---
name: sales-intelligence
description: Provide actionable intelligence on accounts, contacts, competitors, and market trends. Use when researching accounts, discovering decision-makers, analyzing technographics, monitoring trigger events, conducting win/loss analysis, or tracking industry trends. Triggers on phrases like "research account", "account profile", "decision maker discovery", "tech stack analysis", "trigger event alert", "competitor win/loss", "market trends", "competitive intelligence", "firmographic research", "buying signals".
---

# Sales Intelligence & Research

Provide reps with actionable intelligence on accounts, contacts, competitors, and market trends to accelerate selling.

## Intelligence Workflow

### Phase 1: Account Research Automation

1. **Trigger research workflow** when new account enters pipeline:
   ```
   Research Sources:
   ├─ Company website (products, leadership, about)
   ├─ LinkedIn (employee count, growth trajectory, key hires)
   ├─ Financial databases (revenue, funding, profitability)
   ├─ News and press releases (last 90 days)
   ├─ Tech stack detection (BuiltWith, Datanyze)
   ├─ Job postings (expansion signals, skill needs)
   ├─ Social media presence and sentiment
   ├─ Customer reviews (G2, Capterra, Glassdoor)
   └─ SEC filings (public companies)
   ```

2. **AI generates account profile** including:
   - Company overview and recent developments
   - Business model and revenue streams
   - Key decision-makers and org structure
   - Technology environment and maturity
   - Likely pain points based on industry, stage, recent events
   - Strategic initiatives (from earnings calls, press releases)
   - Risk factors (layoffs, pivots, regulatory issues)

3. **Auto-enrich CRM** with research data; refresh on trigger events

### Phase 2: Contact & Decision-Maker Discovery

1. **Given company name, discover stakeholders**:
   - Search LinkedIn profiles, company website, contact databases
   - Email pattern detection and verification
   - Phone number lookup and validation

2. **Enrich contact records with**:
   - Verified email and phone
   - Job title, seniority, department
   - Background and career history
   - Personality insights (social style, communication preference)
   - Recent activity (posts, job changes, speaking engagements)
   - Mutual connections and warm intro opportunities

3. **Prioritize by relevance** to solution; suggest personalization angles

### Phase 3: Technographic Intelligence

1. **Analyze prospect's tech stack**:
   - Current tools in your category (direct competitors)
   - Complementary tools (integration opportunities)
   - Tech stack maturity and sophistication
   - Recent additions (buying mode)
   - Tools being replaced (from job postings)

2. **Generate insights**:
   - Integration selling angles
   - Competitive displacement opportunities
   - Technical buyer personas
   - Implementation complexity estimate
   - Migration risk assessment

### Phase 4: Trigger Event Monitoring

1. **Monitor for trigger events**:
   ```
   High-Value Triggers:
   ├─ Funding rounds (new budget available)
   ├─ Executive hires (fresh initiatives, new perspective)
   ├─ Product launches (need for support infrastructure)
   ├─ Geographic expansion (new market needs)
   ├─ M&A activity (integration, consolidation needs)
   ├─ Regulatory changes (compliance requirements)
   ├─ Earnings reports (budget signals)
   ├─ Job postings (growth, technology shifts)
   ├─ Patent filings (innovation investments)
   └─ Partnership announcements (ecosystem expansion)
   ```

2. **AI assesses relevance** and alerts rep with:
   - Event summary
   - Why it matters for your solution
   - Suggested outreach approach
   - Email template referencing the event

### Phase 5: Win/Loss Intelligence

1. **Post-deal analysis** (won or lost):
   - Survey rep and customer with win/loss questions
   - Analyze deal characteristics and timeline
   - Identify key decision factors

2. **Trend analysis across deals**:
   - Common reasons for wins and losses
   - Competitor strengths/weaknesses by deal type
   - Deal characteristics that predict success
   - Stage where deals most commonly are lost
   - Impact of multi-threading on win rate

3. **Feedback loops**:
   - Update battlecards with competitive learnings
   - Improve sales playbooks
   - Surface product gaps to product team
   - Coach reps on patterns

### Phase 6: Industry & Market Trend Tracking

1. **Monitor industry-specific signals**:
   - Regulatory changes and compliance requirements
   - Technology shifts and adoption curves
   - Economic conditions and spending patterns
   - Competitive landscape evolution
   - Customer behavior and preference trends

2. **Deliver to reps**:
   - Weekly industry brief with talking points
   - Trend relevance to your solution
   - Conversation starters for prospect calls
   - Likely objections arising from trends

## Templates & Frameworks

### Account Profile Template

```markdown
## Account Profile: [Company Name]

### Company Overview
- **Industry**: [Primary + secondary]
- **Size**: [Employee count, revenue, market cap if public]
- **Founded**: [Year] | **Headquarters**: [Location]
- **Business Model**: [B2B SaaS, marketplace, product, services]
- **Key Customers**: [Notable clients if B2B]

### Recent Developments (Last 90 Days)
- [Event 1] — [Date] — [Implication]
- [Event 2] — [Date] — [Implication]

### Technology Stack
- **CRM**: [Salesforce, HubSpot, other]
- **Marketing**: [Marketo, HubSpot, other]
- **Infrastructure**: [AWS, GCP, Azure, on-prem]
- **Current solution in our category**: [Competitor, none, unknown]

### Decision-Makers
| Name | Title | Department | LinkedIn | Contact |
|------|-------|-----------|----------|---------|
| Jane Smith | CTO | Engineering | [link] | jane@ |
| Mark Jones | VP Sales | Sales | [link] | mark@ |

### Likely Pain Points
1. [Pain point based on research]
2. [Pain point based on research]
3. [Pain point based on research]

### Strategic Initiatives
- [Initiative 1] — evidence from [source]
- [Initiative 2] — evidence from [source]

### Recommended Approach
- Lead with [value proposition]
- Reference [relevant case study]
- Engage [persona] as primary contact
- Potential champion: [name] based on [reason]
```

