The importance of research before contacting a prospect

When it comes to selling, whether it is a low cost product or service, or indeed a high ticket item, everyone has their own approach. Whilst it is true that sales professionals should be given a level of freedom or autonomy to shape their sales interactions, there are best practices that everyone should be adhering to.

Over the last two years, there has been a lot of talk around the “consultative selling approach” which focuses on the sales interaction being a consultation rather than a closed sales experience.

The consultative approach is aimed at drawing out existing problems from the potential client through a series of open ended questions. Armed with these answers, the sales professional then looks to frame and personalise their products or services to solve the current problems the business owner is facing.

However, in this week's blog we wanted to take a step back from the actual meeting and instead focus on an area which rarely gets as much coverage, namely, the researching phase. The most successful sales interactions happen when a prospect has been thoroughly researched before any engagement is initiated. This allows you to better understand the prospect and recognise where they currently are in terms of their marketing as well as how you can genuinely help their business.

Research, research, research
Everything should begin with research and gaining an insight into your prospects business. Thankfully, the internet and in particular search engines such as Google have made the process of gathering information as simple as possible.

A quick search query can reveal lots of information about a business, including their contact details, recent reviews as well as any press coverage they have received. This is a great starting point as it gives you a top level overview of the prospects business but also allows you to start benchmarking the business against other competitors.

Website
It is often said that a businesses website is their digital shopfront and reveals a lot about the business. When selling solutions to local businesses, a great place to explore is your prospects website as you can gather a wealth of information.

For example, what kind of content are they displaying? What call to actions (CTA’s) are they focusing on? How are they capturing customer details? Taking a look at a businesses website should really help you understand how the prospect is positioning their business but it should also give you ideas about how you can help.

Another great process to build into your research is to actually run a health report on the prospects website by using a website analysis tool that ranks a site based on lots of different metrics. For instance, you can determine how quickly a website loads, whether it is optimised for mobile traffic and how secure the actual site is.

This information can easily be shared with the business owner, either prior to a meeting or during a meeting, as it positions you as an authority when it comes to technology/digital marketing. If you can demonstrate tangible ways that you can help the business owner, you are going a long way to winning their trust and confidence. As we all know, people only do business with people they like and trust after all.

Social media
Aside from the cat and dog memes, social media is a great place to actually gather intelligence about your prospects business before you make contact. Having a look at the prospects' social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can help you understand what kind of social following they have built up so far.

Things to look out for include how many followers the business has, what kind of content they publish on social media, and how engaged their audience is in terms of comments, likes and shares.

For example, a lot of businesses now use Twitter to provide customer support to their users. A quick tweet with the business' Twitter handle will often lead to most businesses providing an almost instantaneous response as they look to safeguard their reputations. Therefore it’s important that you spend some time on social media to understand how your prospect is leveraging social networks for their business.

Review sites
When people think of review sites they often think about TripAdvisor, however, there are a plethora of review sites based on what industry sector a business operates within. Sure, for the food and drink industry, TripAdvisor is one of the top destinations for customer reviews, but when researching your prospect you should also look at some of the other review sites.

For instance, Google Reviews, Facebook and Trust Pilot are just some examples of third party, independent review sites that customers often detail their feedback on. As a sales professional, it’s important to recognise how many reviews your prospect has as well as what kind of image they have built up in the eyes of their customers.

Competitors
The final area we suggest including within your research process is direct competitors for your prospects. Having awareness of your potential clients competitive environment can help you articulate how your solutions can benefit their business.

For example, how does your prospect compare against their competitors? Where are they ahead of their competitors but crucially, in what areas are they behind? Demonstrating this level of knowledge and insight will help you ensure your interactions with a business owner will carry maximum impact.

Summary
As we have seen throughout this blog, research is crucial before you contact a prospect. The above processes are not very time intensive once you start to recognise the key variables that matter to your potential client.

Most sales professionals do not follow this approach and as a result, their conversion rates are often very low. However, by investing some time at the start of your sales process, you can differentiate your approach from the vast majority of your competitors and win the trust/confidence of the business owner from day one.

To find out more about how we help our Partners with a range of useful insights into the sales and marketing aspect of operating a successful Digital Agency, contact our team today.

Until next time, take care.