What are the most important Sales Prospecting lead generation tips?

When undertaking marketing to ultimately the selling of B2B services, you need to be aware that depending on your sector, that potentially 90% of your prospects and leads are not in 'buying mode' at any one time. So measuring 'success' in terms of leads and pipeline can be tricky, for those without software products or licences. More important is the regularity of constant awareness, so that when they are ready, your brand is top of mind amongst your target audience. Log everything, track what you can, create interesting and targeted content, get out and meet contacts face-to-face, undertake email marketing, but try not to be obsessed by the pipeline generation of each individual activity. The sum of the parts, is greater than the whole!

A few attributes that you can use to define your ICP Company Stage (startups,smbs,...) Industry Domain Company size No. of end-users in a company Typical challenges/Painpoints Factors considered before buying software Info required for taking decision to buy Preference (Time vs Money vs Removing redundancies) Ability/willingess to pay IT budget Buying authority

Once you have your ideal customer profile, you can use tools like Zoominfo to identify which companies in your sales vertical or region are actively researching your product or similar ones. This gives you a better understanding of which companies might have a higher intent to purchase in comparison to others.

5 sales prospecting lead generation tips 1/ Conduct targeted research using tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator (My fav) 2/ Personalize outreach at scale with mail merge tools. 3/ Embrace a multi-channel approach for increased visibility. 4/Automate repetitive tasks with tools like Outreach or HubSpot. 5/ Leverage social media, especially LinkedIn, for relationship-building and connections Bonus: Use CRM tools for effective follow-ups like Pipedrive. You can create a CRM in Notion 100% Free. Do you want it? Send me a DM and follow me.

Tips for Prospective Sales Lead Generation. 1. Know your product/service and its prospective Industry. 2. Study Industry Trends. 3. Look for Investment News of Prospective Buyers. 4. Look for New Launches and corelate. 5. Narrow Down List of Customers in Industry. 6. Approach via Digital/Social Platforms. 7. Approach through References. 8. Study your suppliers and its offered products to customers. 9. Enhance Reach by collaborative exchange through suppliers. Generate Leads through these filters.

Every piece of data I have seen has suggested that between 10-14 touchpoints is the sweet spot for cadence design. What I would say is that if reps truly want to stand out... don't be afraid to be different! Whether that is sending out more "human" messaging through LinkedIn videos, creating highly bespoke customer sample environments or even going very very "old school" (I once worked with a rep who found fantastic success in 2016 sending out handwritten, parchment letters to the C level Execs of their target audience), find some way to cut through the noise and get that first engagement. That is only half the trick though...do not undervalue preparation of what you are actually going to say to a customer if these techniques work!

In today's sales prospecting, a phone-first approach is becoming increasingly crucial, especially as email effectiveness continues to decline. In 2023 and beyond, the landscape is such that people are inundated with emails, leading to lower open rates and engagement. On the other hand, a phone call can create a more immediate and personal connection with prospects. It allows for real-time conversation, where you can quickly gauge interest, handle objections, and build a rapport that emails can rarely match. Combining this with the use of CRM tools and other technologies to track and manage calls can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your prospecting efforts. A well-timed phone call can make your message stand out.

There are many schools of thought for the type and number of touches you should have in your prospecting process. The Agoge Sequence aims to add a cadence to the different types of prospects, either low probability, referrals, or high probability clients. They key is to have a good mix of communication methods, such as email, phone calls, asynchronous videos, and LinkedIn and then build a process outline for each type of prospect that makes sense to you.

From my experience, you need to have multiple sales channels and utilize tools for workflow management so you can create capacity to manage each sales channel effectively. Below are a couple things to consider: 1. Online Platforms: Use social media and e-commerce for a broader reach of messaging and branding. 2. Email Campaigns: Craft targeted messages to engage prospects effectively. The more specific to the audience, the better 3. Networking: Build relationships, both virtual and in-person. Remember, there is nothing like a handshake and hello. 4. CRM Systems: Streamline communication, track interactions, and optimize workflow. 5. Analytics Tools: Gain insights through data analysis to refine strategies and optimize performance.

