Uncover Your Prospects’ Current Competitors

Greetings, Sales Pros! When it comes to preparing for a sales call, knowing your prospect’s current setup is invaluable. Gone are the days of tedious research involving press releases and phone calls to partners. Welcome to the world of Boolean search, your new best friend in gathering competitive intelligence.

The Limitation of Basic Google Searches

Google is a reservoir of information, but merely typing your prospect’s and rivals’ names into the search bar isn’t enough to yield the results you need. This is where Boolean search steps in to enhance your information gathering.

The Power of Boolean Search

Boolean search combines keywords with operators like “AND,” “OR,” and “NOT,” to generate highly relevant results. Here’s a breakdown of how you can leverage these operators:

  1. AND: This operator helps you find documents that include both keywords. For example, searching for “Prospect AND Competitor” will yield results that mention both.

  2. OR: This operator allows you to find documents that include at least one of the keywords. For instance, “Prospect AND Competitor1 OR Competitor2” will show you documents that mention your prospect and either one of the competitors.

  3. NOT: This operator excludes a keyword from the search. For example, if you’re not interested in a specific territory, say Spain, you could use “Prospect AND Competitor NOT Spain.”

Practical Application

Let’s take a hypothetical example. If you’re a business development manager for Staples in Pennsylvania and your prospect is Blue Cross of Pennsylvania, your query would look like:
“Blue Cross of Pennsylvania” AND “Office Depot” OR “Big Red Paper” OR “Dunder Mifflin”
This quick query would reveal that Dunder Mifflin is a major competitor for Blue Cross of Pennsylvania.

Extra Tip: Use Quotation Marks

Quotation marks narrow down your search and make it more specific. For instance, “Dunder Mifflin” with quotation marks yields 2.2 million results, whereas without yields 4.2 million.

Conclusion

Mastering Boolean search can save you invaluable time and set you up for a successful sales call. Now, it’s your turn to craft your query and add it to your toolkit.


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