What do you check? Company linkedin, company website? Personal linkedin? Recent company news?
What else? How much time do you usually spend preparing for a sales meeting?
Back
What's you typical research process before a sales call?
33
This is a document that I created for my internal team.Ā This covers different research avenues, and some of it (google alerts) can be automated.Ā It's long, hope it helps.Ā This is mostly from "Smart Calling" - but I added resources too.
Google News Alerts Google News AlertsĀ
( http://www.google.com/alerts) is a free service that needs to become part of your Smart Calling toolbox. Google will send you an e-mail at the frequency of yourĀ choice (even daily) that notifies you of any new content posted to the web containing theĀ search term(s) that you determine. At a minimum, you should have alerts set up with yourĀ main competitorsā names and those of your biggest customers. You should also include bothĀ the company name and the names of individual decision-makers of your most highly covetedĀ prospects. You can enter queries for whatever youād like, including specific terms such asĀ ābuilding permits in 68137 zip code.ā Google is your part-time lead generator, and works for free!
Smart Calling TipĀ
PastĀ customers are one of your best sources of newĀ business.
There is gold in this list. And donāt be afraid of the customer quit buying because of a problem. The problem will still existāor at least be rememberedāif no oneĀ bothers to contact them. However, calling will give you a chance to fix it. And if the previousĀ buyer left, go through the Smart Calling process with the new buyer. You can alwaysĀ reference the previous relationship, and you have some history to work with. Exploring theĀ Wealth of Online Information Your
Prospectās Website
Your prospectās website should be your first online destination. Again, what you sell willĀ determine where you drill, but aside from the obvious facts you would find at their site, hereĀ are a few other ideas about specific places to go: The āAbout Usā Section. This is often whereĀ youāll be able to find names, bios, and contact info for key people, as well as details on how the company began, who they serve, what benefits or tools they provide, and perhaps whoĀ some of their major clients are. Press Releases.Ā Ā These provide timely information that the company obviously believes is newsworthy, asĀ well as potential contact names when youāre otherwise coming up empty. Heather Beck, aĀ sales rep with testing equipment manufacturer Acterna, said that she was more than onceĀ unable to get a contact name from an operator or anywhere on a website but foundĀ someone quoted in a press release that she could then call. Though this person wasnāt theĀ buyer, speaking with him gave her a start with some names in the investigation andĀ navigation process. Mission Statements.Ā Ryzex Group manager Peter Andrachuk suggests looking for keywords and phrases thatĀ signify importance to the company. For example, evaluate the companyās mission statementĀ or simply the description on their home page of what they do. If they say that one of theirĀ goals are to āmake the lives of their customers easier through automation of daily, routineĀ tasks,ā then that could be a phrase you could use in a letter, e-mail, voice mail, and opening statement.
Job Postings.
These could indicate situational change, such as expansion, and certainly personnel changeĀ (new people in new rolesāperhaps that of the buyer). A sales rep for phone equipment toldĀ me he would call into the department that handled the companyās telecommunications and discussĀ the upcoming needs they might have with the additional employees. In addition to checkingĀ a companyās site for postings, check www.Indeed.com, a compilation site for online job postings.Ā Company Site Searches.Ā Some company websites have a search box that makes it much easier to hunt for specificĀ information within the site.
Hereās a way to do it using Google: Type your search term inĀ quotes, then site:Ā companysite.com
For example, if I am looking for sales managers at Verizon, I would search āsales managerā site:Ā verizon.com
Guessing E-mail Addresses. If youĀ know a companyās e-mail address protocol, you can likely guess addresses if you know names. For example, if on a press release I see that the PR managerās name is PamelaĀ Dennard, and her e-mail isĀ PDennard@ABCorp.com, then I have a fairly good idea what JerryĀ Nobleās e-mail will be at the same company.
