Context and timing are everything when it comes to building relationships with prospects. If you reach out too early when they don’t need your product, you’ll likely be ignored. And if you wait too long, the company likely already invested in your competitor’s product. It’s like Goldilocks. To make sure you nail a “just right” strategy, turn to data and contextual information to connect with the right customers when it matters most.
One key metric for salespeople to follow is a company’s employee growth. When companies experience fast growth, they often need additional resources, such as a bigger office and additional software and hardware.
Here are two ways that sales teams are using employee growth and headcount in Mattermark to find new prospects and close more deals:
Find Companies That Match Your Ideal Customer Profile
Your team likely prioritizes prospects based on ideal customer profiles that include specific industries, territories and company sizes. Sales reps that own companies with specific employee counts need to stay on top of prospects that are approaching their target employee count and current customers that are moving out of one headcount range and into another. Whether you’re targeting Series B Enterprise Software companies in Boston with more than 100 employees or Pre-Series A companies in Seattle with less than 50 employees, you can conduct a quick search to sort the companies that match your results and catch these opportunities early. These are great opportunities for nurturing prospects into customers, showing that you truly understand a customer’s pain point and improving customer loyalty.
Companies with steady month-over-month employee growth or incremental increase in employee count is a good sign that business is on the upswing. This is a great time to start a conversation, even if the company doesn’t match your ideal employee headcount right this moment. Looking at employee growth and headcount will help your team identify actionable leads and stay in the know about companies on your radar. Data can help inform when prospects are likely ready to buy your product or when current customers might be ready for an upsell because of increased headcount or funding.
Reach Out When It’s Most Timely
When companies grow in headcount, they are prime prospects since they have new needs and likely are experiencing positive business growth. They also have new rules and regulations to abide by. For instance, a salesperson at a HR software company should reach out to companies when they reach certain employee count thresholds. The two most pertinent are 50 and 100 employees. When companies surpass 50 employees, they must comply with the Affordable Care Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Affirmative Action Program. It’s important to track companies that are approaching 50 employees because when a company hits that headcount, they’ll likely be buying HR software and outsourcing HR tasks.
Sales reps at HR companies might even break down these employee thresholds by industry or region. By leveraging employee count and growth in Mattermark, a rep assigned to California would see he should reach out to Kraken, Outsourcely, Allbirds and a handful of others based on the below list. (See the full list of 135 companies here.)
Aside from key metrics like funding and location, prioritize employee growth and headcount, so you can spend more time nurturing prospects that matter and have steady growth. Start prospecting smarter by looking at high-quality, relevant data.
Don't just take our word for it.
Use data to find more qualified customers today.
