In this article, you’ll read about:
- The current outbound sales scenario
- Relationships are the window of opportunity
- How to prospect cold leads without “pamphleteering”?
The current outbound sales scenario
The scenario we have today in the outbound sales sector is of companies cold prospecting from purchased bases and ready-made templates with increasingly intuitive and cheap robots. The result of this is the inbox of decision-makers (c-levels, head of purchasing, HR manager) flooded with very similar, impersonal texts and a nervous finger on the block.
My inbox, both LinkedIn and email, receives an average of 10 to 15 messages a day with “I’m from company X and we can help you solve Y with Z results. How have you solved this problem? When can you talk?”. I mark it as spam straight away.
You know that piece of paper you get in the street and then throw in the trash? That’s exactly what happens with most of these cold prospecting emails. That’s where I see many companies slipping up and sending out five hundred emails a day that achieve an average response rate of less than 5%.
Relationships are the window of opportunity
Understand this: these people (leads) have no interest in knowing what your company does. They don’t want a flyer in their email inbox, on WhatsApp or on LinkedIn. But perhaps they are interested in a conversation that will help them solve a problem. You become more interesting when you provide the help they need.
That’s the great thing: transforming shallow, cold, marketing and “more of the same” communication into an opportunity to help the lead and create a relationship. This change in approach is what will connect you with those who don’t know you yet without being invasive, and will generate value in that contact.
And it’s worth saying here that this help won’t always result in a sale, okay? But it will certainly result in a relationship, and the relationship is the window of opportunity.
If the lead isn’t ready to buy, if they don’t have the budget, if they aren’t interested, help them in any way you can. Take the opportunity to create authority, to gain the trust of this contact. In the future, they may return to the funnel as an opportunity, or refer you and bring other leads into your funnel.
How to cold prospect without “pamphleteering”?
Before we say hello to cold leads, we need to understand something very simple: if we want someone to pay attention to us, we first need to pay attention to ourselves.
Think about it: why am I going to read an e-mail or message when the person – or robot – who sent it doesn’t even know who I am, and has shown no real interest in helping me, only in selling?
We have a lot of information online. It’s not difficult or time-consuming to find information relevant to prospecting, such as liked posts, corporate videos, places you’ve worked, who you’ve worked with. Knowing the context of who you want to target is basic, it’s respect for the other person’s time. And the proliferation of robots has made us forget that.
With careful research, the approach, even within an outbound strategy, can be contextualized and you show the lead that you offer a solution that can really help them.
Effective prospecting sounds like a conversation
“Hi, XXXX, I saw that you worked for 9 years in sales and SDR at company X, which is rare, and that you have published excellent results. I was curious and really wanted to connect with you. I’m from company Y and I work precisely in the Z area and we have gains and difficulties in this area and I’m sure an exchange would be super valid. Are you up for a chat?”
The cold prospecting message I quoted sounds like a real conversation, and it is. To connect you need to be open. In that little example I gave, there is humanity in the text when the person writes “I was curious” and “we have gains and difficulties”, there is vulnerability. There’s a possibility that it’s not a total waste of time.
On the other hand, there is a real interest shown when she says “which is rare” to the fact that she has worked in sales for nine years. You can’t send five hundred of these emails a day, but you can send twenty or thirty, with a response rate of 60%. Positive responses, no spam flag, with a good impression of the company behind the prospect.
The robot that sends five thousand emails a day has an average response rate of less than 5%. Positive response, below 1%. Chance of spam flagged domain, 100%. In other words, you burn through five thousand companies to get to two. It doesn’t add up.
The discussion here is not about whether or not to use bots, but about cultural adherence between companies, about the synergy of values as much as of solutions and products. But that’s a subject for another article.
I still only believe in this way of doing outbound, on the nail. Everything else is pamphleteering.
Marina Vaz, founder and CEO of Scooto.