---
user-invocable: true
name: pre-sales-research
description: Research a prospect before a sales call to personalize your approach
tokens: ~350
cloud-ok: true
---

# Pre-Sales Research
#claudeai

## When to Use
You have a sales call coming up and need to understand the prospect to have a better conversation.

## What I Need
- Company name
- Contact name and role
- What are you selling?
- When is the call?

## Quick Research (10 minutes)

### On the Company
- [ ] What do they do? (homepage, 30 seconds)
- [ ] Company size (LinkedIn)
- [ ] Recent news (Google "[company] news")
- [ ] Funding/stage (Crunchbase if startup)
- [ ] Tech stack if relevant (BuiltWith, job postings)

### On the Person
- [ ] LinkedIn profile
- [ ] Recent posts/activity
- [ ] Career path (where did they come from?)
- [ ] Mutual connections
- [ ] Content they've written/shared

### Finding the Pain
- [ ] Job postings (what are they trying to solve?)
- [ ] Press releases (what are they focused on?)
- [ ] G2/Glassdoor (internal challenges)
- [ ] Their competitors (external pressure)

## What to Look For

**Connection points:**
- Mutual connections or experiences
- Shared interests
- Content they've engaged with
- Schools, previous companies

**Pain signals:**
- Hiring for the problem you solve
- Complaints in reviews
- Industry challenges they likely face
- Recent changes (new leadership, funding, pivot)

**Buying signals:**
- Evaluated competitors
- Attended relevant events
- Engaged with your content
- Inbound inquiry

## Output Format

```
## Pre-Sales Brief: [Company] - [Contact Name]

**Company Snapshot:**
- Industry: [Industry]
- Size: [Employees]
- Stage: [Startup/Growth/Enterprise]
- HQ: [Location]

**About [Contact Name]:**
- Role: [Title]
- Tenure: [Time at company]
- Background: [Previous roles/companies]
- LinkedIn: [Link]

**Connection Points:**
- [Something personal to mention]
- [Shared connection or interest]

**Likely Pain Points:**
1. [Pain related to what you sell]
2. [Pain based on their situation]

**Talking Points:**
- "I noticed you're [thing]. Are you finding [challenge]?"
- "I saw [recent news]. How is that affecting [area]?"

**Questions to Ask:**
1. [Discovery question]
2. [Qualification question]
3. [Pain-digging question]

**Watch Out For:**
- [Potential objection]
- [Thing not to say]

**Your Hook:**
[One sentence on why you can help them specifically]
```

## Time-Boxed Research

| Time Available | Do This |
|----------------|---------|
| 2 minutes | LinkedIn profile + company homepage |
| 5 minutes | + Recent news + their role |
| 10 minutes | + Job postings + mutual connections |
| 20 minutes | + Deep dive on pain + content they've published |

## Don't Over-Research

Know enough to:
- Personalize your opener
- Ask relevant questions  
- Understand their context

But leave room to be curious - they'll tell you more than research will.