Categories
Tactical Selling

5 steps to booking meetings when you’re too busy to prospect

5 steps to booking meetings when you’re too busy to prospect

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share a simple system you can use to book meetings when you’re too busy to prospect. If you can follow these steps, you’ll become less dependent on inbound leads and SDR-sourced opportunities, and you’ll set yourself for success in 2024 and beyond.

Here’s how, step-by-step:

Step 1: If you’re too busy to prospect, you’re doing something wrong

When I became a manager (I was also carrying my own quota), I thought I was done prospecting for good. It was a mistake. I ended up without pipeline and missed my personal targets 2 quarters in a row.

As prospects have more and more tools to protect them from spammy salespeople, it’s getting harder than ever to start conversations with them. You need more skills, more experience, and better systems to book meetings. And relying on SDRs who often have limited sales experience is a good way to loose control over your pipeline.

If you’re in sales and you don’t prospect, you’re doing something wrong.

Step 2: Block some time in your calendar, every day

Knowing that you need to prospect isn’t enough. You need a system.

The first step to building a prospecting system is to protect your time with a recurring prospecting block. It can be as short as 30 minutes per day, or as long as needed to reach your targets.

For example, I prospect from 08:30 AM to 09:00 AM every morning. No one can book me during this time, it’s my sacred prospecting ritual. Doing it daily helps me stay in touch with my market and keep conversations flowing without delay.

Step 3: Start with follow-ups

Let’s be honest. Prospecting is no fun. It’s the one thing I dread the most when waking up, yet it’s the best thing I can do for the health of my business.

A good way to get over the initial reluctance to prospect is to start with follow-ups. For example, I start my prospecting block by opening my prospecting tracker, finding prospects I need to follow-up with, and getting rid of the list of follow-up tasks I have for the day.

This helps create momentum, because it’s so much easier than looking for prospects, finding a good trigger, and crafting a solid outbound message.

Step 4: Find 5 prospects

With your follow-ups done, you are now warmed up to work on the most time-intensive part of the prospecting process. I personally go after 5 prospects, because I found that it is enough for me to book 2-3 outbound meetings a week, but you can calculate that number with my Sales Process Calculator.

There are countless ways of finding prospects. My favorite is using prospect’s LinkedIn activity as a trigger.

Step 5: Contact them

This part of the process is like filling up the tank of your car. By adding new prospects to your sequence daily, you make sure you have enough fuel to keep your prospecting engine running.

You need to make sure your first outbound message is creative, contextual, and personalized. Here’s a resource to help you do just that.

And these are 5 steps to booking meetings when you’re too busy to prospect. I’m currently working on a whole new prospecting course for 2024, and I’m going to build it in public. If you’re intrigued, go check it out and join the waitlist here.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 5 ways I can help you:

→ Learn how to use AI to book meetings here (190+ students)
 
→ Build your outbound prospecting system from scratch here (300+ students)


→ 
Write cold messages that get a 38% reply rate and 27% meeting rate here (90+ students)

→ Sponsor my content & get 41K+ eyeballs on your ad

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.

Categories
Tactical Selling

3 reasons outbound will never be the same

3 reasons outbound will never be the same

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share 3 reasons why outbound prospecting will never be the same, and what you can do about it. If you can accept these changes, forget scale, and focus on starting quality conversations, then you’ll book more meetings, and create more opportunities as a result.

Let’s dive in:

Reason #1: Email Service Providers are cracking down on mass emails

If you opened LinkedIn in the last few days, you may have seen an email sent from Outreach to their customers. In short, it shared new limitations from Outreach to protect the deliverability of emails, imposed by restrictions from Google and Yahoo.

These new limitations mean that if more than 0.3% of your emails are marked as spam, then all emails sent from your domain will be blocked by Google and Yahoo.

This is excellent news. It will translate into less spam for prospects, and leave more space to good emails from salespeople who take the time to do their research, and focus on starting conversations.

What you can do about it:

  • Rebuild your Outreach System with a focus on getting replies
  • Focus on prospects’ problems and use them in your messages
  • Double down on LinkedIn prospecting and cold calling (but stay focused on quality)

You can use my New Outreach System to do all that. It’s 50% off for Black Friday with code “B9YK8H7”.

Reason #2: AI is making salespeople exponentially efficient

AI (and specifically ChatGPT) have brought massive changes to the world of sales. Instead of replacing salespeople, AI allows them to become more efficient. For example, you can use AI to:

These tasks are common for salespeople, and they often take hours to perform. With AI, salespeople are able to do this in a few minutes, so they can focus on tasks that require them to be creative, or interact with customers.

