How to be a Lucky Salesperson

Luck is said to be a combination of timing and preparation. Being involved in sales and marketing the past several years, I’ve seen that to be true. If you’re a good salesperson, you know a prospect isn’t very likely to buy if they aren’t going through some sort of growth, trouble, or change; if they aren’t in one of these buying modes, it’s very hard to get them to purchase ANYTHING. So if you’re trying to book more qualified meetings and increase your conversion rates, start basing your outreach strategies around industry events that are likely to cause some changes for your prospects.

Makes sense, right? But you’d be surprised by the amount of salespeople and marketers that send out the same generic, untimely content just because they created it once and it worked a few times. They send a lousy email that says something like:

“Hey Bill, I work for a new company and wanted to send you my new contact information. Do you have some time on your calendar this week to connect so I can share with you what we’ve got going on at XYZ Company? Hope to connect soon.”

Sorry to tell you, but no, Bill does not have time for you this week, or any other week for that matter.

I know it’s hard to believe, but prospects have learned about the BCC tab in emails. Honestly, if I ever see I’m BCC’d on a sales email, I’ll delete it immediately because it obviously went out to at least a few hundred people without any personalization. What’s even funnier is when you can obviously tell the salesperson copied and pasted certain words into the email; your name is a totally different font than the rest of the email, and your company name has all forms of “Inc. LLC, or Co.” on the end of it. Most prospects are smart enough to spot and delete that email from a mile away, if the spam filter doesn’t catch it first. You might see one or two responses every now and then, but you’re risking a couple things when this is your primary outreach method: 1) your emails will probably start going to junk because you’re bouncing a lot of emails, and/or 2) you’ll only see sporadic leads come in because your sales solicitation methods are garbage.

In sales and marketing, you’ve always got to be evolving to match what your prospects' wants and needs are at that specific time. You’ve got to speak the same language, and if you’re not, they’re going to buy from someone else who is. Think of it like this: would a fashion company be in business very long if they made a habit of advertising their shorts and sandal collections only during the winter months? Probably not. When you think about it this way, it makes a lot of sense, but a lot of businesses fail to take this level of thinking into their own industry, thinking it doesn’t apply to them because they’re “different.”

While some industries like fashion are much more seasonal than others, each industry still has its own unique events that occur around the same time every year; think insurance renewals, industry tradeshows, and purchasing events. When you start basing your marketing and sales activities around what most like to call “trigger events,” you’re much more likely to see better responses to your campaigns. So instead of it feeling like you’re trying to sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves, it’ll feel a little more like trying to sell her detergent after the ketchup popsicle. Side note- if you don’t get that Tommy Boy reference, shame on you if you're in sales…

A good practice for sales and marketing outreach is to base your email campaigns off industry events that aren’t likely to change very much from year to year. Here I like to think about things that are common and happen on a cyclical basis- insurance renewals, tradeshows, yearly reviews, year-end audits etc. Because of having to create things like “work-flows” and other CRM rules based on actions taken by the prospect, email campaigns can take a little more time to create on the front end in my experience. Because of this it makes sense to plan your email campaigns around events that don’t change much. This allows you to create all your emails months before they’re sent to prospects; all you have to do is create, schedule, and let them run. 

What about social media? Because social media sometimes tends to have a shorter shelf life than most email campaigns, think about using your social media accounts to connect with prospects during events that fluctuate. For example; it would be a good idea for a pizza delivery chains to advertise during sporting events- I saw at least 50 this past Saturday watching college football! Or even more obvious, a sneaker company advertising basketball shoes during the NBA Finals. Just makes sense right? By using your social media accounts this way, you’re able to engage with prospects at the perfect time to convert them into a paying customer. They’re already primed and ready for you, all you have to do is make your pitch.

The last point I’d like to make about basing your outreach on industry trigger events is this; YOU HAVE TO PLAN. Remember, luck is a combination of timing and preparation. If you’re not planning your campaigns ahead of time, you’re being much more reactive than proactive, and this causes deadlines to be pushed back and less than stellar content to be delivered to your prospects. Don’t insult your prospects by sending them untimely information and bad work; start implementing some of these sales strategies today and watch your conversation rates get better and better. 

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