A business development associate at a leading buyout firm must identify and attend relevant conferences with a high concentration of top targets. She is also responsible for conducting email outreach to proprietary opportunities that match the firm’s investment criteria.
Manually scrubbing conference lists for relevant attendees is extremely time consuming, and many vendors’ databases offer inaccurate and outdated information. This is a particular challenge for firms that work mostly with bootstrapped and privately-held businesses that aren’t required to publicly share information about themselves in the US.
“At the end of the day, dealmaking is all about relationships,” shares the associate. “I needed technology that accelerated and refined my ability to pinpoint the right trade shows and opportunities so that I could really focus on attending these conferences and engaging top targets.”
The associate now uses Sourcescrub to identify, monitor, and engage ideal opportunities. She starts by finding trade shows in her desired timeframe, geography, and industry. She then uses Sourcescrub’s AI-powered search and filtering capabilities to quickly narrow down these lists by company data points like sub-sector, employee count, ownership status, and more.
“Sourcescrub has the most accurate, fresh, and complete company profiles available — especially for private businesses,” she says. “Not only does the platform allow me to rapidly pinpoint the conferences with attendees that I’m actually targeting, but it also gives me the information I need to get in touch and book meetings with them before I hop on a plane.”
She also relies on Sourcescrub to get up to speed on certain markets quickly and stay on top of changes. The platform sends her real-time alerts when specific conference lists are available or companies that match her thesis criteria appear on new attendee lists. This allows her to finalize conference plans and book meetings much faster and earlier than the competition.
Today, the firm’s business development associate finds nearly 100% of all the trade shows she attends in Sourcescrub. Her ability to quickly and accurately determine the right shows has increased her conference planning productivity by 50%, which has in turn enabled her to attend 2x more trade shows each quarter.
Sourcescrub’s rich, accurate private company data has also made it possible for her to book 20% more meetings prior to each conference. Connecting with top targets and building rapport before meeting them face to face gives her a head start on other firms attending these events, as well as makes her in-person conversations more productive.
“The number of proprietary leads that I’m able to generate from trade shows has increased substantially since I started using Sourcescrub,” she shares. “Being among the first to know about a new conference list or relevant attendee has been a game changer. I honestly feel like the platform is my partner in crime because it makes me so much more efficient and frees me to focus on the more strategic, relationship-driven aspects of my job.”
