You know the score. Perhaps you’ve got a particular prospect organisation in mind, the top of the tree in your vertical, or your going through trying to revitalise some old data. Whatever, you need to find the stakeholder for your product and you need the information quickly.
Not just the name either. You need to find out as much information as possible about this person so that you can tailor your approach (if you’re not doing this, we’ll talk about it in another article very soon).
Google seems like the obvious answer, but the problem with using Google for this kind of prospect research is that you need information in order to find information.
We all know how much job titles vary from one organisation to the next – two people, both with a sphere of influence that covers your product area, can have completely different job titles. Without the specific format you’ll spend the next hour reading generic company articles.
This is where another free resource comes in – Linkedin. This Business Social Networking site is not just a fantastic way to network and promote yourself, but it is also a great way to get your hands on the semantics of a title, peculiar to your prospect organisation. And the great thing is that (and we are getting a little bit naughty here, sorry Linkedin!) even if an individual name is not listed, by having a quick scan through the roles listed in the geographical area of the prospect’s head office, you can quickly identify either your contact title, or the title individual who will know them. If their names are listed, great. If not, here’s the solution:
1. Search the Company that you are prospecting.
2. Go through the results and note any titles you are interested in – BE ACCURATE.
3. If you can’t find the stakeholder, can you find the title of someone who will know them?
4. On Google, search the title using Boolean phrases. If you don’t know about Boolean searching, here’s a quick overview:
- Put “speech marks” around phrases e.g. ” Business Development Manager”, where you want to search for those words in that order
- use the plus sign ‘+’ to prefix words or speech-marked phrases that must be included. This is particularly useful where you are searching for a company and a job title. Here’s an example:
5. Look at the top results, visit the pages and use the “find in this page” facility in your browser (if you don’t know where it is, have a look in your help file) to locate the stakeholder title you found at Linkedin.
6. Peruse until you hit upon a name. If you don’t, simply try another title.
7. Once you’ve got their name, combine it with their title in a Boolean search and a whole World of information should open up for you.
Happy prospecting!
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