The mailing file database that was chosen for
this project consisted of over 20,000 individual
manufacturing facilities that have 20 or more
employees and who participate in the U.S. metalproducts
industry. The first step in the research
process was to match the SIC codes for each of the
50,000+ firms in the database with a list of SIC codes
representing the company’s range of capabilities. The
matching of the SIC codes in the entire database with
the company’s “capabilities list” resulted in a screened
list of prospects. The net result was to reduce the list
of prospects to just over 6,000, but this large number of
prospects was still far too unmanageable from the
perspective of the salesforce.