Sales Account Research

Sales Account Research

When to use

Use this when you are handed an account or contact name and need a fast, decision-grade profile before outreach, a discovery call, or a QBR. The goal is signals that change what you say next — triggers, stack, people, and a pain hypothesis.

Not for: generic company overviews or investor-style deep dives (that's a Wikipedia dump); post-call recaps (use sales-call-summary); competitor teardowns (use sales-competitive-intel).

Method

1. Frame the goal. Confirm the product you sell and the deal stage. Scope everything to "what would make this account buy."
2. Firmographics. Capture size, revenue band, industry, HQ/regions, funding stage, ownership. Note what tier this puts them in.
3. Trigger events. Hunt the last 6-12 months: funding, leadership hires, M&A, layoffs, launches, earnings commentary, regulatory pressure. Decision point: no trigger found → widen to industry-level pressures rather than inventing one.
4. Tech and buying signals. Identify current stack, competitors in use, and job postings that reveal initiatives or pain.
5. People. Map the likely economic buyer, champion, and blocker. For a named person: role tenure, prior companies, public posts, mutual connections.
6. Fit and hypothesis. State one specific pain you solve and a value hypothesis tied to a trigger. Decision point: if fit is weak, say so and recommend disqualify rather than force a play.
7. Flag gaps. Mark anything unverified rather than inventing it.

Example

Input: "Research Acme Logistics; we sell freight-visibility software; top-of-funnel." Output snapshot: "Mid-market 3PL, ~800 staff, just raised a $40M Series C (Mar 2026) earmarked for tech modernization → they're buying software now. New VP Ops from a company that ran real-time tracking → warm to your category. Hiring 3 'supply chain data' roles → visibility gap is real. Play: reference the Series C mandate and open with the tracking-gap hypothesis to the new VP Ops."

Pitfalls

• Fact-dumping. Firmographics without a "so what" is noise. Every fact earns its place by changing the outreach.
• Inventing triggers. A vague "they're probably growing" is worse than none. Cite or omit.
• Ignoring the person. Company research with no named human leaves you with nobody to call.
• Stale signals. A 3-year-old funding round is not a reason to reach out now.

Output format

Snapshot: <one-line who-they-are>
Firmographics:
  - <size / revenue / industry / HQ / funding / ownership>
Trigger events (most recent first):
  - <date> — <event> — so what: <why it matters now>
Key people:
  - <name> — <role> — angle: <how to approach>
Pain hypothesis: <2-3 sentences tied to a trigger>
Recommended plays:
  1. <concrete next action>
  2. <concrete next action>
  3. <concrete next action>
Confidence & gaps: <verified vs. assumed>