Email = everybody does it Calling = many reps do it Voice notes = few reps do it. Hint: LinkedIn voice notes can be magic. And you can also reverse engineer it, i.e: 1. making it casual 2. using it on warm leads (i.e.: inbound) 3. or value driven, i.e.: Dave, we’re hosting a webinar on strategic workforce planning - built for Ops +HR leaders like yourself. Is this something that would help in planning & hiring for 24 Q1?

Research, research, research is the key to nailing personalization. There are so many hacks to do this well, my favorite being the Google Alert. you can set a Google Alert for an industry, company or contact. This alert can help you craft a personalized message that is timely, relevant and will get the prospect to respond. It is a free, underutilized tool that takes minutes (seconds!) to create but can be game changing when it comes to outreach.

The key to personalizing outreach is relevance. Without relevance personalization is pointless. I teach my reps the 3x3 methodology. Try to find 3 pieces of relevant information in 3 minutes. There are 3 key areas to focus on: Personal: a relevant observation about the specific prospect. (a LinkedIn post, news article they are in, etc.) Company: a relevant observation about the company. (10ks, company news, funding, growth, etc.) Industry: a relevant observation about the industry. (new laws/regulations, industry news, etc. ) The key is to show your prospect you understand their business and the challenges they may be facing. Your goal should be to earn credibility. Then use social proof to show how you can solve their challenges.

Yes...BUT... You can have the most perfectly well crafted, beautifully written message for your prospects...but if there is no consistent follow up to that original message, often times that effort and energy is lost. The key thing really is to strike a balance between research time, personalisation, scale and follow through: in short, the often desired "personalisation at scale".

You can't sell car insurance to someone who doesn't own a car. Using the same anology. You can't personalise an email to convince a prospect to reply if they don't have the challenge you help solve or they're not the right person. Before personalizing your outreach you should segment your prospects into smaller lists. These lists should be built around triggers and signals that increase relevancy and the likelihood of getting a positive reply. I've seen many campaigns achieve 15% reply rate with just basic personalization and an extremely relevant message.

1990: Basic, generic messages 2000: Trigger-based messages (SMB). 1:1 personalized on Enterprise 2020: 1:1 emails at any segments, at scale. And here are 3 ways you can do it: 1. Outreach tools with AI capabilities (poor) 2. Build CRM as a source of truth with tons of triggers and automate prospecting (good) 3. Prompt engineer messaging based on contact & company profiles. (Best)

If you can't provide any value in your prospecting it will be extremely difficult for you to get prospects to respond to you. Why would a prospect engage during a cold call or email if they feel you can't help them in any way? As a result, it is really important to both target your outreach and have a hypothesis as to how you can help every prospect that you reach out to. Then with that hypothesis, you need to ensure you have a very clear value statement and a few value oriented questions that will resonate with your prospect and help you begin a conversation with them.

From my experience, securing the current sale, as well as the future ones hinges on adding value through the specific insights you uncover. In an earlier post, I highlighted the importance of Knowing Your Customer and understand their industry. Dive deep to discover their needs, aligning your product to their specific requirements. Through this you learn where to provide value by identifying key items and touch points in your customer’s journey. Identify the key stakeholders, ensuring the benefits resonate not just with them but also for their customer. This is key, their customer also needs to be your focus. Tailor your approach speaking directly to their needs and aspirations, with their customer in mind, and you will add value.

This is such a cliché - people don't want to be educated as much as you'd think. Leading with problems similar people may be facing is far more effective. Stop trying to always educate and look to solve problems instead.

