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[I had the opportunity recently to ask Jim Fowler, CEO of Jigsaw, some questions about his company. Jigsaw is a fast growing company with interesting concepts regarding leads that will be of interest to many sales professionals.]

1. You are the CEO of Jigsaw. What is the history of Jigsaw?

Jigsaw was founded in late 2003 with the mission of mapping every business organization on the planet. The concept was that salespeople could work together to build a gigantic shared Rolodex.

Jigsaw launched in late 2004, has raised $18M in venture funding, currently has ninety employees and has over 500K members (mostly sales professionals) who build and maintain the collaborative database.

2. Who do you consider your biggest competitors and what are the differentiators?

Jigsaw competes most directly with traditional data companies like Hoovers and InfoUSA. Jigsaw differs from them in several key ways:

They build and maintain their own databases. We believe there is no way a few dozen or even a few hundred employees can compete with an army of 500K motivated salespeople who build and maintain the Jigsaw shared Rolodex.

We have many more contacts and they are much better. Specifically, every single Jigsaw contact is complete – including email address and phone number. Seventy-two percent of Jigsaw contact records have a direct dial phone number. Virtually none of our competitors’ records have either an email address or a phone number.

We give our company data away for free. Members can download up to 50K complete company records at a time in the format of all of the major CRM systems.

3. As a sales professional what are some of the compelling reasons for me to use Jigsaw for leads versus more traditional ways of lead attainment such as leads lists and networking groups?

Jigsaw’s data is not only complete, but it is also much fresher than any other lead list. Jigsaw’s 500K members constantly clean the data, updating records and graveyarding dead ones.

Jigsaw is, in essence, the largest networking group around. There are currently almost nine million complete contact records on Jigsaw.

In essence, Jigsaw is doing to the traditional data companies what Wikipedia has done to Encyclopedia Britannica.

4. Is Jigsaw responding to a change in how professional salespeople network and acquire leads?

We prefer to think that Jigsaw is changing the way sales professionals network and acquire leads. Never before have leads of this quality been so easily obtainable. We believe the increase in transparency of data will fundamentally change the way salespeople sell. We believe that it will no longer be about just getting the data, but about how to rise above the noise. We believe salespeople are going to have to become better marketers in order to get a prospect’s time.

5. What is your sales demographic and industry demographic? In other words, are you marketing Jigsaw to certain types of sales professionals that operate in certain industries?

Technology sales professionals were the early adopters, but now sales professionals from all industries and company sizes use Jigsaw. We offer a Jigsaw Team product that allows entire sales teams to use Jigsaw. We have over 600 of these corporate accounts.

Members use Jigsaw for two main purposes – to find prospects and to map organizations in order to understand the buying influencers for deals farther in the pipe. Our market must almost always perform one or both of these tasks on a regular basis.

We also sell our CRM cleaning and maintenance services to CRM owners/administrators. This is the fastest growing part of our business.

[Thank you, Jim, for answering my questions. I think many readers will be interested in looking into Jigsaw further. Scott]

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[I recently interviewed Gary Halliwell, CEO of NetProspex. This company is representative of the tools and resources that are increasingly becoming available to sales professionals and are fundamentally changing how we work.]

1. You are the CEO of NetProspex. What is NetProspex and how did it all start?

I’ve been a part of several successful online business information companies (President of Thompson Financial/Intelligence Data and President of ZoomInfo) that all shared one thing in common - technology transition - which always lets you do things differently and find new ways to deliver value to an online community. The power of user-contribution and Web 2.0 blew me away as soon as I saw it. While user contribution increases quantity tremendously, the lovely chaotic creative environments of sites like MySpace lack an aspect critical to the business user. Simply put, a business user needs accurate information. Why? Because they are going to take important actions in their workday on the basis of that information.

We thought there was a great opportunity to leap ahead of the competition by solving this issue. Jeff Clewley (NetProspex’s CTO and co-founder) and I both come from backgrounds in financial electronic markets where quality is paramount because the information is used to support multi-million dollar decisions. Our experience serving business users made us very aware that success in the space was going to be dictated not just by the amount of data collected but also by the quality of the information presented back to the user. We believe the majority of the early entrants were more Web 2.0 than Business 2.0 and have lacked this appreciation. NetProspex is a B2B sales contact exchange marketplace built on the premise that sales people need accurate content so they don’t waste important time in the sales process.

Fundamentally, Jigsaw relies on the user community to “clean” their data. We don’t think that makes sense. Sales people don’t want to spend precious hours fixing problems in a sales contact database; they have a job to do and that is to make money. NetProspex takes responsibility for cleaning data completely off the shoulders of users. Our trading system is designed to be quick and easy so users can upload contacts in less than 1% of the time it would take on Jigsaw. Then we put the data through rigorous quality processing, so that only validated contacts are added to the system. The result is that new contacts added to NetProspex are 100% validated when they are added to the database.

