Who has the best prospect lists?

Sales prospecting is a treasure hunt - and a well-developed prospect list is the treasure map.

Think about it. Let's say you make 50 prospect calls per day. But you start with a list of prospects that is poorly defined, and outdated. Now, twenty of your prospect calls are to people who aren't even prospects, or are with a company who has closed shop. You've just wasted about 40 minutes of your day. That's 167 wasted hours per year. If, before you even pick up the phone, you dedicate some time to choosing the right list resource, you become more efficient and will push prospects into your sales funnel faster.

Vendere Partners has been in business for eight years, and over that time we've had a chance to evaluate many list resources out there. Here is our gradesheet for our most-used list resources:


Dun and Bradstreet was founded in 1841, and serves as a kind of credit bureau for businesses. In addition, they maintain a database of company information that one can acquire through several outlets, including Hoovers. Hoovers wins our award for Best Company Data.

PROS:

1. Extremely large database
2. Easy to export data
3. Dun and Bradstreet has been the industry standard in business data for decades
4. Company data is robust, especially on companies with revenue of $1M and above
   
5. Foreign company data

CONS:

1. Sometimes, we found revenue data to be outdated
2. Though the company information is robust, the information on contacts tends to be thin - usually only the top executives are available
   
3. There are no email addresses associated with the contact
   

What a great tool. Jigsaw is very well-developed. It features a database which is dynamic, in that it is continuously updated by the user base. It is also completely free... kind of. In order to extract information from the database with your Jigsaw points, you must earn those points by submitting data of your own (or by completeing various Jigsaw community tasks) - of course, you could always just pay for the data at a cost of $5 per contact. Jigsaw wins our award for Best Contact Data.


PROS:

1. Doesn't necessarily cost money
2. Bar none, the best people data available - complete with direct dial numbers, if available and email addresses
3. Contains companies of all sizes - enterprise-level down to Pop's Mechanic Shop, in some instances
4. Never stale data - continuously updated by users
   

CONS:

1. Although free, the company information is weaker than other sites
2. In order to gain data, you either have to pay or submit your own
3. Very limited foreign contact & company data
   

Lead411 is a fairly inexpensive solution for sales prospecting lists. They are not a brand new player (around since 2001) but I don't think they have the exposure they deserve, because the database undoubtedly has it's advantages.

PROS:

1. Furnish daily emails outlining key personnel changes, mergers and acquisitions activities, and new data
   
2. Normally, Lead411 provides the top 5-10 key personnel, often with an email address
   

CONS:

1. Not a ton of companies in the database - but Lead411 is particularly strong for technology company data
2. Email addresses are hit-or-miss for prospects, but that's more than some other lists which provide NO email addresses

We've had idExec for years. It is an infoGroup company, who you may know for infoUSA, Sales Genie, and others. We're very pleased with some of the additional features of idExec that just aren't as abundant with other list resource providers.



PROS:

1. Easy-to-use company searches with an abundance of parameters
2. Family trees of large companies - it's so helpful to be able to see a large company's many branches and subsidiaries
3. Better than average people data - typically key personnel plus a few manager- and director-level personnel
4. Best resource, in our opinion, for foreign company data
5. Competitor search - neat feature where you can search for competitors of a certain company, so imagine you land a huge deal with a XYZ company... you can look for others that are like XYZ for good prospects
6. Good financial data on companies
   

CONS:

1. No email addresses attached to contact data
2. Not very good for data on small businesses - typically show companies with revenue of $1M and above
   

At the end of the day, as salespeople, we just want a list that won't be riddled with bad data, and more importantly will have good, targeted suspects. Find the resource that works best for you.


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