Stay Current!
In Chapter 3, I related the story of a sales professional who came across an article about the CEO of a large bank in the UK that could not achieve its business objectives. By tying the customer's business objectives to his solution, the sales professional won the account. Where did that seller come across the article? Google Alerts. This free service is an e-mail alert system that keeps you up to date on the latest Internet-posted items, based on search topics you specify. You can sign up for Google Alerts by typing "Google Alerts" into your search box and that will take you to the window where you can set up an account. I suggest that your topics list reflect the accounts on your territory plan. (your top ten prospects and up to top ten accounts)
Google gives you a few choices as to how to receive your alerts, and I recommend doing them on a weekly basis. There are a few delivery options, but if you choose more frequently you'll be receiving far more information than you can manage. Also, stick to requesting news, as opposed to some of the other research options, like video.
With your account set up as I have suggested, you will receive an e-mail per week for each of the accounts listed in your Google Alert profile. The e-mails will have a topic line and the first sentence or two about the article or news release. If the topic seems interesting, click it and read further. You can use the information in these articles to build your initial relation- ships with prospects, as well as enhance existing sales relation ships.