Other Online ResourcesĀ
There are numerous places you can go to gather intelligence online, several of which I'll mention. However, I could just skip my entire discussion on using the Internet to gather informationĀ and defer to Sam Richter, whose lifeās work is devoted to just that. Samās book mustĀ be a part of your library if you are serious about prospecting. Itās Take the Cold Out ofĀ Cold CallingāWeb Search Secrets: Know More than You Ever Thought You Could (or Should)about Your Prospects, Clients, and Competition (www.TakeTheCold.com). Sam is an expert at findingĀ information about people, companies, and industries online, and his book provides advanced tips for using search engines as well numerous sites to visit to collect intelligence.Ā Thereās information available online that you probably never thought was accessible. Sam andĀ I have done a number of seminars and webinars together, and what he teaches is must-have information for Smart Callers.I of course wonāt try to paraphrase his entire book, but here'sĀ just a taste of just a couple of the techniques Richter:
Google. āFiletypeā Searches You can type a company name in quotes and then filetype:, followed by a file extension to locate online files publicly available. For example, if youāre looking for white papers a company had posted on its site, you would type āJohnsonEngineeringā filetype: pdf. This can be done for all types of files, such as PowerPoints, spreadsheets, and documents. (Sam also cautions that it may not be ethical to use everythingĀ you find because it is possible to locate files that a company did not realize were actuallyĀ posted at its site.) Street View. Depending on what you sell, it could be useful for youĀ to see an actual photo of your prospectās location. Click on āMapsā at the top of the googleĀ home page, and enter the street address. Then you can use the various tools to moveĀ the photo around and zoom in. I wish I was getting a commission on my recommendationĀ for this book, but Iām not. If you are serious about Smart Calling, though,Ā you absolutely need it. Itās under $25. Trust me on this; get it. Samās site(www.TakeTheCold.com) also has other free resources for you that can Smarten your calls,Ā including a free toolbar.
Smart Calling Search Tip: Geographic software company LizardTechās John Ruffing shared an interesting idea about finding people who are buying. If you sell to governmentsĀ at any level, do Internet searches for āRequests for Proposalā and your keywords. He said that most government entities must post their RFPs, and this is therefore a goodĀ way to find them.
Blogs
Anyone can blogāand many millions do, even if they have nothing to say (which is often the case). However, if your prospects blog, you can glean some very valuable information to helpĀ you connect and hopefully help them buy. Also, your prospect or your prospect companyĀ might be mentioned in a blog. Again, potentially valuable information that could helpĀ you make a connection with your opening or voice mail. Itās worth checking for blogs writtenĀ by and about your prospect and the company at www.blogsearch.Google.com
******Business Resources:******* This list is certainly not all-inclusive, so I suggest you check our resource center at www.SmartCalling.comĀ for updates and other informational resources.
Data.com,Ā formerly Jigsaw (which was acquired by Salesforce.com in 2010) is a user-generated database of more than 32 million people (doubled in just three years from the firstĀ edition of this book) and their contact information. Each contact lists a phone number andĀ an e-mail address. Many of the contacts have direct-dial phone numbersāan invaluable resourceĀ for Smart Callers.
NetProspex (www.netprospex.com) - similar to Data.com in that it provides contact information that is crowd-sourced. Their differential advantage is that they useĀ humans to call contacts to verify and update information, constantly cleaning their data.
American City Business Journals (www.BizJournals.com) publishes theĀ local business newspaper in most of the major markets. You can check out this site forĀ national business news, as well as the local news in your city or market. I personallyĀ subscribe to the Phoenix Business Journal, and it is an invaluable source of local businessĀ news and sales leads. In almost every weekly issue, I can find an article that provides aĀ reason to contact a business for a sales opportunity. It should go without saying that youĀ read the trade publications for your industry and those that you sell into. You can find tradeĀ journals ( http://smallbiztrends.tradepub.com)Ā and subscribe to them for free. Social Networkingāor Social Not-Working? (Good Perspective on Social Media)
