fairly recently or there’s nothing new they need to be updated on. Offer to send them information via email if they don’t have time for a live briefing.

Also, briefings are designed to be one-way interactions. They are for vendors to educate analysts about themselves and their solutions. Don’t expect the analyst to give you real-time feedback during the briefing or provide market insights, which are better left to advisory for in-depth feedback and inquiries for questions about the market (these are typically limited to clients).

Use The Five W’s And An H

Former Forrester analyst John Kindervag often used poet Rudyard Kipling to talk about data needs for conducting security investigations. He quoted Kipling’s poem, “I Keep Six Honest Serving Men” which starts with:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Apply these six questions to your analyst briefings as follows:

  1. What:
  • What are you selling?
  • In what market(s) do you compete?
  • What are your unique differentiators/what is your unique selling proposition?
  • What innovations are you introducing?
  • What is your strategy?
  1. Why:
  • Why are you briefing me today?
  • Why are customers buying your solution?
  1. When:
  • What’s new now?
  • What’s coming in the next six to 18 months?
  1. How:
  • How are you winning?
  • How do you price your solution?
  • How is it deployed (on-prem, SaaS, hybrid)?
  • How do you sell (direct, channel, combo, marketplace)?
  1. Where:
  • Where do you sell globally/regionally?
  1. Who:
  • Who are your customers? Are they enterprises or SMBs? Which industries are they in?
  • Who are the buyer personas inside your customer base?
  • Who are your competitors?

Understand That Yes, The Briefing Is “Only” 30 Minutes

In my 10 years at Forrester, my experience is that vendors often waste time in a 60-minute briefing. I only do 60 minutes when I’m actively researching a topic, am taking over a new coverage, or need to do a deep dive with a vendor I’m not familiar with. Otherwise, briefings are 30 minutes. It’s up to the vendor to make the best use of those 30 minutes.

Getting the most out of the 30 minutes requires discipline and preparation. Tell the analyst what the important points are, do the demo, and leave room for questions. If you’re doing a demo, break down the briefing agenda (see below for a more detailed briefing agenda) as follows:

  • Greetings and company/product overview — 15 minutes
  • Demo — 10 minutes
  • Questions — 5 minutes

Forrester research indicates that 10% of planned briefing time is lost due to an unproductive start. Don’t take time introducing everyone on the call or asking about the analyst’s coverage. If you’re prepared, you already know who the analyst is and what they cover.

Our website provides analyst bios. Send them to briefing attendees so they learn about the analysts’ backgrounds and focus areas. Analysts often talk extensively about their coverage, which can cut into your presentation time during the 30-minute meeting.

Save time prior to the briefing by sending over an email with the attendees and their roles. Even if introductions only take three minutes, that’s 10% of your 30 minutes gone. Also, don’t waste time lamenting that the briefing is “only 30 minutes.” The analyst already knows this, and there were two choices: Offer you 30 minutes, or decline the briefing request.

Give The Analyst Some Credit

Most analysts spend years studying their fields, with prior experience as practitioners, working at vendors, or both. I’ve worked in cybersecurity for two decades — 10 years on the vendor side and another 10 at Forrester. Trust me, I know the risks on the internet. There’s no need to add multiple slides explaining how hackers target systems.

The exception to this is if your company is doing something new or protecting against a novel threat type. If this applies to you, use one slide to explain what the threat is and who it impacts before heading into the rest of your presentation.

My Other Analyst Briefing Best Practices

Be ready for your next analyst briefing and wow the analyst by:

  • Showing up on time. Get all the people who will be part of the briefing to show up on time (or a little early). Lots of briefing time gets wasted waiting for spokespeople or demonstrators to arrive. Most of the time, analysts can’t extend the briefing as they are on back-to-back calls.
  • Being familiar with the screen-sharing platform. Lots of briefings are stalled as presenters try to figure out how to screen-share or download software updates. Check these things ahead of time.
  • Providing visuals. Put together a presentation that addresses the key items you’re covering in the briefing. Send that presentation to the analyst at the conclusion of the briefing.
  • Focusing on how you solve customer problems. Don’t focus only on product features; make the analyst understand how customers use them.
  • Not stopping to ask if the analyst has questions. If the analyst has questions, they’ll ask them or they’ll wait until the end.
  • Leaving out quotes and results from other analyst firms. No analyst cares what another analyst firm or “independent” security testing company said about you (this includes any evals you participated in). At best, it’s information that will be ignored. At worst, you’re insulting the analyst you’re speaking to.
  • Planning your briefings ahead of time. Look at your product roadmap and plan briefings ahead of important product releases or big events. It can sometimes take weeks to schedule a briefing, so plan for that. Don’t wait until the week before the product announcement to request the briefing.
  • Preparing your speakers. Make sure your speakers know what the purpose of the briefing is, what their role in it is, and who they are talking to.
  • Practicing your presentation. Have your spokespeople review the content ahead of time and set expectations with them about how long the briefing is (“it’s only 30 minutes”).
  • Understanding what analysts do. Analysts write research about the markets and solutions they cover for consumption by end-user clients. I cover cybersecurity, so my research is targeted at Forrester’s CISO and technical leader clients. We also provide guidance to customers and use the information gleaned from briefings to inform those conversations.
  • Not expecting the analyst to answer your questions about the market. Briefings are not your opportunity to pepper the analyst with questions about the market or competitors. They are your opportunity to showcase your company — use the time wisely. Forrester provides advisory for deep-dive feedback and strategic advice and inquiry sessions for clients so that you can get your market questions answered. Those interactions are the places to ask market questions.

Follow This Sample Briefing Agenda

No analyst wants to see a 50-plus slide presentation in a briefing. You also won’t have time to cover that much content effectively in 30 minutes. See below for a sample presentation agenda:

  • Slide 1: Give a company overview. If you haven’t briefed the analyst previously, give an overview of when the company was founded, how much funding you’ve raised, what your revenue is, how many customers you have, and how many employees you have.
  • Slide 2: Describe the problem you are solving. Do this briefly, with an understanding that the analyst already knows the problems in the space.
  • Slide 3: Introduce your solution. Show how it solves the problem you’re addressing. Include your key differentiators. Explain why you win.
  • Slide 4: Provide some customer examples. Show how customers are using your solution.
  • Slide 5: Explain how the solution is deployed. If it’s a service, explain how clients work with the service.
  • Slide 6: Describe the market you’re in. Include information like customer size, industry verticals, and regions in which you’re operating. Name key competitors.
  • Slide 7: Discuss your go-to-market. Let the analyst know if you’re selling direct, via the channel, or a combination of both.
  • Slide 8: Detail your pricing and packaging. Tell the analyst how you package, license, and price your solution. Provide your average deal size.
  • Slide 9: Overview your strategy and future roadmap. Explain where you’re going. Talk about innovations and enhancements you’re planning to introduce and how you’ll get there.
  • Demo: Show a brief demonstration of your solution. Focus on how customers use the solution and get value. Highlight unique or differentiating features.

Get Help

If your firm doesn’t have an analyst relations (AR) person, get some outside help. Analyst relations is a separate discipline from PR, so look for AR pros who can help guide your AR program. If you’re an AR pro looking for additional resources, Forrester provides research, education, and peer engagement for AR pros.

Request A Briefing

Ready to brief us? Request a Forrester analyst briefing here.