3 reasons sellers are afraid to outreach
MAVERRIK? - Social Selling Training
Social Selling training and coaching for sales marketing and thought leadership.
I've been studying a trend over the past 12-18 months. As email and LinkedIn messages have become a larger part of a sellers outreach strategy, I've observed a major problem.
Sellers are afraid to outreach.
Over the past two years, I've trained more than 50 sales teams and I've seen this in many of the teams I've trained.
Sellers are afraid to outreach.
Two weeks ago, I was working with a team and one of the top cold callers, asked me how I overcome the scariness of messaging someone on LinkedIn. At first, I couldn't get my head around their question, they spend their days calling prospects.
Whilst seeing this trend for a long time, it was this conversation with a top performer on the phone that helped me see the big challenge.
Generational Changes
First off, a large proportion of our sellers have grown up with personal messaging through social media. Most of the sellers in employment right now were born with mobile technology being commonplace. The logic would be that sellers in their 20s and 30s would be more at ease sending outreach DMs.
Turns out it's not the case. They've grown up with DMs being very personal. DMs come straight through to your phone. There is a prevalent mindset that outreach by DM is MORE personal than phone calls.
Yet, when I talk to sellers who are a bit older, in their 40s, they rarely stress about sending DMs. They see it as another communication channel and don't have the personal hang-ups with DMs - their issue is more about adapting to the platform itself.
If you were born after 1990, you are likely to view messages as way more personal than a cold call.
Permanence of message
One of the major issues people face is the fear of permanence. When you make a call there is no trace of the past discussion, when you send an email, it stands on it's own. Yet, when you send an outreach message, people feel like it is more permanent than an email or phone call.
Despite many sellers running email sequences with multiple emails, calling campaigns with multiple dial attempts / messages left. For some reason, sellers get hung up on sending messages to prospects on LinkedIn.
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It's true that when you message people on LinkedIn that message forms a chain of communication. It's also true that if you pester people, you'll get removed or blocked. The reality is though, prospects rarely review their past messages.
Think about it.
We send emails to prospects, when we get no response, we follow up with another email, many of them referencing the previous message. How is this different?
Yet, it feels different.
One hit wonder
I've mentioned this before, that automation, whilst having it's benefits, has removed sellers from being in close proximity with their prospects. Sales outreach has become too transactional. Sellers want the wins without the work or risk of rejection.
This culture has developed from trying to scale rapidly with email and automation. Being ignored on email, getting no thanks, means that sellers only have to engage with positive responses. They don't have to invest any time in building relationships that turn out negatively.
Some would say this is a good thing. I disagree, it makes sellers look for easy wins and avoid anything that remotely looks like a risk.
This means, when it comes to DMs many sellers will send one message and quit there and then.
We're at a cross road
Sales is facing a crossroad. We can't keep pushing a transactional approach, looking for easy wins without any rejection or risk. Sellers need to be equipped to outreach in a more relational and human way. That's not just about tools, that's soft skills.
Hybrid outreach, combining all the channels together is going to continue to be important. That doesn't mean plugging more robotic outreach, it means sellers doing what they were born to do, forging new relationships and unlocking opportunities.
Let's face it, if all you need is automated emails, you can fire half your team and plug the positive responses into your best performers.
We need salespeople who are not afraid to outreach, not afraid to build personal relationships and not fearful of rejection.
This is about equipping sellers with genuine sales skills, not just giving them a phone, email and Sales Navigator subscription.
Bespoke Collection Services with Strategies for Keeping Good Customers by Over 50's. Australian Advisor for Foreigners
1 年Love your work on this topic Dean Seddon because it also in part explains why politicians seem to fear collaborating with their best data intelligence collectors which I regard to be the #RBA by attempting to make rules to keep the #bank independent to keep their team of over 1000 highly qualified data analysts from being more immediately useful to our 9 Treasurers. Reading your findings makes me partly understand why there is reluctance by younger politicians to be more adventurous to seek out & to co ordinate each other's #fiscalpolicy moves with that of the #RBA #monetarypolicy theorists which believe they should keep their timely information findings secret until they decide to release it to their own masters, the parliament. I can understand why older politicians did not want the timely information which is the same reason the younger don't want it now, so they can speculate with #fiscalpolcy gift giving for political reasons but I don't understand why they believe that what they are doing is ethically responsible in 2023. Mentors like Dan Pe?a would see it as essential for their mentees to collect all the best information before proceeding with any deal but our treasurers dont want the best information it seems. Why?