Archive for the ‘Pre-Call Planning’ Category

How to Do Pre-Cold Call Planning

August 2, 2012 · by admin · Actionable Business Sales Intelligence, Cold Calling, Pre-Call Planning, Prospect Qualification, Prospecting, Prospecting Tactics, Sales Research, Sales Strategies, Sales Tips, Sales Triggers, Selling, Success, triggers

By Ron LaVine, MBA and President of Accelerated Cold Call Training, Inc.
Cold Calling System for Sales Success – Live Cold Call Training Workshops®

Before you have gotten your first appointment, the need to do your pre-cold call planning homework and collect background information about a prospect’s company really kicks in. While you may not be able to cover all the areas mentioned, being aware of them, can be very beneficial in differentiating yourself from other sales reps that do not take the time to do their homework. Instead, they just call a prospect blindly, “flying by the seat of their pants” and hope they get a result.

The Main Objectives of Pre-Cold Call Planning are to Understand:

Where is the prospect and their company now.

Where does the prospect want their company to be.

How does the prospect currently plan to get their company to that objective.

Start by checking the prospect’s web site and other Internet web sites for information related too:

Alliances

Are any of these organizations, customers of yours?

Are you able to leverage the people in these relationships?

Business Environment or Industry Trends

Look for industry or government potential change or change events* or business drivers such as increasing regulations, decreasing costs, increasing agility or decreasing risk.

Contact Names

Are names, titles, extensions or email addresses of people related to your solution (possibly an organizational chart) available by doing a search either publicly or on their web site?

Competition

Who are their direct and indirect competition?

Are you able to leverage these relationships by demonstrating the benefits and results your prospect may miss by not doing business with your company?

Decisions

Are they centralized in one location or does each location have the authority to make their own decisions?

Do you know who are the real decision-makers and other buyer types?

Distributors, Alliances, Resellers or Partners

Are any of these organizations, customers or in reseller or alliance programs of yours?

Are you able to leverage the people in these relationships?

Investor Relations or Corporate Communications or Community Relations

Are there any change events listed?

Are there any contacts phone numbers or emails listed?

Locations and Employees

How many locations and employees are at each location?

Are you able to leverage the people in these relationships?

Management’s Discussion & Analysis of Financial Condition & Results of Operations from the Annual Report

This information, usually found in a publicly traded company’s annual report, can tell you:

What are the prospect’s current & future goals and objectives.
What are the change events that may effect the prospect’s business operations.
What are the prospect’s current or future strategies.
Who does the prospect consider as their main competition and why.

Markets and Customers

Who do they serve and what types of marketing delivery vehicles do they use (Such as social media, their web site or direct mail?

Solution Development

What solutions does the prospect offer and how are these solutions developed?

Solution Offerings

How are the prospect’s solutions delivered to the marketplace?

Properties or Locations

Any changes such as expansions or contractions?

Creating an Pre-Cold Call Planning Template

We have already established when you are going after large prospective clients, you need to do some research first. Start by preparing a Pre-Cold Call Planning Template either as a document or by copying the information into your SFA/CRM system. To build this template, you need to:

Copy the Prospect’s Organization Contact Information

Company Name, Address, Zip, Phone Numbers, etc. into your Template. Look for non toll-free numbers. These numbers will keep you away from call centers that often cannot help you,

Copy the Prospect’s Company Management into your Template.

Read the Career Section or Jobs Offered Look for careers or jobs related to your solutions.

For example: technology in use or the people the prospect is hiring for specific projects. Copy this information into your Template,

Copy the About the Company from the Career or About the Company Sections.