What you can do about it:

  • Get familiar with common AI use-cases for prospecting
  • Work AI into your daily prospecting system
  • Find out what not to do with AI

You can use my AI Outreach System to do all that. It’s 50% off for Black Friday with code “B9YK8H7”.

Reason #3: Data is (almost always) freely available

This last point is the main reason outbound prospecting has changed forever. In the past, salespeople didn’t have access to much information about their prospects. They typically knew about their names, phones numbers, and emails.

Nowadays, you can find a ton of “digital footprint” online. You can go on LinkedIn, see what posts prospects reacted to, gather data on their companies, find out their company headcount, and countless other data points. You can then use this data as a triggers in your cold outreach.

Yet, most salespeople ignore these triggers and put prospects into cookie-cutter sequences. And this brought us to the situation we are in right now; prospects don’t reply anymore, and SDRs are being laid-off in droves.

What you can do about it:

  • Get familiar with triggers you should use in your outreach
  • Stop sending automated sequences
  • Focus on starting conversations

I’m currently working on a course to help you book more meetings, and create opportunities from outbound in 2024. Join the waitlist if you want to learn more about it.

These are 3 reasons why outbound prospecting will never be the same. You can choose to ignore this and keep using the same old playbook, or you can adapt to the seismic shift we’re going through.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ (NEW) Grab my Black Friday Discount (50% off on all online courses)
  • Learn how to use AI to book meetings here ($99 instead of $199 with code “B9YK8H7”)
  • Build your outbound prospecting system from scratch here ($74 instead of $149 with code “B9YK8H7”)
  • Write cold messages that get a 38% reply rate and 27% meeting rate here ($49 instead of $99 with code “B9YK8H7”)
→ Sponsor my content & get 41K+ eyeballs on your ad

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.

Categories
Tactical Selling

I built a Prospecting Template Assistant with ChatGPT

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by:

Zeliq, the all-in-one sales solution powered by AI that gives you access to over 1.8 Billion prospects database with free unlimited email enrichment. Try it for free now.

I built a Prospecting Template Assistant with ChatGPT

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share why I built a Prospecting Template Assistant, and I’ll show you how I use it to make any top-performing email, connection request, or cold call script my own. If you can replicate this process, you’ll be able to turn any cold message example into a message you can use to book your meetings.

Here’s how, step-by-step:

Step 1: Download my Swipe File

If your LinkedIn feed looks like mine, you should see a ton of brilliant examples of cold emails, cold call scripts, and connection requests you can use for outbound prospecting, on a daily basis. However, applying these examples to what you sell can be challenging.

That’s why I have created a Prospecting Template Swipe File. It’s a collection of top-performing emails, messages, and cold call script templates. I update it every week with the examples I find on LinkedIn.

Step 2: Pick a template that applies to you

Now that you have access to the swipe file, you can choose between 20+ different templates (and more every week). I’ll pick the “Ghosted Email” from Florin Tatulea as an example:

Part 1: Example

Tim – recall you wanted to have benchmarking data in place by the end of Oct so that the team has the market data they need to run the compensation review starting Nov 1.

Typically when we don’t hear back from somebody for 1-2 weeks after sending a proposal they either selected another vendor or gave up on the project altogether.

Is this the case on your end?

Part 2: Template

Reminder: {First Name} – recall you wanted to have {initiative} in place by {deadline} so that the team has {desired outcome} starting {final deadline}.

Labelling: Typically when we don’t hear back from somebody for 1-2 weeks after sending a proposal they either selected another vendor or gave up on the project altogether.

Question: Is this the case on your end?

As you can see, the first part is an example, followed by a templatized version with variables. All you need to do is change the variables with the context of what you sell. You can do it manually, or let my Prospecting Template Assistant do it for you.

Step 3: Copy/paste the prompt in The Prospecting Template Assistant

In the swipe file, you’ll see a column named “Template Assistant Prompt”. It’s a prompt you can copy paste into The Prospecting Template Assistant to help you turn the message into your own. Here’s a quick tour of the assistant:

As you can see, this assistant guides you through simple steps to turn any templatized message into your own. It’s pretty rudimentary, which is why I’m looking for people to test it and share their feedback. If you’re interested in testing it, you can access it here.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ (NEW) Grab my Black Friday Discount (50% off on all online courses)
  • Learn how to use AI to book meetings here ($99 instead of $199)
  • Build your outbound prospecting system from scratch here ($74 instead of $149)
  • Write cold messages that get a 38% reply rate and 27% meeting rate here ($49 instead of $99)
→ Sponsor my content & get 41K+ eyeballs on your ad

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.

