Sales data. We all need it but it can be incredibly overwhelming. Our recent membership survey discovered that salespeople spend between 20% to 60% of their time sourcing or managing data – a decent chunk of their day-to-day activities.
So where can we effectively source data? Which tools should we be using? And how do we then optimise it for our business whilst remaining true to our ethical principles?
These are questions our Ethical Sales Academy members wanted to explore, so we invited data expert Penn Frank from Stack Optimise to join Ethical Sales M.D. Corinne Thomas for a masterclass on the topic.
Undertaking a deep dive into how to effectively navigate sourcing and managing data, we looked at everything from the latest data tools to the ethics of cold emailing.
Read on for the highlights or join us in the Ethical Sales Academy to access the full masterclass and handouts.
The changing landscape of sales data
There’s no doubt that the sales data landscape has changed dramatically in the last ten years, mostly because of the growth of available tech tools fueled by the web. LinkedIn, for example, has been a game changer in how easy it is to gather information on people and companies.
There are usually three different types of buyers’ data that businesses need to source and manage:
- Contact data – emails and phone numbers
- Persona-based data – insight into the individuals you’re targeting
- Account-based data – information on the companies you’re targeting
The challenge, however, is that with so much available data at our fingertips, how do we build a scalable system to optimise this?
“As it’s often said, you can’t improve what you can’t measure, so it’s organisations that can effectively harness this data who will be the ones who succeed.” Penn Frank, Stack Optimise
Data challenges for salespeople
We’re often told that outbound sales are dying. But there’s plenty of evidence to show that outbound is thriving – as long as you’re using the right technology and tools.
The huge advances in tech and tools enable us to target buyers in a more meaningful way. This can be done either through personalisation gathered from online profiles or by relevant data – monitoring ‘trigger events’ such as jobs a company is hiring for or when it’s featured in the media. All of these can be leveraged to tailor your communications to prospective customers.
But with so many tools out there and a cacophony of voices each recommending something different, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, especially if you’re the one leading sales in your business.
Therefore one of the biggest challenges for salespeople is to navigate this data overwhelm and turn it into something positive. Informed decisions can be made by spending time exploring the tools available and learning about the extent of their capabilities informed decisions can be made.
It may be you can delegate this to the curious and tech-savvy member of your team who thrives on learning new things. Additionally, you could bring in data consultants to help you make these decisions, with an audit of your current data stack and recommendations for the best tools to consider.
“To use an analogy here, there’s no point in buying an expensive car and never taking it out of the garage. We can end up spending a lot of money on sourcing data but then not be disciplined enough to manage it. So we need to learn how to make the tools work for us.” Corinne Thomas, Ethical Sales
Staying true to ethical values when using sales data
A crucial part of using sales data is being up-to-date on the legalities around handling people’s information. Our recent membership poll in the Ethical Sales Academy showed that the majority of salespeople rate their knowledge of data protection at the lower end of the spectrum.
It’s all too easy to think data protection and compliance is someone else’s responsibility, but in order to be ethical (as well as not break any laws!) then we recommend getting up to speed on what your responsibilities are around data.
Using personal data in your business? You must register with the Information Commissioner’s Office and then pay a data protection fee to do this, otherwise you’re breaking the law. You’ll find more information and guidance on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.
If your business is doing telephone outreach, it’s also crucial to check any numbers you’re calling against the Telephone Preference Service, a ‘do not call’ register for landline and mobile numbers. If you cold-call a number on the TPS you can be fined.
As well as actual legal boundaries, it’s also necessary to consider ethics around data use. For example, cold email outreach is a cost-effective way of reaching a lot of contacts, and hyper-personalisation at scale is possible with today’s tech tools. But does a ‘spray and pray’ campaign to thousands of addresses fit in with your ethical principles?
The answer is likely no – as well as also being unlikely to generate good results. Just because we can send emails to thousands of people in one go it doesn’t mean we should!
Instead, it’s worth taking the time to verify companies and find suitable matches. Make a judgement on how many people you genuinely need to contact, then take the time to create highly personalised emails that will resonate with them.
“From an ethical sales point of view, would I want to send out 5k cold emails? No. But I would be happy to send out 500 to some very targeted individuals and accounts that we’d verified as being a suitable match.” Corinne Thomas, Ethical Sales
The latest data sourcing tools to explore
Many tools were discussed in our sales data masterclass but there are some highlights to consider as you put together your data stack:
- Clay – A groundbreaking new data enrichment tool. Import a lead list and then integrate thousands of tools to enrich it. It can get technical, so be prepared to put the time in to learn the tool.
- Apollo – A database of global contacts. There are free and low-cost options available. Highly rated by many salespeople as a reliable and cost-effective way of sourcing sales data.
- LinkedIn – The original b2b communication platform. The Sales Navigator function offers a lot of live intelligence and organisational data to explore. Additional tools may be needed to get to individual data information.
- Reoon – An email verification and lead generation tool.