SMART IDEA #44: Winning clients in a down market (part 4)
Sales idea #4 is…wait for it…
PROSPECTING!
Does that word strike fear in your heart?
Do you dread the request to make ever more cold calls each week?
Historically, the #1 path to sales in staffing has been cold calling. While it’s tried, true, and proven, it’s also inefficient, annoying (to buyers), and in a down market, it can be morale-crushing.
According to 2024 research done by Cognism:
That’s not great math.
To get one sale, you need 5 warm leads.
To get 5 warm leads, you need to make 250 cold calls.
To convert those warm leads, you need to make 40 more calls.
That’s 290 calls to get one sale!
Even if you are that persistent, you’ll likely run out of prospects to call on before you hit your new business development goals. There just aren’t enough employers to make 290:1 work!
Does this mean that you should not pick up the phone to prospect?
Nope! To be absolutely clear:
To sell staffing, YOU MUST MAKE CALLS!
But, it’s what you do before (and after) the call that matters…
And that’s what today’s SMART IDEA is all about: pre-call and post-call strategies.
Meet two of my favorite acronyms: IDM and ABM.
(Okay, I don’t really have favorite acronyms, but these are great sales strategies!)
IDM (Integrated Direct Marketing)
As the name implies, this strategy is about integrating marketing into your sales process—before the call to capture attention, generate interest in the problems you can solve, create demand for your solutions, and get prospects to agree to a meeting.
And then, after the call to nurture relationships, strengthen positioning, keep you top-of-mind, and create reasons to make follow-up calls.
IDM is about creating a systematic, step-by-step process for selling.
IDM campaigns integrate multiple forms of outreach, including mail (yes, physical mail!), email, LinkedIn (follow, connect, comment), and outbound calls.
IDM campaigns can be as few as three steps or as many as twenty. (The harder the prospect is to reach, the more persistent you will have to be).
IDM campaigns are NOT about pitching your services. They are about illustrating the kinds of problems your prospects have and showing your distinct approach to solving those problems.
IDM campaigns provide salespeople with a clear game plan that shows exactly what to do, when to do it, and how to best approach prospects.
When salespeople follow the playbook (you have to make the calls!), the conversion rate typically ranges from four to ten percent (our record is 64%!).
Want to know more about IDM campaigns?
Download our Strategic Vision workbook and our Level Up eBook. You can find both at https://www.haleymarketing.com/haley-resources/ebooks/
You can also watch this on demand Lunch with Haley webinar: https://lunchwithhaley.com/2017/07/18/staffing-direct-marketing-campaigns/
ABM (Account-Based Marketing)
ABM is a sort of IDM applied to a single company.
With an IDM campaign, you craft your messaging around a target audience (i.e., a specific type of company and/or specific staffing buyer in those companies).
With ABM, you create an integrated direct marketing approach, but you customize the content for ONE specific organization.
And then you target multiple decision makers within that company.
You also adjust the messaging for each person and their role in the organization.
ABM campaigns work because they are HIGHLY CUSTOMIZED for each prospect. They show that you have done your homework…and you know the value you can provide to that specific company.
However, as you can guess, ABM campaigns require a LOT of work! They should be reserved for your biggest and most strategic prospects.
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But wait, there’s more!
IDM and ABM are not the only ways to prospect. Here are two other strategies to consider:
Sales Funnel Automation
This is another variant of IDM.
A sales funnel is how you convert cold leads to warm prospects to clients. It’s about automating the buyer's journey.
This specific approach is built around three things:
In Sales Funnel Automation, the outreach sequence will integrate email, LinkedIn, and sales calls with a very specific focus on promoting offers.
These campaigns are based on a truism of direct marketing:
Our August 2024 Lunch with Haley webinar was on sales funnel automation, and you can watch on demand here: https://lunchwithhaley.com/2024/07/12/how-to-use-automation-to-crush-your-revenue-goals/.
Digital Marketing Systems
This may be every sales rep’s favorite prospecting strategy—getting employers to come to you!
Digital marketing, often referred to as content and/or inbound marketing, is about using various digital marketing tools to help your company get found by your target prospects, engage those prospects with high-quality content, and convert them to warm leads with great offers.
Elements of a digital marketing system can include:
Yes, that’s a lot. And you don’t need to do all these things (but the best marketers will leverage all these tools to maximize response).
If you’d like a really good overview of this strategy, check out the How to Create a Digital Marketing System talk from the 2023 SMART IDEAS Summit.
You can access all the 2023 recordings here: https://www.haleymarketing.com/smartideas3/
I hope today’s SMART IDEA wasn’t too overwhelming.
Prospecting is a big topic. And the four strategies outlined above are certainly not the only approaches to selling staffing.
However, what these strategies show is that when you integrate marketing with sales, you make selling staffing services significantly easier.
Marketing will allow you to:
Capture attention.
Position your company…the way you want to be seen.
Differentiate your services.
Build trust and establish credibility.
Warm cold leads before you call.
Nurture relationships…and keep you top-of-mind until a staffing need arises, or your prospect is ready to consider a new staffing vendor.
And most importantly, integrating marketing with sales will enable you to close a larger percentage of your prospects than you would by cold calling.
Isn’t that what prospecting is really all about?
Next week, in part 5 of this series, we’ll look at a ways you can work with current candidates and alumni to uncover sales opportunities.
Did you miss any of the earlier parts of our How to Win Clients in a Down Market series?
Shame on you! You’re supposed to read SMART IDEAS every week! ??? ?
If you need to catch-up, you can access all our past issues at: https://newsletter.haleymarketing.com/index.smpl?arg=content_deliverable_archive&aud=company
Have you registered for the SMART IDEAS Summit 4?
What are you waiting for? 7 hours. 14 speakers. Priceless ideas. 100% staffing and recruiting focused.
Co-CEO, Haley Marketing | EO Next member | Beer league hockey enthusiast | Now pickleball junkie
3 个月In case you are interested, this article is directly related to how I got started in marketing...I was terrible at cold calling and needed a better solution! Who new that would lead to a new career?