Before a contact is made available to users it undergoes a validation process that is the most rigorous in the industry. And we don’t stop there. Contacts are assigned an accuracy rating based on their age between 1% and 100%. When we add a contact to the database, it is 100% validated. Then, as the contact ages in the database we know the probability of that person being in that role decreases. This reflects the issue that people turn over at companies, and any group of contacts will get progressively inaccurate. We know this happens at an average rate of 20% per year, so we provide an accuracy rating to the contact that reflects the average accuracy for contacts as they age in the database.

Anything less than 50% is simply thrown out. Over time we continuously re-validate and re-score each contact. Because contacts are a perishable commodity, like fish, they go off after a while, so we purge all contacts more than two years old.

Yes, technologies like NetProspex provide a definite evolution of traditional sales processes, improving and scaling those processes to the point where information useful to business is becoming more network-like, rather than created by a single source. To illustrate, cooperation in the sales environment has always happened at a human level. If you knew someone who could help you get into an account, you’d probably ask them for the name and contact of that person. Executive directories grew out of this fundamental demand. The change is that the community is clearly prepared to share certain types of information like contact information, and the common benefit is that we can now start to see more deeply into a wider array of target organizations and find mid-management decision makers. That’s a big change and benefit to a sales person that speeds up the sales cycle enormously.

We cover a very wide range of industries as our customer is basically anyone who needs to find and reach another business person or group of business people. That is a fairly broad user base when you think about it. We have concentrations in B2B industries such as technology and business services, but we also range into healthcare, financial and manufacturing. The sales demographic is very broad and includes most transactional B2B sales environments where the sales person simply needs a targeted, accurate contact name.

[Thank you to Gary Halliwell, CEO of NetProspex, for answering my questions. If you are currently using NetProspex please feel free to provide us with your review of the site and its benefits by commenting on this post.]

Please tell your business associates about Scott R. Sheaffer’s Sales Tips and Sales Advice Blog. To subscribe: <click here> to receive by email or <click here> for the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

As salespeople we have to manage a million emails and files. We constantly need to find information on customers, products, proposals, presentations, etc. that is found in emails and files scattered throughout our computer.

It’s there somewhere, but we have no idea where to find it or when we created it.

There is an answer and it’s called Google Desktop. It’s free and provides search capabilities that will save you hours of wasted time trying to find information.

I’ve been using it for years and it definitely falls into the, “How did I manage without this?” category. People think I have magical powers of recall, but Google Desktop is doing all the work.

Once you download the program from Google Desktop it will index your emails and files and will instantly retrieve your documents and emails based on search terms. It works exactly like Google’s search engine except it’s searching on your files and emails.

Recently I needed to find a customer presentation from an event that occurred in 2005. I had no idea where to look. Was it attached to an old email somewhere? Was it in an old Word document stored in some folder? I just typed in “presentation, Chicago, 2005″ and it brought up the email with the attached Word document I was looking for in about one second.

In addition to finding emails and documents it will also help you find web pages you’ve viewed and it will even help you retrieve deleted files that you accidentally deleted but now need.

Microsoft’s latest version of Windows (Vista) has this feature built in, but Google beat them to the punch and has a product that is better suited to sales professionals and their needs in my opinion.

Get it on your computer and let me know what you think.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Chris R. of Lincoln, Nebraska submitted the following question, “Scott, I’d be interested to hear your take on leveraging social networking to develop prospects and clients.”

What a great and timely question. I’ve noticed recently that many sales professionals are not aware of how much things are changing when it comes to networking for business opportunities. I’m going to provide just an introduction to this important topic.

We’re all familiar with what I call “Legacy Networking.” This consists of schmoozing at your local chambers of commerce, leads groups and professional organizations. These forums work well, but there are new and potentially more effective ways to prospect using, you guessed it, the Internet.

MySpace.com and Facebook.com are the two giants in social networking on the Internet. These sites allow users to store all kinds of information about themselves and share this with others with similar interests. The only problem is that these sites have a social focus and not a business focus. They are trying to have more appeal to business professionals but still need further development in this area.

LinkedIn.com, Plaxo.com and Ryze.com are three social networking sites that are oriented toward business professionals. These sites can be a source for finding information about prospects. However, none of them are specifically designed to aid sales professionals.

Jigsaw.com is a social networking website that is specifically made for sales professionals looking for leads. It works like a leads group but with a lot more horsepower. You build up credits by submitting information which in turn gives you access to information. Because it’s web based the only geographical limit is the planet.