Another new social networking site probably popped up in the time it took you to read thisĀ sentence. Certainly, many of these sites could provide valuable Smart Calling intelligence.Ā Particularly if there are communities devoted entirely to buyers in your industry (similar to the groups on LinkedIn). However, they can also be a tremendous time toilet. One of theĀ main arguments against using social networking sites for prospecting is that if you are, forĀ example, targeting higher-level buyers, they might not be on these sites. For my money,Ā Dan Kennedy is one of the top marketing and sales minds in the world. In his āNo B.S.Ā Marketing Letter,ā he cited research conducted by the blogĀ www.UberCEO.comĀ that foundĀ that not one Fortune 100 CEO had a blog, only 2 had Twitter accounts, and a scant 19 had aĀ personal Facebook page. UberCEO claimed that it was āshockingā that so many top CEOs were so disconnected.Ā Twitterāthese folks are busy. Kennedy says that the higher up the ranks you go in businessĀ and affluence, the less use of social media you will find. He explains, āItās really silly toĀ believe any really important, exceptionally productive business leader is devoting time toĀ these things.ā Gavin Ingham, (www.GavinIngham.com) a UK-based motivation and salesĀ speaker and author, said it quite well in his own blog: What if your clients have notĀ embraced blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc? In some markets, the lion-share of individuals haveĀ not even heard of these sites, they do not read blogs and many over 30 do not even have aĀ Facebook account. To them, Twitter is something they do not understand or see the point of. IĀ know many busy executives who make important buying decisions for companies who areĀ ātoo busy to mess about on the internetā as they have āa real job to doā! How do you reachĀ these people through social media? You donāt. Not yet anyway and maybe you never will.Ā Ā Some people do not have the time or interest for social media. Some people do not andĀ might not āgetā social media. Social media is incredibly powerful but you cannot use it toĀ reach and engage with people who have not yet embraced it and who do not use it. SocialĀ media is powerful but it is not a wonder solution that wipes out all others. Social media is aĀ ācommunicationā channel and as such should only be part of an overall sales andĀ communication strategy. I can just see some sales managers reading this right now, saying,Ā āThatās right! See. We shouldnāt be wasting time online on these social media thingies. WeĀ need to be pounding the phones, making calls!ā Whoa. Not so fast there, pardner. There isĀ no denying the explosion in the popularity of social media. Granted, not everyone embracesĀ it. But if youāre like me, and areāor wereāa resister or late-adopterākeep something inĀ mind: You are not your customer or prospect. It doesnāt matter how you feel about tweetingĀ or Facebooking, if thatās where your customers are, thatās where you can get valuable SmartĀ Calling information and should be. Again, Iām not going to address your overall social mediaĀ marketing strategy. That is a much larger discussion that experts discuss online every day.Ā Ā
Twitter Personally, I took the plunge into Twitter before the first edition of this book (www.Twitter.com/ArtSobczak). I built up my number of followers, and still schedule tweets dailyĀ (I know, that really sounds funny). I do keep my posting activity almost exclusively business-related. For Smart Calling intelligence purposes, you may be able to find useful informationĀ about prospects and their ideas, issues, and them personally. In addition, many companiesĀ have Twitter accounts, so this could provide useful insight as well that you might beĀ able to use as the basis for connection. As part of my routine when researching prospects, I check Twitter to see if they are active. With one prospect, I noticed that she had anĀ account, but only tweeted occasionally. I noticed one where she was on vacation and tweetedĀ that she was thrilled her resort had Skinnygirl Margaritas (a brand name). Of course I wasnāt going to lead with that on our initial call, which happened to go very well. Rapport wasĀ built, and I was comfortable enough at the end of the call to ask her about SkinnygirlMargaritas. We had a good laugh, which did not hurt the relationship-building. I did get the business. If you have certain prospects you are coveting, sign up for a service like Hootsuite orĀ Tweetdeck, where you can create private lists of those youād like to follow and monitor theirĀ conversations. You can also search hashtags to find conversations about specific topics,Ā groups, or interests. (A hashtag is the # followed by the word.) For example, as I was writing this paragraph I did a search on # salestraining. It returned a page of tweets from other salesĀ trainers, but also one from a sales manager who asked, āIām going to provide webinars forĀ my team. What pitfalls should I avoid?ā I will answer that with some good content, and thenĀ that provides the basis for a Smart Call. Also, you can follow prospects you would like to makeĀ contact with. Unlike LinkedIn or Facebook where they must accept your invitation to connect, you may follow anyone. You could call them and reference something they had tweeted. Or, you could reply to their tweet and engage in a virtual conversation before contactingĀ them.
