Home   About   Services   Client Testimonials   Contact   Blog  
 
Friday, October 20, 2006


I've started playing around with Spoke recently which, since this summer, has now opened up access for free.

Last time I looked a while back I decided not to join as it appeared to be predominantly US focused and I couldn't justify the monthly fee (when compared to the access I was getting via LinkedIn).

[BTW, it's still very US focused as you can't search for contacts by country, although there are non-US contacts & companies on Spoke)

So, how is Spoke different?

At a first glance, it's obviously set-up more for sales & marketing people than LinkedIn. It allows you to search it's full database of 30 million contacts (which makes it nearly 4 times the size of LinkedIn) and you can save searches and set up alerts (which is something that would greatly improve LinkedIn).

The main difference, however, is how it generates it's data.

This article, "Spoke frees up its database", explains this in more detail.

Until now, Spoke has created its database by scouring the web, using third-party providers, as well as asking its members to share their address book contacts. You could think of it as a cross between LinkedIn & ZoomInfo, I guess.

But, as the article points out, "Any kind of database becomes practically worthless if you don’t know whether an entry is accurate or not. Even if 10 percent of it is wrong, you can’t trust it."

To me, this is always the main issue.

All these tools, LinkedIn, Spoke, etc are just the starting point of any names sourcing or business development research. When you're tracking people within companies, guess what, they move about. It's about finding an appropriate entry point.

Sure, if you're after anyone in the C-suite, then just pulling up the website will normally do it. But if you want specific role-holders then you need to get digging.

It's like I pointed out in my post "Drive-thru or counter?", sometimes it's easier just to pick up the phone.

This was illustrated the other day when a colleague emailed me and said he was trying to get hold of a senior budget holder within a major UK retailer. He said he'd searched everywhere and couldn't track down a name.

I just picked up the phone, called their Head Office, got through to the right department and asked. Sometime the simplest route really does work.

It would be nice to think that we can sit at our computers and do everything by searching & emailing (and sometimes that does work). But then you're just limiting your options.

Labels: ,

Posted by: David Regler @ 8:46 am |   | Links to this post  

Bookmark and Share



0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home



Why we're strictly B2B telemarketing (part 2)

What shape is your sales network?

How much is a meeting worth anyway?

Could I be the next Dragon?

Hitting the Cold-Calling Wall

Why we're strictly B2B telemarketing

Email vs Cold Calling (Part 2)

Quality vs Quantity: comparing telesales freelance...

Being the Go-to-Guy

Avoiding the Human SPAM Filter


November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
March 2010
September 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2011
February 2011
March 2011
May 2011
July 2011
September 2011
October 2011
November 2011
December 2011
January 2012
February 2012

Powered by Blogger





2003.
All content © Maine Associates Ltd 2010 All rights reserved. Read our privacy policy