They say that people buy from people they like and people like people who know them. More and more B2B salespeople must become trusted advisors rather than transactional order takers.

A lot is written about the customer journey and influenced them over the course of that journey with content designed to inform and influence their decision-making. Whether you are about to engage a prospect at the beginning or towards the end of their journey, it is critical to know as much about them as possible to differentiate yourself from competitors. Preparedness can impress and give you an edge.

The following seventeen things can help you prepare in engaging a prospect.

#1: Google Them

While it may seem like stating the obvious, people often overlook the power of Google and the information it can illuminate for them. There is a joke that says the best place to bury a body is on page two of Google search results. Take the trouble to go to page two and beyond if there are still pertinent results worth pursuing.

#2: Review their LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn has gone from an online job board or the electronic equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce to one of the most critical professional networking platforms. Many LinkedIn profiles are rich with data that is free and readily available to you. Why not take advantage of it?

#3: Look for mutual connections

I used to work in film and television and the only way you found work was by who you knew. Without LinkedIn and the Internet, networking your way to a new job was challenging and took much more time. LinkedIn makes networks transparent so you can leverage mutual connections to map your way into an account. You can also identify the best referral source based on the number and/or strength of your shared connections.

#4: Where they went to school

You cannot underestimate the value of alumni. What if during your review of their LinkedIn profile or research, you learned that you went to the same university, took the same program, or both have an MBA. Any of those things in common could help you make a connection and build rapport with your prospect.

#5: Past roles

Look at their previous roles to see where they worked, who might’ve worked with them that you already know, and what kind of intel you can gather as a result.

#6: Recent Activity

Check their recent activity to see what they’ve shared, liked, or commented on to get a gauge of their interests and the kind of content and news that gets their attention. Look at the Pulse channels and influencers they follow too. They will also give you some insight into their interests and what gets their attention.

#7: New connections

See who they connected with recently, especially if it was with a shared connection or competitor.

#8: Groups

Take a look at the groups they are members of to see if you share any mutual groups or to flag groups you should consider joining as an indirect way of targeting them.

#9: Contact Information

You would be surprised how many people don’t bother checking the contact info section of someone on LinkedIn to see what they include. Sometimes they provide their email and/or phone number. That’s a gift for salespeople! They might also share the social account information or links to their blog or some other sites containing valuable information. You just have to look.

#10: Chrome Extensions

There are some Chrome Extensions that can help make you more productive with your prospect profiling. Here are just a few. Discovery will show you if someone on LinkedIn shares any friends on Facebook, bringing another connection path to your attention. LinkedIn Connection Revealer will give you an idea of how many connections someone has. Rapportive for Gmail will reveal their social profiles within your inbox. eLink will automate some of your interactions to introduce you to prospects and build engagement. JustClipIt will enable you to capture profile data for a variety of social networks including LinkedIn.

#11: Twitter

Sometimes people are more easily engaged or connected with via Twitter than LinkedIn, so it is worth considering as another avenue for making connections and building rapport. Furthermore, you will be able to get a better sense of them by who they follow, what they share, and with whom they interact.

#12: Instagram

Since Instagram has grown to be the number two social network in the world, there is a good chance that your prospects have an account there so check it out. See what they are sharing and learn more about their interests.

#13: Snapchat

Just like Instagram, Snapchat is growing, and you should, at least, be paying attention to it. Its membership may skew to high school and college-aged people right now but increasingly brands and organizations are establishing a presence. Ignore it at your peril.

#14: Industry or Trade Associations

Just because a lot of new and emerging platforms are mentioned here, it doesn’t mean the tried and true approaches like leveraging industry or trade associations should be ignored. They say to fish where the fish are so if they happen to be members of industry or trade associations then give some thought to how you can navigate your way to your prospects via those same associations. See how much you can learn about the members of an association from the association’s website. Sometimes there’s a searchable directory.

#15: Slideshare

Presentations hosted on Slideshare garner engagement and can be embedded within LinkedIn profiles as well as websites. Look at Slideshare to see if your prospects or their companies have shared any presentations from which you can derive valuable information.

#16: YouTube

While many people have spent time on YouTube watching cat videos or videos of dogs on skateboards, it is worth remembering that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world filled with valuable information. Take a few moments to see if there are any videos about or containing footage of your prospect.

#17: Vimeo

YouTube might be the larger video platform, but many organizations choose Vimeo because of it has a more professional look and feel. It is not overrun with ads, and the videos tend to be of more professional quality. There could be a good chance that your prospect and/or their organization chose to use Vimeo instead to host their video(s).

