In today’s newsletter, I’m going to share my 3 steps to fixing an end-of-year pipeline.

If you can replicate this process, you’re going to have a clear understanding of your real pipeline, and you’ll stop working on opportunities that have no chance of closing.

Unfortunately, most reps waste a good chunk of their time working on opportunities that will never close, resulting in missed targets.

Building a pipeline that closes is about disqualifying hard

Without a simple qualification process, a few challenges arise:

Challenge 1: You don’t know if you are spending time on the right opportunities.

Challenge 2: You spend a ton of time and effort on deals that may never close.

Challenge 3: Your pipeline looks good, but your results aren’t good enough.

You can overcome all of these challenges by answering the three following questions.

Question 1: What is the quantified cause

When you start working with a prospect towards closing a deal, you need to understand the reason why they are speaking with you, and get an idea of that number.

It’s often referred as their “Why” and it’s an important element to find out if you should invest more time working with this prospect, or disqualify them immediately.

For example, I work with VPs of Sales who have sales targets for 2023. They speak with me because they have a specific goal to reach, and my job is to uncover that number.

Example: CFO has a 2023 gross margin target of 80%.

Question 2: What is the quantified problem

After uncovering the quantified cause, you need to find out the size of your prospect’s problem. You can do it in many ways, but I love to use a simple tool from ProActive Selling to do that. It’s called Time Traveling.

Instead of asking a question like “What are your goals?”, attach the goals to a point in the future, like “As you look in 2023, where do you think you’ll stand compared to your goal?”.

This formula helps your prospects travel to that point in time, and it increases your chances of finding a gap.

Example: CFO is expecting to only make a gross margin of 65%.

With that example, the CFO has a gap of 15 percentage points. If the company is expecting to sell €100M next year, the quantified problem is €15M.

Question 3: What is the quantified solution

Now that you have calculated the problem, you can start speaking about the price of your solution.

In our CFO example, the problem is €15M. If you can make an impact and bring their expected gross margin from 65% to 70%, you are solving a €5M problem. If your pricing is €500.000, then the investment is a no brainer for your prospect.

And this is how you can fix your end-of-year pipeline. Go to your opportunity overview, and find out if there’s:

• A quantified cause

• A quantified problem

• A quantified solution

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut

PS: The tool I just mentioned is called Q3, and it’s part of the ProActive Selling methodology. If your team is having difficulties moving deals forward, then just book a call with me and we’ll chat about what we can do to help.

Most sales reps fail to generate expansion opportunities. I personally failed to do it for years, for the following reasons:

• I felt uncomfortable asking for more money when I had already closed a deal

• I was only incentivized on new business

• I didn’t know how to approach existing customers without sounding pushy

Sounds familiar? I have something for you.

Below are 5 steps you can follow to build an expansion sequence from scratch:

Step 1: Generate a list of existing and past customers

A good prospecting sequence always starts with prospects. In some cases, finding relevant prospects is challenging, but not there.

Start by listing all customers who are currently in contract with you. They will be your Tier 1.

Then go to all customers who are not in active collaboration with you, but who were in the past. They are your Tier 2.

Finally, list all the prospects who were in conversation with you (open opportunities), but didn’t do business with you. They are your Tier 3.

You should have an interesting list to reach out, with different triggers for contacting them.

Step 2: Build the structure of your sequence

Having an action plan for each Tier is critical. This will help you maximize your reply rate, and know when to stop if you don’t get a reply.

Using 3 touchpoints over email and LinkedIn is preferable because it helps you preserve your relationship, without being too pushy. Remember, you already had a conversation with all these prospects, so you don’t want to annoy them with an intense outbound sequence.

Here’s an sequence structure example I run:

In today’s newsletter, I’m going to share a 4-step process we developed with a customer to book meetings with comparative logic.

Outbound prospecting is about catching the attention of your prospects, and showing them what they are potentially missing is a great way to get replies.

Here’s how I do it, step-by-step:

Step 1: Define a quantifiable problem

The first step is to have clear idea of a problem your prospects are trying to solve. You may be tempted to pitch your offering, but focusing on problems will get you more replies.

Finding a quantifiable problem is important, as it is the basis of the comparison you’ll use.

Example: Missed sales because SDRs don’t prospect existing accounts.

(Note: You can use my Cold Message System if you need help finding the problems of your customers).

Step 2: Ask if they can quantify it

Now that you have a clear idea of a quantified problem, you need to mention it in your cold outreach. The whole idea is to create FOMO with your prospects, by asking how much of this problem they are having.

Example: “Do you know how much sales you’re leaving on the table because your SDRs don’t prospect existing accounts?”

Step 3: Tease a calculator

If you did your research correctly, you should have the attention of your prospects. You may be tempted to directly pitch your offering, but you need to provide value so you maximize the chances of booking a meeting.

