Setting the Sales Prospecting Stage and Getting it Right
When you are setting the stage to reach out to your qualified prospect, you must think out of the box about your outreach channels and methods.
Whether hyper-personalizing your message or using an alternate outreach channel, you must remember that other sales reps will be ready to copy your outreach method's success once you have used that alternative method. This will overcrowd your prospect and muddy the waters.
As a professional salesperson, you must keep thinking differently, out of the box, to get that prospect's attention. In today's world, emails are so popular; cold calling is so popular, and outreach on LinkedIn is widespread. So, how do you differentiate?
Looking at less competitive channels with less noise is essential in today's world to build those business relationships. How about sending a personalized handwritten letter or personalizing your email using strong personalization triggers, sending a personalized gift, or an outreach video? Personalize your outreach so that your emails stand out compared to someone else.
Thinking out of the box is constantly needed when it comes to sales.
Prepare Your Outreach
We are long past the years where a generic outreach email or an unresearched cold call will land a sales rep clients. Step two of setting the stage is researching your prospect and their company to prepare your outreach strategy and talking points. To do this you need access to accurate company data.
To prospect successfully, Owler has three different account options available, from the FREE community account, to the team-focused Owler Max, with Hubspot, Salesforce, and Slack integrations.
The core fundamentals of sales have not changed, and the one thing that has always worked well outside of using alternative channels when reaching out is talking more about the other person than you talk about yourself, whether you are cold emailing or cold calling, or using other sales prospecting techniques in your outreach. That switch in focus itself is a pattern interrupt and a great way to build new business.
"One of the things that I like to do at the beginning of a cold call is not to pitch my solution. For example, I wouldn't say, 'Hey, the reason I was giving you a call is that we sell sales training, and we work with companies, as you know, Gong, and I'd love to set aside some time where we could talk about training your team.' That has never been a very effective approach!" said Jason Bay, Chief Prospecting Officer at Blissful Prospecting.
You have to admit, that's still what most sales reps do! Let's reverse that and talk about what people like your clients tend to focus on. That small change is a winning strategy that can be applied across email, phone, social, or whatever channel you choose.
Let's try it!
Example opener: "Hey, I talk to many VPs of sales. Typically, they share with me one of two things. One of those things is they're trying to create more diversity in their pipeline. So they want their AEs to rely less on inbound and SDRs and do some more self-sourcing in their sales pipeline. The other thing I hear is a focus on starting the sales process higher up the food chain, so getting more meetings with VPs and C-levels. Are either of those two things a focus for you right now?"
Doesn't that seem a lot better? It's more successful, according to Bay. Talking about things that are important to your prospect and things in their world first is an essential reach-out strategy in modern selling.
Flipping the conversation and focusing on the prospect's needs and pain points - that's still a pattern interrupt. Most sales reps still talk about their stuff, their product, their solution, and how it works. Talking about the other person, regardless of the channel, that's the best way to differentiate yourself.
Another critical thing to remember is to listen for cues. For example, you could be standing in a grocery line; you don't just walk up to somebody and start telling them something. You listen for cues and things to speak about; how do I engage with somebody when they're talking about something they care about? Don't come in and push your agenda. Listen to what someone is saying and take your cues from what they are saying.
Preparing correctly for your first outreach is essential. This part of setting the stage is the most important. If you skip the research on your prospect and their business, you are dropping your chances of success by over 20%.
The Sales Mindset
This step of setting the stage is having the right mindset. The most important attitude to have as a sales rep is curiosity. It's about going into a sales call or writing an outreach email with a thought process: I'm here to listen; I'm not here to talk. Anytime you go out, approach with that mindset of 'I'm here to solve your problems. I'm here to understand those problems, and I'm here to help you get to that endpoint'. That's the right mindset. It's ideal to go in and reach out to somebody when you have this frame of mind.
The second part of having the right mindset is prepping for rejection. When you're talking to prospects over the phone on cold calls, you will get rejected a lot. That's just what happens in sales.
Sales reps get rejected more than they succeed. The best salespeople in the world don't typically close a higher percentage of people, whether that's into a meeting or a sale than they lose; we lose more often than we win.
Being able to come in with the mindset that it's okay to hear 'no,' it is okay to get rejected, and not everyone will want my help. Not everyone is going to have a problem you can solve. As a sales rep, you can do all the possible research on this person and spend a lot of time getting the pitch angled perfectly, but they may not want help.
Our Tips for Setting the Prospecting Stage:
Use alternative outreach methods
Prepare your personalization angles and topics
Talk about them, not you
Be curious
Prepare yourself to accept rejection and embrace it
Our recent webinar, ‘Perfect Your Prospecting Funnel’, investigated the four steps of developing a successful sales funnel. Dubbed S.P.R.C, setting the stage is step one. See the live commentary below by Sales Leader Jason Bay from Blissful Prospecting, Sandeep Thiruvoypadi Mohan from Outplay, and our very own Nathan Steele from Owler - A Meltwater Offering. The event was moderated by Derick Jenkins, Head fo Marketing at Owler.
