By the end of company and industry research, you should have a working explanation of how the account earns money, what its market is forcing it to deal with, and where competitive pressure enters. Start with the industry, then follow those pressures into the company's operating model. Research becomes useful when it changes the questions you ask on the call. A website tells you what a company says it does. Your preparation should help you ask what makes the model work, what may be getting in its way, and how the account is responding.
Start with the industry
Begin with the market around the account. Find the pressure before interpreting the account's announcements or building a message around them.
Start by researching the industry.1 Look for trends, layoffs, growth, stagnation and geopolitical issues that could affect companies in the sector.2 Compare what market leaders are doing with how the target account is coping with those changes.3
Write a short note on the pressure you found and turn it into a call question. Ask what has changed in the market, where the change shows up inside the business, and what the account has done in response. Sector research can give you a more grounded way to talk with the market.4 Move on when you can explain why the account might care about the issue now.
Map how the account works
Build the company's operating picture. Understand how value enters the business, where it moves, and what has to go right for the company to earn money.
Review the company's website to see what it does.5 Learn how the company makes money, because that gives you a basis for working out how you may help it.6 Use that model to infer what executives are probably focused on, which industry pressures may reach them, and which trends may shape their choices.7 Record the product line and the industries the company targets.8
Ask questions that expose the model: Who pays the company? What triggers a purchase? Which part of the offer carries the most commercial weight? What has to happen after a sale for the customer to receive the promised result? These questions turn a company description into a working account hypothesis.
Check the ownership structure before you stop researching. Think of the parent company as the umbrella over its subsidiaries.9 Subsidiaries fall under that umbrella,10 and researching the parent company will often reveal information about the subsidiary.11 In some cases, published information exists only for the parent company.12
Choose where to look
Let the account's ownership and location determine your first search path. This keeps you from spending time in places that cannot provide the detail you need.
Establish whether the company is based in the U.S. or abroad, since that helps determine where to begin and which forms may be available.13 You will usually find more information about public companies because they must file financial and other disclosures with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.14
For a private company, use publicly held companies in the same industry to add context.15 Use that context to form a question about the account's possible pressures. It gives you a starting point for discovery, while the account's own answers determine whether the issue applies.
Read the economics
Use financial signals to test the business story you formed from the website and industry review. Read them for direction and pressure, then connect them to the operating model.
A company's financial numbers can tell a different story from the one its CEO tells.16 Look at profitability because it shows both the revenue a business generates and how efficiently it converts income into profit.17
When the information is available, use a cash flow statement to examine income and expenses during an accounting period.18 For a planned change or upcoming contract, a project specific income or cash flow statement can show the profitability of that particular decision.19
Bring one financial question into the call, such as what cost pressure has changed or which part of the model is hardest to protect. You can also ask how the team judges whether an initiative pays off. Keep your conclusion within what the figures can support. Do not claim a change in net revenue when future commodity prices and trade projections cannot be factored into the analysis.20
Test the competitive picture
Competition research should tell you how the account is positioned and where customers may see meaningful differences. Use the findings to sharpen your questions and leave competitor summaries out of the conversation.
For each relevant alternative, examine its value proposition, the customer problem it addresses, its positioning, its messaging and the gaps it leaves in the market.21 Ask the account where buyers compare options and what causes a customer to choose one approach over another.
When an exact comparison is unavailable, use real information from another industry to test the logic of your model. Analogies can help validate an account view even when major differences remain.22 Say clearly what the comparison helps you understand, then ask whether the same pattern appears in this business.
Turn notes into call hypotheses
Turn your observations into questions you can test with the contact. A hypothesis gives the call direction while leaving room for the account to correct you.
Review LinkedIn profiles and develop theories about what may be happening in the prospect's industry and business.23 Build the business story from the company's facts.24 Before suggesting a change, spend time understanding who the company is and what matters to its people.25
Keep each hypothesis close to something you can verify. You might suspect that a market shift is affecting demand. You might also suspect that a change in the company's model is putting pressure on delivery or that a competitor is changing how buyers compare options. Ask what changed, where the effect appears, and how the team is handling it. Use the question "how do you call today?" when you need to understand the company's current approach.26
Listen for the contact's correction as carefully as confirmation. If the account rejects the premise, replace it with the explanation they give you. If the contact confirms it, ask about the business effect before you discuss a solution.
What not to do
Use these as stop signs while you prepare. They keep the call from resting on a conclusion the account cannot support.
- An issue at a public company only indicates a possible issue at a private company. The account still has to confirm it.27
- Do not assume a private company offers the same level of detail as a public company.28
- Do not rely on a research resource that includes only public companies when investigating a private account.29
- Do not recommend a change before you understand the company and what matters to its people.25
Take the finished notes into the call as hypotheses, with a question beside each one. Use the conversation to test how market pressure reaches the account, how the business responds, and whether the problem matters enough to act on.