Key takeaways
- Recent change is the best opener: a new leader, a launch, funding, hiring or a new location.
- Job posts reveal priorities more honestly than the About page.
- Write down one angle. Three angles is a pitch, one is a conversation.
Step by step
- Read the homepage and pricing. Learn what they sell, who buys it and how they describe the value in their own words.
- Look for what changed. Press releases, leadership changes, funding, new products, new markets and hiring surges in the last six months.
- Read their job posts. Open roles show where money is going and which tools and problems they name.
- Map the people. Identify the sponsor, the evaluator and anyone new in role, who are often the most open to change.
- Write the angle and three questions. One sentence on why you are calling now, and three questions that prove you did the reading.
| Signal | Where to find it | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| New executive | Press, LinkedIn | Priorities are being reset |
| Hiring in one team | Careers page | That function has budget |
| New product or market | News, blog | New problems to solve |
| Funding or acquisition | News | Pressure to grow quickly |
What to know
The point of research is not to recite facts back to the buyer. It is to choose the one thing worth talking about, and to avoid the questions their website already answers.
A Buzzlist Sales Brief runs this research for you from public sources and returns twelve sections: what the company does, what matters to them now, the likely buying group, what to say, what to ask, objections and the next step, with sources listed. You can read a full example before you sign up.
