Account research that supports a decision.

A salesperson preparing a first conversation needs different information from an account manager planning work with a known customer. Specify the recipient, the meeting or task they are preparing for and what a useful brief should let them do.

Write a decision sentence: “Decide whether this manufacturer’s new operating site merits a discussion about maintenance supply, and who should review the existing relationship first.” That sentence directs the research towards the site, relevant work and account history. It does not require a general biography of every executive.

Agree how much time to spend and how deeply to investigate. A short screening brief may identify why more research is needed. An assignment supporting a complex account decision may need primary interviews, detailed market work or a broader account plan. Make the difference explicit before collecting material.

Confirm which entity the question concerns. A group brand, legal company, operating site and purchasing team can have different responsibilities. Record the identifiers that establish the relationship and where the evidence is incomplete.

A shared website domain can help connect records, but it does not prove that two sites share procurement, contracts or budgets. HubSpot’s record-matching guidance illustrates why matching rules are a separate design choice. A plausible match still needs the right commercial interpretation.

Use the ideal customer profile to state which fit conditions matter, and the target-account list to preserve the account’s selection history. Do not strengthen a fit decision by repeating the same unverified source in several fields.

Sometimes the location is known but the operator or responsible person is not. Start with a checkable clue: an address, trading name, existing customer record or relevant industry listing. Establish which organisation operates there, which role owns the question and which business route could reach it. An enriched email address does not answer those three questions.

Example. An old directory names a different operator from the current site page. Keep both records and their dates. The address alone does not resolve the conflict. Current operating information gives a better next source; the main business number may let you ask which team handles supplier selection. That is a route to verify responsibility, not proof that the person answering decides or that a purchase is planned.

Label what is directly stated by a source, what has been corroborated, what is your interpretation and what remains unknown. Keep the source date separate from the date someone reviewed it. A page read today can still describe a plan announced two years ago.

For example, “new site announced” may be a sourced fact. “The site will need a different maintenance supplier” is an interpretation unless the source or a permitted conversation supports it. “Purchasing decisions are centralised” should remain unknown when the only evidence is a shared group logo.

Avoid one confidence score for the whole account. You can be confident about the site address and uncertain about the buying process. Recording confidence for each field lets the recipient use the confirmed address without assuming the buying process is equally well established.

If sources conflict, preserve the conflicting values and explain their dates and scope. A parent company’s total employee count may not contradict a smaller site count; the two figures may describe different units. Resolve that distinction before choosing a value for the brief.

Prefer original company announcements, operating pages, product information and suitable official records for material facts. Use other sources to discover leads and context, then check important claims against their origin where possible. A search snippet or copied directory description can lose qualifications.

Keep personal data relevant and proportionate to the task. A public professional role may be useful for understanding responsibilities, but unrelated personal information does not improve a commercial brief. Access, storage and future use should follow the agreed research purpose and applicable requirements.

Use enrichment when a defined field needs it, and evaluate its quality separately. The enrichment evaluation guide deals with matching, stale values and update rules. A completed data field is not the same output as a reasoned account brief.

A useful question follows from the evidence without pretending the answer is already known: “How will the new site handle maintenance purchasing?” is more defensible than “Are you replacing your current supplier?” when the source only announces an additional operation.

Give the recipient a clear handover: why this account is being reviewed, what the evidence says, what the existing owner knows and which decision remains. The recipient should be able to disagree with the proposed next action and record why.

The inbound qualification guide develops that assessment when someone has made a request. For a live deal, a stakeholder map can capture confirmed roles and missing participants. Neither should be populated with guessed authority just to complete a template.

Record what still needs confirming along the contact route and which answer would change the approach. “This is purchased centrally” calls for the relevant group role; “come back after the refurbishment” calls for agreed timing; “not relevant” may lower the account’s priority. Return that finding to the campaign owner so the next message or contact uses the same information.

Set a research limit before pursuing the difficult cases. If the next source is unlikely to change the decision, the account fits poorly or the potential work does not justify the extra effort, record the unresolved point and the reason to stop. More research is not an outcome in itself.

Ask the recipient to name the buying unit, distinguish two facts from two assumptions and explain the next question. Time how much additional searching they need, and inspect why. The goal is a useful handover, not an artificially short document that omits necessary context.

Review a small varied sample: a known customer, a new account, an ambiguous group relationship and an account with contradictory information. Record which fields change the decision and which repeatedly go unused. Adjust the brief before expanding the research volume.

We can carry out account research independently through Plan or within the complete campaign engagement in Build. Agree the questions, accounts, sources, depth and usable output. The €999 Plan covers a defined analysis of a customer export. Bespoke market, account and decision-maker research has its own scope and price. See how we approach account research.