YouTube Iām not sure if YouTube fits in a social media conversation, but I am sure that it is the second-largest search engine, only behind its father, Google. This means there is a lot of people lookingĀ there, and a lot of stuff posted there. Donāt get me wrong; you wonāt want to waste timeĀ viewing videos of dancing cats. (Unless, of course, they belong to your highly-targeted prospect.) But if using video is part of your targeted prospectās business, you could find someĀ real gems. Video is becoming more popular by the second, and most of us have the capabilityĀ of shooting and uploading a video at any time with the Smartphone we have in ourĀ pocket. I found a brief video of one of my prospects, a sales manager, who gave a brief motivationalĀ speech to his team to kick off a sales contest. One of his reps recorded it and uploaded it to YouTube. The guy did a pretty decent job, and I complimented him on a sales callĀ to him. How many salespeople who called on him did the same? Finally, this should not beĀ a revelation to you: Look at social media as you would any other activity that requires a timeĀ investment on your part. Pick the outlets that are most likely to yield good Smart Callintelligence, analyze how much time you need to invest in them, discern what your potential returnĀ could be, and create your pre-call planning accordingly. You now have a clear idea of theĀ information youād like to have about your prospects before speaking with them, and a numberĀ of places you can go to find it.
Google News Alerts Google News AlertsĀ
( http://www.google.com/alerts) is a free service that needs to become part of your Smart Calling toolbox. Google will send you an e-mail at the frequency of yourĀ choice (even daily) that notifies you of any new content posted to the web containing theĀ search term(s) that you determine. At a minimum, you should have alerts set up with yourĀ main competitorsā names and those of your biggest customers. You should also include bothĀ the company name and the names of individual decision-makers of your most highly covetedĀ prospects. You can enter queries for whatever youād like, including specific terms such asĀ ābuilding permits in 68137 zip code.ā Google is your part-time lead generator, and works for free!
Smart Calling TipĀ
PastĀ customers are one of your best sources of newĀ business.
There is gold in this list. And donāt be afraid of the customer quit buying because of a problem. The problem will still existāor at least be rememberedāif no oneĀ bothers to contact them. However, calling will give you a chance to fix it. And if the previousĀ buyer left, go through the Smart Calling process with the new buyer. You can alwaysĀ reference the previous relationship, and you have some history to work with. Exploring theĀ Wealth of Online Information Your
Prospectās Website
Your prospectās website should be your first online destination. Again, what you sell willĀ determine where you drill, but aside from the obvious facts you would find at their site, hereĀ are a few other ideas about specific places to go: The āAbout Usā Section. This is often whereĀ youāll be able to find names, bios, and contact info for key people, as well as details on how the company began, who they serve, what benefits or tools they provide, and perhaps whoĀ some of their major clients are. Press Releases.Ā Ā These provide timely information that the company obviously believes is newsworthy, asĀ well as potential contact names when youāre otherwise coming up empty. Heather Beck, aĀ sales rep with testing equipment manufacturer Acterna, said that she was more than onceĀ unable to get a contact name from an operator or anywhere on a website but foundĀ someone quoted in a press release that she could then call. Though this person wasnāt theĀ buyer, speaking with him gave her a start with some names in the investigation andĀ navigation process. Mission Statements.Ā Ryzex Group manager Peter Andrachuk suggests looking for keywords and phrases thatĀ signify importance to the company. For example, evaluate the companyās mission statementĀ or simply the description on their home page of what they do. If they say that one of theirĀ goals are to āmake the lives of their customers easier through automation of daily, routineĀ tasks,ā then that could be a phrase you could use in a letter, e-mail, voice mail, and opening statement.
Job Postings.
These could indicate situational change, such as expansion, and certainly personnel changeĀ (new people in new rolesāperhaps that of the buyer). A sales rep for phone equipment toldĀ me he would call into the department that handled the companyās telecommunications and discussĀ the upcoming needs they might have with the additional employees. In addition to checkingĀ a companyās site for postings, check www.Indeed.com, a compilation site for online job postings.Ā Company Site Searches.Ā Some company websites have a search box that makes it much easier to hunt for specificĀ information within the site.
Hereās a way to do it using Google: Type your search term inĀ quotes, then site:Ā companysite.com
For example, if I am looking for sales managers at Verizon, I would search āsales managerā site:Ā verizon.com
Guessing E-mail Addresses. If youĀ know a companyās e-mail address protocol, you can likely guess addresses if you know names. For example, if on a press release I see that the PR managerās name is PamelaĀ Dennard, and her e-mail isĀ PDennard@ABCorp.com, then I have a fairly good idea what JerryĀ Nobleās e-mail will be at the same company.