### Trigger Event Outreach Template

```markdown
## Trigger Event Email Template

Subject: Congrats on [event] — thought this might help

Hi [Name],

Congrats on [recent event: funding round, new hire, product launch, expansion]. 
That's exciting — [specific detail showing you did homework].

I noticed that companies going through [this type of event] often face [relevant challenge]. 
[Customer X] was in the same boat after their [similar event] and we helped them [outcome].

Would you be open to a quick 15-minute chat? I can share what's worked for others 
in your situation.

Best,
[Rep Name]
```

### Win/Loss Survey Questions

```markdown
## Win/Loss Analysis Survey

### For Won Deals
1. What was the primary reason you chose us?
2. Which features/capabilities were most important?
3. How did you evaluate alternatives?
4. What was your decision-making process?
5. On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with the decision?
6. What could we have done better during the process?

### For Lost Deals
1. What was the primary reason for choosing not to proceed?
2. Did you select a competitor? If so, which one and why?
3. What capabilities were missing that you needed?
4. How did pricing factor into your decision?
5. What stage was the deal when you decided?
6. Is there anything we could have done differently?
7. Would you be open to revisiting in the future?
```

## Integration Points

### Data Enrichment Providers
- **ZoomInfo**: Contact data, firmographics, technographics, intent signals
- **Clearbit / Graphsense**: Company enrichment, data append
- **Apollo**: Contact database, email intelligence, sequence tracking
- **Lusha / Seamless.ai**: Contact discovery and verification
- **BuiltWith / Datanyze**: Technographic data

### Research & Intelligence
- **LinkedIn Sales Navigator**: Prospecting, account research, org charts
- **Crunchbase**: Funding data, company profiles, executive changes
- **SEC.gov / EDGAR**: Public company filings
- **Google News / AlphaSense**: News monitoring and research
- **OrgChartHub / Aspire**: Organizational chart visualization

### CRM Integration
- **Salesforce**: Account/contact enrichment, research data fields
- **HubSpot**: Native enrichment with HubSpot Data Management
- **Pipedrive**: Deal notes, contact enrichment

### Analytics & Reporting
- **Tableau / Looker**: Competitive analysis dashboards
- **Gong / Chorus**: Conversation intelligence for win/loss patterns
- **Custom ML models**: Predictive lead scoring from research data

## Edge Cases

### Private / Hard-to-Research Companies
- **Private companies with limited data**: Use proxy data from similar public companies; leverage LinkedIn and job postings heavily
- **Startups (pre-Series A)**: Limited financial data; focus on team background, advisor network, accelerator/alumni status
- **Government agencies**: Limited public data; use budget documents, procurement history, policy changes
- **Non-profits**: Revenue from annual reports (990 forms); focus on mission alignment and donor base

### International Accounts
- **Non-US companies**: Use local data sources; adjust financial metrics for currency; consider cultural nuances in outreach
- **Data privacy constraints**: GDPR compliance for EU contacts; CCPA for California; local consent requirements
- **Language barriers**: Translate company information; use local-market case studies; adapt messaging

### Dynamic Research Refresh
- **Trigger-based refresh**: Auto-refresh account data on funding events, executive changes, product launches
- **Staleness detection**: Flag account profiles older than 90 days for refresh
- **Data conflict resolution**: When sources disagree, prioritize: company website > SEC filings > LinkedIn > third-party databases

### Research Quality Assurance
- **Data accuracy scoring**: Rate enrichment data by confidence level (verified, estimated, inferred)
- **False positive detection**: Flag inaccurate technographic or firmographic data
- **Research depth tracking**: Ensure strategic accounts get deeper research than SMB prospects
- **Bias mitigation**: Ensure research doesn't over-weight certain data sources

## Output Dashboards

### Account Intelligence Dashboard
- Account research completeness score (by account tier)
- Decision-maker coverage (contacts found vs. estimated total)
- Tech stack coverage by prospect
- Trigger event hit rate (events detected per account per month)
- Research-to-engagement conversion rate
- Win/loss rate by competitor
- Industry trend awareness score

### Research Effectiveness Metrics
- Time saved on manual research (before vs. after automation)
- Data accuracy rate (verified contacts, correct firmographics)
- Trigger event-to-opportunity conversion rate
- Win/loss survey completion rate
- Competitive intelligence freshness (days since last battlecard update)
- Content recommendation relevance score

### Rep Intelligence Tools
- One-click account research button in CRM
- Contact discovery with enrichment pipeline
- Trigger event feed with suggested outreach
- Competitive battlecard quick reference
- Industry trend briefings delivered weekly

## Trigger Phrases
- "research this account"
- "account profile for"
- "find decision makers at"
- "who are the key stakeholders at"
- "tech stack of"
- "what does X company use"
- "trigger event for"
- "recent news about"
- "funding history of"
- "competitive analysis vs"
- "win/loss report"
- "industry trends in"
- "market intelligence on"
- "enrich contact data"
- "org chart for"
- "buying signals from"