Use ReferenceUSA from your public library and Excel to develop a profitable and efficient call list with no up front costs.
by Bruno Bruzzese

1. Need a database with info on over 12 million U.S. businesses?
   
   
2. Need to organize those leads into a call back list with notes and follow up dates?
   
   
3. Need all this for free?

Marketing data bases are expensive. Here is one you can access for free along with some tips for using it efficiently.

Maybe your current budget doesn't allow for a contact manager like ACT or Goldmine. You can use Excel spreadsheets to schedule calls and keep at hand all the data you need to qualify new prospects.

Even if you use a contact manager like ACT or Gold Mine, this is a good way to develop and organize call lists. You can work them in this system without having to type a lot of company info into separate fields. When a lead does become solid enough to warrant entering into your contact manager, all the info you need to create an account is at your fingertips.

What is ReferenceUSA?
As described on their website; "ReferenceUSA is an Internet-based reference service from the Library Division of infoUSA. The site was designed for use as a reference tool in libraries and is continually enhanced based upon suggestions from librarians and library patrons.

The ReferenceUSA database contains, in module format, detailed information on more than 12 million U.S. businesses; 102 million U.S. residents; 683,000 U.S. health care providers; 1 million Canadian businesses; and 11 million Canadian residents. Libraries may customize the product by purchasing one or more of these five distinct modules."

How to access ReferenceUSA
You will need to identify the library in your community that has purchased ReferenceUSA for public use. A search for ReferenceUSA on www.google.com will bring up thousands of libraries. To access the database, you need to have a library card and sign in at your library's web site. So, pick a library where you are registered or one where you qualify for a card. Then use your card to log in.

I won't spend any time on how to use ReferenceUSA. It's self explanatory. You can very quickly create a search based on geographical location, numbers of employees, financial strength and other parameters.

However it's worth a mention that using SIC codes in your search is helpful for narrowing down the types of businesses you'll pull up. In case you're new to this, SIC stands for Standard Industry Classifications. Once again, a search at www.google.com for "SIC" will give you plenty of places where SIC codes are listed. But here's an easier way to find the ones you want to use. Use ReferenceUSA to look up some businesses that you‘re familiar with that also fall into the market focus you want to pursue. See what their SIC codes are and use those as a starting point for your search. You can put up to 10 SIC codes in a ReferenceUSA search.

Generating call lists from your ReferenceUSA search
Step One: Export the ReferenceUSA info to an Excel Spreadsheet
The active database that your search pulls up will have useful information on hundreds or thousands of companies depending on the criteria used. On the live page you can link up or down from headquarters to branch locations or pull up detailed info on each company listed.

But you may want to put your results into a format that will let you go through the list making calls over a period of days or weeks. You may also want to make notes from your initial calls as you gain profiling data about these companies. Scheduling follow up calls will also be important to you.

You can download a small number of companies from your search results directly into an Excel spreadsheet for free. But the number is 5 or 10 and that won't be much help for developing call lists in most cases. What I find more useful is cutting and pasting my search results into a simple text editor like Windows Notepad and then opening that file in Excel.

If you're good at using Excel you already know how to do this. If not, a little experimentation will get you there. Here's the method I use:

1. Copy each page of your search results into Windows Notepad by cutting and pasting one page at a time. If I have a list of 500 companies this takes me about 15 minutes. (Yes, that's cumbersome – but it's free.) Each consecutive paste just gets added to the very next line in Notepad, so the result is one huge body of text that looks almost like gibberish. Name that file and save it.
   
   
2. Open Excel and then choose File, Open and go to the text file you just saved. When that Notepad file is opened in an Excel spreadsheet a Text Import Wizard will pop up. On ReferenceUSA there is a help section that contains instructions for using this so I won't give those instructions here. Just go to the FAQ list and choose "How do I import my downloaded data into various software applications (such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, Symantec's ACT and others)?"
   
   

Now you have a spreadsheet with one prospect from your search in each row. You will probably end up with something like one column that has the company name and address, another that has state and zip code and another with the phone number. It is difficult to get it separated out any further than that. But that is sufficient for this stage of prospecting.

Step 2: Turn your spreadsheet into a workable call list

1. Add descriptive headings at the top of each column. I add a couple of additional column headings titled Next Action and Date. Those columns are where I place notes that tell me what the next thing is that I want to do with this prospect and when I want to do it.
2. Next, turn on Excel's AutoFilter function. You'll find that under Data, Filter, AutoFilter. This will insert drop down menus in that row of headings you just created. When you have follow up dates in your Date column, you can click on today's date and the AutoFilter will filter everything except the prospects you want to call today.
3. One final Excel tool you'll find helpful is the Comment Tool. Right click on any cell in the spreadsheet and you'll see an Insert Comment option. Click on that and a yellow box like a PostIt note will appear with a line tying it to the cell. This is where I put information I've collected about the prospect and notes about phone conversations or voicemails that I have left. You can resize and relocate these notes so that when you right click on the cell and open them to edit, they will pop up in a convenient place on the page. For example, it's handy to have them pop up so that they are aligned right under the associated row and it is possible to read the Comment and the row at the same time.

Step 3: Finally and most important -- Using your call list efficiently
The spreadsheet described above is a very handy way to organize your prospecting for each day. One thing it lacks compared to the live ReferenceUSA page is all the detailed info you can get by clicking on the company name at the live page.

That is simple to remedy. I just log on to ReferenceUSA before starting my calls and reduce the search page to partial screen size so I can superimpose it on my spreadsheet. Before I call a prospect I just put the phone number into the ReferenceUSA search tool and bring up all the info about that business. If the first call qualifies the prospect as someone I want to call again, I'll cut and paste all the business info provided by ReferenceUSA into a Comment so that is handy for reference on my next call.

In my situation there is one more step. My company has a large UNIX database of customers. Before I can call on a prospect, I have to check them against that list and make sure another sales person does not already own the account. So, I also reduce that application and superimpose it on my spreadsheet. Now it's a very smooth process:

• check the phone number in my UNIX database
• enter it in the ReferenceUSA search tool
• call the prospect
• enter call notes in a Comment and set a call back date or delete the prospect from my list

Tips on interpreting ReferenceUSA information
Financial ratings and employee numbers in ReferenceUSA are liberal compared to Dunn & Bradstreet but ReferenceUSA is fairly consistent. The employee numbers and financial strength ratings may be over estimated. But, if you find the "sweet spot" of your target market on ReferenceUSA, it will pretty consistently prove out. For example, your ideal prospect may be one that is rated by ReferenceUSA as 50-99 employees with a financial strength of 20 – 50 mil and excellent credit.

A good test is to look up several of your good customers in ReferenceUSA and see what their stats look like. That will probably give you a good idea of what kind of stats to look for and also what parameters to use in a ReferenceUSA search.

ReferenceUSA has some advantage over Dunn & Bradstreet in terms of the way it is published. Unless you pay for Dunn & Bradstreet reports, copying and pasting may not be available. So, when you generate a list of prospects from Dunn & Bradstreet it is not possible to drop them in a spreadsheet and work them over time. This is also true in one way or another for most free databases. So far, ReferenceUSA is the only one I've found that is both free and appears on your screen in a way that makes it relatively easy to use for creating lists.

With ReferenceUSA, I can generate a list of 500 prospects within a few minutes and then put that list into an Excel spreadsheet in about 15 or 20 minutes without paying for a report.

Screen Shots
Here is what my initial call list looks like when I finish importing the text file to Excel.



When I am ready to prospect I sign onto ReferenceUSA and superimpose the search form over my spreadsheet. Then do a telephone number search and bring up information about the company I'm going to call.



Since I have to check against a database of owned accounts, I just bring that program right up over the spreadsheet too.



If I decide that I'll be calling this company again, I copy the row and paste it into a different spreadsheet. In this spreadsheet I've added columns for call back dates and other info. By using auto filters in the top row, I can look at just my calls for the current day or sort by any information in each column.

I may also copy the company info page from ReferenceUSA into a "Comment" so that the info is always handy when I do call backs.



Inside the "Comment" I keep a call history and make general notes about information I gather.

In Conclusion
This system works for me because it is efficient and easy to handle. I always have plenty of prospects to call and I can see very quickly what my call strategy is for each prospect.