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5 Quick And Easy Ways to Research Your Prospects

What works better than starting your sales call off with a real bang?

Like being super relevant to the prospect on the other end of the line?

If you can find something better, I’d like to see it!

But if you do outbound sales, how do you find anything out about your client?

Well, the web makes that easy.

Here’s some ways to help you pull that ace out of your sleeve:

1. LinkedIn

Let’s get the easy and obvious one out of the way here. Of course you can look through your prospect’s work history.

But, you can break down professional barriers and get more personal by going way to the bottom of their profile (or just hit Control+F to search for these terms).

Check out your prospect’s:

  1. “Opportunities” they’re looking for
  2. “Causes” they care about

That’s a way to build stronger connections by being more personal. But not every prospect lists those…so you’ll have to check out these other tips, like:

2. Google Alerts

Now this one’s really going to force you to bust it into high gear! Follow this elaborate process:

  1. Go to https://www.google.com/alerts
  2. Enter in your prospect’s name, their company name, and other variations of content you think they could be found for on the web

Okay, so I was giving you a hard time there.

Wasn’t that easy?

Let’s move on to some more:

3. Glassdoor Reviews

You’ll find more business information here. The cool thingsabout these reviews is they’re honest…things employees usually wouldn’t say to management.

Read several of the reviews. When you hear the same thing over and over, you’ve found a real problem that hurts your prospect.

One thing to be careful for: make sure you read recent reviews, as Glassdoor saves even ones from years ago that may not be relevant.

4. Facebook Stalking

Okay, okay – this one sounds a little creepy. But it works – just don’t let the police catch you doing it (kidding).

Seriously though, you can get some good personal information from Facebook. Google “prospect name Facebook.”

Click on the link.

You’ll get to see some of their interests, like their favorite:

  • Music
  • Movies
  • TV shows

And things they like on Facebook.

Now there’s about a million ideas for conversation starters right there.

And if you check out pictures of their friends and family, now THAT crosses the line into cyberstalking. You’re a sick puppy. Get help.

5. Twitter

Wow, the internet makes it so easy, doesn’t it? Prospects will have photos and videos posted that you can check out.

Some of those qualify as professional, appropriate research…and others cyberstalking. You judge what your actions are doing for you.

But, yet another great source of free and easy information about your prospect.

You Have No Excuses for Poor Conversation Starters with This Information at Your Hands!

I don’t want to hear about it. Your boss doesn’t want to hear about it.

You may not get the sale. But you should be able to build a relationship with any prospect, given the amount of information at your finger tips!

And the real trick… do what Magenic does.  They hire researchers to do the research, and sales people to do the sales.  Go figure!  Would you hire a surgeon to make you breakfast, NO.  Outsource this work to a researcher.  They cost less, they do it better, and then for the sales rep, leverage the information.  Or.. check out Inside View, they automate the “research” so that the relevant information is just served up to the sales person at the right time.