T3Tony

Regional Sales MAnager

How deep do you go?

When prospecting for new business how much research do you do prior to making that first contact?

I've heard some people have success with very little research and others have massive success with doing tons of homework prior to reaching out.

🔎 Prospecting

👑 Sales Strategy

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softwarebro

Politicker

Sales Director

If its a true cold call, I spend no more than 5min researching company/person I am about to call. If it's an RFP I spend a couple of hours mapping out the org.

T3Tony

Valued Contributor

Regional Sales MAnager

@softwarebro Do you have any recommendations on key items you focus on when exploring the org in regards to an RFP?

softwarebro

Politicker

Sales Director

For RFPs or ENT sales in general you can't count on 1 champion to make the sale- usually, you have to win the majority. When exploring an organization to map take the following into consideration:

-account goals ( are you selling more than one product? helping more than one business unit?)
-who is likely going to be a champion and who is likely to be a detractor?
-Can you leverage existing relationships?
-Regarding influencers and decision-makers - uncover what's important to them.

I always start with my point of contact then move to decision-makers. Then I make a map of their decision-making process (who gets the final say? the business? procurement? IT? a single person? committee? )

Keep an eye out for who is CC'd on your correspondence with your point of contact it's usually someone important.

T3Tony

Valued Contributor

Regional Sales MAnager

@softwarebro Thank you for taking the time to share your process. Definitely will be trying this on the next RFP we come across.

EnterpriseSales

Good Citizen

Sales Manager

I'd really recommend 'MEDDICC' by andy whyte - talks you through one of the best, most useful qualification frameworks for enterprise sales that I've come across.

You'd have to do it in stages though - a first discovery call, and then a collaborative whiteboarding session where the buyer trusts you enough to give you proper data for benchmarking (metrics), etc. to help you make your business case.

Salespreuner

Big Shot

Regional Sales Director

Right Strategy. RFPs need detailed attention

kgotti

Opinionated

Key Account Executive

My rules of research on an individual basis, why I'm calling your company, why I chose you at that company, and how I can help their specific role

T3Tony

Valued Contributor

Regional Sales MAnager

@kgotti Who do you typically target when zeroing in on a specific role?

kgotti

Opinionated

Key Account Executive

My tactics are to both go at the individual practitioner level as well as the director VP level to begin with. The goal is to get conversations with different levels and be able to create a story that I can take to execs to get a PoC going.

T3Tony

Valued Contributor

Regional Sales MAnager

@kgotti I like that tatic a lot. Will be using on an upcoming RFP.
Thank you for sharing the best practice.

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

Depends on the size of the business and what you are trying to sell. I have some prospects that I have researched quite a bit, whereas others I don't research at all. Have had success with both.

T3Tony

Valued Contributor

Regional Sales MAnager

We sell remote monitoring solutions IoT in a box. We also have a SaaS element.

Most of the focus has been in the SMB space to this point.

Stringer

Arsonist

SDR

Cold calls - I do very little homework, I pull up their LinkedIn so I at least have a reference on the person, still not the company. I've found on cold calls people don't ask me "do you know what we do".

Emails - personalized to the person, not the company.

I qualify companies before putting them on my lead list. So when it rolls around, I already know we are an artificial good fit (they use a competitor or fit our general ICP).

T3Tony

Valued Contributor

Regional Sales MAnager

@Stringer When making the cold calls without little research how do you address the rebuttal of they are no longer with the company?

Stringer

Arsonist

SDR

"Hahaha I didn't realize that. Well don't transfer me to his voicemail, because I'll never hear from him hahah (fake AF). Can I talk to whoever took his position? (at this point -HUSTLE get a name, title, or transferred).

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

I have fewer overall accounts to work with than some of my friends working elsewhere. 10-20 minutes per account at the minimum seems to be where I land.

T3Tony

Valued Contributor

Regional Sales MAnager

@CaneWolf When doing your homework, what content do you focus on and has had the most success rate?

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

Let me know if this answers your question or if I'm misunderstanding it.

There's the obvious stuff such as career background, location, etc.

Finding interviews or award announcements can be really helpful. Taking quotes from there and tying it to content or work your team has done can be great. A generic example: "Hey Tom, you mentioned that growing your customer base through newer communication methods is really important. Our VP of Product wrote about how SMS can help companies do X, Y and Z." I've seen that messaging really resonate.

The other main area I tend to focus on for newer hires is why they were hired. If somebody's led an ERP replacement at their last two roles, there's a decent shot that's one of their responsibilities now. It's sometimes worth it just to roll the dice and message specifically to the reason you think they're there.

SalesSpectre

Opinionated

Depends what you sell.
If your widget does 1 thing and you sell to 1 persona then you can let it rip no research.

More complex software that solves a variety of problems for a variety of industries and personas with a higher acv..do some research.

T3Tony

Valued Contributor

Regional Sales MAnager

@SalesSpectre There is so much truth behind this.

Rissole

Fire Starter

BDR

I usually read a company's website while on hold or speaking to the gatekeeper, I find asking those questions directly to the Directors get the conversation flowing

T3Tony

Valued Contributor

Regional Sales MAnager

@Rissole What types of questions would you pose to the directors?

JJASBE

Catalyst

Director, Solutions Sales

It depends on the level that I plan to call on. VP and above, I typically find a podcast or interview they've been a part of, and just listen to it on a walk. I use what they say to understand priorities/perspectives, and craft a number of outbound messages (& cold call talk tracks) around the more resonant points they made.

goose

Politicker

Sales Executive

What do you sell?

Chep

WR Officer

Bitcoin Adoption Specialist

Depends on if they're like a 10/10 ICP or if they just qualify. In general though even for the 10/10s I don't like spending too much time researching because the more time I put in the more nervous I might get trying to bring up stuff that is ultimately irrelevant. 10 minutes tops is what I will spend looking at a prospect's LinkedIn/ company website.

MR.StretchISR

Politicker

ISR

If its a true cold call, I spend no more than 5min researching company/person I am about to call. If it's an RFP I spend a couple of hours mapping out the org.

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T3Tony

How deep do you go?

26 comments

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