Anyone who says sales is easy clearly hasn’t made a cold call.
Sure, “Sales Fridays” may be a thing, and salespeople might wine and dine their clients on occasion. But no one sees the legwork leading up to a few Old Fashioneds charged on the company card.
There’s nothing more defeating than calling the same prospect repeatedly and leaving them eight voicemails, only to have them finally pick up and reject taking a meeting with you or your boss. Ouch.
Thanks to a plethora of technological devices that have become implemented in the workplace, now more than ever, it’s become increasingly difficult for salespeople to reach their prospects. Between voicemail and email, it’s hard to ensure that a message gets through to the desired target.
If you’re wondering how you can easily break through the digital noise, read on to discover five top tips that will help you reach your leads.
Defying the Digital Noise
Despite having a myriad of methods for communication, it’s become harder to contact people. Think about it: How many emails are clogging up your inbox? How many calls do you let go straight to voicemail? How many texts do you leave on “read?” Most likely, a lot.
Both for better and for worse, technology has changed the game. So what does that mean for sales teams? Due to new technological advances, customers have built up a tolerance against conventional selling.
For example, ZoomInfo states that fifteen years ago, the average consumer typically used two touchpoints when buying an item, and only 7% of consumers regularly used more than four. Today customers use an average of almost six touchpoints, with 50% repeatedly using more than four.
That means that the buyer’s journey is becoming significantly longer, causing salespeople to experience a lengthier turnaround time to close deals.
To evaluate just how much time it takes to get in contact with a prospect, in 2007, it took an average of 3.68 cold call attempts to reach a lead. Now, it’s more than doubled with an average of eight cold calls.
To top it off, even though a large percentage of sales-driven outreach is conducted via email, 17% of Americans create a new email address every six months. So regardless of tools such as Clearbit and ZoomInfo, you still might not be reaching the right people.
If you’re in B2B, getting in touch with your prospects is even more difficult. Not only does B2B have one of the weakest email open rates, but words such as “reports,” “forecasts,” and “intelligence” no longer resonate with B2B customers.
In order to defy the digital noise, it’s time to adapt or else face losing business.
How to Adjust to the Changed Sales Landscape
If you’ve built a career in sales and you’ve found it difficult to adapt as the years have passed, you’re not alone. According to Marc Wayshak, 61% of salespeople consider sales harder now or much more difficult than 5 years ago.
Adjusting to the changed sales landscape is now critical, and most people haven’t revised their techniques quite yet. From failing to acclimate, Forbes claims that 57% of sales reps didn’t make their quotas last year.
And sales reps aren’t all at fault. Over the past couple of years, the portion of companies that are achieving their sales enablement goals has hardly budged, rising from 31% to 34%.
In order to keep up with the increase in digital communications methods, real change lies beyond a sales rep’s power. Knowledge of sales enablement best practices, strong leadership, and a commitment to execution are required in order to ensure that targets are reached.
Five Top Tips to Engage Your Leads
If you are curious to discover new tricks and best practices to engage your prospects, search no further. Here are five top tips that can transform the temps of your leads from cold to hot:
1.) Identify and Get Connected to the Right Person
It’s okay to contact a company’s top dog. When dialing a direct number at the VP level, a BDR or SDR is 147% more likely to make contact.
2.) Capitalize on Emailing Trends To Get Your Message Seen
Timing is everything. Email opens increase after 12PM, with the most active period being between 2PM and 5PM. To make sure that you reach your prospects, treat yourself to a little lunch first.
Since we’re all glued to our phones, it shouldn’t be a shock that 40% of emails are opened on mobile first. So when composing your templates, keep in mind that the average mobile screen can only fit four to seven words max in the subject line.
A simple solution to make sure that your messages get seen? Incorporate gratitude in your outreach. Research documented by The New York Times divulges that recipients of emailed expressions of gratitude felt more “ecstatic” than writers expected.
A little personalization goes a long way. Incorporating personalization in a subject line can boost your cold email open rate by 22.2%. In general, email personalization can increase your reply rate by 100%.
Tuesdays aren’t just for discounted tacos. If you’re in marketing, make note that marketers who send emails on Tuesdays get the highest open rates.
3.) Leverage Warm Intros
If your targets sit in the C-Suite, since 73% of executives prefer to work with sales professionals who are referred by someone they know, be sure and leverage warm introductions from your network.
It’s more than okay to be social when trying to make a sale, and reps that implement social selling are 50% more likely to meet or exceed their quotas.
4.) The Early Bird Gets the Worm: Be Sure to Respond Fast!
The quicker the response, the faster the progress. Salespeople who attempt to reach leads within an hour are nearly seven times more likely to have meaningful conversations with decision-makers than those who wait a full sixty minutes.
5.) When in Doubt, Persevere
Even if you don’t receive an immediate response, it’s important to follow up more than once. 44% of salespeople give up after a single follow up, so sending your prospects a few additional emails can make a difference.
Gain New Contacts in the New Year
Just because it might be colder than desired outside, doesn’t mean it has to be a chilly climb towards reaching your quota this quarter. By following these tips as you conduct your outreach, you can adapt adeptly in order to get in touch with your prospects.
Thnks can help you keep the conversations flowing in the new year. Within seconds, you can send your prospects, clients, or customers gestures of appreciation by searching for an item, personalizing a note, and sending it off via SMS or email. Interested in learning more? Sign up for a demo or check out our sales page!