By
Kip Gregory
Whether you’re chatting with clients, presenting to prospects or networking with centers of influence, it pays to know the people you’re talking to. And thanks to the web, finding useful background information on most folks has never been easier.
The problem is those nuggets of data are scattered in a million different places and few of us have time to ferret them all out, much less piece them together in a coherent way. Certainly not you, anyway, not with people to see and a business a run.
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If you actively service, market, sell to or network with executives of any kind, you’re going to love the site. |
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Wouldn’t it be great if there was a resource you could tap for all that information—such as a person’s current position, his employment history, the boards he belongs to, his educational background, his biography and other meaningful references. That kind of snapshot—all in one place—would be truly helpful. Believe it or not, that very thing is available right now, for free, at ZoomInfo.com. And if you actively service, market, sell to or network with executives of any kind, you’re going to love the site.
Primarily packaged as a tool for recruiters and job seekers, ZoomInfo’s database can be an equally valuable prospecting and networking resource for smart advisors. With 28 million executives and 4 million organizations on file (and more than 500,000 new names being added every month), odds are the people you’re targeting are within ZoomInfo’s growing universe of profiles. You know who I’m talking about—those A clients you’d like more referrals from, the C-level corporate execs whose accounts you’d love to manage, the board members at the nonprofit you’re interested in getting in front of.
Come on, give it a try
Here’s how to find out if they have a ZoomInfo record …
On ZoomInfo’s homepage enter the name of a person or organization you’re researching. Be sure to put your search terms in quotes so that the service will look for the words as an exact phrase. (Go ahead and try conducting a search on yourself first … everybody else does.)
If the database contains the name you enter, it’ll surface in a results list. A click on any result will either get you the profiling information mentioned (for individuals), or the address, phone, website and key contacts at an organization, along with a description of the organization’s business.
Here’s something I tell my coaching clients: Don’t print out what you find, doing so only adds to office clutter. Store the information where you and members of your staff can access it easily online. The best place I know is in a Furl account, another no-cost resource.
While I’m at it, let me share two other ways of leveraging ZoomInfo to connect the prospecting and networking dots more intelligently. Remember the ASAE Gateway to Associations and Jigsaw articles? ZoomInfo is a great, quick way to dig deeper into the information you uncover in either place—buyers, thought leaders and referral sources at companies and associations … people you want to build relationships with.
As Bill Gates said in Business @ the Speed of Thought, “The best way to put distance between yourself and the crowd is to do an outstanding job with information.” Learn to use tools like ZoomInfo well, and you’ll be doing that in no time.
For more tips like this one, sign up for Kip Gregory’s monthly e-newsletter Kip’s Tips.
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Kip Gregory, principal of The Gregory Group and author of Winning Clients in a Wired World, is a consultant, trainer and speaker on marketing, sales and technology issues for the financial services industry. Contact him at 202-364-6913 or at www.kipgregory.com.
JUNE 2006
Reach for the Top
Friendship First
Manners Matter
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