As practitioners of the modern sales process, we know that it can still be exhausting to be on the front-line of the selling cycle. Even a well-oiled cadence can be exhausting: a string of ignored emails, dropped calls, and endless unreturned voicemails. The real issue here is that in today’s influx of communication platforms, quality sales prospects are getting harder and harder to reach.
From email, to phone, to social touch points, it can take at least 8 attempts to connect with a viable sales qualified lead. The problem here is that as the sales cycle has lengthened, and many reps have lost that loving feeling, moving their cadences in the opposite direction, reaching out to their prospects only two times, at best.
But the right amount of persistence can be the determining factor behind connecting with your prospects if you take each step as a unique opportunity to sell with sincerity, add value to their day, and reach the buyers in your ideal client profile (ICP) that will actually convert.
Know How to Identify and Treat Your Prospects Accordingly
What’s that you say about ICP? From the qualifying terms that make a prospect an ideal fit for your product, to their stage in the buying process, a certain amount of nurturing may need to take place to make sure they’re qualified and prepared for the sales handoff.
For example, some prospects are just dipping their toes in their sales stack discovery process. And whether they’re new to the company, new to a position, or just plain green to the entire SaaS industry, one thing is for sure: they’re not ready to buy. Getting their attention is going to take more than it would for someone on the hunt for the perfect addition to their sales stack.
Take the sales-ready leads, for example. They may be in the market for new sales enablement tools to help them in their process, but they may not be sure which solutions, yet. They’re shopping, they’re researching — they’re planning out their stack — and you want in. This is where the true cadence begins and lead nurturing comes into play.
Throughout your sales cadence, you need to cover all of your bases to ensure connection with these prospects. From sending them valuable content, to question answering and objection handling — this is where you’re building a rapport that eventually leads to qualification.
Know How to Qualify Your Leads
For both inbound and outbound sales, it’s key to know how to qualify your leads to prepare them to move on in the modern sales process. But what exactly is a sales qualified lead? Most Sales Development Reps are dying to get a decisionmaker on the phone on try #1, but most of the people you reach likely have little to no authority to buy.
That’s why the best practice for sales qualification is the ANUM model. As an SDR, your responsibility is to qualify prospects based on the first two sets of the ANUM model, Authority and Need. That’s where you need to find out if the prospect has the following before passing on to the Account Executive:
1. Authority. Can they sign? Were they asked to look into this solution by their manager? Do they hold the credit card?
2. Need. Do they have a sales team? Are they actively searching for a tool to add to their tech stack?
But back to the time it takes to connect — you’re likely not going to get these answers on the first call. Getting to the bottom of these questions is going to take some time, and it all goes back to aligning your messaging with your prospects. Keeping this alignment in mind when going through your cadences will give you a better chance of connecting with a lead at the right time in their process, and thus qualifying them for sales.
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Know How to Resonate with Your Buyers
Aligning your messaging is important, but knowing how to creatively connect with buyers is just as crucial. The people you’re reaching out to may be at the top of your lead list, but odds are, they’re at the top of every rep’s lead list in your competitive market. And while they’re being inundated with emails, blog feeds, and cold calls every single day, they’re becoming immune to the endless barrage of sales outreach.
That’s why stepping outside of the LinkedIn comfort zone and using other platforms like Twitter and Slack in your sales attempts is going to give you a better chance at resonating with qualified buyers. By adding personalization, creativity, and variety, even in the smallest ways like choice of medium, can cut through noise your buyers hear everyday.
While the outside perception may be that modern business moves quickly, the reality is actually that it moves quite slowly. You have to be able to cut through the noise to reach those ideal customers, or at least be organized and persistent enough to break through over time.
And sales engagement platforms like Salesloft can help you monitor exactly where your prospects are in your sales cadence, how many times they’ve been contacted, and what should be done next. But instead of sorting through a CRM to find which leads need to be contacted that day — Salesloft compiles them for you, along with exactly what you should say to elicit a response from your buyer.
So next time you lose confidence in your modern sales process, consider taking a chance on a solution like Salesloft, and always remember that it takes at least 8 attempts to connect with a sales qualified lead. So take your time, personalize, and make it count — your pipeline will thank you.
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