These typically explain the prospect’s company mission statement, objectives, values and goals,

Review the Corporate Communications, Press Releases, Investor Relations or Community Relations pages

Look for additional contact information within the prospect’s company. Call on these people if you are having trouble getting into your prospect’s company over the phone. Copy this information into your Template,

Search for change events and articles of interest as they relate to your solution. Search on words applying to your solutions. Here are some examples of change events decision-makers care about most:

Acquisitions
Collections
Competitive Environment Changes
Compliance with Regulations
Cost of Goods Sold
Customer Retention or Churn
Downtime/Up-time
Employee Turnover or Churn
Inventory Turns
Joint Ventures
Labor Costs
Lead Conversion Rate
Lifetime customer value
Locations Changes
Market Share or Percent of Market Owned
Mergers
Net Payback Period
New Funding
New Hires
Operating Costs
Pending or Changes in Government Regs
Productivity
Profit Margins
Promotions
Return on Investment
Sales Velocity or Sales Cycle Speed
Share of Customer Market
Time to Market
Time to Profitability
Total Cost of Ownership
Turnaround Time
Waste

Copy these into your Template.

Look at other Networking, Contact Sources, Free and Paid Sales Research Sites.

My favorite is http://www.LinkedIn.com which allows you to do advanced targeted searches on names, titles and companies.

Here are some other web sites where you can find this information:

Use complementary Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts to find and track these events that occur within your prospects’ and clients’ companies. This information will help you determine the main business reasons how and why prospects and clients use your solutions.

www.crusharmy.com (provides email addresses)

Other Sources of Actionable Business Sales Intelligence™

For publically traded companies, read the Management Discussion & Analysis in their Annual Report or go to the Security Exchange Commission’s web site: http://www.sec.gov/search/search.htm to find this information.

Go to Yahoo Finance’s website http://finance.yahoo.com/ to find information about the prospect’s company officers and their main competition.

Key Point – Use your relationships with people at your and your prospect’s competitors, partners, resellers or distributors to lend credibility to your organization’s offerings.

Key Point – Do not spend more time researching than you do actually making calls. Do not fall into the Paralysis by Analysis trap.

In conclusion, do your Pre-Cold Call Planning homework and you’ll be miles ahead of your competition while making more sales and putting greater amounts of dollars in your bank account.

You can use this content in your own publications.
Please include the following reprint permission…

This article is reprinted with permission from Ron LaVine’s “Sales Tips for Success” complementary e-Zine. Ron LaVine, MBA is President and Founder of Accelerated Cold Calling Training, Inc., an Oak Park, CA cold call training company. Get two FREE Reports, plus the FREE e-Zine, Sales Tips for Success by clicking here. Learn more about Cold Calling for Sales Success On-site, Virtual, Individual or Group, Live Cold Call Training Workshops® by calling me, Ron LaVine at +1-818-991-6487 by clicking here. Follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE COLD CALL TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS

HOME PAGE // SITE MAP // STORE // WORKSHOPS // REINFORCEMENT // CLIENTS

TESTIMONIAL LETTERS // MORE TESTIMONIAL LETTERS // QUOTES FROM CLIENTS

ORGANIZATIONS CALLED // FREE SALES TIPS // FREE RESOURCES // FREE ARTICLES

FREE INFO // ABOUT US // FREE SALES TIPS E-ZINE

Free Resources to Turn Data into Dollars

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December 29, 2011 · by admin · Change, Pre-Call Planning, Sales Triggers

By Ron LaVine, MBA and President of Accelerated Cold Call Training, Inc.
Cold Calling System for Sales Success – Live Cold Calling Training Workshops®

Where to Find New Business

Finding new business can be a snap, if you know where to look and what to do with the information you find. Using the telephone along with publicly available information, you can turn data into dollar

Understanding the importance of the “fact finding step” in the sales cycle, is key to making more sales. We need information resources to enable us to determine who is responsible for decision making, where an account is now, where they want to be and how they plan to get there.

It is easy to mishandle this part of the sales cycle in an eagerness to sell. Finding data about a shift in the way an account does business is not enough. Understanding the potential effects of the change is key to finding revenue producing events.

Show Me the Money

Look for accounts in your territory who:

* Acquire, merge or joint venture with another company,

* Have been acquired by another company,

* Add additional equipment or hardware or facilities,

* Announce a change in staffing requirements or business, practices due to expansion, restructuring or relocation,

* Receive contract awards,

* Mention cost cutting initiatives,

* Outsource certain services to concentrate on core businesses,

* Are embarking on new projects,

* Issue an IPO to raise operating capital for buying more assets,

* Spin off a division into a new company with new ownership,

* Maybe affected by pending legislation or regulations.