Other Online ResourcesĀ
There are numerous places you can go to gather intelligence online, several of which I'll mention. However, I could just skip my entire discussion on using the Internet to gather informationĀ and defer to Sam Richter, whose lifeās work is devoted to just that. Samās book mustĀ be a part of your library if you are serious about prospecting. Itās Take the Cold Out ofĀ Cold CallingāWeb Search Secrets: Know More than You Ever Thought You Could (or Should)about Your Prospects, Clients, and Competition (www.TakeTheCold.com). Sam is an expert at findingĀ information about people, companies, and industries online, and his book provides advanced tips for using search engines as well numerous sites to visit to collect intelligence.Ā Thereās information available online that you probably never thought was accessible. Sam andĀ I have done a number of seminars and webinars together, and what he teaches is must-have information for Smart Callers.I of course wonāt try to paraphrase his entire book, but here'sĀ just a taste of just a couple of the techniques Richter:
Google. āFiletypeā Searches You can type a company name in quotes and then filetype:, followed by a file extension to locate online files publicly available. For example, if youāre looking for white papers a company had posted on its site, you would type āJohnsonEngineeringā filetype: pdf. This can be done for all types of files, such as PowerPoints, spreadsheets, and documents. (Sam also cautions that it may not be ethical to use everythingĀ you find because it is possible to locate files that a company did not realize were actuallyĀ posted at its site.) Street View. Depending on what you sell, it could be useful for youĀ to see an actual photo of your prospectās location. Click on āMapsā at the top of the googleĀ home page, and enter the street address. Then you can use the various tools to moveĀ the photo around and zoom in. I wish I was getting a commission on my recommendationĀ for this book, but Iām not. If you are serious about Smart Calling, though,Ā you absolutely need it. Itās under $25. Trust me on this; get it. Samās site(www.TakeTheCold.com) also has other free resources for you that can Smarten your calls,Ā including a free toolbar.
Smart Calling Search Tip: Geographic software company LizardTechās John Ruffing shared an interesting idea about finding people who are buying. If you sell to governmentsĀ at any level, do Internet searches for āRequests for Proposalā and your keywords. He said that most government entities must post their RFPs, and this is therefore a goodĀ way to find them.
Blogs
Anyone can blogāand many millions do, even if they have nothing to say (which is often the case). However, if your prospects blog, you can glean some very valuable information to helpĀ you connect and hopefully help them buy. Also, your prospect or your prospect companyĀ might be mentioned in a blog. Again, potentially valuable information that could helpĀ you make a connection with your opening or voice mail. Itās worth checking for blogs writtenĀ by and about your prospect and the company at www.blogsearch.Google.com
******Business Resources:******* This list is certainly not all-inclusive, so I suggest you check our resource center at www.SmartCalling.comĀ for updates and other informational resources.
Data.com,Ā formerly Jigsaw (which was acquired by Salesforce.com in 2010) is a user-generated database of more than 32 million people (doubled in just three years from the firstĀ edition of this book) and their contact information. Each contact lists a phone number andĀ an e-mail address. Many of the contacts have direct-dial phone numbersāan invaluable resourceĀ for Smart Callers.
NetProspex (www.netprospex.com) - similar to Data.com in that it provides contact information that is crowd-sourced. Their differential advantage is that they useĀ humans to call contacts to verify and update information, constantly cleaning their data.
