How To Use Industry Research To Level Up Your Sales Conversations

“Do you even know what I do?”

It was 2008. I was a fresh out of college sales professional, calling businesses to explore whether they might be interested in my solution.

But that comment stopped me dead in my tracks – no, in fact, I had no idea what this business actually did (or if they would have an application for what I was selling).

While it was a tough lesson to learn at the time, I’m grateful for this encounter in hindsight. Being asked this question so directly really enforced the need to be well-researched and prepared going into every call. When I started working at IBISWorld years later, I remembered that interaction as I realized that understanding the business environment of the person you’re calling is just as important as who you’re calling.

Why do I need to know about a prospect’s industry?

While confidence, a personable approach and a solid product will get you some of the way to closing the deal, it’s also crucial to tailor your pitch to each client or prospect. With uncertain economic conditions and budget constraints front of mind for most businesses, productive prospecting and a strong sales strategy are more important than ever. I get it – today, there are A LOT of tools out there to help the sales professional. But at the end of the day, that question my counterpart on the other end of the phone asked me in my first year of selling still holds true for each and every interaction. This makes industry research an important part of your prospecting and meeting preparation. So what can you learn from it?

Know who to target

We’re all a little short on time these days, so why wouldn’t you want to make sure the person on the other end of the phone is actually a viable prospect before you schedule a call? Having a strong understanding of their wider industry environment is an invaluable addition to your sales toolkit. Knowing whether their industry is growing, mature or declining, how they measure up to average industry performance, and which key external forces shape their industry can help you determine which industries (and which companies within them) to focus on.

As the saying goes, "people buy from people." Individuals choose to purchase products or services for the benefit they offer or the problem they solve. Nailing down the customer persona of the person you're speaking to is crucial to making sure that you are addressing the right pain points or value-adds. Looking back on that not-so-successful interaction, I can see that I was likely calling the wrong person at that company, or maybe even the wrong company altogether. If I’d done better research, I could have realized that my product wasn’t fit for purpose to solve their unique problems and saved myself and my prospect valuable time.

Know what to ask

Armed with the proper information, you can answer the question that tripped me up in the early days of my career – “do you even know what I do?” –  and you can also understand where they do it, who they do it for, and what key things they need to have front of mind to do it as successfully as possible.

Wherever you are in your sales career, understanding the trends and forces at play in a prospect's industry opens up a world of possibilities for your calls. If you’re a more experienced sales professional, you’ll be able to integrate these tidbits into your existing knowledge of your product and its application, unlocking conversations that lead to genuine needs analysis and discovery. And if you’re newer to the profession, industry information gives you the confidence that you do know what the company you’re calling upon actually does, and can work that immediately into the dialogue.

So, what should you know?

We’ve established that being well-prepared heading into a call is critical. But what are some of the key areas you should be well-versed on? Porter’s Five Forces offers a useful framework to better understand your lead or prospect’s industry. This framework gives you insights into the factors outside of their control, like the threat of new entrants or substitutes, buyer and supplier power, and competitive rivalry. Let’s unpack some of the other key industry analysis you can review to level up your meeting prep before that first call.

Profit and revenue trends

First, which way is this business trending? No matter how good your solution is, it’s going to be tough to sell to a struggling company in an industry that has declined by double digits for the past few years. Using industry research to benchmark your prospect or lead’s performance will help you plan the questions you ask.

A company in a growing industry that performs higher than the industry average is likely to be in a strong position to consider your solution, with the budget to invest in growth and development.

Speaking to a prospect from a company that operates in a declining industry (or one that has recently faced significant challenges) but has recorded strong performance allows you to start on a positive note right out of the gate by complimenting their growth despite the challenges in their industry.

On the other hand, a company that is struggling in an otherwise steadily growing industry could also be a great prospect. Learning about their pain points gives you the opportunity to show that you understand the challenges they are facing and can help them better compete with other businesses in their space.

Your research will guide the kinds of questions you ask, so tailor them to the prospect’s unique industry situation:

• “Wow - industry averages for revenue growth in your space are typically around 5%, but it seems like you're nearly triple that. Would you mind sharing how you’re achieving that?"
• “The average revenue across your industry has dropped by about 6% over the last five years, but you’ve managed to grow yours by 2.4%. What did you do differently than your competitors to work through those challenges?”
• “Your industry is expanding steadily, but it looks like your revenue growth is lower than the average. What are you looking to change this year to bring that back up?”

Whichever situation your prospect is in, asking these questions and listening to their successes and pain points will help you tailor your solution.

Industry outlook

Next, you’ll want to understand what the future looks like for this space. What changes are expected to take place over the next few years? Is technology causing rapid shifts? Industry research answers those questions. Understanding the outlook gives you the foundation of knowledge you need to ask forward-looking questions:

• “Your industry is set to grow rapidly over the next few years. How do you plan to scale your operations to meet demand?”
• “Have you instituted any changes to combat the possibilities of AI replacing part of your service mix?”
• “We expect to see a lot of changes in your industry in the next 5-7 years. What are you doing to get in front of the ones that could pose a threat to you?”

