Make the commitment
Most salespeople give up before they give themselves a chance at gaining any momentum. Prospecting isn’t a one-time event. You have to give up on the idea that success looks like saying the right thing to the right person at the right time. Think of it like a campaign. It’s a process you commit to. You build on each call, and you win the meeting as the result of your cumulative efforts.
”But I don’t want to be a pest”
The common myth among salespeople is that the more often one reaches out, the more likely they are to aggravate their prospects and miss out on any chance of ever getting a meeting. You’re right, but that’s not the whole story.
The real key to not being a pest is to have your outreach mean something to your prospect. That’s why I train my clients how to ask provocative questions in their outreach. In that case, every time your future customer hears from you, you’re making them think about their own situation. There’s a lot of value in that, and when you reach out with value, you can reach out more often.
Finding a balance
There are a lot of things you need to manage when creating an outbound cadence. You want to reach out with enough frequency that you can create momentum. Still, if you’re provoking some thought, you want your prospect to have some “time under tension” to really let some of that emotion build up. There are only so many salient points you can make without confusing your prospect, and you also need to have a defined length of time where you feel like you can walk away having done enough for now, should you not be able to reach them.
The data on sales cadences is out there, and you can find it for your specific industry. What I recommend as a good starting point, particularly with the professional service providers and technical salespeople I work with, is a cadence I call 5 Over 4.
Subdivide your target list into four groups. Reach out to each group every fourth business day. Over the course of four weeks, you will have attempted to reach each group five times, hence the name.
If you sell SaaS, the current data suggests 12-15 times over 4-6 weeks. It’s a much more intense campaign, but you’re dealing with people who are constantly in front of their computers, and the noise level is quite high. It takes a lot more effort to break through.
Regardless of the cadence or your industry, I recommend these outreach attempts are a good mix of the telephone, email, and social media touches. There’s no reason to leave any tool unused. Rather than limit yourself to people who only use the phone, per se, mix it up a bit. Despite the evidence that this works, few people employ this approach, and you’ll find it’s another way to differentiate yourself.
How long before you give up?
I think a good rule of thumb is that you pursue someone for a quarter and then reassess. Over thirteen weeks, using the 5 Over 4 cadence I showed you you can reach out to your prospects at least 15 times each. That’s often enough:
If that doesn’t work, then one of three things is possible:
After each quarter, reassess the progress (if any) you’ve made, and decide whether or not to continue with each prospect for another quarter, rotate them out of your cadence for a quarter, or disregard them altogether.
Download the 8 Reasons Your Team Isn’t Creating More Opportunities white paper at https://jeffbajorek.com/8reasons
Share this episode and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and don’t forget that the show is now on YouTube.
Deeper Thought Mailbag #2: Micromanagers, The Case for Quality Touches
The Importance of Boundaries: Achieving Sustainable Sales Success Through Structure
Review the Tape: A Sales Professional's Guide to Continuous Improvement
Unorthodox Prospecting Techniques with David Weiss and Andy Racic: Capturing Attention in Unconventional Ways
Book Review: The Introverts Guide to Networking by Matthew Pollard
Get the Pork Chop
Don't Push Me, Show Me: Aligning Incentives for Successful Selling
I Am The Captain of My Fate with Andy Racic
An Announcement About The Future of Rethink the Way You Sell
Permission to Be OK
The Really Scary Part + What's Next?
Control What You Can Control
The Emotions of the Seller vs The Emotions of the Buyer
Keep Your Swagger
Mastering MEDDPICC: Finding The Gaps in How You Sell
Be Held Accountable
Why They Buy > How You Sell with Jeffrey Gitomer
You Lose Business the Same Way You Win It
Focus on Problems, Not Solutions (COI vs ROI)
People Buy Emotionally. No Tension, No Sale
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Commercial Edge: Unleash the Power of People
The emPOWERed Half Hour
NABOR® TALKS
U.S Property Podcast
Aligned Money Show
The Ramsey Show
Planet Money