“Personalization is the key to getting high response rate.” – Brad Harmon in today’s Tip 1226
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Brad Harmon. Brad is a Strategic Account Director at Celonis and was recently the star of episode 144 on the Sales Success Stories podcast. Here he is:
Brad Harmon: Hello, welcome to today’s daily tip. I’m going to focus on outbound outreach and how to make the most of your prospecting efforts in a unique and creative way. The end goal is to obtain meetings with executive-level prospects and build your pipeline and maintain a healthy sales funnel. I think we can all agree that with minimal customer travel, we’re all spending more time dialing for dollars, probably more than we ever have in our career.
So whether you’re a Strategic Account Manager or Business Development Representative, this is for you. When hunting for new logos is important due diligence prior to reaching out. For instance, what college did your prospect go to? What previous roles within the company that they have? Or who is their former employer? This way you can tailor a message to that specific personal role.
Personalization is the key to getting high response rate. Some organizations have tools to help with that, like Zoom Info or Salesloft, but good old-fashioned LinkedIn would work just fine. You then create a cadence with that prospect so you are top of mind and top of their inbox. The example of the cadence I would use would be following up a voicemail with an email with a LinkedIn connection request. When all these efforts have failed and your LinkedIn and mail went unnoticed, try some of your small gifts, like cookies for the hat of the college that they attended. Something very brief and concise from messaging standpoint would be just fine.
I think everyone can agree that over the course of the past couple of years, email responses are significantly down. So we have to take a more creative approach. Listening to your prospect’s earnings calls and align them, align their objectives to your products and solutions, and get the attention of an executive very quickly. They also get a list of who attended their earnings call when it’s completed. So once again, top of mind, top of inbox.
We as salespeople need to help solve some of the challenges our customers are facing and take a consultative approach with new and fresh ideas to the table. This will get the sales funnel and pipeline filled with qualified prospects and leads. And these methods have worked for me in numerous roles over the years, and you want to be prepared for that three or four times a day when a prospect actually answers the phone. Do not start off the conversation with the generic, how are you? But instead ask a question like, Did I catch you at a good time? Or do you have a few minutes for me to explain why I’m calling? This should help ease into your pitch much better and much more smoothly.
I’m always a firm believer of quality over quantity. So do your research prior and don’t waste the person on the other end of the phone’s time. After a couple of minutes is up and try and get the prospect talking on the other phone with some open-ended questions. Ideally, at the end, you ask for a commitment from that, like to a follow-up meeting with specific date and time. You should have a similar ask when you’re sending the small gifts I spoke of earlier. Prospecting should be a part of every rep’s never-ending improvement plan and a part of your every day. I even know some reps have locked them on their calendar each day for prospecting. Although it is not glorious, it is necessary in order for us to continue to build pipeline and appease our management. Hopefully, you found these tips and tricks useful in your day-to-day activities. Please reach out to me via LinkedIn if you have any questions, comments, concerns or if I can be of any further assistance.
Scott Ingram: For those links to connect with Brad, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1226. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come right back for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!