Business Tools Customer Relationships Lifelong Learning Sales: industry jargon Internet research sales technique
by Scout
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Panning For Gold in Your Marketplace
Just recently I came across a business-to-business sales seminar I had developed back in 2001, “Panning for Gold - The Internet as a Sales Tool.” While some of the resource links were outdated, the basic premise of the presentation still holds true: invest 15 minutes on the Internet learning about each prospect prior to making a call, and realize a mother lode of benefits and increased sales.
It’s true, knowledge is power…
but only when you leverage it properly. One essential nugget to take away from this presentation summary: Pre-call research is not about acquiring all the answers. It’s about being able to ask your prospective customer smart, relevant questions.
The other reality is that in order to be successful, this research process has to be fast, easy and effective. Google is your friend in that respect. Use brief, succinct search phrases and learn to separate the wheat from the chaff quickly in the search results. Cut and paste relevant tidbits of information right into the Notes screen of your contact management program, or into a document if you like hard copies to review and make notes on. No need for fancy formating - just cut, paste and move on. If you don’t even have time for that, at minimum skim information about these four items for each prospect:
- The company website - Home, About and Career pages are good sources for quick prospect background info.
- Range of products or services - What they make or do, and who they make or do it for.
- The industry - See the “history of” below.
- The competition - Who else does what they do in their marketplace?
“History of…” Queries
My favorite search phrase of all, “history of _____________,” is likely all you’ll need to provide you with enough interesting background, jargon and trivia about your prospect’s industry to jumpstart any sales call. For a call on a local produce processor, “history of pickling” returned a detailed Pickle History Timeline, starting back in the Dark Ages! “History of bar coding” once provided me with the tidbit that the technology had advanced to the point that honeybees could be bar coded to track their migration paths. “History of tires” will answer every question you ever had about how the rubber hits the road. You get the point.
It’s Human Nature
The bottom line is a simple one. We humans are a gregarious lot, and it’s in our nature to reciprocate. Your smart, relevant questions and curiousity about your prospect’s business, service, or stock in trade makes that person aware that you cared enough about what he or she does for a living to invest your own time in some research. At the very least that conveys your interest and diligence, and ideally it makes the prospect willing to reciprocate by sharing time and information with you. Time and information, two of the key factors that help every good salesperson to close the sale!
