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Tactical Selling Uncategorized

5 steps to building your prospecting routine

5 steps to building your prospecting routine

Sales is a profession filled with clichés. From movies like The Wolf of Wall Street to Glengarry Glen Ross, most people think we’re money-thirsty, always grinding, sharks.

Sales, and prospecting in particular, is not about hard work.

It’s about consistency. About showing up every day and tackling repetitive, boring tasks.

It’s like a gym workout. If you work out for a week and stop, you’ll get no results. If you show up every day for months, you’ll create a habit, and you’ll see compounding results over time.

In today’s newsletter, I’m going to show you how to build that prospecting routine.

Let’s dive in.

1. Define your cruising altitude:

Prospecting without knowing how many people to contact daily is a recipe for failure.

There’s a simple way to fix that. Start by figuring out what’s your target. Maybe you need to book a certain amount of meeting, or your need to generate opportunities. Then, get a rough estimate of your meeting rate and reply rate.

You’ll be able to convert your target into a number of prospects you need to contact. Just divide this by the number of days you’ll be working in that period and you have your daily activity.

You can use my Sales Process Calculator to do what I did above.

2. Build a prospecting ritual

Rituals are incredibly important in sales. We have weekly sales meetings, offsites, sales kickoffs, and president clubs.

But the most important ritual is often forgotten: a prospecting block. Block 30-60 minutes every day at the same time. You can add as many prospecting blocks as you want, based on the effort you need to reach your cruising altitude.

Most reps do not protect their times and end up dragged into useless meetings (often from their bosses). They end up with no pipeline, they prospect like crazy for a few days, only to finish burnt out.

Here’s how my prospecting schedule looks like:

My prospecting schedule

3. Follow up every day

Most replies come from following up.

Prospects are busy. They often receive outreach messages or calls while they’re in meetings. If you don’t follow up, you’ll end up missing most of your opportunities to book meetings.

Instead, make sure you have a system to track your follow-ups. Here’s how mine looks like:

My prospecting tracker

Interested in my prospecting tracker it? You can get it here.

4. Find and add new prospects every day

Spending days building a lead list is a great way to miss to your targets.

If you need 200 new prospects per week to reach your cruising altitude, you may spend a whole day to find these leads and create your lead list. You can also break this into 5 blocks and spend 2 hours finding 40 leads, then 2 hours contacting them.

Contacting new prospects every day is like refuelling a car. If you run out of leads, your outbound engine will stop working.

5. Trust the process

Good things take time. Building a solid outreach system is a good thing, and it requires patience.

Instead of worrying about not seeing immediate results, stick to your process and give it a few weeks. A great thing about prospecting is that you don’t need to be incredibly talented or smart to get results. Start by setting a high input (add 20% to your cruising altitude) and see what comes out of it.

After a few weeks, tweak your sequence and messaging to see if your reply rate increases. Once you fixed your reply rate, tweak your conversations to increase your meeting rate.

It’s that simple.

Follow these 5 steps and you’ll be successful

Build your prospecting routine like your would build a new habit. Over time, you can add fancy tools and tactics.

When getting started?

Keep it simple.

TL;DR:

1. Define your input.
2. Protect your schedule.
3. Execute on your follow-ups.
4. Find enough new prospects daily.
5. Enjoy the journey, tweak after a few weeks.

Cheers,

Thibaut

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you.

 

→ Grab my 5-star course, The New Outreach System: How I use LinkedIn to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate. Buy it here.

→Work 1:1 with me:
 If you need help booking more meetings, I can help you. We’ll go through your current situation and what’s not working. We’ll build an action plan to land you more meetings and more money in your pocketBook me here.

→ Need training or coaching for your SDR or AE team? Let’s talk: If you’re managing a team but they are struggling to reach their targets, then I can help. Book an audit call with me and we’ll come up with a plan. Book your call here.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

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Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

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Tactical Selling Uncategorized

My go-to tactic to book meetings with decision-makers

My go-to tactic to book meetings with decision-makers

Today I’m going to show you how to generate opportunities with decision-makers (Above The Line buyers as we call them with the ProActive Selling methodology).

You will discover the exact playbook I used to get a 39% reply rate from VPs of Sales and CROs, and how I got 75% of them to join an online roundtable I organized.

Unfortunately, most SDRs do not try this tactic because it looks a lot more complicated than it is.

The prospecting tactics you use today won’t work tomorrow

When I see SDRs prospecting, they are just copying existing tactics without ever updating them.

  • They use the same scripts as everyone else.

  • They use the same old channels.

  • They never try new tactics.

I’m going to share how you can avoid these traps and use a new play that actually works.