You can create value by sharing a simple calculator to help your prospects quantify the problem they are having.

Example: “If you’re interested, I can share a simple calculator to help you find that number?”

I took 10 minutes to create a simple problem calculator here. The idea is to help your prospect visualize a before/after situation and what they are missing by not doing anything.

Note that you don’t want to share the calculator before getting a reply. You just share it when they asked for it.

Step 4: Ask for interest

I don’t know about you, but if someone identified a problem I have and proposed to help me find the size of that problem, I’d be interested to know more.

Now if they start pitching their offering, I wouldn’t reply. That’s why you need to use a simple call-to-action to find out if your prospects are interested.

Example: “Should I send it over?”

Here’s how a cold outreach message could look like:

“Jack, noticed you recently got promoted to Head of Sales Development.

Do you know how much sales you’re leaving on the table because your SDRs don’t prospect existing accounts?

If you’re interested, I can share a simple calculator to help you find that number?

Should I send it over?”

And this is how you can create interest with your prospects using comparative logic.

TL;DR:

• Step 1: Define a quantifiable problem

• Step 2: Ask if they know about it

• Step 3: Tease a calculator

• Step 4: Ask for interest

Hope this helps!

Thibaut

In today’s issue, I will break down the failure of many SDRs to book outbound meetings.

Booking outbound meetings is more challenging than ever, mostly because money isn’t flowing as it used to. Prospects are careful with their budgets, and they are reluctant to take calls with stressed out sales reps.

But if you’re in sales, you still need to book meetings and to generate pipeline.

So today, I’m going to break down the 3 most common mistakes I see sales reps making with outbound prospecting, and what I’d recommend they do instead.

Mistake #1: Writing essays

I’m writing this newsletter right after a training session I gave to 20 sales reps. We went through their cold emails and they were making the same mistake as 99% of people I train.

Their emails looked more like essays, with convoluted sentences, buzzwords, and way too many words.

Imagine receiving a cold outbound message and having to spend time deciphering it. You would do it once and ignore every email that remotely looks similar.

This is what prospects are doing, and the reason you can’t get replies.

Mistake #2: Being inconsistent

Consistency is 80% of your success in cold outbound. Most sales reps I train have no prospecting routine when I first meet them, and those who choose to create one see quick results after a few days.

Here’s a typical week of an inconsistent SDR:

• Monday: Spend hours looking for 100+ new prospects

• Tuesday: Send a first touchpoint to a part of their list

• Wednesday: Send the remaining touchpoints to their list

• Thursday: No replies, 100+ follow-ups

• Friday: Still no replies, slowly becoming desperate

If this schedule looks familiar, then you’re doing something wrong.

Mistake #3: Not focusing on existing accounts

The last type of mistake I see all the time is the result of the “growth at all cost” model that was predominant in the tech industry until Q1 2022.

The last 5 years were exceptional in terms of funding, and the goal of most high-growth companies was to acquire new logos. If they could show that they were able to open new accounts, they’d get money. As a result, SDRs have been exclusively dedicated to opening new accounts.

However, things are different nowadays. If you can’t expand new accounts, you’ll have a hard time generating new opportunities, and you will miss your targets.

Instead, here’s what you can do:

The first thing you need to do is to reduce the size of your cold outbound messages. Write messages with 3 to 4 sentences that can be easily read on a smartphone without scrolling. For example:

Mary, saw you changed position around 5 months ago.

What are you doing to prevent your team from turning off prospects with pushy LinkedIn messages?

If you’re into it, I’d love to share a quick video on how your team can start genuine conversations with prospects on LinkedIn.

Should I send it over?

Second, build a prospecting routine. I wrote a detailed article on how to do that here.

Finally, review your strategy and start focusing on existing accounts. I started doing it a few weeks ago, and I have already booked 5 meetings and closed one deal with this strategy.

TL;DR

• Don’t write essays

• Don’t be inconsistent

• Don’t ignore existing accounts

• Do write short messages

• Do prospect every day

• Do focus on upsells and cross-sells

I hope this helps!

Cheers,

Thibaut

In today’s issue, I’m going to share a simple, 3-steps play I recently used to get a 60% reply rate, and a 67% meeting rate.

If you can replicate this play, you’ll be able to start key conversations with existing customers, and identify upsell opportunities.

Unfortunately, most SDRs focus on generating net new business, and they forget that easy opportunities can easily be found (and closed) with existing customers.

In 2023, upsells and cross-sells will help you reach your targets.

But without a solid expansion prospecting play, two challenges arise:

Challenge #1: You focus on booking tough meetings: you’re only trying to start conversations with prospects who never heard about you.

Challenge #2: You miss on easy opportunities: you’re not able to get valuable conversations with customers who already know about you.

You can overcome these challenges by creating upsell opportunities.