American City Business Journals (www.BizJournals.com) publishes theĀ local business newspaper in most of the major markets. You can check out this site forĀ national business news, as well as the local news in your city or market. I personallyĀ subscribe to the Phoenix Business Journal, and it is an invaluable source of local businessĀ news and sales leads. In almost every weekly issue, I can find an article that provides aĀ reason to contact a business for a sales opportunity. It should go without saying that youĀ read the trade publications for your industry and those that you sell into. You can find tradeĀ journals ( http://smallbiztrends.tradepub.com)Ā and subscribe to them for free. Social Networkingāor Social Not-Working? (Good Perspective on Social Media)
Another new social networking site probably popped up in the time it took you to read thisĀ sentence. Certainly, many of these sites could provide valuable Smart Calling intelligence.Ā Particularly if there are communities devoted entirely to buyers in your industry (similar to the groups on LinkedIn). However, they can also be a tremendous time toilet. One of theĀ main arguments against using social networking sites for prospecting is that if you are, forĀ example, targeting higher-level buyers, they might not be on these sites. For my money,Ā Dan Kennedy is one of the top marketing and sales minds in the world. In his āNo B.S.Ā Marketing Letter,ā he cited research conducted by the blogĀ www.UberCEO.comĀ that foundĀ that not one Fortune 100 CEO had a blog, only 2 had Twitter accounts, and a scant 19 had aĀ personal Facebook page. UberCEO claimed that it was āshockingā that so many top CEOs were so disconnected.Ā Twitterāthese folks are busy. Kennedy says that the higher up the ranks you go in businessĀ and affluence, the less use of social media you will find. He explains, āItās really silly toĀ believe any really important, exceptionally productive business leader is devoting time toĀ these things.ā Gavin Ingham, (www.GavinIngham.com) a UK-based motivation and salesĀ speaker and author, said it quite well in his own blog: What if your clients have notĀ embraced blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc? In some markets, the lion-share of individuals haveĀ not even heard of these sites, they do not read blogs and many over 30 do not even have aĀ Facebook account. To them, Twitter is something they do not understand or see the point of. IĀ know many busy executives who make important buying decisions for companies who areĀ ātoo busy to mess about on the internetā as they have āa real job to doā! How do you reachĀ these people through social media? You donāt. Not yet anyway and maybe you never will.Ā Ā Some people do not have the time or interest for social media. Some people do not andĀ might not āgetā social media. Social media is incredibly powerful but you cannot use it toĀ reach and engage with people who have not yet embraced it and who do not use it. SocialĀ media is powerful but it is not a wonder solution that wipes out all others. Social media is aĀ ācommunicationā channel and as such should only be part of an overall sales andĀ communication strategy. I can just see some sales managers reading this right now, saying,Ā āThatās right! See. We shouldnāt be wasting time online on these social media thingies. WeĀ need to be pounding the phones, making calls!ā Whoa. Not so fast there, pardner. There isĀ no denying the explosion in the popularity of social media. Granted, not everyone embracesĀ it. But if youāre like me, and areāor wereāa resister or late-adopterākeep something inĀ mind: You are not your customer or prospect. It doesnāt matter how you feel about tweetingĀ or Facebooking, if thatās where your customers are, thatās where you can get valuable SmartĀ Calling information and should be. Again, Iām not going to address your overall social mediaĀ marketing strategy. That is a much larger discussion that experts discuss online every day.Ā Ā
Twitter Personally, I took the plunge into Twitter before the first edition of this book (www.Twitter.com/ArtSobczak). I built up my number of followers, and still schedule tweets dailyĀ (I know, that really sounds funny). I do keep my posting activity almost exclusively business-related. For Smart Calling intelligence purposes, you may be able to find useful informationĀ about prospects and their ideas, issues, and them personally. In addition, many companiesĀ have Twitter accounts, so this could provide useful insight as well that you might beĀ able to use as the basis for connection. As part of my routine when researching prospects, I check Twitter to see if they are active. With one prospect, I noticed that she had anĀ account, but only tweeted occasionally. I noticed one where she was on vacation and tweetedĀ that she was thrilled her resort had Skinnygirl Margaritas (a brand name). Of course I wasnāt going to lead with that on our initial call, which happened to go very well. Rapport wasĀ built, and I was comfortable enough at the end of the call to ask her about SkinnygirlMargaritas. We had a good laugh, which did not hurt the relationship-building. I did get the business. If you have certain prospects you are coveting, sign up for a service like Hootsuite orĀ Tweetdeck, where you can create private lists of those youād like to follow and monitor theirĀ conversations. You can also search hashtags to find conversations about specific topics,Ā groups, or interests. (A hashtag is the # followed by the word.) For example, as I was writing this paragraph I did a search on # salestraining. It returned a page of tweets from other salesĀ trainers, but also one from a sales manager who asked, āIām going to provide webinars forĀ my team. What pitfalls should I avoid?ā I will answer that with some good content, and thenĀ that provides the basis for a Smart Call. Also, you can follow prospects you would like to makeĀ contact with. Unlike LinkedIn or Facebook where they must accept your invitation to connect, you may follow anyone. You could call them and reference something they had tweeted. Or, you could reply to their tweet and engage in a virtual conversation before contactingĀ them.