Turning Data into Dollars

Once a change occurs, ask yourself these questions. “How can my products fulfill a need or challenge as a result of the change?” “What additional services can my company provide to lessen the impact of the shift?” When the change effects a company who is your customer, ask yourself “How can I expand the use of or prevent the replacement of my services?”

For instance, you read an account plans to expand their operations. When companies expand or restructure, typically the management re-evaluates human resources and capital assets to decide what stays, what goes and what’s needed. When preparing your sales strategy, keep in mind the big picture. An enterprise wide sale is far more valuable than an individual business unit sale.

Different Ways to Create More Sales

1. Assembling a plan showing how the effects of the change relate to the benefits your products and services provide can position you for a sale.

2. Taking note of changes or trends that may affect both you and your account’s industries will make you sound intelligent and increase the odds of a sale.

3. Looking for stories about accounts using your competitor’s products and applying that application to your offerings is another way to make more sale

4. Keeping your account records up to date allows you to invest your time locating who is responsible for and capable of making a buying decision.

5. Finding and calling up users of your competitor’s products is a way to replace or augment existing products. Be sure to explain up front, you are looking for ways to improve your product

* What do you like about their products or services?

* Is there anything you dislike or have found unsatisfactory?

* If you had a wish list, what features would you like to see their product have?

Assuming your service provides missing features and benefits your competitors do not offer, you have yourself a potential sale.

6. Calling your customers pro-actively and assuring them of continuous service provides an opening to

* Find out more about an account’s future strategic direction.

* Expand and cement contact relationships,

* Uncover potential evaluations, projects or initiatives,

* Locate the main or new users of your products,

* Gauge customer satisfaction and nip potential problems in the bud before they become unmanageable,

* Offer consulting services, education or documentation,

* Inquire about other business units that may need your products,

* Provide greater customer service, making difficult for competitors to replace your product

Understanding the effects of change can present an opportunity to persuade management to invest in new products, services or technologies.

Free Sources of Business Sales Intelligence

An account’s sales literature,

Employee telephone interviews,

Competitor user telephone interviews,

Online and hard copy business and finance publications,

State and federal government agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget or the General Services Administration (GSA) (Using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain your competitor’s GSA schedules),

Classified advertisements,

Visit the SEC website,

Other suppliers who service your prospect’s account.

Finding information is easy. Systematically connecting the shift effects to the benefits your products provide, is the challenge. Correlating specific benefits to specific contact wins will place you in a position to watch your sales climb.

However, you must act upon the change, before your competitors do. Change is constant and change creates sales opportunities.

You can use this content in your own publications.
Please include the following reprint permission…

This article is reprinted with permission from Ron LaVine’s “Sales Tips for Success” complementary e-Zine. Ron LaVine, MBA is President and Founder of Accelerated Cold Call Training, Inc., an Oak Park, CA live cold calling training company. Get two FREE Reports, plus the FREE e-Zine, Sales Tips for Success by clicking here. Learn more about Cold Calling for Sales Success On-site, Virtual, Individual or Group, Live Cold Calling Training Workshops® by calling me, Ron LaVine at +1-818-991-6487 by clicking here. Follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE COLD CALLING TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS

HOME PAGE // SITE MAP // STORE // WORKSHOPS // REINFORCEMENT // CLIENTS

TESTIMONIAL LETTERS // MORE TESTIMONIAL LETTERS // QUOTES FROM CLIENTS

ORGANIZATIONS CALLED // FREE SALES TIPS // FREE RESOURCES // FREE ARTICLES

FREE INFO // ABOUT US // FREE SALES TIPS E-ZINE

How Much Pre-Cold Call Research is Too Much?

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December 29, 2011 · by admin · Pre-Call Planning

By Ron LaVine, MBA and President of Accelerated Cold Call Training, Inc.
Cold Calling System for Sales Success – Live Cold Calling Training Workshops®

There have been a great deal of questions in my workshops lately about how to use email in conjunction with leads coming off the Internet. How do you know if you have enough research before following up? How can you use email as an effective tool to create specific follow-up action steps? With that in mind, here is an example of an email I received from a company we’ll call “WeKnowItAll Company”.

