The Salesman.com Podcast

[spp-player] Everybody loves a remarkable story. The difference between an average story and a remarkable one is the amount of imagination that is captured. Remarkable stories take your buyers somewhere new. Remarkable stories aren’t always factual, but they are always consistent. Buyers have a tough time working out if the hero was called Barry or Brian but they’re very good at sniffing out inconsistencies in how the story starts and ends. Remarkable stories build trust. In a world where nobody trusts anyone anymore stories are an increasingly powerful weapon of mass attention. We don’t trust the news. We don’t trust vaccine manufacturers. We don’t trust salespeople… unless they tell a remarkable story. Remarkable stories don’t require high production values, slide decks or a conference room. Either the buyer is eager to listen, or they’re not. Remarkable stories are never aimed at an entire market. What is remarkable to you isn’t remarkable to me. When you dumb down a story to make it fit for many, it becomes average to all. The most remarkable stories match the world view of a tiny audience and then the tiny audience amplifies it on your behalf. Finally. remarkable stories don’t teach buyers anything new. Instead, the very best stories agree with what the buyer already believes and makes them feel smart. The more secure you can make the buyer feel with your stories, the more likely they will be to buy your product.

In a perfect world, we would all make decisions based on logic alone. But the science tells us that the majority of our choices are influenced by biases—automatic modes of thinking we don’t even realize are controlling us. Better understanding these 8 cognitive biases lets sales reps like you get in the heads of your buyers, subtly influence leads, and secure your sales success. 1. Anchoring Bias The first cognitive bias is called the anchoring bias. When making decisions, humans rely more heavily on the first lot of information they receive over any subsequent lots of information that come their way. The issue is, the first lot of information isn't always the most reliable. For example, say I'm selling a product and I tell you it's worth $20,000 a month. Then two days later I come to you with a credible story that I can now offer it to you for the low, low price of $10,000 a month. Seems like a complete bargain, right? This is because your judgment on what pricing is fair is based on the initial information that you received. This is an example of how “anchoring” is used as a tool of influence. Many organizations sell their products by anchoring a fictitious price that the product never actually sells for. Then they pitch the lower price afterward to secure a deal. This can also be used more subtly too. For example, if I ask you whether the tallest building on the planet was more or less than a thousand feet high, I've already anchored this number in your brain which can skew your response. So if you were thinking of a number between 800-1300 ft, then my question that mentioned 1,000 feet specifically skewed your answer. As it turns out, the world’s tallest building is in Dubai and is 2700 feet tall! See how that works? 2. Availability Bias The availability bias is when people overestimate the importance of the information they've already accepted. And that causes them to ignore other information that might contradict what they think they already know. A good example here is that a lot of people in the Western world consider terrorism a very real threat to their safety. Why? Because terrorism is screamed in our faces every single day through newspapers, TV shows, and of course Youtube videos. So most people assume because of the availability bias that you have a real chance of being killed by terrorists, and something needs to be done about it… The reality is, you're more likely to die from a coconut falling on your head or being struck by lightning than being attacked by a terrorist. Yet most people don't worry about these things. If you live in America, you're 130x times more likely to be killed by a police officer, the people who are there to keep you safe from terrorists, than die from a terrorist attack. How crazy is that? This cognitive bias works because most people do not make decisions based on facts; they make them based on stories as stories sink into our brains easier. This is an essential cognitive bias to remember when you're selling. The lesson here is you should blend facts about features and benefits with customer success stories. That’ll leave an impression on your potential customer's mind that will be hard for a competitor to change. 3. Bandwagon Bias See, people tend to believe what other people think. People like to be a part of the crowd rather than nervously looking on as they make a decision that doesn’t fall in line with everyone else. And in sales, you can really use that to your advantage. If you position yourself as either the industry-standard product or the hot new start-up service or service that everyone is flocking towards, you're instantly given an incredible amount of credibility. If everyone is using your product, it must be the best right? That’s how the potential customer will see it anyway. All because of the bandwagon bias. The bandwagon effect is especially devastating when you look at the financial markets. The world economy can technically be in a recession for months or even years before anyone pays attention to it. But when people start selling their shares, it encourages other people to sell theirs too. And that causes a scare and eventually a full-blown market crash. People aren't selling their stocks because they've analyzed the company and its performance. They’re doing it because everyone else is doing it. And that’s the bandwagon bias at play. 4. Decision Bias People tend to defend themselves once they've