Dilemma: “How do I find out what the customer’s goals are? Do I simply ask them directly, what are your goals?”
Solution: Do your homework first. So that when you are asking “what are your goals?” it is to confirm those goals that you have uncovered in your research. You will have a far richer conversation by doing your goal research first.
If you spend 2-3 hours doing goal research, you will be surprised at the wealth of information you will uncover. If you are working on a sales team, divide up the goal research responsibilities between team members. Multiple people researching each category can provide different perspectives.
Each industry and business (private or public) will have slightly different sources for goal research. Below are some ideas to get your goal research underway.
Generic Industry Goals
- Public Research: Industry data (industry trends, external influences, etc.)
- Public Research: Competition (market share, competitor successes, trends, etc.)
- Internal Company Research: Is your company working with other companies in the customer’s industry? Have success stories been written that you can learn from & leverage? Can you talk with another sales person working with a company in this industry? Global, regional or local?
Corporate Goals
- Public Research: Company website (press releases, quarterly earning reports, new product release, etc.)
- Public Research: Annual report (president message, trends of revenue, profit & spending, etc.)
- Public Research: Blogs, investment banker analysis
- Customer Research: Talk with 2 managers outside of your area of sales responsibility to learn what they think the corporate goals are.
- Trusted Customer Research: If you have a close trusted relationship you can ask for internally posted information (that is not company confidential).
Organizational Goals for your target executive contacts
- Executive Profile: Complete an exec profile as completely as you can – who do they report to, who reports to them, professional background, educational background, interests, quotes in press releases, recent business decisions, industry image, etc.
- Reporting Relationships: Talk with no more than 2 direct reports, review corporate goals and ask what the organizational goals are as well as key organizational initiatives. Let them know you are preparing for a future meeting with the executive.
- Network Relationships: Who outside of the organization knows both you and the target executive? Contact them and learn more about the executive. LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) can be helpful, if you use this business networking tool