YouTube Iām not sure if YouTube fits in a social media conversation, but I am sure that it is the second-largest search engine, only behind its father, Google. This means there is a lot of people lookingĀ there, and a lot of stuff posted there. Donāt get me wrong; you wonāt want to waste timeĀ viewing videos of dancing cats. (Unless, of course, they belong to your highly-targeted prospect.) But if using video is part of your targeted prospectās business, you could find someĀ real gems. Video is becoming more popular by the second, and most of us have the capabilityĀ of shooting and uploading a video at any time with the Smartphone we have in ourĀ pocket. I found a brief video of one of my prospects, a sales manager, who gave a brief motivationalĀ speech to his team to kick off a sales contest. One of his reps recorded it and uploaded it to YouTube. The guy did a pretty decent job, and I complimented him on a sales callĀ to him. How many salespeople who called on him did the same? Finally, this should not beĀ a revelation to you: Look at social media as you would any other activity that requires a timeĀ investment on your part. Pick the outlets that are most likely to yield good Smart Callintelligence, analyze how much time you need to invest in them, discern what your potential returnĀ could be, and create your pre-call planning accordingly. You now have a clear idea of theĀ information youād like to have about your prospects before speaking with them, and a numberĀ of places you can go to find it.
Depends on how far into the "sale" I am.
If it's an open opp and I'm in the negotiation stages - I already have my plan.
If it's my first cold call - no more than 1 minute.Ā 60 seconds on the phone will tell you a lot more than 5 minutes of research.
If it's an open opp and I'm in the negotiation stages - I already have my plan.
If it's my first cold call - no more than 1 minute.Ā 60 seconds on the phone will tell you a lot more than 5 minutes of research.
LinkedIn and company website usually. If I find a sick article that relates to my product and the prospect I will give that a read but doesn't always happen
how much time it usually takes you? do you do all the research at once? or just before the call about the specific company?
Usually just before the call and depends on the profile/website, but for ones filled with relevance I won't spend more than 5 minutes total on a prospect, and even that is reserved for all-star prospects with a ton of relevance online. Usually, only a minute or two is how much time I will spend trying to find my relevance.
I google the account and the person Iām speaking with. I also scan for any news and/or corporate initiatives listed and then game plan how I tie my company to what they are trying to accomplish. I do everything I can to make everything taylored to them and showing how I can provide a solution/ better way to whatever their currently doing/utilizingĀ
- Research the human: Sales is deeply personal. You should honor that by doing comprehensive research on your prospect(s). Look up their LNKD work history sure, but then find their twitter. Read any news article they are quoted in. Find out about where they live, what hobbies they have, etc. (As an aside: DO NOT mention you did this. DO NOT say "Oh I saw you have 3 kids that play soccer in Austin!" cuz that's hella creepy. But if you do know that about them, perhaps mention that you love BBQ in your warmup. Mention that you are a soccer fan during the pitch. Talk about raising kids at some point. You want THEM to say "Oh I love BBQ! I have 3 kids who play soccer!" etc. Let THEM find the connection. Then you can be "surprised" and say "Oh wow I had no idea! Tell me more...") #sales Nothing sells faster than "serendipity", so make sure to manufacture some.
- Research the company: You should be able to ACTUALLY describe what the company does. Not just say "cloud-based data mining blah blah" whatever jargon they use. You should know their product. Their strengths. Weaknesses. Competitors. Read their reviews on G2, Yelp, etc. Look up their funding history. Recent press releases. Etc. You should have all this info readily available. (But again, DO NOT use it. Do not say "Oh I already did all this research on your company." Just have the knowledge available so when you are having a convo, you sound educated on the space.)
- Prepare the Top 3 Hits: Before every call, I list out my top 3 hits. These are the top 3 things I MUST say on this call. Every call should have a unique top 3, so it's not just your best 3 value props. That's dumb. As an example, if you are selling a CRM tool to a company that's scaling their sales team for the first time, your top 3 could be:
1. Lightweight - We're easy to implement and deploy, so you don't need a heavy sales ops / engineering lift to get started.
2. Customizable - New sales teams change processes a lot. We're a flexible solution so we can keep up with your changing strategy.
3. Benchmarking - We can offer support on how your sales team is performing vs. others that are a similar size. This gives you some data to help inform how well you are doing as you scale up the team.Ā