Now I recognize that giving seventeen things to do before engaging a prospect would seem like a daunting list, at first, glance. Many would dismiss one or more of them as a waste of time. I am not suggesting that you spend hours using all of them to learn more about a single prospect. However, I am suggesting that you try as many of them that spark your interest at least once and keep what works for you. Not every one of your prospects will be active in social media so you may not want to devote too much or anytime to seeing what their digital footprint might be if is going to be nonexistent.

It is not about spending an inordinate amount of time on researching your prospects. It is about being more productive and efficient using tools and methods that your competition may have ignored. It is about finding insights about your prospects that will enable you to build trust and rapport better and more deeply than your competitors.

Are you up to it? Do you have other tools and methods that you would like to add to the list? I am all ears.

Economist Fredmund Malik said, “Results should give pleasure.” People often get distracted or confused in certain selling activities. Top performers seem to have a sixth sense about when buyers or committees aren’t going to buy and will remove them from their pipelines. B and C Players, on the other hand, get excited just because prospects are willing to talk or have a meeting with them.

In my mind progress in determining if opportunities are qualified should be measured with buyer actions. Mediocre sellers are delighted to receive a blind RFP’s inviting them to bid. Better salespeople realize RFP’s are likely to have been wired by other vendors and realize that if they are unable to influence the requirements they in all likelihood have about a 5% chance of winning the business. In this case, A Players will contact the person overseeing the RFP to request access to 2 or 3 likely titles that would be involved in making the decision. If access is refused, the best course of action may be to send a written response saying that without understanding the business issues it would be impossible to make a professional response, so the seller respectfully does not bid the RFP.

Another example of activity is having several calls with lower level staff that cannot buy. B & C Players will expend resources, provide pricing or even submit written proposals without gaining access to higher levels. Fairly early on in the process, if a prospect requests a demo the seller can offer a quid pro quo such as: You had indicated that (higher level title) would have to approve budget. If you like what you see in the demonstration would you be willing to schedule a meeting with him/her?

While there are many examples of activity vs. progress, I’ll leave you with what I feel is one of the most important buyer actions. This applies not only to direct contact sellers have with prospects. It’s also relevant while nurturing website visitors and is based upon the first core concept of CCS®: No goal, no prospect. The question comes in two variations based upon the level of the prospect:

• Ask Key Players: What are you hoping to accomplish with (the offering)?
• Ask non-Key Players: What is your organization hoping to accomplish with (the offering)?

Having prospects share a goal or problem they’re willing to spend money to achieve or address starts buying cycles and is the start of helping a buying committee see the potential value of offerings. With absent shared desired business outcomes, how likely is it that prospects will ultimately spend money?

These and other buyer actions are sanity checks for sellers and their managers to try to ensure opportunities are worth a seller’s time, effort and resources.

Not by the hard sell that’s for sure.

When you flog a product or service at them with heavy pressure tactics, they run for cover; they don’t lean in to you with a willingness to listen, buy and refer you to others.

It doesn’t have to be like that.

Even the toughest customer can be turned to be your strongest and most passionate advocate but it requires you consistently perform THESE acts:

1. Be “on their team”. You can’t be perceived to have only the best interests of your company in mind; place your customer in the number one position. They must believe your organization exists to serve them.
2. Balance short and long term demands. Your bonus plan is most likely based on how well you perform over the next 12 months and how many products you sell. Regardless, take a longer term perspective and provide solutions that will stand the test of time. If they feel you are trying to bulk up your short term performance they will never advocate you.
3. Fight for them “on the inside”. You probably don’t like getting involved in chasing down a client problem inside your organization. Order errors, billing irregularities etc. can consume an inordinate amount of time and is “painful”. You would rather pass it to the service guys, so you can get back to selling and earning your bonus. But understand that your customer expects you to deal with your internal team to sort things out. They don’t appreciate being passed around.
4. Take time to get to know them. The transformation from customer to fan is driven by intimacy which builds trust. There is no short cut here; put in the time.
5. Be available when they want you. YOU serve THEM; if you can’t be reached, in their time of need they will likely reach out to someone else.
6. Focus on what they “care” about. It’s more than what they need. Satisfying needs deals with only the first layer of relationship building. You must dig deeper and discover what drives their emotions. Find THAT; deliver on THAT and you will create a “sneezer”.
7. Surprise them. This is probably the #1 thing that fuels customer delight. A tired relationship can cultivate entitlement. Spice it up by surprising your customer from time to time with something they care about. They will return the favor with their undying support.
8. Do the “little things”. Do more than the heavy lifting as often, it’s the little things that annoy or please customers. Determine their pet peeves land special likes and take care of them. They expect you to deliver the “big” solutions; they will be WOW’D! when you get involved in the messy details.
9. Give them what they DON’T expect. Counterintuitively, maniacal fans are born when you DON’T meet their expectations. Delivering what they expect will only earn you a ‘C’ on your report card; blowing them away with what they aren’t expecting will get you an ‘A+’.
10. Lose a sale. If you can’t deliver exactly what they need, find another provider who can. This act will keep you in control of the customer relationship, show them that you have their best interests at heart and earn you the right to sell to them again.

You won’t transform your customer to a crazy advocate overnight, but if you have these 10 plays in your playbook it will happen.

If you are looking for a “hail Mary” forget it.

A Japanese CEO of a manufacturing company was once asked how far into the future the company’s sales strategy was planned. His answer was, “Five hundred years.” While planning a strategy that will guide a company for the next five hundred years is a little long for most CEOs, it does point to an important principle—the core purpose of strategy is to accomplish long-term goals and to clearly set a framework to guide the stream of decisions to reach those goals.

Developing a sales strategy is challenging because it may feel like you don’t have as much control over the strategy as you might like. You may feel that the sales strategy for your company is in some ways set by the market itself and your company is just a ping pong ball bouncing between a variety of shifting factors outside of your control. Even if this perception has some truth to it, you can still build a framework that guides the stream of decisions that will help your company take back control of your sales strategy.

To determine if your strategy is strong enough to win, it has to withstand some challenging questions. Below are five challenges you can use to push against your sales strategy to determine its strength:

#1: Is it flexible?

Let’s agree that the marketplace is always changing and that the speed of change is increasing. Competitors, product demands, customer needs, technology, and costs are ever shifting. Your strategy must be flexible enough to move within any market and respond to unforeseen changes. A few of the points to push on in examining this question include:

• What is our early warning component for identifying market shifts and threats?
• What speed of response thresholds must be built into the strategy with goals to be faster for customers and prospects?

#2: Is it a system?

If you have a system in sports, then injuries to key players do not ruin an entire season. With a system, you have a game plan for replacing an injured player with another player to maintain a successful team. The same is true for a sales strategy. If your strategy is built on the strengths of a few sales people and their key sales relationships, then your overall sales success is always at risk. That is a “people-centric” approach to solving the challenge of sales growth. It is not a strategy; it is a tactic. When people-centric companies experience a change in the sales team, the entire company is at risk, and new talent is hard (and expensive) to find. Instead, consider developing a process-based systems approach that allows room for the natural shifts in personnel without jeopardizing sales performance. A system-based framework gives strength back to your company and will guide long-term, strategic decision-making.

#3: Is prospect qualification clearly defined?

There was a time when selling to all prospects in a market was commonplace, but that is perhaps the most inefficient way to sell. To guide the decisions for the sales strategy, it is important to define both ends of the qualifying spectrum: ideal characteristics of the prospects we most desire and characteristics of prospects that do not fit the defined target profile. This is a real challenge for salespeople and organizations. They are naturally motivated to sell, and it is in their DNA to do so. However, because strategy guides decisions, the greater clarity in the area of prospect selection, especially defining who is not a target, gives a higher likelihood of spending resources with intention.

#4: What is the leverage pivot?

Where will the most substantial sales growth come from? How does your sales strategy balance the revenue generation between selling to new customers, penetrating current customers, and introducing new products? Of course, as CEO your desire is to win in all three areas, but it is likely that there is one or two areas that provide the most potential for growth. The question is, “What will be the sales strategy for guiding your company in investing time and energy for the greatest return?” In other words, what is the key leverage point your sales team should use to generate the maximum amount of revenue efficiently?

#5: What are the linchpins of weakness?

Salespeople and sales leaders are pathologically optimistic. If they have participated in the sales strategy development, then it is likely that the sales strategy is also duly optimistic. For you as CEO, that means finding the weak points of linkage is your responsibility. Is your sales strategy too reliant on a single customer, a star sales person, one product, a promising marketing campaign or something else? Watch for points of optimism that rely on a single area that is “guaranteed to work.” This is usually the linchpin that requires the most scrutiny.

CEOs look at strategy differently than sales leaders and sellers because CEOs have a higher level view that includes insight into the interactions of multiple streams of decision-making that impact the company’s ability to reach set business goals. Pushing, poking and prodding the sales strategy in theses key five areas increases the chances that your company will develop a strong sales strategy. With a strong sales strategy, you set a clear framework that guides the stream of decisions to reach your ultimate business goals—no matter how far into the future they may reach.

Let’s face it: the ability to target and sell directly to decision-makers is basically the Holy Grail. We build email strategies for it, wade knee-deep into profoundly uninteresting LinkedIn groups for it, and buy list after list hoping that the info we get is current enough to at least get the scent of who and how we should reach out to the people calling the shots and signing the checks.

And yes, there are resources aplenty that help us get there, and sure, we could keep buying org charts at a premium in the hopes that not too much has changed since they were assembled. But truthfully, we don’t need to.

All the information we’ve ever needed has been sitting right there in your CRM all along. Our current customers – the contact data for people we’ve already landed – can be leveraged for access to more like them: more CTOs in West Coast Tech startups, more marketing directors in mid-market enterprise organizations… They’re all profoundly accessible if you only know how to ask.

Why is Contact Data Important to This?

Having accurate, complete contact data for your customers – and I’m talking title, company, work phone, and work email – is vital for a few reasons:

1) It can provide a new level of directionality to your lead gen strategy
2) With a little bit of sorting and reorganization, it gives you everything you need to leverage Facebook “Lookalikes” and LinkedIn “Audience Expansion” audiences for targeting.

Whichever way you choose to leverage the data (realistically, a combination of both is ideal), you’ll quickly find a new level of granular insight into your audience, you’ll better understand (and can strategize against) gaps in adoption of your product within industries or particular segments, and, most importantly, you’ll have everything you need to deliver compelling messages directly to the folks making decisions.

And all from 4 little fields in a database.

Here’s How You Do It

Start With Sorting.
After exporting your customer list from CRM, you’re going to need to sort it based on what you’re looking to do. To locate decision makers, you’ll want to sort first by title, then by company.

Doing this exposes decision makers, yes, but it also gives a better sense of which industries these people are associated with, offering you more opportunity to personalize in your targeted messaging later on.

Additionally, you’ll want to pay close attention to what you don’t see – which businesses in industries you dominate haven’t yet been sold on your product. This allows you to revisit your current lead gen strategy and tweak elements of your messaging for the piece of the industry that isn’t biting. After all, the right message to the right person… you know the story.

Refine Your Strategy / Collateral
Inevitably, your excursion into sorting offers all kinds of insights into who’s biting, who isn’t, and you probably have a pretty good idea as to why they aren’t. Armed with this, it shouldn’t be difficult to put creative services to work 1) tweaking existing collateral to be “just right” for your lookalike / audience expansion audiences and 2) developing personalized pieces specifically for businesses that you want to acquire but haven’t.

Yes, it will take research and time, but the kind of micro-personalization and targeting we’re talking about in #2 is, at this point, not done, and it offers you serious competitive advantage and opportunity.

Build / Launch Your Campaigns
With your sorted contact lists – and the email addresses of the decision makers you’ve already acquired, specifically – and your strategy in place, it’s time to build your campaigns. You’ll be building a minimum of two – one macro and one micro – to cover your bases on both Facebook and LinkedIn.

• For the macro campaigns on Facebook and LinkedIn, upload your current list to the audience managers and request the platform build lookalike audiences. This will allow their algorithms to search their user bases for people with similar attributes to the ones you uploaded: others with the same job titles, employers, similar income brackets, etc.In essence, it will put your messaging in front of people similar to those it’s already worked on,
  offering you access to 1) decision makers and 2) decision makers who are predisposed to
  adopting your product.
• For the micro-targeted campaigns aimed at those specific decision makers found missing in your gap analysis, you’ll want to turn to the incredibly granular targeting options available in Facebook and LinkedIn. For just a few dollars a day, you can deliver ads or content specifically to – for example – the CTO of Microsoft or the Head of Sales at Spotify. If nothing else, it creates the opportunity to top-of-mind recognition with these people, nudging them into one of the many purchaser journey’s you’ve inevitably created.

And that’s how it’s done. By leveraging current customer contact data and the incredibly smart targeting tools available today, you can deliver exactly the right message at the right time to the right person and ensure your spend is as meaningful as the highly qualified leads you create.