No matter what you call it, research, background, prep work, knowledge gathering, there is always a good dialogue to be had around the question of how much of it a sales person should do in advance of and during a sale.  The amusing thing about it is that in the end there are always more opinions than the number of people you asked.

One challenge is that beyond the amount of research one should do, there are also differing views of when and what should be researched.  Some feel that you must do all your research before you make the initial call, allowing them to impress the buyer into Engaging.  Others feel that there is one research activity and focus before you make that initial call, but then once you are Engaged, you need to continue the researching based on what you unfold while taking the buyer through the Discovery process.  I would certainly agree with the latter, especially given the fact that I think the seller needs to set and control the flow, and having knowledge of things in and around the buyer can only help in Engaging and extending the conversation.   Once Engaged, you can leverage your Discovery skills and your newly researched to extend the sale.

Where things get interesting, regardless of where you land on the above, is the question of how much time one should or needs to spend researching before you make the initial call to Engage with a potential buyer.  Again, let’s be clear, this is a first call to a potential new prospect, not someone you have worked with or are familiar with.  The knee jerk response is a lot, with the underlying thought being that the more you know the better.  I would argue not, the deep dive should come once you have Engaged with the potential buyer, and they have agreed to enter into the conversation with you when you meet as a result of the Engagement call.  Doing the deep dive before you have that commitment may not be the best things for a couple of reasons.

Let me give you a specific example, I was working recently with a rep who sells product is used by most B2B businesses, it is readily available but not a commodity, and could very much be sold as a solution based on how it is delivered and integrated.  His conversion rates show that he needs an average 5 new Engagements a week, which usually involve around 10 calls a day or 50 a week.  He told me that in the process he talks to about 15 to 20 people, the rest being voice mail or some other form of message. 

In our discussion he told me he doesn’t have sufficient time to complete enough calls to get to his target, instead he was averaging 2-3 new Engagements per week.  He told me it takes him 3 to 3 1/2 hours per day to complete the task.  “Why so long?’ I asked, “I need to research the company thoroughly before I call them”.  Apparently he does 15 minutes of research for every company he calls, 10 a day, 150 minutes, 2 1/2 hours just for research.

The overwhelming need to know everything about the buyer/account before you ever call them has a number of downsides.  First, this need for thorough research stems from the need “to know everything” about the person and company before you call them.  But if like me, you believe that the biggest obstacle to learning is knowledge, then knowing everything becomes a barrier rather than an enabler.   If you know everything, you will be inclined to demonstrate it by spewing your heaps of knowledge at the buyer, who will be left with no option but to run for shelter, away from the preaching.  Gaining Some knowledge in advance is right, but not an encyclopaedia;  enough knowledge to formulate good questions, to have an understanding of the situation to be able to entice the buyer to Engage is good and needed, knowing enough to bowl them over is not.

The other factor is the cost.  Based on the data, with 30 calls ending in no direct contact (voice mail, etc.), that is 450 minutes a week, just to leave a message, 7.5 hours for what?  Taking that a step further, when you calculate it from a cost point of view, it breaks down as follows:

Monthly quota:                              $75,000
Working Hours per month:       220 (22 days X 10 hours p/d)
Value of each hour:                      $340.91 (75000/220)

Value of three hours:                   $ 1022.73 (2.5 research .5 calling)
 
You can buy 4 very well qualified leads for that money and still eat a good lunch; I know for a fact you can buy qualified C level appointments for less than that.  So why bother?

Now spending a few minutes on each target; organizing your calls so you can use and recycle what you have researched will allow you to be much more productive.  Let’s say you were going to call 25 companies this week from the same or similar vertical or group.  You can probably do 15 minutes of research to learn about industry trends, etc.; a couple of minutes if need be on each of the targets’ site to learn about them.  When all is said and done, a total of 65 minutes, or 2.6 minutes per company called.  Much more reasonable cost per Engagement, and an infinitely better use of time.

Again, once you have secured and Engagement, you do need to do the deep dive, learn about the opportunity.  But as stated above, learn to formulate questions, learn in order to better position your solution and company based on the buyers objective, and be able to educate the buyer in the process based on you industry expertise and specific understanding.  Which ROI would you want?

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto