The impact of data on the world of sales has continued to increase in recent years. We're even talking about Big Data now. Suffice to say to you that the Business Developer job revolves more than ever around this concept.
Changes to expect in prospecting
From volume to quality
In business development, Business Developers are often asked to do a lot of volume, in terms of emails and calls. It is a way of counteracting the lack of information. But luckily, volume is not the only parameter you can play with: the quality Making contact is essential. It is therefore necessary to manage to combine quantity and quality. In fact, we talk a lot about Akimbo Bootcamp to become a Business Developer.
In fact, most of the time, a Business Developer does not necessarily know who to contact, when and how. By doing volume, he hopes to end up reaching the right prospect (Lead) at the appropriate time. That famous moment when there is a internal project. But it is mentally difficult: it represents a lot of work and an impact on financial, commercial efficiency, and buying experience for the prospect.
An increasingly present automation
The subject of Data in commercial prospecting is only in its infancy. At the risk of kicking in an open door, data is increasingly present in our lives, in all areas and particularly in commercial development and in the marketing. It can already be predicted that thanks to the latter and its interpretation, Tomorrow's sales function will be smarter : it will further automate the phase upstream of the sales cycle (identification of an opportunity) to leave to the human the phase of discovering customer needs and closing.
Generate highly qualified leads
With Asgard.ai
Clément Frison (CEO @ Asgard.ai) explains to us how to use data to only contact people relevant to our business, and at Appropriate time.
This is also the objective of the startup he co-founded: Asgard.ai, which offers companies the opportunity to find them qualified leads. The initial observation? Companies are leaving more and more information about themselves, whether in blog posts, press releases, job offers on the Internet.
The value proposition of Asgard.ai? Retrieve this data, analyze it and interpret it in order to successfully define precisely who the target customers are: what is called ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). The software also identifies information sources that we will be able to use to collect information and identify prospects. Today, the company has won over fifteen well-known customers in the French tech ecosystem, such as Spendesk, Payfit, Ibanfirst, 360learning...
Building the ideal customer profile
The basic criteria of ICP
So it's all a question of'ICP : previously, there were few ways to exploit this data, few tools and resources. Thanks to thedigital evolution, we now have access to this crucial data since it will allow us to obtain very qualified leads. When trying to build an ICP, the basic criteria are as follows:
- company activity
- number of employees and possibly their positions
- turnover
- location...
Certainly effective, but quite basic. These criteria allow the Sales or Business Developer to first sort through the leads. But they are not enough, since they do not provide essential information that answers the following question: could the company be interested in our product or service or not?
If we manage to answer this question, we will be able to save a considerable amount of time without wasting our energy trying to contact companies with whom exchanges will never succeed.
Specify your ICP and ask yourself the right questions
To have an ICP plus precise, you already have to ask yourself a simple question: what is the problem solved by my solution? A good way for a Business Developer to get an answer is to describe, At the time of closing a deal, why he succeeded in closing this deal, why this client bought this solution, what were his goals, expectations, needs, the size of the company at that time. That is our first piece of advice.
Building a robot portrait of your target
Once in possession of these elements, A Business Developer will be able to identify interesting businesses much more easily. We are going to draw the “robot portrait” of our target. To do this, we are not going to take just any deal, but those that were the best from a financial and “temporal” point of view (length of the negotiation).
There is a way to know if this KPI is well formulated by answering a simple question: Is he unique ? Indeed, if it is generic, it is very often that it is bad. Your business, your product and your mission are necessarily different from those of your competitors. This is why your ICP can only be different, and the more unique it is, the more you will succeed in precisely defining your target.
Information sources to use
We can already use the ad site Indeed.com, by going to the job offers and typing in our key criteria. For example, for a translation company, we will be able to look at companies that want to hire a Country Manager. Google News can also be a good tool, by putting alerts on our key words and criteria to have real-time information on companies, such as fundraising, branch openings, etc.
No need to have hundreds of results: a Business Developer will test these alerts to find relevant ones and get to the point. You can also search for podcasts. For example, we take a company that participated in a podcast about Growth Hacking if this field is ours, and then search through the latter's job offers. A final example of a tool for tracking target businesses: Linkedin. To be used in the same way as Indeed.
Once this research is finished, in a meticulous and very structured way, we get our leads: few but highly qualified. We will therefore in fact go from volume to quality, as explained at the beginning of the article.
Taking action: prospecting
Send emails
The Business Developer will then be able to use this data on a daily basis by sending highly personalized emails. To start the email, it is better to talk about the company you are contacting, and explain why we want to communicate with the person who receives the email, why now, and only then make the connection between us and them by expressing how we will be able to help them.
Do not hesitate to stress with these leads because we know that they have a need that we can meet. We will not hesitate to relaunch them again and again.
Clément recommends having a Template of email, so that the Sales & Business Developers of a team do not have to rewrite emails every time, but only have to replace personalized information. This will allow a Time saver and a simpler and more fluid organization.
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Other tools to automate prospecting
Clearbit to recover more data
It is a tool that allows you to retrieve data on the people to whom you send emails. It is possible to identify accounts, then the contacts within these accounts that the Business Developer wishes to talk to, and finally the personal data of these contacts. Using this tool, you can also identify a list of companies that meet certain criteria, and even identify the right people and businesses among the people who visit a website. Because of the level of data accuracy, which does not contain erroneous information, ClearBit competes with other tools such as FullContact, Rapportive, etc.
Segment to connect its data applications together
With Segment, businesses can collect, unify, and connect their data to over 200 marketing, analytics, and data storage tools. Their API (programming interface) allows customer data to be recorded from sources such as websites, mobile phones, applications, or servers. It optimizes analytics by routing raw customer data to data storages for deeper exploration and advanced analysis. This is also what the Kissmetrics tool, its competitor, does.
CrystalKnows to find out the best way to communicate
CrystalKnows helps businesses better understand how people communicate and How they prefer others to communicate with them. The tool creates a unique profile for anyone with a LinkedIn account, showing us how to talk to them, send emails, work with them, or sell to them as effectively as possible. It goes so far as to specify the words, phrases, style, and tone to use to reach the recipient in the way they like to communicate, rather than your own.
There are many other tools that can help you better analyze, understand and contact your target prospects, do not hesitate to monitor to identify those who are coming out continuously!
