The New & Improved - "Know Your Customer"!

I asked 10 C-level executives in my network - "How many vendors that meet with you know and understand your company?" - 7 out of 10 indicated that they felt the seller/vendor did little or no research prior to the first meeting! Wow!
Here are 5 items to consider - before you sit with a prospect;

1. With the infinite amount of information available in the public domain - you should at least understand the company business (high-level), recent news, revenues, public challenges, recent wins/losses. This can be obtained by many search engines, Hoovers, Google, Yahoo, etc..
2. Check social and business networking sites to find out as much info you can on the person you are meeting with. I met with a senior executive from a major financial services firm and uncovered that this person was a well-know musician in the 70's. What a great bit of info to start off the conversation and a relationship.
3. Degree's of separation - chances are you know someone who knows your prospect - ask your network for known connections to your prospect. I suspect that many of you reading this - don't do this!
4. Talk w/ other vendors that do business with your prospect. How did the sales process go? Get a preliminary read on what business drivers/pain they are having - and be prepared with a conceptual solution.
5. Last, but not least, send a preliminary letter with a series of well thought out questions that will help you be prepared, control the discussion and provide a preview of discussion topics to your prospect.

Good luck & happy selling,

Ed