Selling in the B2B market requires several skills less important in B2C
markets. Chief among these is researching companies, their
situation/direction and their leaders.
Lets imagine you are selling a product or service to Fortune 1000 B2c database from Jigsaw
companies. You know your prospect company and all their locations. You
need to know who to call upon. You need to have a reason to be calling.
You need to know about the company.
Proper knowledge of the company, their structure, their current
situation and direction can help you find the right people and start
productive conversations. Here is a quick checklist of how to research a
company prior to the sales call using many free and low cost tools.
1. Company Website
Start at the company website. Look at their products, markets served and
customers. Understand their "value proposition to their customers. Then
go to the section with information about the company.
Understand their company direction from any reports or press releases made to the financial analyst community. Download any presentations on company direction. Read all recent press releases. Sign up for any email notifications of company press releases, as it will help you in the future know about late breaking company news. The highest-level management positions are listed on the company website. Note the business groups (e.g. Global Services Group) to use as search terms in social networking tools searches...more about this later. 2.Ownership Is the company privately owned or publicly traded? What can you learn from their "About us" section? What is the exchange (NYSE, AMEX, NASDQ, etc) their stock is traded on? Why is this important? Publicly traded companies publish reports of their current financial status that can be helpful to you. Annual Reports, 10ks and analyst reports on the company stock are all helpful to understand their financial situation. Download each company annual report and look into the detailed discussion sections on their customers, markets, competition and risks. Each section potentially has a gem that will help you in a sales call. If they are publicly traded, they must deliver consistent financial results, quarter over quarter and year over year for their stock to rise and management to be happy. You can understand if they are generally growing and expanding or reorganizing to get back on track to growth.
Understand their company direction from any reports or press releases made to the financial analyst community. Download any presentations on company direction. Read all recent press releases. Sign up for any email notifications of company press releases, as it will help you in the future know about late breaking company news. The highest-level management positions are listed on the company website. Note the business groups (e.g. Global Services Group) to use as search terms in social networking tools searches...more about this later. 2.Ownership Is the company privately owned or publicly traded? What can you learn from their "About us" section? What is the exchange (NYSE, AMEX, NASDQ, etc) their stock is traded on? Why is this important? Publicly traded companies publish reports of their current financial status that can be helpful to you. Annual Reports, 10ks and analyst reports on the company stock are all helpful to understand their financial situation. Download each company annual report and look into the detailed discussion sections on their customers, markets, competition and risks. Each section potentially has a gem that will help you in a sales call. If they are publicly traded, they must deliver consistent financial results, quarter over quarter and year over year for their stock to rise and management to be happy. You can understand if they are generally growing and expanding or reorganizing to get back on track to growth.
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