Here’s how, step by step:

Step 1: Plan a 45 minute online roundtable

Gathering business leaders of a similar industry is a simple way to create value. They love exchanging with peers and measuring how they compare with others.

You can block 45 to 60 minutes 4 weeks from now, so you’ll have enough time to prospect and gather participants.

Here’s an example of a simple roundtable agenda:

  • Intro (5 min)

  • Survey results (5 min)

  • Roundtable (30)

  • Wrap up (5 min)

Step 2: Build a survey to send to the participants

The problem with most roundtables is the content. Without guidance, it gets super boring, and participants often decide to skip it, even if they said they would attend.

To avoid that, you can create a simple multiple choice survey with the following questions:

  • How was your {previous quarter performance} vs your plan?

  • What are you implementing for {next quarter} and beyond?

  • How are you {current quarter goals} vs {previous quarter goals}?

  • What are you hiring plans for {next quarter} and beyond?

  • What’s your biggest risk for {next quarter}?

Feel free to add any relevant question for your industry, as well as collecting data that will make the roundtable more interesting.

Step 3: Build a sequence to invite decision-makers to the roundtable

Now that you have your roundtable and survey concept, you just need to create a few touchpoints to invite your prospects.

Here’s an example of the latest sequence I have used for a sales leader roundtable:

Roundtable sequence

Step 4: Run the roundtable

If you’ve followed all the steps, you should have a few leaders of your industry gathered at your roundtable.

Some of them may have to cancel or won’t show up, but the ones who fill-in the survey typically show up as they want to know the results.

Your job during the roundtable it simple:

  • Run introductions

  • Present the survey results

  • Facilitate conversations

You’re not there to pitch your solution or try to book individual meetings during the roundtable. You’re there to identify problems and network.

Step 5: Follow-up after the roundtable

When the roundtable is over, you have built relationships with all the participants (and the people who accepted the roundtable but didn’t show up), and you can do a quick follow-up.

Send an individual email to each participant. I love including a video, or even using LinkedIn.

Here’s what you should include:

  • Results of the survey

  • Key learnings from the conversation

  • Invitation to the next roundtable (you can do them quarterly)

  • A simple call-to-action, asking if the participant is interested in a quick chat to explore their problems in depth, and see if you can help

These are the exact steps you can take to create solid opportunities with decision-makers.

And if you’re interested in receiving one new prospecting tactic like this one every month, you should check my Monthly Prospecting Plays. Every first week of the month, I share a play that I have been using with detailed video explanations, a worksheet, and templates you can use.

These plays are reserved to people who have purchased the New Outreach System, and they cost €9 per month. Just purchase the system and you’ll get an option to subscribe for the plays with the purchase confirmation.

Cheers,

Thibaut

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you.

 

→ Grab my 5-star course, The New Outreach System: How I use LinkedIn to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate. Buy it here.

→Work 1:1 with me:
 If you need help booking more meetings, I can help you. We’ll go through your current situation and what’s not working. We’ll build an action plan to land you more meetings and more money in your pocketBook me here.

→ Need training or coaching for your SDR or AE team? Let’s talk: If you’re managing a team but they are struggling to reach their targets, then I can help. Book an audit call with me and we’ll come up with a plan. Book your call here.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

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Tactical Selling Uncategorized

Why prospecting tools aren’t your friends

Why prospecting tools aren’t your friends

A common myth in our profession is that the latest, shiniest prospecting tools are critical to beat our competition and book more meetings.

If you’ve been in sales for a while, you know there are countless tools to help us do our job better. From CRMs to sequencers, to AI-driven lead research tools, there are thousands of options to help us start more conversations. I cannot think of another profession with more tools for each part of the job.

And this is wrong because it takes the focus away from doing what really matters.

Prospecting tools are just tools.

Most SDRs I work with have a hard time reaching their targets, even when they have the latest, most comprehensive sales enablement tech stack.

They come up to me and show their 16 touchpoint sequence, their automated follow ups, and their massive lead lists. They mention video prospecting tools they have access to, they play with personalized Gifs, or even think of launching a TikTok channel to create content on LinkedIn.

The problem?

They put all their energy on trying all the tools in their toolbox, and they forget to focus on what actually matters when prospecting.

Nail the basics instead.

The first thing you can do to reach your targets is to understand all the concrete actions that will lead you to booking a meeting.

First, understand who you’re going after, and what kind of problem your solution is solving for them. When it’s done, look for prospects where they hang out. LinkedIn is a great place to start.

When you’ve identified your leads, do some research to find a trigger and add relevance to your outreach.

