Happy Friday Sales Hackers!
Cheers- You’ve made it through another week! I’ve put together some of the highlights from our LinkedIn Community this week. We round up the best content that we can for the blog, but we’ve realized there are so many good discussions going on in our community that we don’t want overlooked!
Please let me know if you have any feedback, or have something to contribute to next weeks Community Round Up. I look forward to hearing from you! Enjoy the weekend… you earned it!
Best,
Jessie Barnes
This Week’s Question:
Clark Kasheta: I am a firm believer in professional persistence. However, at what point must we draw the line and say “that’s too many voicemails,” or “maybe I shouldn’t call his personal cell.” How do we maintain that persistent and professional balance?
Best Responses from our Sales Hacker LinkedIn Community:
Ryan Leech: It’s a good question for sure. This is kind of a cop out, but it really depends on the situation.
If I’ve identified a company that I know 100% can use our product, then I am not going to give up easily. To get around having to ask yourself this question too often, I would always try and cultivate multiple points of contact at the company using LinkedIn. For instance, I’ll routinely call Director of Sales, Director of Sales Ops, VP’s of Sales and Marketing, Lead Gen, Inside Sales Managers, and on the list goes. If you feel confident they would benefit from your service then hit them all until somebody that sounds informed either tells you they’re already working with a similar product, they have no need, or there’s no budget.
If you’re confident they’re a fit for what you’re selling, then there should be no hesitation to try their personal cell a few times, especially if they give it out in their direct dial voicemail message. I recently cold called one of the SVP’s at a large recruiting firm this way. He asked if I know what he does, as if nobody should have the audacity to call such a person. But at the end of the day he still told me who I should reach out and I was able to quickly get in touch with the guy and set something up.
Richard Harris: A good SDR / AE will have a break up email to help prevent wasting their own time and their prospects. Will not always get a response but sometimes you have to ask for the “no”.
Sean H. Heyboer: It depends. Did they coming knocking on your door or are your outbound cold prospecting? If they’re inbound a good cadence would be 6 calls and 5 emails, properly timed and spaced out. Outbound is a different animal. Some experts suggest up to 22 touch points, whether it be email, calls, social interactions etc. I often times space those out over a longer period of time knowing that it’s more of a marathon rather than a sprint.
Michael A Brown: The prospect’s perception becomes their reality. If, to them, persistence becomes harassment or stalking, then any opportunity goes away. There is no known “magic number” of attempts, which is why “how often” and “in which combination of media” are more important than “how many.”
Do not try to fit prospects’ time frames to your company’s reporting periods. Doing so leads to frustration at best, inappropriate selling pressure and lost business at worst. Instead, augment your “persistent professional balance” with healthy respect for time.
Where to “draw the line?” Two main ways to know: first, when you learn that circumstances at the prospect organization make doing any business unlikely or unprofitable. For example, they are entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Second, when the prospect organization no longer does what your product/service enables. For example, a company selling jet engine noise-suppression kits learns that their target airline has sold all its airplanes that could use such kits.
Greg Pietruszynski: A lot of great tips here, especially on contacting multiple decision makers and break up email. When someone is even slightly interested and I qualified her as a sales opportunity, I will basically never give up. I think that the most important thing is carrying about the number of follow ups, but focusing on the content instead. If you’re trying to be helpful, write emails based on the events at customers’ company or even your own events – you have a new feature that would be helpful, you have a similar customer success story to share, etc. I also experiment with sharing some content I consider helpful, or even create “imaginary events” such as: “I talked with a customer and they told me [what they told must be relevant to the customer]. From my experience it’s good to be persistent, but you should avoid being pushy.
It’s a marathon as Sean just said! Here’s an example of my follow-up campaign:
* Email
* Call
* LinkedIn invitation
* Second email
* Second call
* LinkedIn message
* Third email
* Third call
I also try to look at their tweets and Linkedin updates, as there always a chance for interaction. Sounds like a lot of work, but it’s worth it :)
What are your thoughts? When does persistence turn into harassment? Comment below!
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