by Cynthia Nowicki on July 19, 2010
How to Identify a Good B2B Prospect Match
When you want to find a compatible partner, it’s going to take more than a picture and a questionnaire to determine compatibility. eHarmony, the self-proclaimed “innovator and originator of deep compatibility matching” defines their approach as “the only service to match singles based on what is known to work in successful long-term relationships. We care deeply about helping each and every member find a fulfilling relationship, and we give you a better chance to do so than any other site.”
eHarmony matches their applicants based on compatibility across 29 Dimensions® which they define as “key areas scientifically proven to predict relationship satisfaction and success.”
Matchmaking for love and matchmaking for business sure have alot in common. This got me thinking deeply about finding customers who would fit my “29 Dimensions.” Alas, eHarmony has trademarked 29 Dimensions, so I’ll have to develop my own set of criteria.
15 B2B List Building Essentials:
- What problems/challenges/needs (PCNs) can my product/service solve?
- What roles experience these PCNs?
- What are the keywords in these titles?
- What companies do I sell to today have these PCNs?
- What markets do I reach today have these PCNs?
- What additional companies can I target that share these PCNs?
- Who are my target prospects and what do I have to offer them?
- Who do I find in Jigsaw based on the title keywords I’ve discovered?
- What more can I find in Linked In and Google regarding their concerns, roles, (articles, SlideShare, blogs, press releases, etc.)
- By building an org chart for key accounts and identifying concerns, roles, etc. what would PCNs can we solve?
- What is the best database to get me the contact information that I need to build my list of possible matches?
- Build the list, separate the PCNs by commonality so you can develop campaigns that are specific to an audience with a similar PCN makeup.
- Carefully prepare your campaigns so that they speak directly to the PCN of the target.
- Use various techniques to track the response.
- Email your targeted letters, follow up and get that first meeting where you can read your prospect to see if there is a match.
Summer is a great time to take a new look at your B2B matchmaking. With some planning that includes the B2B Lead Gen Essentials a few good applications like salesforceCRM, Predictive Response (for email), Jigsaw (for list gen), Linked In and Google, you’ll be a matchmaking success.
by Cynthia Nowicki on June 12, 2010
Improving Your Lead Generation Success

If your day is anything like mine, you’re devoting a large portion of it to designing innovative ways to find qualified prospects. You look near and far for ideas, you craft your own innovative campaigns, you “borrow” from others, you go about setting lures to attract those with the need you can solve. Because they come with needs in all shapes and sizes, vetting them from the chaff can really be challenging.
It’s like “finding a needle in a haystack” right? The Myth Busters video featured a competition between the myth-busting inventors Jamie and Adam. They are both being challenged to individually design an approach for finding the needles in a haystack. There are three steel needles and one bone needle to find.
Jamie uses high rotation tubes and fire to burn the hay; theoretically the needles will not burn and drop out of the tube. Jamie uses water and a tank; theoretically the needles will drop to the bottom of the water and the hay will float, separating the needles from the hay. Both inventors designed different methods to achieve the same result.
This is truly a remarkable and entertaining analogy to what it is like to find a qualified prospect. I’ve posted the video for your entertainment but it highlights the challenge. You have to keep moving the hay through the mechanism to get that needle to drop.
I have spent a lot (more than I care to count) of dollars, Euros, Yen and other currencies to find NEED-les around the world. The interesting thing is, the most successful approach to finding NEED-les is often in the most obvious places.
Before you spend money today in these uncertain times, you should first make sure you are doing some basics that do not add a burden to the bottom line.
Here is a checklist of the key places where I have found a higher proportion of NEED-les. I wouldn’t spend any money on lead generation activities until I have this mechanism in place:
- Understand the current and historical proportion of repeat business and repeat customers
- Get referrals from current customers inside and outside of their business
- What can you sell to your current customers?
- What can you do to help sales open new doors in current accounts?
- Is there an account plan that you tap into and recommend approaches to help sales?
- Create approaches to tap into the known need of a specific customer or prospect: 1:1 or 1:many
- Build prospect hit lists for your sales reps and research key contacts they choose by getting more personal information by using Linked In and Google searches. Craft approaches based on their day-to-day concerns
- Call each sales representative and see what you can do to help them find and qualify prospects faster, they may have ideas that they have trouble implementing manually
A highly customized email targeted at an individuals concerns provide a better return than a form letter. But an email is just the first part of the approach. Each email should be followed up with a phone call and email – the primary purpose to land a meeting. Through the process of getting that meeting on the schedule the callers are also, yet secondarily, qualifying the prospect.
Though finding prospects with a need you can fill does take time and effort, but it doesn’t have to require a large lead generation budget. The “mechanism” you build to target your audience will provide a higher return if you bolster up the basics.