Then, build a sequence with precise touchpoints, a set cadence, and exit criteria (prospect replied or didn’t reply after a set amount of touchpoints).

Finally, determine how many prospects you need to contact daily in order to reach your meeting targets, and execute every day.

Here are 3 tips and resources to help you do just that:

Tip #1: Break down your targets into daily activity. How many meetings do you need to book this month? What’s your meeting rate? What’s your reply rate? If you cannot answer these questions, go check my Sales Process Calculator.

Tip #2: Have a pre-defined prospecting sequence. Do you have a clear sequence with follow-ups and impactful messaging? Check my Ultimate LinkedIn Outreach Sequence.

Tip #3: Execute every day. How’s your prospecting routine looking like? Do you have a predictable system to generate meetings? Go check my New Outreach System.

Salespeople who believe their tech stack will make a difference end up missing their targets and losing confidence in their ability.

Master your craft first, add prospecting tools second.

 

Cheers,

Thibaut

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you.

 

→ Grab my 5-star course, The New Outreach System: How I use LinkedIn to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate. Buy it here.

→Work 1:1 with me:
 If you need help booking more meetings, I can help you. We’ll go through your current situation and what’s not working. We’ll build an action plan to land you more meetings and more money in your pocketBook me here.

→ Need training or coaching for your SDR or AE team? Let’s talk: If you’re managing a team but they are struggling to reach their targets, then I can help. Book an audit call with me and we’ll come up with a plan. Book your call here.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

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Tactical Selling Uncategorized

How to book 1 meeting every 50 minute of prospecting

How to book 1 meeting every 50 minute of prospecting

I’m going to show you exactly how I book 1 meeting every 50 minute of prospecting.

Keeping a consistent output (regular meetings) is hands down the toughest part of the SDR job. But if you build a system, you’ll be able to predict how many prospects to contact to book one meeting. And then it’s just a matter of executing daily.

Unfortunately, most reps are so distracted by their day-to-day, that they never stop to examine how the can improve their performance.

Consistent output is the result of consistent input.

Here are the most common mistakes I see when training sales reps:

  • They don’t know how many prospects to contact to reach their targets.

  • They prospect like crazy for a few days, then stop everything.

  • They get lost in lengthy research trying to personalize their outreach.

  • They don’t have a well-structured, well-timed sequence.

If this sounds familiar, you’re in luck. I’m going to show you exactly how to avoid these mistakes.

Here’s my system, step by step:

Step 1: Start by defining your cruising altitude

Knowing how many prospects to contact is the first thing to find out when building a prospecting system.

Start with the target in your compensation plan. If you’re an SDR, you’re most likely compensated on meetings booked or opportunities generated.

Take this end number and find out the following number:

  • Reply rate (#prospects replying/#prospects contacted)

  • Meeting rate (#meetings booked/#prospects replying)

  • Opportunity rate (#opportunities generated/#meetings held)

When you have a clear idea of these numbers, you should be able to calculate how many prospects to contact to reach your targets.

For example, in the table below, we need to contact 23 prospects daily to reach a target of 80 opportunities generated per quarter.

Table

Step 2: Build a sequence

So many reps have the right activity level but they forget to build a follow-up sequence.

They send one message to their prospects, and then give up if they don’t receive a reply. A good follow-up sequence should include the following elements:

  • multiple channels (where you send the touchpoints)

  • multiple media (what’s the support you use for the touchpoint)

  • multiple problems (what’s the issue you’re solving for your prospect)

Here’s an example of a sequence structure I use every day:

Sequence example

Step 3: Block some time to prospect daily

This is the last, but most important step of booking meetings regularly.

Start by finding out a time in your workday when you’re the most productive and focused. Then put a recurring blocker in your calendar.

For me, it’s from 08:00 to 09:00.

I know I’m more motivated in the morning, and I like taking care of repetitive tasks (like prospecting) first.

This is a protected time when no one can book me, and it’s happening every day. Think of it as a daily gym or meditation routine.

And that’s it.

TL;DR

Step 1: Define your cruising altitude.

Step 2: Build a sequence.

Step 3: Block some time to prospect daily.

need help with your prospecting routine?

Learn the exact daily system I use to get a 38% reply rate and 11% meeting rate on LinkedIn.


That’s all for this week. 1 simple prospecting tip.

And if you’re interested in diving deeper into this topic, I’m doing a free webinar with SuperOffice.

I’ve been invited to share the exact system I use to book 1 meeting every 50 minute of prospecting. It’s on Tuesday the 26th of 09:00 Berlin time.

Join for free here.

Cheers,

Thibaut

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you.

 

→ Grab my 5-star course, The New Outreach System: How I use LinkedIn to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate. Buy it here.

