“Focus on being that trusted guide, that trusted adviser, and do your outreach and prospecting with that point in mind.” – Tom Burton in today’s Tip 1187
How do you do outreach and prospecting?
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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 Tom Burton. Tom has over 30 years of experience helping forward-thinking businesses develop and implement innovative, technology-based strategies and solutions that drive sales and predictable revenue growth. Tom is currently a co-founder in LeadSmart Technologies which has developed a unique CRM platform. Here he is:
Tom Burton: So a common call to action, when we’re doing prospecting or outreach to prospects, is to request that they be willing to schedule or have a phone call, either with us or with somebody else on our sales team. The problem with that strategy is that prospects today especially B2B prospects more and more, first of all, want to be in control of their own buyer journey as long as possible. They want to remain anonymous or incognito as long as possible. And generally, they don’t want to interact with a sales representative unless they really feel as though they need to.
So the key is to continue to be able to do prospecting and outreach, but actually do it in a way that aligns with the way B2B prospects want to do things now and how they want to control their own journey. So what I recommend is rather than having a call to action to schedule a discovery call or a phone call is obviously do a little bit of homework about your prospect on what you’re sending to and what they may care about, but then offer up, let’s say it’s an email. Offer up links to three pieces of content that you think would be very compelling and relevant to that prospect, and then basically in the email provide a roadmap for them on what they should do after they consume that content.
So the email could look like, “Hey, I understand that you may be struggling with this problem in your business or with this with your team. Here are three pieces of content that may be super relevant to you and what you’re trying to do.” Now, once you’ve read this content, what I recommend is you do this, this, and this, and then lay out basically a prescription or a blueprint for them to go forward in the email by saying, “if you have any questions or would like additional help, please reach out.” And what you’re doing there is you’re positioning yourself as a trusted advisor or as a consultant and as somebody who is adding value and providing value and help to the prospect. And what we have seen is that using this approach, the conversion that we get, or at least the response that we get, even if they’re not interested, we’re seeing more response coming back at a much, much higher rate than with a call to action of, “Hey, let’s schedule a call.”
And I know for me personally, when I get emails that really don’t have any, you can tell there’s never been any real homework done and they’re really not even explaining what their product or service does and they’re asking me to jump on a phone call. Those are immediately deleted, right? Those just immediately go out of my inbox. But yet if there is something relevant and important and helpful, then I’ll take the time at least to read and to move forward and that’s all we can hope for in the early stages of prospecting. So focus on being that trusted guide, that trusted adviser, and do your outreach and prospecting with that point in mind.
Scott Ingram: For links to connect with Tom and to get on the list for his upcoming book: The Revenue Zone, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1187. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come right back for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!