Sales Intelligence or Sales Data

CSO Insights (http://www.csoinsights.com) does extensive research into the topics of sales and marketing effectiveness. One of their white papers that I found very insightful was the following:

Proactive Sales Intelligence
CSO Insights 2007
Jim Dickie/Barry Trailer

Sales Intelligence or Sales Data. What positions your sales department better?

With permission from CSO Insights, listed below is a concise list authored by Jim Dickie & Barry Trailer on how the proper SI will help your company position yourself as a competent peer.


Do you know me?
Are you aware of how long I have been with the company?
If I am new, where did I come from?
What are my goals and objectives?
How am I measured and evaluated?
What specific projects am I working on and how can your product or service help me?
You have to know me well enough that your product will not only enhance the organization, but me personally.

Do we have a past?

Have I met with your firm before?
Do I have a favorable opinion of your firm and your offerings, or are there some fences that need to be mended?
Without this knowledge, reps can miss a chance to leverage a positive-or they could get blindsided by a negative

Do you know my internal Ecosystem?

How do I relate with other functional areas of my company? Are they involved in the buying process?

Do you know my company?

Realize that what I ultimately want has to align it with, and be supportive of, what our company

Do you know my marketplace?

Do you know who my customers are and how their world is changing?
Who are my partners?
When the economy shifts, is that a good or bad thing for me?
Is my marketplace poised for growth, stagnation, or decline?
If you take my marketplace into account, and then start prescribing solutions for me, you will find me much more interested in what you have to say.


Do you know my competitors?

Do you know where we fit into the exiting competitive landscape?
Are we the leader or just another player?
Are we in the position to play catch-up to survive?
How can you help me create differentiation?

Do you have any special value-add?

What else can you bring to the table?
Are their additional assets you can bring to bear to solve my problems, relationships, intellectual property, and internal business processes of knowledge?
Your desire to share all the appropriate resources your company can provide will go along way toward convincing me that you really want to partner with us.

Do you know why you are the best choice?

Can you educate me on how you are truly different from the other players in your solution space so I can support my recommendation tow work with you?
Help me help you…gets me invested in ensuring we can implement your solution to address my company’s needs

Do you know how I can justify the purchase?

After all the work we have done assessing my needs, crafting a solution, developing an action plan, agreeing on price, aligning resources, I still must build a strong business case to demonstrate a clear ROI.
How do I convince the Vice President of “NO” that this is a good investment for our company?

Do you know what is changing as we work together?

My world changes daily. Outside the company, our marketplace shifts, our competitive landscape changes, the number of alternatives for us to consider fluctuates-Are you up to speed with these changes?
Can you identify it and quickly determine how it impact how we work together?

Now if you are as up to date as I am on my world-or better yet, ahead of me-I will see you as a competent peer