→Work 1:1 with me:
 If you need help booking more meetings, I can help you. We’ll go through your current situation and what’s not working. We’ll build an action plan to land you more meetings and more money in your pocketBook me here.

→ Grab my course, The T-shaped Sales Development Program: This is the most comprehensive course I have about sales development. You’ll learn everything from optimizing your LinkedIn profile for sales to finding hot prospects, and running discovery calls Buy it here.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

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Tactical Selling Uncategorized

The biggest mistake I made in sales

The biggest mistake I made in sales

The biggest mistake I made as a newly hired Account Executive was to stop prospecting.

Back in 2018, I got hired as the first French-speaking Account Executive at a tech scale-up from California. I was hired at the same time as a French-speaking SDR (who was brilliant), and I got promised I wouldn’t need to source my own opportunities. So, naturally, I didn’t prospect daily.

It was the first time I didn’t have to send cold emails in my sales career, and it felt nice. But after a few months, my pipeline was still empty. Not great.

That’s when I learned that as long as I would be in sales, I could never stop prospecting.

If you’re in sales, you can’t afford to stop prospecting

No matter what you’re told, if you stop prospecting, you’ll lose control of your pipeline and give control of your performance to someone else.

If you stop prospecting, you’ll end up not having enough conversations, which leads to not enough opportunities, and finally, missing your sales targets. This will happen sooner or later, but this will happen for sure.

But if you build and execute a prospecting routine, you’ll understand how many prospects you need to contact in order to reach your sales targets, and you’ll build a predictable stream of opportunities.

Here are 4 steps to help you do just that:

1. Block 30 minutes to prospect daily

Time blocking is so important because it gets you to create a habit, and allows for consistent input.

You can do it by picking a time when you’re the most productive during the day. For me it’s early mornings, but it can be any time that works best for you. Put a recurring blocker in your calendar so you won’t be disturbed. And finally, stick to it for 21 days and it will become a habit.

2. Start with follow-ups

Meetings are booked with follow-ups.

That’s why I recommend building a sequence skeleton so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel with your follow-ups. Define the media and the channel for each touchpoint, as well as the content of the message. Here’s an example:

Sequence example

need help with your prospecting routine?

Learn the exact daily system I use to get a 38% reply rate and 11% meeting rate on LinkedIn.

3. Find how many new prospects to contact daily

A prospecting routine is like a car. Without fuel (or electricity), it won’t go anywhere.

It’s always better to find prospects using triggers. This adds relevance to your outreach. Example of triggers can be:

  • LinkedIn profile visits

  • Posts reactions/comments (yours or someone else)

  • LinkedIn event attendance

There are tons of other lead sources you can find, but make sure you know how many prospects to contact daily

4. Add them to your sequence

End your prospecting routine by contacting the prospects you have found in step 3.

With your prospecting sequence ready, you should be able to use a trigger to add relevance, but the core of your message shouldn’t differ too much from prospect to prospect.

Here’s a simple framework you can use:

Trigger: A piece of information that indicates your prospect is trying to solve a specific problem.

Question: A problem-oriented question to get the prospect to think: “This person has a clear understanding of my problem”.

Teaser: An attention-grabbing sentence referring to a resource you can share to solve the problem.

CTA: A close-ended question.

Example:

4-step framework

If you follow these 4 steps, you should easily avoid missing your sales targets.

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you.

 

→ Grab my 5-star course, The New Outreach System: How I use LinkedIn to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate. Buy it here.

→Work 1:1 with me:
 If you need help booking more meetings, I can help you. We’ll go through your current situation and what’s not working. We’ll build an action plan to land you more meetings and more money in your pocketBook me here.

→ Grab my course, The T-shaped Sales Development Program: This is the most comprehensive course I have about sales development. You’ll learn everything from optimizing your LinkedIn profile for sales to finding hot prospects, and running discovery calls Buy it here.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

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Tactical Selling Uncategorized

How to stop wasting time with tire kickers

How to stop wasting time with tire kickers

On Monday I posted a screen capture of an email conversation I had with a prospect. This post sparked controversy and some interesting conversations. Someone even sent me a direct message to tell me that my comments on the post made me look like a prick!

So I thought I would tell you more about this specific deal and the tactic I used to avoid wasting time with a tire kicker.

Some context

A few weeks ago, a director of sales contacted me to ask if I could run a training session on selling into EMEA. As I have some experience doing that, I proposed to book a quick chat so I could learn more about his initiative and understand how I could help.

We hopped on a quick discovery call and I identified what caused this person to chat with me, what kind of outcome they expected, and when they thought they could make a decision.

