Do The Research; Build A Dossier

Carl Gersh is a big believer in finding out everything you can about a prospective customer -- what they want to do, what problems they're trying to solve, what their strategic challenges are in their business and industry – before even getting to products and services.

Gersh, director of sales and marketing at Forthright Technology Partners, in Miramar, Fla., also pushes the value of researching all you can about a current customer or prospect and dropping it into a database for all to share. That includes everything one can glean from a 10-K or 10-Q report on a public company to information from other sources on both public and private organizations.

For public companies, poring through a 10-K or 10-Q can help a sales representative understand the challenges a company faces and how they might lead to an opportunity to help them with a product or service, Gersh suggests.