From the Wizard's book of spells
Sales hit a wall and you need some answers fast...spend a few hours 'double jacking' listening in on customers in your call centre. They'll reveal your problem fast.
Eat your own lunch
Call your switchboard and make an request for customer service. Buy your own product through a channel, via mail order, direct from the company. Probe your systems like a computer hacker. You will discover hidden secrets.
Interview the competition
Have a headhunter solicit key people from your competition for job interviews. Anxious to impress, they will, more than likely, tell you things they shouldn't.
Spy through the mail
Put yourself on as many mailing lists as your competitors operate - every newsletter, loyalty club, mail order, solicitation list around. Have your competitors pay postage to send you their latest move in the marketplace.
Attend their sales meetings
How many companies care about security when it comes to party time (sale conferences). Find out when they are on by calling the event organisers and venues (with the excuse of trying to avoid a clash). Send someone discreet to hang around the resort or hotel where your major competition is revealing its plans to its dealers/sales force. Tell them to keep their ears open and look for opportunities to slip into presentations and/or pick up handouts. Attend competitors' AGMs and read their annual reports as well. Have a news clippings service keep tabs on them.
Ask your competitors questions
Use website customer support and enquiry services run by competitors to quiz operators about company plans and new product horizons.
Steal ads
Keep a collection of US and UK annual advertising awards books and simply steal the ideas as you need them. Most ad agencies do this already, passing the stolen ideas off as their own.
Change the anniversary
If you win a new customer from a competitor and you are selling services on an annual basis (like insurance), sell the customer only 9 months' worth to start. This will shift their renewal time away from that known to their previous supplier... who will try soliciting them again next year, but it will be three months too late.
Consult a psychic
Take a photo of your competitor or anyone else you want to find out about. Consult a face reader. Consult a handwriting analyst. Have the competitor's astrological chart done. Have a numerology report done on their name. Look for patterns that emerge from each source.
Buy their airspace
Take a long lease on billboards that are visible and confronting for your competitor's staff. Feed them a stream of messages that will demoralise them. Do the same thing with the headquarters of their biggest clients. Do the same thing for your own clients (to block counter attacks).
Fly with them
When you can't get a meeting with a VIP, find out when they will be travelling by aircraft and book the seat next to them. You will have a captive audience and they will most likely be impressed that you take the return flight immediately...Making them feel important.