At the end of the call, I suggested next steps and gave some homework assignment to the prospect. He came back to me with a list of requirements and topics to focus on.

We booked a second call so that we could build a plan together and prepare an offer. At the end of the call, I told the prospect that I needed to understand who else was involved in making a decision, otherwise it would be hard to justify the amount I proposed for the session.

He told me that he would deal with this internally, and he even refused to share the name and job title of the person involved in the decision. First red flag.

A few weeks later (second red flag), I received an email from him asking to build a business cases with direct questions from the management. So naturally, I replied that I would be happy to do that, but I would need to chat with the people who asked the questions.

And third red flag, my prospect refused and said his boss was too busy to jump on a call. So, instead of building the business case and work for free, I replied that I couldn’t help if the boss didn’t want to speak with me.

As you’d expect the deal stalled, and I’m considering it lost.

Why did I do that?

Now I see you coming. You’re thinking that I was dumb to let an opportunity go like that, when I could have simply built a business case to get the deal through.

Except I had no guarantee that the business case was needed to close this deal. During our email exchanges, the prospect asked me if I was really strict on price, because it would be challenging to justify it. What I saw coming was a lengthy email negotiation, without even knowing who’s calling the shots.

 

I pushed back to test if the deal was serious, because I prefer focusing on serious opportunities, instead of wasting time on a deal with so many red flags. Thanks to my prospecting system, I’m able to create enough opportunities to walk away from “maybes” and focus on solid opportunities.

In conclusion

My tactic to test the energy of a deal is simple. If people cannot intro me to people who make a decision, then I refuse to invest more time in the deal. I’m happy to work with them if they do the work and come back to me, but I need to speak with all the people involved in the decision.

I do it because:

  • they have different initiatives
  • they expect different outcomes
  • they can identify more use cases and therefore increase my deal size

As a solopreneur, my time is limited. Pushing back when prospects cannot intro me to their bosses is my conscious choice to work strategically, and to stop acting as an order taker.

 

Thoughts? Reply to this email to keep the conversation going.

need help with your prospecting routine?

Learn the exact daily system I use to get a 38% reply rate and 11% meeting rate on LinkedIn.

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you.

 

→ Grab my 5-star course, The New Outreach System: How I use LinkedIn to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate. Buy it here.

→Work 1:1 with me:
 If you need help booking more meetings, I can help you. We’ll go through your current situation and what’s not working. We’ll build an action plan to land you more meetings and more money in your pocketBook me here.

→ Grab my course, The T-shaped Sales Development Program: This is the most comprehensive course I have about sales development. You’ll learn everything from optimizing your LinkedIn profile for sales to finding hot prospects, and running discovery calls Buy it here.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

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Tactical Selling Uncategorized

Why I don’t send offers to my prospects

Why I don’t send offers to my prospects

A few weeks ago, a prospect asked me to send him an offer. Pretty reasonable ask I hear you say. I’ve been sending hundreds of offers during my sales careers, but I barely closed 30% of them.

There are many possible reasons for that, but here are a few that I have identified:

  • Prospects ask for offers to get rid of pushy salespeople – many salespeople believe that sending an offer will get them closer to closing a deal.
  • Offers are used as education documents – an offer should be a validation document. You build with your prospect. If they’re not the ones building it, they may not understand it fully.
  • Offers are great ways for prospects to pitch internally – prospects love to see a ton of details so they can pitch features and benefits to their bosses. Except their bosses don’t care about that.

As a result, I have decided to systematically refuse to send offers to my prospects.

Here’s what I do instead:

1. Push back

When prospects ask for an offer, they either try to get rid of us or to take control of our deals. As we, salespeople, tend to be fairly optimistic, we often interpret this ask as a positive indication about the health of our deals.

Instead of accepting right away, here’s what you can say:

“I would love to send an offer, but it feels like it’s a bit too early to do so.”

2. Suggest your next steps

Now that you have their attention, come up with your plan. If you want to be proactive, you can ask for an introduction to their colleagues.

Here’s an example of a sentence I like to use to do just that:

“What would really help would be for me to speak with one or two reps in your team to understand how they are currently prospecting, and what kind of challenges they are faced with. I’ll then be able to come back with a detailed plan on how I think I could help. Would it be a bad idea?”

3. Give them some homework assignment

If your deal is healthy, you shouldn’t face much pushback. Prospects that are engaged in a deal will work towards closing it. If the deal isn’t qualified, you may face some pushback, which is a great indication to cut the call short or call their bluff.

The single best way to test if a deal is qualified is to involve prospects in your process, and give them some homework assignment.

