So you have found a list of potential customers or a book of list or some other source of prospect leads, what do you do now?
The first thing is to compare the companies on the list to your ideal customer profile and the preferred market or vertical markets who are better suited for your products and services. Discard any companies on the list that are questionable based upon your criteria. If they are larger, public companies, then check them out against sources such as a Hoovers or Dun & Bradstreet (I know D&B owns Hoovers but they keep them separate) or some other independent business research service.
Now for the fun part, it is time for you to check out the prospect companies website. A simple AND difficult process – depends if a company is less than sharing of their information on the web. More often you will find a treasure chest of information on these websites. In fact, there are 12 things that I look for on these sites – and you should look for them also. Here are the big twelve…