Categories
Tactical Selling

3 steps to turning ChatGPT into your sales assistant

I’m planning to release a new course to help you book more meetings in 2024. Would you mind telling me about your biggest challenge as you look into the next 12 months?

3 steps to turning ChatGPT into your sales assistant

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share the exact 3 steps I follow to turn ChatGPT into my personal sales assistant. If you follow this system, you’ll stop using ChatGPT for futile use-cases, gain efficiency, and focus on standing out in the mailbox of your prospects (which is hard in 2023).

Here’s how, step-by-step:

Step 1: Give ChatGPT custom instructions

A few months ago, ChatGPT introduced custom instructions. This feature is extremely useful for providing context to ChatGPT and training it to respond in a way that best suits you. By clicking on your name and selecting “Custom instructions,” you’ll access the following screen:

The first box is designed to provide context for ChatGPT. Here, you should share as much information as you can about your intended use of ChatGPT. Rather than focusing on the tips provided by ChatGPT, consider including the following elements:

  • What you use ChatGPT for
  • How you organize the conversations
  • Who are your customers
  • What problems you solve for them
  • How you solve these problems

Here are my custom instructions:

“I am using ChatGPT as a personal assistant to help me run my solopreneur business. This involves using it for the following tasks:

  • brainstorm ideas and tactics on cold outreach
  • research prospects’ problems
  • find relevant information about my prospects by submitting large data sets and getting ChatGPT to identify relevant elements
  • feeding examples of good prospecting templates, and adapting them to what I sell

Each task is handled in a separate conversation, which I consider as an expert. I start the conversation with specific instructions and templates I can refer to. I come back to this conversation whenever its expertise is needed.

I typically work with the following types of customers:

  • Tech companies selling B2B software (SaaS) to help salespeople
  • Tech companies based in North America and EMEA
  • C-level, VP, and Directors of marketing/demand generation
  • I also sell online courses to individual contributors (SDRs, AEs) in tech selling B2B software (SaaS)

I help these customers solve the following problems:

  • difficulties building awareness in the tech sales market
  • difficulties getting enough leads
  • Low reply rates
  • No consistency in their results
  • Missed meeting or sales targets

I do it with the following products:

  • Sponsoring slots on my content (LinkedIn, newsletter, podcast)
  • Co-branded lead magnets and webinars
  • Online courses that can be purchased by Individual Contributors”

The second box allows you to define the way ChatGPT replies to you. Here’s mine for example:

“Unless stated otherwise, this is how I want ChatGPT to reply:

  • avoid any buzzwords and acronyms
  • a 12 year old should understand the answers
  • don’t provide any long explanation of limitations you have
  • be super direct and straightforward in your answers
  • don’t use corporate jargon and elusive sentences
  • act like the most honest and direct person. You don’t have filters

Overall, my goal is to get my answers as fast as I can, without chit chatting. When possible, format your answers with clear headers and bullet points.”

Step 2: Use each conversation for one task

Now that ChatGPT is familiar with how you use it, it’s crucial to organize your conversations. I suggest dedicating each conversation to a specific task. For instance, one conversation could serve as a Connection Request Builder Assistant, while another could function as a Cold Call Script Assistant, and so on. Here’s how my Sidebar looks like:

Step 3: Train your assistants with an initial prompt

The last step is the initial training of your assistants. Your goal is to:

  • Give specific instructions to ChatGPT
  • Show an example of the prompt you will use
  • Create a code section you can copy/paste whenever you need the assistant.

Here’s how my Message Template Builder looks like:

Every time I need the assistant, I can scroll to the top of the conversation and copy/paste the code in the chat box.

And these are 3 steps you can follow to turn ChatGPT into your personal sales assistant. There are tons of different assistants you can build if you follow these 3 steps, but make sure to use ChatGPT to help you become more efficient, not to scale crappy outreach messages.

Before you go, I’m planning to release a new course to help you book more meetings in 2024. Would you mind telling me about your biggest challenge as you look into the next 12 months?

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 5 ways I can help you:

 
→ Learn how to use AI to book meetings here (175+ students)
 
→ Build your outbound prospecting system from scratch here (250+ students)


→ 
Write cold messages that get a 38% reply rate and 27% meeting rate here (75+ students)

→ Sponsor my content & get 41K+ eyeballs on your ad

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.