Our story begins with WeKnowItAll sending me an email inviting me to access their online company research subscription service free for two days. One of the things I love to do, is to use the WWW for doing research on my competitors, my clients, my client’s clients, their industry and competitors, my prospects, my prospect’s clients and my prospect’s industry and competitors.

The biggest danger of using the Web for research is you can find yourself in “analysis paralysis” and can often end up spending more time on the Internet then you do on the phone selling and generating revenue. My suggestion is to set up a specific set of questions to answer, which once answered should provide enough basic pre-call research. Ron, stop stalling, where’s the list of questions? Hey, relax and don’t worry, the list is towards the bottom.

Now I’m saying to myself, hmmm, free trial for two days. Oh boy, I’m going to have some fun and put this baby through its paces. Let’s see what types of information I can find that is really useful for my specific needs. I set a specific goal for this test. My goal was to identify certain personnel within target prospect companies I’m looking to do business with. I was evaluating based upon two criteria at this point. One was what was the quality of the information provided? Secondly, how easy was it to access that information?

I start using WeKnowItAll online database by myself without any guidance and off the bat I’ve got a log-on problem. Rule number one; if you want someone to try something, without any assistance, providing clear and simple instructions is an excellent way to make a good impression. Finally I’m able to log-in, and the amounts of choices are mind boggling. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big fan of simplicity and ease of use. This site, although very comprehensive it was also very cluttered and confusing.

I found myself going back and forth from one screen to another trying to find where the profiles of company personnel were located. Apparently, depending on the type of company (public or private), there may or may not be personnel information and it may or may not be always located on the same page. In other words you often had to spend a lot of time digging for it.

After about fifteen minutes I started to get frustrated with my free two-day trial and moved on to other tasks. Below is the email I received the day after my two-day trial (or in my case fifteen minute) was over.

In between the person’s statements, you’ll find my comments in [brackets]. Finally you’ll read my email response back to this person with a list of 12 pre-call research questions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the email I received after my trial ended…

Hi Ron:

[Do I know you? I've never met you. Wouldn't it be wiser to err on the side of good manners? Change the salutation to "Hello Mr. LaVine"]

I just left you a voice mail message also.

[About what?]

Please let me know when you would be interested in scheduling a demo of the site.

[Why would I want to take my valuable time and schedule a demo of your site since it is not clear to me what value you bring to the table?]

As you may know, WeKnowItAll provides unbiased editorial coverage on over 18,500 large and medium-sized companies. We also show accurate details on each company such as contact names, products, competitive landscapes and financials.

[How would I know this? What's a competitive landscape? Is it a cross-matrix comparing one company's products to another's? Is it a simple listing of competitors, which I can get off of Yahoo's company profiles? Come to think of it, what information does your service provide that I can't get either for free or from one of your competitors?]

We also offer Advanced Search functions that would allow you to search for specific companies or contacts by title, industry, location, private companies, Fiscal Year End, or other means.

[And this means I'll be able to do what? What are the benefits of knowing this information? What will knowing this information enable me to do?]

There are two levels of business subscriptions:

[What are the specific benefits of subscribing? How will it enable me to do my job faster, better, less expensively (cheaper) or easier? What types of increases or decreases, more or less results can I expect based upon testimonials from other of your clients?]

WeKnowItAll Power Plus (all access + unlimited free lead downloads into Excel) WeKnowItAll Total Power (all access)

[If for some reason I don't have Excel, can it be downloaded into Comma Delimited Text Fields (name, title, phone number, etc.) What I really need is a CD-Version. I wonder if they have one.]

Sample WeKnowItAll Profiles: http://www.WeKnowItAll.com

Please give me a call if you have any questions or would like a demo of the site.

[You already let me have a free two-day demo without any kind of commitment. I might give you call, however first I've got to figure out (in this case by myself) how to get the service to work, so don't expect a call. Besides, I don't know your office hours or if there are alternative means to reach you such a responding to this email or calling your cell phone.]