Here’s how I do it:

“OK, then I need you to intro me to these two reps and set a follow-up session so I can share my findings.

What do you think?”

When you finish your calls with this simple push back, a few things happen:

  • You test your relationship and the involvement of your prospects with the deal
  • You stand out from all the other “Yes Man” salespeople who send tons of offers but never close any
  • You set clear next steps and talk to more people in the sales organization

I tested this tactic on my last few deals and I have had tons of introductions and deals picking up energy.

So remember, when prospects ask for an offer:

  • push back
  • suggest your next steps
  • give them some homework assignment

You’ll understand if your deals is legit, you’ll get prospects working with you, and you’ll close deals faster.

need help with your prospecting routine?

Learn the exact daily system I use to get a 38% reply rate and 11% meeting rate on LinkedIn.

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you.

 

→ Grab my 5-star course, The New Outreach System: How I use LinkedIn to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate. Buy it here.

→Work 1:1 with me:
 If you need help booking more meetings, I can help you. We’ll go through your current situation and what’s not working. We’ll build an action plan to land you more meetings and more money in your pocketBook me here.

→ Grab my course, The T-shaped Sales Development Program: This is the most comprehensive course I have about sales development. You’ll learn everything from optimizing your LinkedIn profile for sales to finding hot prospects, and running discovery calls Buy it here.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

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Tactical Selling Uncategorized

My simple formula to reach your sales targets in 2022

My simple formula to reach your sales targets in 2022

It’s almost the end of February and most of you should have received your targets for the month/quarter/year. No matter if you’re an SDR, an AE, or managing a team of reps, it’s always a good idea to have a clear, actionable plan to reach your targets.

In this quick article, I’m going to show how to build that plan, step-by-step. Our goal is to find how many initial prospect meeting we need to run, assuming we have zero pipeline.

1. Set a yearly/quarterly/monthly goal

The first step is really simple. Just go and find out how much you’re supposed to close, or how many meetings/opportunities you’re supposed to generate. If you’re an AE, you’ll most likely have a yearly target, divided in quarters or months. If you’re an SDR, your targets will most likely me quarterly or monthly.

When you know your big number, divid it to match it with the period you’re evaluated on. For example, a €1.000.000 yearly target, evaluated quarterly = €250.000.

2. Set your average deal size and find out how many deals you need to close

If you’re new to the job, go check your CRM to find out the average deal size of your colleagues. If you have some experience already, use historical data, or known assumptions based on the pricing of your solution.

In our example above, €25.000 average deal size -> 10 deals to close per quarter, 40 for the year.

need help with your prospecting routine?

Learn the exact daily system I use to get a 38% reply rate and 11% meeting rate on LinkedIn.

3. Understand your sales process stages

Very important step. You’re sales process is the way you turn a stranger into a customer. It can vary from business to business, but we typically see 5 stages, from discovery call to closing.

Here’s my sales process (feel free to copy):

  • Stage 1: Interest – Discovery
  • Stage 2: Education – Demo
  • Stage 3: Validation – Contract Review
  • Stage 4: Justification – Negotiation
  • Stage 5: Decision – Closed Won

4. Define a conversion rate for each stage

Now that you have clear idea of your sales process, define the conversion rate from one stage to the other.

Here’s what I see in my process:

  • Stage 1 to 2: 50%
  • Stage 2 to 3: 60%
  • Stage 3 to 4: 70%
  • Stage 4 to 5: 90%

5. Find out how many discovery calls you need to set

Finally, start from the final goal and use your assumptions to define how many stage 1 opportunities are necessary to reach your goal.

In my example:

  • 10 stage 5 opportunities at €25.000 per quarter closed equals:
  • 12 stage 4 opportunities
  • 18 stage 3 opportunities
  • 30 stage 2 opportunities
  • 60 stage 1 opportunities

60 discovery calls per quarter = 5 per week. If you’re already running 5+ discovery calls per week, you’re on track. If you’re under 5 discovery calls per week, you need to find more through outbound, or increase your average deal size.

Follow these 5 steps and you’ll get a general idea of the prospecting effort you need to deliver on a weekly basis. If you need to be spending more than half of your day running discovery calls, your plan will be hard to reach with the assumptions you have.

And if you’re interested in finding out how many prospects you need to contact every day, I suggest using my “Cruising Altitude Calculator”. It’s part of the New Outreach System and you’ll calculate the exact number of prospects you need to find and contact every day. You’ll also learn how to build an outbound sequence, what to say in each touchpoint, and how to build your prospecting routine.

Grab it today for €79 instead of €149 with the code “week7email”.

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you.