Here is a simple play I tried last week, and I got 3 replies and 2 meetings booked out of it:

Step 1: Identified 5 customers I worked with

In 2022, I’ve been selling all kinds of training and coaching to various types of buyers. A lot of them have purchased an online course, or a coaching session for their reps.

I’ve compiled a list of buyers, with the service they purchased, and the values of different products they bought.

If they bought more than one product, they are at the top of my list. I’ve also included the customers who had great outcomes.

It took me around 30 minutes to come up with a solid list, and I ended up selecting the top 5.

Step 2: Sent them a thank you email

Now that I knew who I wanted to reach out to, I started crafting a thank you email. I focused on the training they purchased, and the outcome they got out of it.

Here’s an example:

“John, how are you doing?

2 things:

1. I’ve been reviewing people I worked with in 2022 and I wanted to say thank you for having your reps join the program! Mary mentioned she cut her demo calls in half and managed to qualify opportunities faster.”

Step 3: Searched for problems

In the second part of the email, I asked if my customer knew about people who were struggling to reach their targets. I also teased a potential resource to help them with this specific issue.

Here’s an example:

“2. I’d be curious to know if you know of people who are having challenges reaching their targets. I may have something for them.

Thanks again for working with me!”

The results

After sending 5 emails, 3 customers replied (60% reply rate), and 2 booked a meeting with me (67% meeting rate). I was able to generate one opportunity, and I’m in conversations with the last customer who replied to book a meeting.

It’s also interesting to note that two customers asked for help with their business (upsell and cross-sell), but another one introduced me to people he knew with similar problems as them. That’s why I didn’t ask for introductions, but asked for problems.

And these are my 3 steps to creating upsell opportunities.

TL;DR:

• Step 1: Identify 5 customers you work with

• Step 2: Send them a thank you email

• Step 3: Search for problems

Cheers,

Thibaut

I just wrapped a 3 sessions consulting workshop with one of my customers.

They run a tech startup, and they are looking to find their product-market fit. They are already prospecting, but they are having difficulties speaking to the right type of prospects.

Here’s how their outbound motion is structured:

• Step 1: Build key account list for one month

• Step 2: Get account list approved by founder

• Step 3: Distribute approved account list to team members

• Step 4: Identify 1 decision-maker per account

• Step 5: Find data on the prospect (email, LinkedIn profile)

• Step 6: Enrol prospect into sequence

• Step 7: Send 3 to 4 LinkedIn messages and Emails before stopping the sequence

After running with this process for a few months, they asked me to run an assessment of their outbound process, and 3 major challenges emerged.

Here are the challenges, and how we worked on fixing them together:

Challenge 1: Their Ideal Customer Profile wasn’t clear

Like many other early-stage startups, my customers were trying to find their product-market fit. They knew what type of customers they would like to serve, but they didn’t have a clear idea of the type of companies, and job titles they should be approaching.

Each person in the organization had a different understanding of the type of prospect they had to go after.

Solution 1: Build an ICP Matrix

We sat down with the founders and started working on an Ideal Customer Profile matrix. It’s a simple document where we defined 3 types of Ideal Customer Companies, and 3 types of Ideal Customer Titles.

I won’t show you their ICP matrix, but here’s an example of what it looks like:

In today’s newsletter, I’m going to share my 5-step process to navigate conversations to book a meeting.

Human beings are constantly making decisions, and they use mental shortcuts to avoid wasting brainpower in doing so.

One of them is called the reciprocity bias. When you accept a gift or help from someone, you’re more likely to reciprocate. Think about the last time someone offered help, and how you’d answer if they’d ask for a service in return.

Here’s how I use this psychological bias to book meetings:

Step 1: Use a problem question

Before reaching out to a prospect, you should always ask yourself what kind of problem they are trying to solve. For example, I’m selling to VPs of Sales or Heads of Sales Development, and they are typically trying to solve problems like:

• gaps between forecasting and actual revenues

• SDRs turning prospects off with pushy cold outreach

I can use these problems in my outreach to get their attention, and show my understanding of their business reality.

You can use the formula: “How do you avoid/prevent {problem}?”.

Example: “How do you prevent your team from turning off prospects with pushy cold outreach?”

Step 2: Tease a reciprocity resource

If your prospects are currently facing the problem you mentioned, they may be interested in a resource to solve it.

You can use a reciprocity resource to help them. It can be any marketing material from your company, partners, or even competitors.

For example:

• Whitepapers

• eBooks

• Podcasts

• Webinar recordings

I recommend downloading the resource, hosting it in Google Drive, and recording a short video on why it is valuable.

You can tease this resource in your initial outreach message, just like this: “If you’re interested, I made a 5-step sequence that typically gets a 38% reply rate.”

Step 3: Ask for feedback

If your prospect replies, share the resource (either directly, or with a short video), and give them a few days.

