Quality vs Quantity in Sales

How many times a week do you receive an unsolicited email or LinkedIn message from someone who obviously has no idea what you do??

The invitation and/or an offer to help you in some way can be a legitimate way to connect with potential clients if it’s from someone offering a solution to a problem that you may be having.?

But when it so clearly misses the mark because the offer is THE SERVICE YOU PROVIDE FOR YOUR OWN CLIENTS, something is wrong.?

Quality vs Quantity

Technology has made so many things faster and easier. And allowed businesses to reach out ‘personally’ to so many more potential clients. Which is great, when it works.?

Too many businesses have accepted the idea that you can connect with a mass audience using tools like LinkedIn and other data scraping email tools. And you can. But what proportion of the people you’re reaching are not just the wrong contacts, but actually your competitors??

This is what happens when you rely entirely on machines. You tell LinkedIn you want to find CEOs of small businesses of between 1 and 10 people in the management consulting sector. Or you buy a list and you email directly.?

Don't Be Like This

Here’s a gem I received in my inbox in February:

You are probably very busy, so I just wanted to check to see if you saw my last message. I would like to help you and your sales drive sales through the roof

In 2021, we booked 15,000+ Appointments for our clients. Some of our highlighted services include: Mass Email Marketing, Mass SMS Marketing, LinkedIn Lead Generation, Targeted List Building, and Ringless Voicemail Drop campaigns. Moreover, we have a 100% success rate booking our clients as guests on the top podcasts within their respective industries.?

I'd like the chance to have a quick sit down with you to discuss how we'd like to make Sales for Non-Salespeople one of our trusted partners!

Let’s ignore the missing word in the first sentence and focus on the fact that this person reached out to me to help me with a service that is almost exactly what I provide to my clients. Not to mention that I haven’t used Sales for Non-Salespeople for more than 6 months. Did it take a lot of time or money to send this message? No. Is it completely off target? Absolutely. Was it a waste of time and money? Maybe not if the per message cost is pennies and I am just a tiny proportion of the total effort. But it has irritated me and caused me to share this mistake with all of you.

There is a Better Way

What’s the solution? An approach that’s focused more on quality than quantity.

At The Ventas Group we use tools like LinkedIn to find prospects for our clients, but we don’t stop there. We carefully select by hand the correct contacts for our sales team to call. That human oversight is what makes our outreach efforts more effective.?

Yes, it takes longer. But it means our sales team is not irritating people or wasting time calling people who they should not be calling. And, when they connect with someone, they’re able to build an instant rapport because they know something about the prospect before they call.?

The quantity approach may work for you. If you’re only interested in reaching out to the greatest number of people with the idea that 1-2% will respond and that’s good enough, great!

If you’re more interested in connecting with the people you can best help and you’re concerned about your brand integrity, especially if you’re selling a consultative type service that requires trust and respect, perhaps the quality approach might serve you better.

This post previously appeared on The Ventas Group's blog. Subscribe here.