 

→ Grab my 5-star course, The New Outreach System: How I use LinkedIn to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate. Buy it here.

→Work 1:1 with me:
 If you need help booking more meetings, I can help you. We’ll go through your current situation and what’s not working. We’ll build an action plan to land you more meetings and more money in your pocketBook me here.

→ Grab my course, The T-shaped Sales Development Program: This is the most comprehensive course I have about sales development. You’ll learn everything from optimizing your LinkedIn profile for sales to finding hot prospects, and running discovery calls Buy it here.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

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Categories
Tactical Selling Uncategorized

How I booked 8 outbound meetings in January

How I booked 8 outbound meetings in January

In January 2022, I booked 8 outbound meetings for 400 minutes of prospecting. That’s 1 meeting every 50 minutes.

Here’s how I did it:

1. Blocked 20 minutes to prospect daily

At the beginning of 2021, I decided to put a 30 minutes blocker at the beginning of every week day. It’s what Skip Miller calls a Power Hour. No one can book me, no one can disturb me as I’m 100% focused on getting rid of my prospecting tasks.

In 2022, I managed to reduce that slot to 20 minutes. It’s the first thing I do in the morning, no matter how busy my day is.

I start my day with this task because I know I will skip it if it’s not baked into my routine. It’s a bit like going to the gym. It’s not the most comfortable and enjoyable task, but it’s what you need to do to stay in shape (or generate opportunities).

2. Started with follow-ups

I always start my day with the same ritual. I pour my coffee, I open my computer, and I start bumping messages to prospects in my sequences. It typically takes 5 minutes as I use one single sequence.

And yes, the 5 minutes include LinkedIn messages, videos, and LinkedIn voice notes. I always use the same asynchronous messages, which can be dropped in any channel or media.

need help with your prospecting routine?

Learn the exact daily system I use to get a 38% reply rate and 11% meeting rate on LinkedIn.

3. Found 5 new prospects

Now that I have done my follow-ups, I start drinking my coffee (I don’t touch it before). I have added this small hack to my routine to gamify my prospecting.

As I’m a bit of a coffee addict, I’m motivated to get rid of my follow-ups, because it’s the only way to drink my coffee. And if I’m too slow, I’ll drink a cold coffee (which I hate).

While I’m doing that, I look for interesting prospects who have visited my LinkedIn profile, reacted/engaged with my posts, or reacted/engaged with someone else’s post.

Sometimes I find them in 5 minutes, sometimes it takes me 15 minutes.

4. Added them to my sequence

Finally, I contact these 5 new prospects. If I’m not connected with them I send them a connection request. If we’re already connected I skip the connection request and I go with a Tolstoy video.

If you’re curious to know what I say in the video, go check this article I wrote a few weeks ago.

This part of my prospecting routine never takes more than 5 minutes.

As you can see, booking 8 meetings in January isn’t the result of some magic new tool or channel. It’s the natural outcome of consistent, daily prospecting.

I show up every day and I:

  • Use a power hour
  • Start with follow-ups
  • Find 5 new prospects
  • Add them to my sequence

Outbound prospecting is no rocket science. It’s about showing up every day and doing what everyone else won’t do.

It’s really that simple.

And if you need help building your prospecting routine, go check the New Outreach System. You will learn how to:

  • Define your Ideal Customer Profile
  • Find prospects daily (as well as relevant details to mention in your outreach)
  • Build and cadence your sequences
  • Navigate conversations
  • Produce consistent prospecting outcomes

Grab it for €99 instead of €149 today with the code “week6email”.

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you.

 

→ Grab my 5-star course, The New Outreach System: How I use LinkedIn to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate. Buy it here.

→Work 1:1 with me:
 If you need help booking more meetings, I can help you. We’ll go through your current situation and what’s not working. We’ll build an action plan to land you more meetings and more money in your pocketBook me here.

→ Grab my course, The T-shaped Sales Development Program: This is the most comprehensive course I have about sales development. You’ll learn everything from optimizing your LinkedIn profile for sales to finding hot prospects, and running discovery calls Buy it here.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Categories
Tactical Selling Uncategorized

How I shoot prospecting videos in 5 steps

How I shoot prospecting videos in 5 steps

You know I love prospecting with videos.

As of early February 2022, I have a 36.13% reply rate and a 23.26% meeting with outbound. Every single sequence I use (outbound or inbound) includes a prospecting video.

And it’s a lot simpler than you think. Anyone with a webcam and a microphone can be successful with the right approach. You just need to get rid of your fear of video prospecting, and what best than a simple framework to help you do just that.

