Qualifying leads

JaManSnowFlake

What methods of research do you use when looking into a company or researching a lead?

To do lead generation, I'd like to prequalify leads. I'd like to match their possible needs with products before I call into, email or ring. I do not want to waste anyone's time. It would be great to know what market the company/site produces for or how many people work on site and so on. Where do you look?

Google: Company site and news reports (Many sites/companies do not have any relevant information available online )
CSO: Name and address
Credit reports: Paid reports give you credit ratings and the industry they have declared (This is a broad industry sector and not much use)

Am I missing some obvious avenues of enquiry?

srsly78

Various websites that give access to cro data. Many are free but you do need to register.

www.solocheck.ie
www.duedil.com

JaManSnowFlake

The CRO data provides company documents, financials, structure and directors.

I need to know what the company produces

srsly78

It's not much, but the cro info also includes the SIC Code - which gives some kind of indication as to activity.

For example: SIC Code 7260 = Other Computer Related Activities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Industrial_Classification

JaManSnowFlake

Thanks srsly78, Ill look into the SIC codes a further although they are quite broad.

lucky john

Most industries have sector related publications. If you have a particular sector in mind you could find their magazine and see who advertises in it. The golden pages also groups companies into their relevent areas.

LinkedIn groups.

twitter.. if you know one company or company employee see who follows them and who they follow. It always surprises me how many sector related " follows" there are.

Peterdalkey

Do a professional selling skill course. As you are posting this query on here, it is unlikely you have had any real formal sales training. It is a learned skill not an art.

Identify the types/sectors of company who use you goods services. You can use anything from the golden pages, Kompass directory to online directories etc to get their names and contact details. Build you list.

Every company website will give you a pretty good idea about their activities. Many have some contact names.
Google and LinkedIn search the company name, you will get at least some info.
Call and ask receptionist for the name/email of your target function.

Do your sales pitch.

Only at the point where you are ready to process an order would you bother with spending on a credit check.

Good luck, prospecting and cold calling is only for the committed, durable and tough. It is hard graft but can bring real rewards. You should read this too http://thesalesblog.com/blog/2011/05/04/the-perfect-prospect-list/

theballz

Worked in business development (lead generation) for some time now and have been quite successful at it.

I wasn't specifically bothered about targeted companies turnovers, because I was in SME market.

I would do BD campaigns, each campaign would generally last a month.

I would use business.ie (very out dated but was the best,)
it would give you a list of companies in a specific sector. It would give you their office address and staff details e.g. IT department, HR department.
It was rather expensive though.

After paying business.ie the info could downloaded from a spreadsheet, I'd upload them all to salesforce (after verifying with linkedin) and work from there.

In a nutshell, Linkedin is your best bet for gathering target information.