Just the other day we had a call from a potential customer who had a business contact list requirement and called to inquire about how we could help build one for him. The discussion went well and then hit the brakes when he discovered custom role based list building would cost more per lead delivered as compared to buying a single contact from an existing database such as Jigsaw.com or even purchasing a pre packaged contact list. The turning point was a question that hit him right away which was “why should I pay a premium for a custom business contact when I can pay less per contact by purchasing a large list instead?”

There is a difference. When you purchase a list of business contacts you are buying a list that was created based on some criteria and though the costs are lower, you are relying on the fact that some percentage of those contacts will be the right decision makers to receive your marketing message or sales call.  In a custom role based list building effort every account is called into individually and the best decision maker for your message is locatedensuring that you are targeting the right person within your target account. In this respect, short of qualifications based on asking qualifying questions, these contacts are more qualified as leads compared to ready lists or databases and yield higher returns. 

Lets say a company has a CRM software which they need to pitch to potential customers. A custom role based list building service would identify decision makers or key executives within IT who overlook CRM requirements for the company and hence you know you are reaching out to the right person. It takes away part of the ‘trial and error’ aspect associated with a title based list where although the titles maybe along the lines of your potential decision maker, a lot of time and energy may end up being wasted on trying to connect with the wrong decision makers. So while purchased lists and contact databases like Jigsaw are great sources of title based contacts and probably better for a bigger source of volume raw leads, the role based list building option would be worth the premium if you are going for a more focussed, more qualified set of leads where “what the decision maker is responsible for” is important. In our experience, its well worth the premium and the ROI should speak for itself.

I was reading an interesting post that we could relate to on Jill Konrath’s blog Selling To Big Companies on one sales persons dilema of how he can justify to his sales manager that its worth going after fewer larger deals at bigger companies over more and regular deals at smaller accounts. Similarly we know of many smaller  business to business companies out there whose products and services are well suited to bigger companies but its a known fact that its a must to do your homework well before you attempt to sell into a bigger company. This additional groundwork  means more time, longer sales cycles and more risks as compared to the smaller companies where its comparitively easier to find a decision maker and get hold of them on a cold call. So to many companies this extra time and effort that goes into researching, intelligence gathering, account profiling, qualifying, locating business contacts and other pre-sales activities is a significant risk because shifting focus to these accounts can mean re-allocating bandwidth that was bringing in the smaller but more reliable sales. So do you have to give up the idea of big risk-big reward deals which can be found at the bigger companies?

One of the areas we have been able to successfully help some of our customers at smaller companies is by helping them with their pre-sales activities to help them take their focus off this and put it on the selling itself. By helping do the initial groundwork by doing account profiling where you have someone else do the initial research, identify multiple decision makers within these larger accounts, do some initial calls and have an understanding of their pain points and some intelligence before they attempt to sell. After having these targets accounts profiled and having a clear insight into these companies, you know which ones are worth pursuing and adjusting your sales approach, message and pitch becomes easier and much more focussed.

This way a company can have their pre sales preperation done without having to reshuffle or disturb the current flow too much to also take a shot at the bigger business opportunities and the bigger companies. The rewards could be well worth the risk.