Observable now
How the business appears to operate, what it publicly prioritises and which roles or systems are visible.
Sales qualification research
Account research before sales qualification
External evidence can prepare account context and a working hypothesis. Opportunity facts that depend on the buyer are established through client interaction.
What research can establish
Business situation from public evidence
The useful evidence may be a stated request, current operating model, strategic objective, existing constraint, technology environment, organisational structure or a recent change. A recent event is only one route into the account.
Reasonable to derive
Which stakeholder decisions, dependencies or measures may be affected by that situation.
Still only a hypothesis
Where the current process, information or technology environment may fail to support those decisions.
Derived
Analysis can identify the stakeholder decisions that matter in that situation.
The analysis considers what the current business situation means for the operating model and which stakeholder decisions are relevant. Those decisions may be new, changed or long-standing.
Hypothesis
Working hypothesis
The current process, information or technology environment may not support that decision well enough. This remains a hypothesis until the client validates it.
Qualification
Qualification framework
MEDDICC/MEDDPICC may structure Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Pain, Champion, Competition and Paper Process. SPICED structures Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical Event and Decision. SPIN structures discovery around Situation, Problem, Implication and Need-payoff. External research can prepare context for these conversations, while client evidence remains necessary for qualification.
The research output is used as preparation. The client conversation establishes Pain, impact, stakeholders and buying process, after which qualification and CRM can be updated with confirmed information.
Practical rule
Hypothesis test
Each hypothesis should state both the evidence that would rule it out and the measure that would make it material if confirmed.
Rejection condition
Define the client answer or evidence that would show the hypothesis is irrelevant or already resolved.
Materiality and measurement
If the client confirms the issue, establish which operational or economic measure shows the impact. Baseline, target and ROI should come from buyer evidence rather than pre-call assumptions.
Pre-discovery Brief
Research for one upcoming client conversation.
The brief prepares account context, areas worth testing and questions for client validation. Delivery is within two working days.