Reject Old Sales Tactics To Accomplish More Positive Prospecting Results

If you are being taught to make 40, 50, even 60 or more calls a day and that Sales is a numbers game, you are being set up for failure. Yes, eventually you will trip and stumble onto some meetings and discovery calls but at what cost? This type of effort is unsustainable and invites stress, anxiety and burnout.

The grind presents itself when we focus on the quantity of our activity and not the quality of our efforts. Then managers reinforce this notion by managing how much we are doing and not how well we are doing. This puts undue pressure on everyone and eventually, sales people leave for greener pastures; only to find the pasture wasn’t any greener.

Prospecting is the lifeblood of any pipeline and we must keep that pipeline lit up with quality opportunities at all times. In order to do that, salespeople must not only change the tactics (execution) but their mindset. 

Here are the areas you must begin to focus on now to start moving the needle:

1./ Mindset (This is not your father’s or mother’s sales)

Gone are the days of making a trillion calls (or emails) per day and exclaiming how successful you were. If they were giving out trophies to the largest number of calls made, then you might win. But how long can you do that? What impact is that having on your mind, your health, your family? Let’s look at this another way. First, these tactics no longer work. Cold calls by themselves are a poor way to connect with people. 

According to Charlie Cook’s Marketing Success, cold calling has a 2% success rate.

Move from cold calling to connecting. Simply calling and getting a meeting is a selfish act. No one wants to take a meeting to hear about your company, your product or service or how great you are. Make a decision to truly connect with people by taking the time to find something valuable that might be of interest to your prospect. Be human. Be funny. Be vulnerable at times. Act less like a robot and more like a human. 

2./ Do Your Research, Then Provide Insights

I’ve worked in companies that did not invest in data. They simply believed that salespeople should generate their own lists, go to the prospect’s website and find their contact info. What a waste of time! No wonder salespeople spend only 33% of their time actually selling. Contact information is table stakes. If your company is not willing to invest in basic data, then you might want to rethink your tenure at the company. But if you decide to stick it out, you may have to invest with your own money — for your sanity and productivity. Once you have some good data in hand, do a little more research on news, trends, etc. Build out some ideas and insights around what you find and use it as part of your outreach. Carry a journal and capture those ideas as they come to you. Don’t worry about giving away ideas. It will come back to you 10 fold. Value first. 

3./ That LinkedIn Thing

If you are not using basic LinkedIn, then you must have missed the Sales 101 class for 2021. I personally joined in 2007 and have received a ton of value from it. Once you subscribe, think about signing up for Navigator. Navigator is a great way to search for prospects by multiple criteria. This especially comes in handy when your company fails to deliver on prospecting data. Okay great. Now that you’ve done that, what’s next? Unless you begin to reach out actively to prospects on LinkedIn, then it’s simply a static database of potentials. Develop an active outreach plan. Maybe something like this:

a. Follow your prospect and company

b. See if they are active on LinkedIn. If they are, drop in an insightful comment and “like” (repeat, but only if you have something valuable to say)

c. Send InMail to your prospect to introduce an idea/insight. No sales push. Leave it to them. (“No rush in getting back to me. Let me know what you think.”)

d. Send inMail to reframe idea/insight or offer another. Call to action — meeting. Again, soft approach not hard sell. 

AND if they are a 2nd connection, explore whether or not you have a strong connection that might be able to introduce you.

Once you connect, take the conversation off Linkedin — email, phone. 

4./ Start Shooting Video — “I hate the way I look”

Video is becoming the new email and it works great! It’s so easy too. From your phone or computer. 

Sales teams that use video get a 16% bump in email open rates (SalesLoft, 2018)

Sales teams that use video get a 26% increase in replies (SalesLoft, 2018)

I would say, just start. When I first started using video email, I didn’t worry about backgrounds or how I looked (per se). It was more important to personalize and customize my video to create a real connection. It added some flavor and a new dimension to my sales. You are going to get better at it. But you have to do it and do it consistently. Don’t get lazy either. It’s not about getting the initial meeting. Provide value with every connection.

Some of the tools I recommend are BombBomb and SalesMail. 

5./ Niche or Die

You may be lucky to work for a company that has a very specific niche. Like, “We provide cyber security infrastructure to dental practices with over 50 employees.” Companies can not serve everyone or even most. If you want more success, be the best option to a smaller group of people. This allows you to create a more compelling value proposition, charge a higher premium and create more domain expertise in a smaller sphere. Maybe your company is trying to be too many things to too many companies. In that case, it’s up the the salesperson to decide which targets are best suited for the problems that the company solves. One way to do this is to look at current customers — who are they, why did they buy initially, why do they continue to buy, etc. Look for patterns and develop some hypotheses. Test them with real prospects. Refine and test again. Sounds like a lot of work but it pays big. This is what top performers do.

6./ Your Personal Brand

Look beyond your current position at your company. Do you want to have a long, fulfilling and impactful sales career? If you do, you’ve got to build your personal brand. Think about what you bring to the table and what makes you unique. Not easy to do. People are the worst at being objective about themselves, so you may need some help. Create something that prospects will see and can not help but work with you. Build something that makes employers want to have you in their company today. 

The goal is for you to build a network. To build real connections. To be known for something other than where you are at this moment in time. 

Why not —

+Create your own website and blog every week

+Build out your LinkedIn profile that uniquely sets you apart so that any employer or prospect looking is irresistibly attracted to you

+Distribute quality content consistently on LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, etc.. 

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Andy Carlton helps salespeople and sales teams become top performers. He has the accolades to prove it: over $55M in contracts, part of one of the fastest growing companies in the country as cited by INC Magazine, for 4 consecutive years, launched a marketing SaaS platform that was awarded Cisco Innovation Award, and sold to some of the most prominent CEO’s for the first ecommerce marketplace in commercial internet history. Andy’s mission is clear: to remove the mistakes of the overworked and stressed-out sales culture and replace it with one based on intention, wellness and healthy motivation. This has led to top performers who love what they do and get the highest results without brutal sales training tactics nor 12-hour daily grinds.

Stay tuned for my latest sales workshops this summer. Follow me on LinkedIn.