Business locations and market geography

If you’re a territory-focused sales professional, one of your highest priorities is understanding which geographic areas you should dedicate the most time to. Industry research can help you uncover the hotbed regions inside your territory that will be most beneficial to focus on. Understanding the geographic breakdown of an industry can also help you determine if companies in one region perform better than the same type of companies in another.

Deciding whether to pursue a lead isn’t the only use for this kind of industry information. You could use data on business locations to ask questions that speak to your prospect's regional conditions:

• “You’re located further from upstream suppliers than most businesses in your industry. How does that affect your access to the products and services you use?”
• “The number of businesses in your industry located in your state is growing rapidly. How are you setting yourself apart from the competition?”
• “Many of the businesses you sell to are in locations that make them vulnerable to supply chain disruptions. Do those disruptions put the brakes on them buying from you?”

How to use industry research in your sales conversations

One of the most important aspects of preparing for a conversation is deciding on the 3-5 key questions you want to ask during that interaction. They need to be targeted, specific and relevant to the prospect’s business. While there are endless possible questions that you could ask, asking an uninformed or uninspired question can be enough to lose your prospect's confidence or interest, costing you the deal in the blink of an eye. Asking an informed, thoughtful question at the right time can build trust and rapport with your prospect and open up the conversation.

“How did you know that?”

I’ll be the first to admit that my knowledge when it comes to injection molding is pretty much limited to the Creepy Crawlers I used to make as a 9-year-old.

However, in my early years at IBISWorld, I found myself in conversations with one of the leading injection molding manufacturers in the US. The company wanted their sales team to better understand some of the markets they were selling into. Their hope was to determine which industries were growing and had higher purchases budgets. Once they identified those factors, they then needed talking points for their sales reps to bring into the dialogue regarding some of the threats that the industry was facing.

Problem was, I didn’t know a thing about injection molding – but what a great opportunity to wow their Senior VP of Sales by showing him how quickly I could get up to speed in his space.

In just a few minutes, I prepared four questions to bring up in my conversation based on facts I pulled from IBISWorld reports:

• “It seems as though your industry has gone through some technology change in the last few years – have there been any challenges as your own product offerings have shifted?”

• “Would you say a lot of your clients buy from you because of the speed at which you can deliver products from concept to design?”

• “I saw that the injection molding space is made up of a lot of different companies without any major players. How have you tried to differentiate yourselves from all that competition?”
• “Profit margins in your industry have been trending downward the last few years. I’d be curious, are you doing anything as a business to try and counteract that?”

While the responses to my questions were important to our conversation, the fact that I was able to exhibit such a deep knowledge of this prospect’s business from the start of the call blew them away. Once I completed my questioning, the SVP asked me, “How did you know that?” Well – I’ll give you one guess as to what my response was! Just five minutes of reviewing the Contract Injection Molding Manufacturing title on IBISWorld gave me everything I needed to have a great first call with an SVP who had been in the industry for over 20 years.

Your questions will be a little different to mine, depending on which industry factors looked most promising in your research. You’ll be able to use the answers your prospect gives to these questions to build out your knowledge of their circumstances and pain points to tailor your solution to their needs.

Demonstrating your solution and asking for the sale

Next, it was easy to show the SVP how we could create a targeted list using the IBISWorld Industry Data Wizard to identify the top 30-40 industries his sales operations team and reps should be focusing on that met his criteria (growing industries in the manufacturing sector that spent a large amount of their budget on purchases).

The next step was highlighting trends and data to pull from those industries that could be brought up in conversation, much as I had done with him on his own industry. At that stage, the rest of the deal came together pretty quickly. As he said to me, “If my reps are able to have half the knowledge about the businesses they’re calling that you just showed me, it’s going to go a long way to securing the opportunities we need to hit our revenue goals.”

I tell this story to highlight how industry research opened up opportunities in my conversation:

• I showed the person on the other end of the phone that I knew about his industry, and built trust and rapport by proving that he wasn’t just another call for me to tick off my to-do list that day.
• I was able to find valuable, data-backed reasons why he needed the solution I was offering (which, in this case, happened to be industry research).
• The company’s sales staff would be able to use industry research to have equally informed and productive conversations with their own prospects, improving their win rate and getting them on track to hit the targets set out in their revenue strategies.

Not everyone is selling an industry research solution, so what might this step look like for you?

This is the part of the sales process where you would discuss and demonstrate your solution, using both your knowledge of your prospect’s industry and the insights you gathered from asking those industry-focused questions earlier in the conversation.

If you’re selling a solar power solution, you might use your insight into the industry’s high utility costs and the company’s energy needs to determine which combination of panel arrays and energy storage solutions are right for this specific prospect. If you’re selling IT consulting services, learning that your client’s heavily server-reliant industry is growing rapidly and adapting to new data privacy laws will indicate that they need help future-proofing their infrastructure.

At this point, you’ve had valuable, insightful conversations and established that you understand your prospect’s needs. You’ve taken their unique situation, goals and pain points on board and tailored your solution to suit them. It’s time to ask for the sale!