“CSI” is a television drama about a team of police investigators. These expert sleuths are on the case 24/7, scouring crime scenes and probing for clues with astonishing efficiency.

Using scientific methods, the investigators collect and examine the smallest traces of evidence in order to solve the mystery. In a recent episode, it was carpet fibers found under the stem of the victim’s watch that linked him to the crime scene.

As a sales professional, the research that you conduct on your customer is also an investigation.

How are your investigative skills? Are you a capable sales detective?

Build a Case

The goal of the TV police investigators is to gather evidence and assemble it into a convincing case.

As a sales professional the goal of your research is to collect information and use it to build a convincing business case showing why your customer should partner with you.

In sales workshops, I often ask participants what type of information they look for when they research their customers. Common responses include:

  • The size of the customer’s company
  • Their location
  • Number and functions of the company’s departments or divisions
  • The decision-maker for products and services such as mine
  • How the customer has used similar products and services in the past

This is good basic information. You need to know these facts, but this is merely a starting point and not the finish line.

Research as if You Were an Investor

Here’s something to think about: How would your research change if you were considering investing a substantial portion of your life-savings in your customer’s business?

Before you put your own hard-earned money on the line, you would probably hunt for additional evidence to help you evaluate the health of the customer’s business.

You would dig for more clues. Like the television investigators, you would study, consider and scrutinize the facts.

In addition to basic customer information, you would also want to know about:

  • Your customer’s past and current financial performance
  • Their cash position
  • Their competitive standing
  • How they differentiate themselves in their markets
  • Their business strategy
  • The critical business issues they must address to achieve their strategy

This knowledge would help you more accurately predict the customer’s future business success so you could make a wiser investment decision.

Guess what? This same data has tremendous value to you as a sales professional.

Conducting deeper research puts you in a position to identify additional ways that you can help your customer accelerate their business results.

On a flight not long ago, I sat beside the president of a sheet metal fabricating company.

He told me that several months earlier his company had corrected a $20 million inventory problem and ended the year with the best financial performance in their 35-year history.

When I asked how the inventory problem came to his attention, he said that a woman who sells computer equipment discovered it while she was researching the sheet metal company’s business.

That’s the sort of help customers need in today’s challenging economic environment.

If your products and services help facilitate such business improvements, you increase your odds of success. Oh, if you are wondering what happened to the computer sales pro, she made a big sale.

You have to hunker down and put a little sweat into your research, but the effort you invest pays off in bigger sales and fewer price battles.

Different is Good

In working with hundreds of salespeople I have learned that comprehensive customer research is one of the key factors separating amateur salespeople from the pros.

Even though detailed information about most customers is widely available, few salespeople use it. Therein lies an opportunity to set yourself apart.

When your conversations with customer executives are centered around knowledge you gained from meticulous research, you are different from the typical salesperson. And in a world of intense competition, different is good.

It boils down to this: Comprehensively researching your customers in a consistent, systematic way revolutionizes your sales career.

(This article may not be reprinted or copied without written permission from Howard Wallin.)