While you may not be able to gain insight into what the company’s buying cycle is from and earnings call transcript, at the very least you can formulate an idea of what their budget might be (based on if they state that they are attempting cost reductions or will be investing more) and also what kinds of business problems they are trying to solve within the company. Being sensitive to these issues and approaching a potential sale in a new account can only benefit from empathy and a pitch that is custom tailored toward easing their woes.

Understanding an account does not only mean knowing who the decision makers are and the company’s organizational structure; one of the worst things you can do is to go into a sales call and not fully-understand and be attempting to solve one of their business problems. Coming in to relieve a pain within a company is a much more effective approach to selling than pitching your product blindly to an exec that you have pegged as the exec with the money burning a hole in his pocket.

While it may be obvious, reps that are pressed for time and don’t have easy access to the information often overlook this step. Online sales intelligence resources such as Hoovers allow for CRM integration so that relevant company information like annual revenues can be imported and attached to an account with the click of a button. This additional information can be ignored in the lead qualification process if the access to it is not quick and easy.

Now, more than ever, marketers need to take the necessary actions to improve their leads using sales intelligence to identify prospects, target accounts, and reduce their research time. Aberdeen’s survey stated 74% want to improve the quality of their leads. You need sales intelligence resources that take pressure off of your sales team, but also to enable sales reps to be more productive and formulate better sales strategies. For example, a sales intelligence tool might decrease the time reps spend researching prospects, but if the data is inaccurate and not up-to-date, the investment in the tool is money down the toilet. Not every sales intelligence tool is created equally, and without quality data, lead quality will not improve.

The first part of the PACE Framework is “Pressures.” This is the first step in identifying the need for sales intelligence within a sales team: What is preventing you from hitting your numbers? Aberdeen suggests the “challenging economic climate” and “knowledge of the competitive landscape,” like competitors’ products and their customers. While the downturn in the economy has certainly hurt sales in every market and company, that can’t be changed to give a competitive advantage.