Here are the 5 steps I use to shoot and send prospecting videos:

1. Build your script

Have you ever tried shooting a prospecting video, only to freeze because you don’t know what to say after hitting the record button? If you said yes, you’re not alone.

Most reps I work with are faced with this terrifying feeling when shooting their first videos. The best way to solve this problem is to use a loose script.

Here’s the framework I use:

Trigger: A relevant piece of information about your prospect. It helps prospects answer the question: “Did this person do some research about my problems?”

Example: “Mary, noticed you also liked Heather’s post about boring hybrid events.”

Question: A question focused on the negative outcome of a situation. I recommend starting with snippets like: “How are you preventing/avoiding”, “What are you doing to avoid/prevent”.

Example: “I’m curious, how do you avoid losing half of your participants midway because of boring hybrid events?”

Teaser: A resource to help your prospects solve the problem you have uncovered in the question you asked.

Example: “If you’re into it, I can share a 3-step checklist on how to run engaging events with hybrid crowds.”

CTA: A close-ended question to get the prospect to reply.

Example: “Interested?”

need help with your prospecting routine?

Learn the exact daily system I use to get a 38% reply rate and 11% meeting rate on LinkedIn.

2. Prepare your setup

Now that you know what to say, you need to make sure you’re in the right mindset, and in the right place to shoot your videos.

The only tech you’ll need is your computer’s camera and microphone, and a video recording tool like Tolstoy. You’ll also need enough light to make sure the quality of your video isn’t too bad.

Don’t worry about your background, as long as nothing is moving or distracting from what you’re saying. I met an incredibly successful rep who used to send videos from her bedroom with a messy background. It never hurts to show a bit of your personality in your videos.

The one thing that matters is to record your video in a quiet place. Make sure there’s no background noise.

3. Shoot

You know what to say and you’re in quiet place with good lighting. Now is the time to shoot your video. Don’t worry about stuttering or missing a few words, it doesn’t matter in the end.

What matters is that you record a short, relevant video for your prospects. You’re not paid to be a movie star, you’re paid to generate opportunities.

Just shoot your video and read your script. It won’t sound natural at the beginning, but with practice, you’ll be able to record your videos in one shot. If you don’t like seeing your face when recording the video, just open another tab with the text you have to read.

Here’s a recent video I recorded. I look tired, I’m not shaved, but I got the meeting.

 

need help with your prospecting routine?

Learn the exact daily system I use to get a 38% reply rate and 11% meeting rate on LinkedIn.

4. Prepare for sending

Review your video and make sure there’s no glitch. The audio has to be clear, and under 30 seconds.

Rename the video to: “FirstName, check this out”. If you’re using Tolstoy, the recipient will see a moving Gif (both on LinkedIn and email), with the title of the video. You can also customize how the prospect can reply to the video.

5. Send

Your video is now ready to send. You can drop it on any channel where a link or a Gif can be sent (typically emails and LinkedIn).

But before sending the video, you need to make sure it will be opened by the recipient. If you’re sending the video on LinkedIn, drop the text “Made this for you:” followed by the link to the video.

Here’s how it will look to the recipient of the video:

LinkedIn Example

If you’re using email, you can copy a Gif and drop it in the email. When clicking on it, the video will open in the browser of the recipient.

Email Example

As you can see, integrating video into your prospecting isn’t exactly rocket science. It requires a bit of preparation, but it will become easier with practice.

It’s just like any other skill. You need to invest in the process and believe in the outcome.

A study from Hubspot even found that using video increased their opportunity by 400%. I’ve been using it for over a year, and I consistently get between 35% and 38% reply rate.

If you’re interested in adding video to your prospecting routine, then I recommend checking the New Outreach System. I’m adding a video prospecting module to it on the 25th of February, and this is what you’ll learn:

  • What is video prospecting
  • Why it’s important
  • How to shoot prospecting videos
  • Prospecting video setup
  • How to get rid of your fear of video prospecting

On top of it, you’ll get the exact system I use to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate, just by using the free features of LinkedIn.

And for the next 24 hours it’s €119 instead of €149.

Use the code “week5email” on checkout.

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you.

 

→ Grab my 5-star course, The New Outreach System: How I use LinkedIn to get a 38% reply rate and an 11% meeting rate. Buy it here.

→Work 1:1 with me:
 If you need help booking more meetings, I can help you. We’ll go through your current situation and what’s not working. We’ll build an action plan to land you more meetings and more money in your pocketBook me here.

→ Grab my course, The T-shaped Sales Development Program: This is the most comprehensive course I have about sales development. You’ll learn everything from optimizing your LinkedIn profile for sales to finding hot prospects, and running discovery calls Buy it here.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.800+ salespeople to book more meetings.