Build an Amazing Company Database
There is one key challenge that nearly every B2B sales company has – how to keep your prospect and customers lists up to date?
Contacts leave, companies move or go out of business, circumstances changes.
After spending twenty-five years plus working with suppliers of capital equipment, it is rare to find a company that has a clean prospect or customer list over a prolonged period of time.
So how can you do it?
- Break the information you keep into static and non-static data.
Static data- There are certain things that will rarely change such as the company registration number, company year-end, web address, key directors that own over 2% of the business, director’s date of birth. Once you have loaded this data, it will not change. You just need to get into the habit of loading the data on your CRM system, and more importantly, using it!
Non-static data- Address’s, contacts, etc
So here is a great tip, its cheap and simple to do. Yes, this task will take a bit of time to complete, but once done will be worth its weight in gold.
Compile a list of every organisation who have on your database and load them onto an Excel spreadsheet. Put in two columns, Company Type and the second column Company Registration Number.
Column one – options, Incorporated Company, Sole Trader, Partnership, Government Body, School, Charity, Association etc
Column two – for all limited, LLP or plc companies, get their company registration number. (If you have loads of companies, Cocredo can even undertake a lot of this task automatically for you.)
Send this spreadsheet to Cocredo who will send it back with important bits of static information such as yearend dates, directors details, registered address’s. This is great data you can use to help you maintain your database and will aid you in selling more.
- Use the Cocredo “Monitoring” company credit information system
Cocredo sell company credit information. They have a monitoring system that will update you on a regular basis if there are any key changes to your data, for example:
- Your prospect / customer has gone or is going out of business
- Change of registered address – often a company’s registered address is the office address
- Change in credit rating. Monitor the big fluctuations – it could be your great customer is not doing so well, or that small company has grown
- Directors leaving or joining – a great way to ensure your contacts are up to date.
The Cocredo monitoring system is a brilliant tool to help you maintain your CRM database. It’s not expensive to use and the information is gives back will give your sales people many reasons to call a customer.
We use Cocredo for all our company credit information needs, a great company we are more than happy to recommend to you. Give Dan Hancocks a call on 01494 790 600.