Kind regards,

Ann Smartster 1.888.123.4567 ext. 1234 asmartster@ WeKnowItAll.com http://www.WeKnowItAll.com

[Where is your tag line explaining what you do? For example: WeKnowItAll enables you to easily turn raw online data into real revenue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is my response to her prior email.

Hi Ann,

I have a few questions for you.

1. Did you stop by http://www.coldcalltraining.com and see what my company does?

2. Do you know who my clients are?

3. Have you determined the industry in which I specialize?

4. What size is my company in terms of gross sales and number of employees?

5. Based upon the size of my company and the type of information I may need, how profitable of a prospect is my company for you? Should you be investing your limited sales time with me? On what types of companies in which industries do you make the most money?

6. Is my company hiring and if so, what types of people for which types of projects?

7. Have you signed up for my company’s newsletter or requested my company’s literature to learn more about what my company does and what is considered important?

8. Did you read in my bio? If you did you would see that I was a past member of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals and the Association of Independent Information Professionals. Does knowing that information, help you create some rapport questions to ask me?

9. Are you prepared to show me examples of data gathered from WeKnowItAll on two or three of my clients as examples of the type of data I would have access to on my prospects using different versions of WeKnowItAll?

10. Based upon what I do and the types of companies I target, can you deduce what type of information I’ll be looking for?

11. What are two areas where I could possibly use WeKnowItAll?

12. Since my target market has a demand for your type of service, is there a possibility you can help me to help you sell more of your service to my target market?

I’ll wait for your answers and then we’ll discuss it. You can reach me in my office on Thursday morning when we can set up a time and date to see if there is a fit between our companies.

All the best to you,

Ron

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Continued from above…

Set up a specific list of basic questions for pre-call research. Then think outside the box and look at all the possibilities including reseller and affiliate relationships. Maybe you do business with one of your prospect’s clients. Maybe you are affiliated with one of your prospect’s other suppliers.

After you do make contact, remember, at the end of every call or email, there needs to be specific a request that action be taken. For example, here is a request I use quite often in my emails. It works quite well since people enjoy giving advice:

Example:

“Please advise.”

Thanks, Ron

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another Example:

“I found an article on one of your competitors; I think maybe of value to you. Your assistant gave me permission to fax it to you.

“I’ll call this afternoon to be sure you received it and to discuss if there maybe a good fit between our two companies. At that time, I’ll also be able to provide you with some specific ideas where we maybe able to give you a competitive advantage”

All the best to you,

Ron

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another Example:

Hi Mr. Smith,

As we discussed, you are looking to hire more reps in the Business Intelligence /Information Management space. We also agreed that our selling philosophies a rather identical.

Your main goal is to teach your reps how to hunt effectively and ferret out opportunities in short order. Your reps are dealing with customers and resellers. I have an article from Software Magazine that I will fax to you. You may it of value to you when you go to cost justify the sales training to your management.

Since you need to have another two people on board before we can finalize the training dates, I sent you a list of web sites where you can find sales reps, sent the job criterion you e-mailed to me out to my job seekers list. I also sent you two possible candidates.

You have people in both Reston and Denver and all will be in Denver the week of September 9th before two weeks of ABC University. We spoke of setting up a two-day class during the week of September 9th.

You mentioned you need to run this by Tim, Dan and then Andy for budget approval. Attached is a sample Agreement with a fee schedule for your review and signature.

I will follow this email with more specific details about the live sales call-training workshop, which you can read at your convenience. This will include comments from people who mentioned they wished they had this type of training prior to their product training.

I look forward to speaking with you on Wednesday, September 28 at 8am PST when I will call you at: 303-555-1234 to discuss the next steps needed to put a live sales call training workshop in place for ABC.

Please call me at 818-991-6487 if you have questions before then.

All the best to you,

Ron

The Lesson…

Don’t send emails asking me to call you or to do something, unless you have provided information or topics of value specifically related to my company. This type of information may include insights you want to share about my clients, prospects, industry or competitors that would be worth me taking my time to discuss.

Separate yourself from the rest of the reps who do no homework and then expect that their products and services alone will generate sales.

