For those of you who are lucky enough to get to prospect into Publicly traded companies, and you aren’t leveraging their public document called the 10-K…you are missing out on gold! As a business development, sales executive, or Sales leader, you can leverage the 10-K filing document to be insanely more effective at prospecting and that’s what today’s content is all about. Keep in mind, this is a great document to review if you just took over the account, and you want to learn in-depth knowledge as to how the company operates as well as the financials associated. This is also an incredible resource if you want to stand out from the competition, as well as be able to very precisely personalize your outreach to land more meetings. Today we dive into the depths of the 10-K for prospecting, the gold nuggets you will find, and precisely where to look.

If you haven’t leveraged this document before, you’ll find it in the “Investor Relations” portion of your prospects website, and they have to file this with the Securities and Exchange Commission. There is a great deal of helpful information in a few sections:

1. Management Discussion & Analysis

2. Business

3. Risk Factors

4. Financial Overview

Let’s dive into each one of these sections individually.

Management Discussion & Analysis:

The management discussion and Analysis section is filled with nuggets on the where the company is focusing, their strategic initiatives, where they are investing company dollars or divesting parts of the business etc. These data points will tell you a lot about the next 1-3 years of the company. Are they going to grow through acquisition, or focus on organic growth with investments in Marketing and Advertising? What metrics are they focused on? Is their business model changing or did they mention a pivot in a specific area of their business? These points can give you the firepower you need to tie back to the value of the solution you are selling and effectively personalize your outreach. Use these strategically in your outreach….you will get more meetings if you do.

Business:

If you are new to an account and want a “crash course” in their business, read this section of the 10-K. The “Business Section” will help you understand where they operate globally, their operating models, how they make money, the different divisions of their business and much more. You will find a ton of gold in this section that will help you understand their growth plans, what their current market position is and plan to improve it. You can also find out how they they think about customer acquisition and retention. If you are new to an account or need a refresher on the inter workings of the organization, read this section in depth…you will find data points that help you prospect more effectively.

Risk Factors:

This section is pretty self explanatory…the company is telling you what they are concerned about and what could cause disruption to their business. How will changes in economic conditions impact the business? Can they successfully integrate that acquisition they just made? Can the organization grow and scale with their current structure? Are costs rising which will hurt their margins? All of these risk factors are concepts you can leverage. If your solution can help with integration of an acquisition or help achieve their growth goals, you have a sure shot at a meeting.

Financial Overview:

Finally we’ll talk about the financials. Now, you don’t need to have CFO level business acumen to get value from this section. What you are specifically looking for here is trends that can tell you more about the bigger picture here. For example: How are their revenue’s trending? Are their expenses increasing or decreasing? Was their any major restructuring costs? Major Acquisitons? Not only will you be able to pull trends from this section, but also how their management thinks about their financial results. If you look at the screenshot below, you can sometimes even pull other projects they are dedicating funds to right now.

Knowing the entire picture of your account will quickly gain trust with your prospective buyers.

If you focus on these 4 sections, you will garner a great deal of knowledge about your account, which will help you be a much more effective prospector. In 30 minutes you will have everything you need to produce ultra-personalized content to put in front of your prospects. Happy hunting!