Most sales reps know the importance of gathering information on their prospects before making that first call. And staying current on events throughout the sales-cycle is equally important.

 

Understanding the “who, what, when, and why” is basic sales-101. Reps can find that information on the Internet.  But there’s a catch.

 

They have to slog through the jungle of data on the Internet just to get at the essence. And that takes precious time away from selling.

 

An exciting start-up out of Seattle, aptly named Gist, aims to provide the most essential information about your most important prospects and clients – automatically.

 

What is GIST?

Gist is an online service that connects your inbox to relevant information found on the Web and Social Networks. It scours online sources for information on the companies and contacts you’ve emailed and serves it up in a window that you view from within Outlook, via a web application, in Salesforce.com, or as an iPhone app.

 

You can easily visualize (and manage) all the information on your prospect companies and contacts with a central dashboard.

 

How Gist Works in Outlook

If the contact is already in your email in-or-out box, information will appear in the GIST panel within Outlook automatically. For new contacts, simply enter an email address in a new message.

 

The GIST panel is the place to start your research. You’ll see:

• Company address, phone, and location (on a Google map)
• Contact details including LinkedIn and Facebook URLs
• A list of previous email communication and attachments
• Links to relevant Blog posts
• Recent News articles
• Recent Tweets

 

These are the kind of must-have details that enable a rep to take smart and fast action.

 

You can even view or print a quick dossier on the contact which gives you a one page summary.  This feature is addicting!  Not only does it provide everything you need on one page, but you can click through to get additional details.  This is a tool that sales reps will love and use - because it’s immensely helpful.

 

Live example

Let’s say you receive what looks to be a hot lead. Before calling, or sending information - open your Gist Dashboard and click “add a person” (or enter their email address in a new message). After entering the contact, GIST goes to work compiling information off the Web and social networks – this takes less than 10 seconds.  

 

This feature isn’t perfect - yet. Some searches come up with little information while others are insanely rich with data. But that’s to be expected since it can only load data that’s available.

 

Smart Selling Tools readers know about “the 215 principal”. Reps have only 215 days in the year for which they can spend selling once weekends, vacation, meetings, and other non-selling time is removed from the calendar.  Anything that protects those 215 days from wasted time has an immediate impact on sales productivity.  

 

Just 2 ½ minutes of saved time translates into a gain of one full day of selling time.

 

Tool Talk Newsletter:  March 18th Issue

Get the “GIST” on Your Prospects

and Contacts

Saving time isn’t the only benefit of Gist’s service.  If you can arm yourself with better information and insight you’ll reap the rewards in many possible forms: better timing, more credibility, higher value relationships, greater trust – and the ultimate prize – more sales.  

 

Why Care?

The amount of knowledge you have about a prospect is a good indicator of how much you care about them and their business.  The more you care, the more likely they’ll want to talk with you.  Selling is still about relationships.  If you know zero about your prospect, that’s how much time they’ll want to give you.

 

When you know a lot about your prospect you’ll contact them at the right time, and you’ll know the right things to say. Without knowledge, your chances of a meaningful conversation – or a deal – are slim.

 

Here’s an example of how you can build a closer relationship with your prospect using Gist:

 

There are tens of millions of tweets posted on Twitter.  But since you follow your prospect using Gist, you’ll see on your Gist dashboard when your prospect has posted a tweet. Their Tweet gives you a feel for what they find interesting which gives you two advantages.

 

First, you have more insight into their personality which gives you more input for your interactions.

 

Second, you can easily demonstrate your interest in them by re-Tweeting their posts on a regular basis. When you re-Tweet, they will see it. That’s the kind of thing that makes a prospect feel you have a genuine interest which in turn helps to build credibility and trust.

 

An Instrument Panel for Prospect Research

If you have hundreds of accounts and prospects, you can’t possibly keep up with all the information – even as it’s presented to you automatically within Gist.  

 

Prioritizing which information you see first is therefore, as important as the information itself. Gist has built a clever way to tune into the most important prospects first.  Think of it as a way to turn up the volume for key prospects and turn down – or turn off – the volume on others.

 

When you first start using Gist, the system will assign the priority of your prospects based on the amount of communication you’ve had with them. But you fine tune the priority using your dashboard.  Over time, your dashboard becomes an instrument panel helping you to prioritize your actions and dial-in on the best prospects at the right time.

 

The Gist

Reps don’t suffer from a lack of information.  They suffer from a lack of time and knowledge. The pressure to make more calls, send more proposals, and close more deals leaves little time to conduct pre-call research. Without knowledge - reps play the numbers game which disregards timing, and neglects prospects’ interest – the very ingredients of successful selling. If you expect more from yourself or your reps, give Gist a try.

 

Since its inception in the summer of 2009 Gist has been available as a free service while in beta.  The company will begin charging for the service within the next few months with an expected price of around $20/user/month

 

 

 

Web-site: www.gist.com

419 Occidental Ave S.
Suite 608
Seattle WA 98104

 

Top half of a Gist Dossier