You can use this content in your own publications.
Please include the following reprint permission…

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE COLD CALLING TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS

HOME PAGE // SITE MAP // STORE // WORKSHOPS // REINFORCEMENT // CLIENTS

TESTIMONIAL LETTERS // MORE TESTIMONIAL LETTERS // QUOTES FROM CLIENTS

ORGANIZATIONS CALLED // FREE SALES TIPS // FREE RESOURCES // FREE ARTICLES

FREE INFO // ABOUT US // FREE SALES TIPS E-ZINE

Archive for the ‘Pre-Call Planning’ Category

The Main Objectives of Pre-Cold Call Planning are to Understand:

Where is the prospect and their company now.

Where does the prospect want their company to be.

How does the prospect currently plan to get their company to that objective.

Start by checking the prospect’s web site and other Internet web sites for information related too:

Alliances

Are any of these organizations, customers of yours?

Are you able to leverage the people in these relationships?

Business Environment or Industry Trends

Look for industry or government potential change or change events* or business drivers such as increasing regulations, decreasing costs, increasing agility or decreasing risk.

Contact Names

Are names, titles, extensions or email addresses of people related to your solution (possibly an organizational chart) available by doing a search either publicly or on their web site?

Competition

Who are their direct and indirect competition?

Are you able to leverage these relationships by demonstrating the benefits and results your prospect may miss by not doing business with your company?

Decisions

Are they centralized in one location or does each location have the authority to make their own decisions?

Do you know who are the real decision-makers and other buyer types?

Distributors, Alliances, Resellers or Partners

Are any of these organizations, customers or in reseller or alliance programs of yours?

Are you able to leverage the people in these relationships?

Investor Relations or Corporate Communications or Community Relations

Are there any change events listed?

Are there any contacts phone numbers or emails listed?

Locations and Employees

How many locations and employees are at each location?

Are you able to leverage the people in these relationships?

Management’s Discussion & Analysis of Financial Condition & Results of Operations from the Annual Report

This information, usually found in a publicly traded company’s annual report, can tell you:

What are the prospect’s current & future goals and objectives.

What are the change events that may effect the prospect’s business operations.

What are the prospect’s current or future strategies.

Who does the prospect consider as their main competition and why.

Markets and Customers

Who do they serve and what types of marketing delivery vehicles do they use (Such as social media, their web site or direct mail?

Solution Development

What solutions does the prospect offer and how are these solutions developed?

Solution Offerings

How are the prospect’s solutions delivered to the marketplace?

Properties or Locations

Any changes such as expansions or contractions?

Creating an Pre-Cold Call Planning Template

We have already established when you are going after large prospective clients, you need to do some research first. Start by preparing a Pre-Cold Call Planning Template either as a document or by copying the information into your SFA/CRM system. To build this template, you need to:

Copy the Prospect’s Organization Contact Information

Company Name, Address, Zip, Phone Numbers, etc. into your Template. Look for non toll-free numbers. These numbers will keep you away from call centers that often cannot help you,

Copy the Prospect’s Company Management into your Template.

Read the Career Section or Jobs Offered Look for careers or jobs related to your solutions.

For example: technology in use or the people the prospect is hiring for specific projects. Copy this information into your Template,

Copy the About the Company from the Career or About the Company Sections.

These typically explain the prospect’s company mission statement, objectives, values and goals,

Review the Corporate Communications, Press Releases, Investor Relations or Community Relations pages

Look for additional contact information within the prospect’s company. Call on these people if you are having trouble getting into your prospect’s company over the phone. Copy this information into your Template,

Search for change events and articles of interest as they relate to your solution. Search on words applying to your solutions. Here are some examples of change events decision-makers care about most:

Acquisitions

Collections

Competitive Environment Changes

Compliance with Regulations

Cost of Goods Sold

Customer Retention or Churn

Downtime/Up-time

Employee Turnover or Churn

Inventory Turns

Joint Ventures

Labor Costs

Lead Conversion Rate

Lifetime customer value

Locations Changes

Market Share or Percent of Market Owned

Mergers

Net Payback Period

New Funding

New Hires

Operating Costs

Pending or Changes in Government Regs

Productivity

Profit Margins

Promotions

Return on Investment

Sales Velocity or Sales Cycle Speed