Understanding Your Target Customer's Business

Overview/Description
 Imagine trying to sell a product or service to a customer that you know nothing about. Do you think it would be an easy process? Probably not. The better you know your customer, the better your chances for success. In this course, you'll learn about the first major component of the territorial account sales (TAS) approach--research. You'll gain an understanding of the benefits of good research and how to gather information from public sources, as well as how to gain an insiders view. You'll then explore the five TAS search elements and how to apply them to researching your customer's business structure, key players, and business fit.

Target Audience
 Individuals responsible for sales, sales support, business or account development, and sales management activities for territorial accounts

Expected Duration
3.5 hours

Lesson Objectives:

Business Research Basics

  • recognize the benefits of researching your customer's business.
  • identify the critical success questions.
  • match the five fundamental search elements used in researching target accounts with examples of those elements.
  • match business information sources with the types of information found in those sources.

    • Researching Your Target Account's Business

  • recognize the value of researching your customer's business structure and direction.
  • match the categories of questions to ask when researching customer profile and direction to examples of questions in those categories.
  • match the categories of questions to ask when researching departmental profile and direction to examples of questions in those categories.
  • complete the corporate profile and departmental profile areas of the TAS account planner in a given scenario.

    • Researching Your Target Account's People

  • recognize the value of researching the key players and business fit for your target accounts.
  • identify examples of the six buying roles.
  • match the categories of questions to ask when researching customer organizational structure to examples of questions in those categories.
  • match the categories of questions to ask when researching key players to examples of questions in those categories.
  • research business information sources and complete the organizational structure and key player profile parts of the TAS account planner in a given scenario.
  • match the four aspects of an organizational chart to descriptions of those aspects.

    • Researching the Business Fit with Your Target Account

  • recognize the benefits of determining the business fit with the customer.
  • match the steps for determining the business fit with the activities related to those steps.
  • complete the business fit statements area in the TAS planner in a given scenario.

    • Course Number: SALE0112