Your buyers’ inboxes these days, in a word:
loud.
You know the story. COVID-19 came, everyone had to sell virtually. The amount of virtual sales outreach exploded. And now, with sales teams across the globe feeling the pinch of a tight economy, it hasn’t relented.
Buyers have had enough. Reply rates have plummeted, email providers are increasingly marking sales outreach as spam, and the gap between seller and buyer has never felt wider.
And we haven’t even mentioned AI, which could take this to a whole new level.
It’s clear what won’t work: more noise. More mass, irrelevant, generic outreach. More “personalization at scale,” aka putting someone’s name in the subject line.
But what will work?
We asked some of the most innovative sales leaders and sales consultants going today via our How I Sell series that exact question. Here’s what they said:
1. It all begins and ends with adding value.
The biggest theme from person after person we interviewed: the more value you can provide to your buyers, the more successful you’ll be.
That means:
- Building out your brand on LinkedIn, by sharing valuable content your buyers will want to engage with.
- When sending virtual outreach, offer something of value – at times with no expectation of anything in return. For example, here’s a great ebook on the state of (prospect’s industry). Here’s an interesting article on how AI will disrupt said industry.
- When cold calling, again, it’s critical to come in with a strong hypothesis about how you can add value. It’s not enough to just ask buyers what’s keeping them up at night; instead, come in with a perspective on what you believe is keeping them up at night based on what you know about their industry.
“Add value,” Brandwatch Chief Business Officer Channing Ferrer told us. “That’s the most important thing. So, let’s start with adding value by bringing some sort of industry insight.”
“I encourage our teams to do their homework,” MuckRack CRO Bryan Hamblin said. “Everybody says do your research. But we say do the homework that can really distinguish you from what I'll call the surface-level research that comes from reading a website or reading a bio. I’m talking about the deep stuff that really shows you understand prospects and customers. To do that, you need to give your customers the answer to the assignment they didn’t even know they had.”
2. Specificity sells!
Building off the last bullet, multiple interviewees made this same point: riches in the niches. Be specific in your outreach, and you’ll have a much better chance of breaking through.
“You need to be specific,” Skaled Consulting CRO Jake Dunlap said. “It isn’t enough to know what the challenges of a VP of operations in manufacturing are, for example. Because the challenges of a VP of operations in industrial manufacturing are far different than the challenges of a VP of operations in consumer packaged goods manufacturing… Point is, if you show people that you understand their day-to-day and you understand their challenges, you will cut through the noise. And you will win.”
“If you can be specific about their biggest challenges tied to their business problems, you can help solve their issues by letting them talk it out,” Bell VP of Sales Dee Ann Lama said. “Then you can brainstorm with them and tie your offer to their needs, ideally bringing forth data and insights that are specific to that client. If you can do that, you provide real value to the client.”
3. Don’t put all of your energy into one channel or one format.
Everyone is doing email these days. One way you can stand out is to experiment with new channels or new formats.
For example, interviewees suggested:
- Cold calling, which few reps are willing to do consistently, and therefore you’ll face less competition.
- Building a strong LinkedIn presence, so your best leads come to you.
- Using video and audio notes in InMails and emails, which stands out from the usual text.
- Be creative!
The Daily Sales Founder Daniel Disney, for example, told us that he went through 500 pieces of sales outreach he received. Of those, “I believe only one of those 500 InMails was a video message, and one was an audio message. That represents an opportunity.”
“A lot of sales reps hide behind email,” 30 Minutes to Presidents’ Club Founder Nick Cegelski added. “Don’t get me wrong, email is important, but if you really want to stand out, you need to go where other people aren’t.”
Hard to argue with that.
4. Have a reason for reaching out to who you are reaching out to.
A shortcut to improving your prospecting – reach out to the people who you can help the most. Interviewee after interviewee told us don’t go broad. Instead, learn who your ideal buyer is, and target that persona.
“Go after good-fit companies,” Ferrer said. “Don’t just spray-and-pray. Really do your research, figure out who are the best fits for your offering, and then target folks in those companies.”
JB Sales CEO John Barrows took it one step further, calling it the “give a crap” factor. His point: for your highest-priority accounts, you need to have a legitimate “why” for reaching out.
“I tell reps to pick out their top accounts,” Barrows said. “And I’ll ask them, other than their demographic information, what about that company gets you excited? Is it their values? Is it what they do? The market they serve? Find that genuine reason, because once you find that you stop seeing that account as just a number or a cadence or a phone you have to call. Now, instead, your messaging comes alive; it’s authentic, it’s genuine.”
5. Despite all the advice, don’t forget to be yourself.
Yes, you should be laser-focused on your customer. Yes, you should aim to add as much value to them as possible.
But interviewee after interviewee made the same point – do that without losing sight of who you are.
“Everybody has their opinion on what prospecting hack works best,” National Association of Women Sales Professionals CEO Cynthia Barnes told us. “And that’s all well and good. But here's the challenge with that: there's no authenticity in those messages.
"I can tell when a message like that is coming at me, and it doesn’t feel right," she continued. "The reason you're in a sales role is because your leadership thinks that you are the best one to do the job out of all the other candidates. So how dare you squash or squander the authenticity that makes you fabulous? The biggest mistake I see people making is leaving their authenticity at the door. Write an email or make the phone call as who you are. The right people will get on board with you.”
“I’ll give you an example,” Revenue Funnel CEO Hannah Ajikawo said, who coaches sales professionals. “I was working with a client recently who juggles. I was like, just juggle. Send your prospects a video where you juggling is the thumbnail. They will be like ‘What’s going on here? But you are really good. It’s quite crazy in fact how good you are at juggling.’ For him, he said he’d never think about doing that. And I said, ‘That’s because you’re trying to think of ways to not be yourself’.”
Aside from the last point, which is all you, Sales Navigator can help you break through the noise and connect with that next great lead. For the sake of brevity, will focus on two features that do exactly that:
- Advanced Search. Search through LinkedIn’s one billion members to find the best leads based on their company, geography, title, seniority or even recent job changes in just a few moments. And after setting up your Personas and uploading your book of business in the platform, Advanced Search becomes your best friend, providing not just a list of all your relevant leads, but also the warmest paths for starting a conversation with these people.
- Account IQ. Using Advanced Search, you’ve identified your next best prospect. But what do you say to them? Or how do you show up prepared for your next customer meeting? Find out what their organization cares most about – in a click – with Account IQ, so you can send a targeted, personalized message that breaks through the noise.
Learn more about Sales Navigator here. To hear more from some of the world’s top sales voices, follow our How I Sell newsletter.
Topics: Sales strategy
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