You can then ask for feedback on the resource, to find out if it was useful. For example: “What do you think of the resource? Was it useful for your team?”

In most cases, your prospects will feel obliged to reply (because of the reciprocity bias), and you’ll be able to see if the problem you’re solving is important enough for them.

Step 4: Use a negative-reversing question

If the problem is important enough, you should be able to ask a few other questions, and even get some from your prospects.

A good way to ask for the meeting is to use a negative formulation. Instead of writing: “Should we book a meeting?”, you can use the following formula “Would it be a bad idea to…”

Example: “Would it be a bad idea to hop on a quick call so I can give you a few tips on how your team can use this sequence?”

Step 5: Drop a meeting link

If your prospect agree to the meeting, immediately drop a meeting link or ask them to share some availabilities.

Example: “Good, here’s a link to book a quick chat. You can also share your availabilities if you prefer.”

A meeting link is a productivity tool. It helps your prospects align with your schedule. However, some people may not like using meetings link. They would rather share their availability, and have you send an invitation.

And this is how I get around 27% of people who reply to my outreach to book a meeting with me.

And if you’re interested in grabbing the system I use to get a 38% reply rate, and between 11% and 27% of people who reply to book a meeting with me, then check The New Outreach System.

TL;DR:

• Step 1: Use a problem question

• Step 2: Tease a reciprocity resource

• Step 3: Ask for feedback

• Step 4: Use a negative-reversing question

• Step 5: Drop a meeting link

Hope this helps!

Thibaut

In today’s issue, I’m going to share 3 cold message sins I see when training SDRs, and how to stop doing them.

These sins are almost always the results of new reps using poorly crafted templates.

And in most cases, SDR leaders and sales enablement never had to prospect, or did it too long ago to stay relevant.

Here are the top 3 sins I see when I meet SDRs:

Sin #1: Not being concise enough

Writing a cold email or a cold LinkedIn message is about two things; stopping prospects in their tracks, and getting them to read what you wrote.

Unfortunately, most SDRs I meet confuse cold outbound with essay writing. They write long emails, filled with value propositions, features, and filler words.

When prospects receive an email or a LinkedIn message, they quickly scan them to decide if they should keep on reading or ignore. And when your message is too long, they simply ignore it.

What to do instead?

I alway recommend writing short messages, maximum 125 words. Your prospect should be able to read the message on their smartphone, without scrolling. Use short sentences and jump lines between each sentence.

Look at the two emails below. Which one are you more likely to reply to?

There are two things I look forward the least in a typical work day. My 10 minute workout, and prospecting.

Yet, I know these two activities keep me healthy and wealthy.

In consequence, I have created a system to tackle these unpleasant tasks.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share how I structure my daily prospecting block (I won’t share the workout routine though ).

Step 1: Start with follow-ups

Most replies I get come from follow-ups. And I found that starting with them is a good way to prime the prospecting pump and finish my prospecting block faster.

I start by opening my prospecting tracker, where I store all the prospects I contact, as well as the status of my outreach.

As I use a pre-defined sequence, I don’t need to find a new trigger when doing follow up, I just focus on sending the message, based on the sequence I have built.

In today’s issue, I’m going to share 5 steps to building your pipeline for Q4 and beyond.

If you can replicate this system, you will have a clear idea of what needs to be done to reach your target, and how realistic they really are.

Unfortunately, most SDRs don’t do this exercise, and they end up missing their targets, or they prospect without predictable results.

Building your pipeline is how you take control of your career.

Without a solid prospecting system, a few challenges arise:

Challenge #1: You have no control: you’re at the mercy of your marketing team, the economy, or seasonality.

Challenge #2: You have no visibility: you’re not able to gauge how close or far you are from reaching your targets.

Challenge #3: You become anxious: as you have no way of course correcting, you start worrying about reaching your goals.

You can overcome all of these challenges by building your pipeline early.

Here are 5 steps you can follow do to just that:

Step 1: Find your real target

Knowing your real target is a lot harder than it seems.

In some sales organizations, you may have multiple targets to reach, which makes it harder to understand what’s expected from you.

My advice; find the number that has the biggest impact on your commission and focus on it. You’ll often find it in your compensation plan.

If you’re an AE, you may be compensated on the MRR, ARR or bookings you bring in. If you’re an SDR, you’re often compensated on the meetings you book, meetings held, or opportunities generated.

Go find the number that stands out and focus on it. This is your real target.

Step 2: Convert it into a number of prospects

Now that you know exactly where you want to go, you need to understand the effort required to reach your target.

I recommend focusing on a number of prospects to contact.

In the example below, I have to perform 124 discovery calls per quarter. With 20% of no-shows, I need to book 155 calls. With a 33% meeting rate, and a 55% reply rate, I need to contact 855 different prospects in order to reach my target.