Imagine you are a salesperson who wakes up in the morning to check your smartphone for updates to your Salesforce dashboard tracking your deals and activities. You decide quickly which projects need your attention. You tap on your calendar to view your calls and appointments. You see one meeting that can help you get to your goal, so you tap on that meeting and pull up the contact information for that prospect.
Then you tap over to that prospect’s LinkedIn page to learn who he is and what he does. You see that you have some mutual connections with that person so, with the hope of learning more, you send a couple of coffee-invitation type emails to the people you know, who also know that prospect. Then you pull up the Data.com or the Dunn & Bradstreet info on the company that person represents. You also check their Twitter feed to get an up-to-the-minute scoop on individual, company, and industry news.
It turns out they have a new product demo on YouTube, so you take a few minutes to check it out. Then, also using your smartphone, you see an article in your local business newspaper on your prospect’s new product, and there is a forum conversation beneath that article. The forum discussion teaches you what people like and don’t like about the new offering, so you instinctively start developing your approach to this potential customer.
Then… you get out of bed.