Sales Shebang: Crystal Ball Research with Search

Sam Richter, President of James J. Hill Library in St. Paul and author of the upcoming Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling, led a workshop on Getting the Inside Scoop on Companies, Industries and People this morning at the Sales Shebang. This era of selling doesn't allow salespeople to be lazy and learn what they need to know from their prospects. The buying cycle starts earlier and your prospects want to know how you're going to help them, not how they can educate you.

Besides which, he made the very valid point that a salesperson who asks lazy questions is obvious in their insincerity. They're only asking questions so they can figure out an angle for how to sell to you. Who has time or patience for that?

In today's selling environment, you need to be wired into the system.

Part of the beauty of research is that the Internet has made it remarkably easy. In fact, it's scary how much information is really available and accessible to anyone who knows how to look for it. Sam clarified the distinction between the visible web, 20% of available web pages, and the invisible web, which is the bulk of web pages that are behind account logins, even if those sites have free registration. Google, and all of the search engines, can't log in so none of those pages will return in search requests.

The trick to optimized search efforts for researching leads is to have a process. Sam displayed a form created that salespeople can use to guide their efforts. Then he explained the techniques to use for advanced searches that will deliver the answers quickly so you don't end up surfing for hours when you can find answers in minutes. That prolonged effort of trying to cull usable information from mammoth search results is what hampers many salespeople from being efficient at utilizing search to prepare themselves for sales activities.

Using Boolean parameters for search is one way to really narrow the results to what's useful and pertinent.

He used an example of his son's effort to write a paper about the Vikings. The old ones, not the football team. But, football results is exactly what returns in Google when you enter "vikings" as your search term.

But, if you enter [vikings -football] Which means show me all the vikings results without the ones related to football, then you've already reduced the irrelevant clutter.

Another tip he shared was the fact that if you enter Henry Scott Hamilton - just like that then you'll get any page that has one or more of those names on it or any combination of those names. To hone the search, put quotes around the full name and it will search for those names in that order.

Then, there are the times when you search and find something that looks to be promising only to click through and see the ominous Page Not Found. If this happens, click the back button to return to the search results and look for the "cached" link. That will show you a snapshot of what the page used to be. [Doesn't work for PDFs or links to files, only web pages]

He shared a variety of tips and resources and I wish I could share all of them, but I'll give you one more. Manta.com is a site that has about 80% of what D&B site has, but it's free. This will help you when you're looking for private firm information.

Finally, consider the reason for doing the research. Once you've gathered all the information you're searching for, you've got insights to orchestrate a conversation where you can pretty much know the answers. This way, you'll have your responses ready and planned for maximum impact with your prospect. And, even if you only gather a little information, if you use it wisely in conversations it will show the prospect you cared enough to spend some time considering how you can provide meaningful value and elevate you far above other salespeople. Plus, they'll probably correct you if you're wrong - so you'll get the information you need.

Sam showed us some great ways to get beyond surfing to effective search methods that can help you deliver results with your sales calls. If you'd like to know about all the tips and tricks Sam had to share, make sure to buy his upcoming book - you can also submit a form for a free downloadable draft of his book on his website.

If you missed the post about Talent Types by Faith Ralston, you can read it here.

More to come from the Sales Shebang...stay tuned.