7 Sequences Every Sales Team Needs

1. The Agoge Sequence

I wrote about this sequence at length in The Agoge Sequence: A Blueprint for 2x Response Rates. But it needs to be mentioned in this list. This particular sequence makes it very easy to personalize with a high volume of prospects. We started using this in Outreach’s Agoge Tribe and it has become invaluable to our outbound strategy for high priority prospects. Also Agoge is pronounced: Uh-Go-Jee.

2. Call FUP

When you get a reply from a cold outbound email or connect with someone on a cold call, the prospect is automatically taken out of sequence until you decide what to do with them. 

If this prospect needs to be followed up with, use the The custom FUP queues up calls and sends followup emails with messaging generic enough to work for any email you send. It basically turns your reply email into a sequence.

Note: You must send an initial email to use this. So if you get off the phone with someone you need to follow up with, send them an email and attach a custom FUP sequence to make sure they don’t fall through the cracks. 

Implementing a custom FUP will increases the response rate of our one-off emails by 102%.

3. Non-Call FUP

This FUP is used just like the original custom FUP but it has no calls. The best place to use this is when you get a reply from someone that is lower priority. For Outreach, this is any prospect that is yellow in The Agoge Playbook.

4. No Show

The no show sequence is how we keep on top of prospects that do not show up to an initial meeting. There is a manual email in the beginning so you can craft it specific to the situation, but we have some general language that we have found is effective for the SDRs to use as a guide.

5. Picking up the Conversation

We use this sequence for prospects that have had some positive interaction in the past. It is usually a lost opportunity, but is useful any time there has been positive momentum that we can take advantage of. The first email is mostly templated but has space to put in relevant notes from the past engagement like the date it happened and some detail about what caught their interest.

6. Do or Die

This is used for situations where the prospect has a valid phone number but no email. The most common situations are companies without a standard naming convention for emails, individuals with a first name with multiple possible nicknames, or a hyphenated last name. 

The first step of this sequence is to check LinkedIn to see if that person is still at the company. Most of the time you see someone in your Outreach instance that with a number and no email, it is because they are no longer at the company. If you use a standard data provider this will be fairly rare. If you find yourself using this more than a handful of times you are probably overusing it.

7. Referral

This is the granddaddy of them all! With a 54% reply rate it is the highest converting sequence that we have. Every time we connect with the wrong person, we ask “Who should I be reaching out to?” then we wait in silence for an answer.

It is possible to get a referral most of the time.

Once we know who we should be reaching out to, we immediately call the person we were referred to, and then put them in the referral sequence if there is no answer.

If you or your team is not currently using a referral sequence or asking for referrals, this is a very easy way to quickly increase the output of yourself or your team for very little additional effort.

The Copy

The Referral sequence, Custom FUP, and Custom FUP - No Calls can be easily implemented into any sales organization and will have a surprisingly dramatic return. There is no reason not to add these on your team right away.

The Agoge Sequence also had a massive impact here at Outreach and I highly recommend adopting the strategy outlined in The Agoge Sequence. 

I’m happy to send you the copy we use in these four for inspiration.

Just write “I want to see it” in the comments and I’ll send it to you!

#HappyHunting