Respectfully disagree on "You should demonstrate your expertise and credibility by showing how your product or service can benefit your prospects" That's called selling. Stop selling! You want to be a trusted advisor, not a 'pitcher' like everyone who called before you. Let me re-write this: "You should demonstrate your expertise and credibility by asking questions about trends that are highly relevant to the challenges your prospects face." Don't pitch a solution out of the gate. Collaborate on a solution as you build the relationship, and empower your buyer (actually buyers... there are 5-8 buyers in every B2B complex sale) to re-tell your (their) solution internally as a 'why change' message.

Providing value and insight is the key to building meaningful relationships with prospects. It goes beyond merely selling a product or service; it's about becoming a valuable resource and trusted advisor. By sharing relevant information, resources, and insights, you position yourself as a partner in your prospect's success journey. This approach not only showcases your expertise but also underscores your genuine interest in helping them overcome challenges and achieve their goals.

IRC Sales Solutions reported that only 2% of sales happen during the first point of contact yet 44% of sales reps give up on their prospects after the initial conversation. As a result, make sure that you have a follow-up cadence set-up in your CRM or sales acceleration platform for you or your sales team. Ensure that a combination of emails and calls are made on both your cold leads but also after an initial conversation or discovery call. We recommend a cadence of 8 touches at SalesRoads. Creating this type of process for rigorous and diligent follow-up will make you stand out and help you to hit your quota.

This is probably the most important part of the ENTIRE process. Why go through the rest of the work if you're not going to follow up? I have definitely learned that in my career!

Sales prospecting is a journey, not a one-time event. It takes time, patience, and persistence to guide our prospects towards making that buying decision. Regular follow-ups are key to keeping our prospects engaged and interested. We want to be there every step of the way, providing valuable content and support to move them along their buyer's journey. Remember, everyone is different. That's why we need to use various channels and tools to cater to the preferences and behaviors of our prospects.

Ask yourself: what I'd love to receive? And reverse engineer it - here are 3 ways: 1. Content play: Ammar, really enjoyed the 2-min video of your content wheelhouse convo - especially the importance of repurposing content and the helpful pieces. So here’s mine - thought you & Nick could use it to review what worked for all of the pieces you published so far! 2. Trigger-play David, noticed you’re scaling your SDR team. Here’s a link to our calculator that helps you determine the right quota to set for each rep based on your desired outcome. 3. Insight-based: Sabena, you mentioned your cousin recently graduated with a business degree. I know Lisa Best, the CMO at X. If she'd like, I can make an intro.

Follow-up ONLY when you have value to add, or are improving your proposal. I agree with using a different channel that might use a different media such as video to support your proposal. Whatever you do, please don't call and say 'Hi, I'm following up' or 'Any update?' No-one likes this, and they'll block your number or email quickly. Value might be new data, trends, third party information. Best case, it is something new to the buyer's journey - a risk or opportunity you are sure they haven't thought of.

Check out what the company is hiring for and where they are focusing their new headcount. It will give you insight into current technology, acronyms of teams, internal jargon (to use back to them), and initiatives they are focusing on.

The most important tip I don't see mentioned is to maintain a healthy level of activity, all the time. If you're not constantly prospecting your team will get lazy and your pipeline empty. Always Be Prospecting.

Pipeline. Nothing more important than your pipeline. If you don’t come in everyday with at least 15-20 people to call back and 30-40 new cold calls, you are going to have a hard time being successful.

Optimise for replies above everything else. Deliverability is an issue faced by every sales org at the moment. You shouldn't be tracking open rates and your CTA's should ask for interest to solicit a reply. A reply can be one signal to the spam Gods that this sender is of interest to the people they're sending emails to. Are you interested in learning more? {first_name} is this a priority for you? etc These softer CTA's will generate more replies which is the whole point of prospecting.

Make sure you are continuously learning! It's a critical aspect of professional development in sales prospecting. It's important that you incorporate continuous learning into your routine especially by improving sales techniques and embracing technology. Note that the sales prospecting landscape is ever-changing, so strategies that are successful today might not be so tomorrow. An attitude that guarantees you remain flexible, and ahead of the curve is continuous learning.