This site is an outstanding tool for those of us in sales and I would encourage everyone to take a look. The larger your geographic sales territory the more you could benefit from a site like Jigsaw.com.

We are in the early stages of social networking sites that are geared toward businesspeople. We are in even earlier stages when it comes to social networking sites that are specific to sales professionals. This is a trend that will continue and is going to provide tools that will ultimately change how we share information about prospects.

Thanks for your question, Chris.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Have customers changed much in the last 15 years? The answer is a mega-yes. If you were selling prior to 1993 you have seen a big change in how customers buy. Suprisingly, many sales representatives sell the same way today as they did 15+ years ago.

What has changed?

1. Customers are much more knowledgeable about the products and services they are buying.
2. When it comes to sourcing products and services there are many more options.
3. Customers expect immediate, if not instant, delivery of products and services.

What’s so magical about 1993?

Customers started to change how they view their vendors shortly after 1993 because the common availability of the Internet created an entirely new, and better, information source for them. Since that time our customers have access to information about suppliers, products, services and pricing that would have been the stuff of our worst nightmares for those that remember selling prior to the Internet.

The Internet has totally changed how we sell because customers do have access to any and all information about our products, services, pricing, availability and competitors. The game has changed.

1. Because the Internet can make all vendors look the same to buyers, we must be careful to differentiate our company from our competitors.
2. People are social animals and like dealing with people. The Internet cannot replace you. We have to showcase our personal value (or personal capital) to our customers.
3. We must be better educated about our products and services. If we know little more than what is easily found on the Internet our customers will not be wowed.
4. With the easy availability of overnight shipping and super efficient e-commerce web sites for placing orders, our customers have become accustomed to very fast order processing. We have to compete against that standard in our direct sales efforts.
5. We can create a hybrid sales environment with our customers by encouraging them to use our company’s web site for ordering the smaller and simpler orders. [Of course, if your company doesn't pay you commission on these sales you'll probably have another view of this.]

Keep in mind that you can also use the Internet for selling. Never has it been easier to get information about prospects and competitors. Fight fire with fire.

Now, more than ever, we need to be sure to sell the value we bring the customer beyond just the products and services we sell. If we don’t, we’re nothing more than order processors and most e-commerce web sites do a pretty good job of that already.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Twenty-five years ago I started my sales career. It is amazing that we were able to sell anything back then considering the limited technology. Think about what was not commonly available back then:

No PC’s or laptops
No spreadsheet or word processing software
No voice mail
No email
No Internet
No FAX
No cell phones
No overnight delivery
No CRM, SFA or ERP software tools

For the most part it would be virtually impossible for sales professionals to do their job today without most of the tools noted above. If we look ahead 25 years what changes can we anticipate? New technology will continue to be created at an increasing rate so we can expect some significant changes in available technology for sales professionals. For instance:

1. A salesperson in 2032 will carry a foldable tablet that will allow them to access information; it will also allow anyone they designate to easily access information they want to share. Unfolded it will be 8-1/2” X 11” and will fold up to wallet size. It will be operated by touch and verbal commands. If desired, a picture of the person they’re talking to will be available. It will run for weeks without needing any kind of power input. The salesperson will be able to create text by just speaking; no keyboard or mouse will be needed. Instead of printing, the salesperson will simply send data to other users’ tablets. Did I mention that these tablets will be about $100 or less in today’s dollars?

2. Personal assistant software will be how the busy salesperson will organize their day. This software will take its cues from the user’s foldable tablet and from additional voice input provided by them. It will take all of this information and ensure that the salesperson receives it in a way that best suits their style. It will learn their scheduling patterns and preferences and adapt accordingly. Through artificial intelligence the customer’s personal assistant will automatically contact the salesperson’s personal assistant if both personal assistants conclude that customer and salesperson need to be in contact. It will know all of the salesperson’s customers and prospects and ensure that they follow-up with them in a timely fashion.

3. Almost all of a salesperson’s contact with prospects and customers will be through technology. A three dimensional holograph of both salesperson and customer will be available in holographic meeting facilities. These facilities will be much like video conferencing facilities today. Product demonstrations can be easily accomplished through these facilities. Because of the increased use of technology for communication, sales territories or boundaries will disappear, a process that has already begun. The globe will be the territory for the salesperson selling in 2032. Foreign language skills will be quite valuable for sales professionals in the future.

Some of the technologies mentioned above are already available in elementary forms. Increasingly we know that sales organizations that leverage technology are more productive. It is important that sales management keep their eyes open for emerging technologies that could benefit their salesforce.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer