How do you research a company before your first call with them?
What the interviewer wants to hear
- Check website, recent news, annual reports or funding
- Look at the contact and stakeholders on LinkedIn
- Understand their industry, competitors and likely challenges
- Check CRM for past interactions
- Prepare a hypothesis and relevant questions
Model answer
I spend around 15 to 20 minutes on focused research. First I check the CRM to see if we have spoken to them before. Then I look at their website, products, recent news, hiring posts and any funding or expansion announcements, because these often signal priorities. On LinkedIn I look at the person I am meeting: their role, how long they have been there, and what they post about. I also check their industry and main competitors to understand common challenges. From this I build a simple hypothesis, for example: "They are opening new branches, so they may struggle with standardising operations." Finally I prepare a few open questions to test that hypothesis. The goal is not to show off what I know, but to have a more relevant conversation.
Can you answer it under time pressure?
Take a timed easy round and get scored on every answer.
More easy Business Development Manager questions
- In your own words, what does a Business Development Manager do, and how is it different from a sales executive?
- Prospecting involves a lot of rejection. How do you stay motivated and productive?
- Which metrics would you track to understand if your business development work is going well?
- Walk me through how you structure a discovery call.
- Why do you want to work in business development?
- How do you write a cold email that gets replies?
- How do you build trust with a prospect you have just met?
- How do you use LinkedIn in your prospecting?
- Tell me about a deal you are proud of winning.