Making sales in this hugely competitive environment is getting tougher – but a powerful new search tool aims to make it easier for NACD members to turn potential leads into customers.
Developed by Sam Richter, speaker, best-selling author, and founder of SBR Worldwide, the NACD Chemical Industry Sales Intel Engine helps businesses find prospects and seize opportunities to help them grow.
There's a lot of confusion between sales and marketing, says Richter. A lot of people in sales often ask for lists of people that fit a specific demographic and think they’re selling to prospects. They’re obviously targeted, but you really don't know anything about them other than their basic details.
While there's nothing wrong with this catch-all approach, getting those people through the funnel often takes a long time and a lot of hard work. Richter instead considers them marketing “suspects”.
True “prospects” are people who may be on that list, but really should buy from you today based on something going on in their world. An indicator of them needing your services could be that they’ve recently visited your website or that they have a brand new hire, are looking for new suppliers, or have just announced a new product. He calls these trigger events.
The NACD Intel Engine means it’s now possible to get a less ambiguous indication of which leads are ready to buy.
Built specifically for NACD and the chemical distribution industry, the subscription-based search engine has been in development for two years. It uses powerful algorithms to instantly display relevant company information that could be key to unlocking a sale.
“My core focus is on business intelligence and getting the meeting that no one else can,” says Richter. “Marketing is about generating the leads, and sales is about closing the deals. Where there's been that convergence, or confusion, is we have outside salespeople making all those calls just to determine whether they could be a prospect.”
The main difference between suspects and prospects is personalization and having the tools to understand their needs.
Every business is aware of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. First and foremost, they help capture information about your customers, which you can use to track and monitor their activities. That could be anything from how often they visit your website, the products they order, or the number of times they call your customer service team for support.
Most businesses also have a solid understanding of the management element of CRMs, using the software to automate their processes, improve efficiencies, and streamline workflows.
However, it’s the relationship part of a CRM that is often neglected, says Richter. And the aspect of relationships that is exceptionally important in sales is relevance.
Relevance is vital for sales success and business growth. Ultimately, says Richter, the best way of unlocking a potential relationship with a buyer is not by cold calling, but by learning about them and tapping into what they really care about. That’s relevance – and you need to have a relationship and relevance mindset to succeed.
As such, sales teams should focus on the three core aspects of relevance:
“The Intel Engine bridges this gap between suspecting and prospecting,” says Richter. “It massively speeds up the entire sales process.”
Using Boolean logic and AI, the NACD Intel Engine takes just seconds to search for certain criteria across Google, LinkedIn, and industry publications, allowing users to find sales opportunities and better prepare for meetings.
In just a few clicks, it’s possible to find out who the decision-makers are, what their company has been up to, and the direction they’re heading.
The easy-to-use interface, divided into sections, will let you search by company name, industry, location, or people by department, role, or seniority. You can even select a specific market segment such as paints and coatings, food, and cosmetics – or base your research on the number of employees or annual revenue. It even allows you to determine a company’s e-mail address format, so you can reach out to leads more easily.
It's also possible to drill down into a company’s media coverage, finding recent news and press releases about a specific product or service. A quick search, for example, could highlight anything from recent contracts and acquisitions to new hires and product launches – perfect background information to help with that initial call.
The key is trying to learn more about them and their requirements, says Richter. If you’re able to engage with them about their needs and priorities, you’re halfway to a sale.
As one of NACD’s strategic partners, Richter offers the Intel Engine at special discounted rates on monthly, annual, or lifetime access. He also provides complimentary training for sales teams using the Engine. To find out more, visit https://www.intelngin.com/nacd.
If you missed Richter’s selling workshop in June, you can access the recording here.
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