committed to a decision. This defensive stance is essential for sales professionals to understand. Because if you annoy a potential customer and they say they won’t do business with you, they’re usually going to stick to their guns. And that means you should just move on. Or better yet, don’t annoy them in the first place! Another example of this is what people call “fanboyism”. You can see this with nerds that love Apple products such as the iPhone or MacBook. Feature-wise, these devices aren’t very different from the competition. But even still, Apple fanboys will only buy Apple products. So even as the price of these products goes up and up, they’ll defend their purchase and proclaim they are far more differentiated than what they are. 5. Confirmation Bias When people search for information, they usually pay attention to content that confirms what they already believe. So if you were born into a religious household, you’re much more likely to follow the religion of your parents. You’re more likely to watch YouTube content about that religion, more likely to have friends in the same religious group, and so on. The flip side of this is some religious people haven't chosen their religion at all. It was dumped onto them as a child, and they've never questioned it or researched other religions that with hindsight, with objective thinking, may be more appropriate for them. You see this an awful lot within the world of health and fitness too. For example, if you enjoy drinking red wine, your brain pays attention to the scientific publications that suggest red wine is good for you. But, if you think alcohol is bad, you'll naturally pay more attention to the studies that show links between alcohol and cancer. So make sure you're genuinely open to the opposite side of discussions; otherwise, you might also fall into the… 6. Ostrich Bias The ostrich bias is the subconscious bias that encourages you to ignore any negative information that comes your way. This goes beyond not proactively looking for negative information by watching the news, for example. This bias causes you to become blind to the negative information, even when it’s staring you right in the face. An example of this could be when you know you're behind on your sales numbers but you “put your head in the sand”, like a cartoon ostrich, and choose to ignore this fact. You continue procrastinating and you don't do anything about the issue. Until eventually it’s too late to make a difference. Now in the short term this bias can relieve some stress that we might face if we embrace the gravity of the situation. But over the long term, this bias always makes things worse. 7. Outcome Bias The outcome bias is the tendency for us to evaluate decisions based only on the results. Even when those decisions were crappy ones. This is easiest to understand with an example. Say you were in massive credit card debt and decided to take out an additional loan to buy a bunch of lottery tickets. Then by some miracle you won, managed to pay off your debts and still had money leftover. The outcome bias would push you to believe that you made the right decision. But the reality of course is that this was downright idiotic. You just got lucky. This happens a lot in business too. Let's say a manager is making a purchasing decision. His team and all of the data tell him to buy product A, but his gut tells him to purchase product B. On one occasion, his gut decision to buy B happened to be the correct decision, even though it went against all of the logical evidence. The outcome bias will then make this manager trust their gut on purchasing decisions in the future. And guess what? They’ll make countless mistakes in the future because of it! 8. Survivorship Bias This final bias is when you judge something based on the surviving information rather than all the information that you have. Example. Right now you’re watching this video. And we’re nearly at the end. So you will have a different opinion on the content than someone who viewed 30 seconds and clicked off because they were bored. When we only listen to the people who have actually completed the process, we ignore lots of feedback from the people who didn't. And that feedback can actually be some of the most valuable. This is a real problem in the sales training industry. You get lots of middle-aged, angry dudes in suits that don't fit banging on about cold calling and all the other weird sales techniques that worked in the 90s. Because these techniques worked back then, these guys had some success and so started training others. Now they have survivorship bias and will only focus on what worked for them, ignoring the facts that the marketplace has changed, and nobody answers cold calls anymore, and also their audience isn’t like them. Otherwise, they would have already had success cold calling. Right? This is one of the reasons that the Salesman.org training platform includes an assessment that then tells you, specifically, what training will work best for your personality type. This is the most effective way to ramp up selling results, fast. Because it doesn’t rely on the faultiness of survivorship bias.

We all know mastering your cold calling game is essential for sales success. But what a lot of reps don’t come prepared for is voicemail. And that’s a real problem since 4 out of 5 cold calls end in a no pickup. So, how can you up your voicemail game and maximize the value of every one of your calls? Simple—just use these three word-for-word voicemail templates. So, ready to beef up your voicemails with these templates? Great, then let’s jump in. 1. The Foundation The Foundation Template. This is the template that each of the other voicemail templates are built on top of. And it goes like this: Hello, this is [your name] from, [company name]. I’m calling because, [reason for calling]. This benefits you for, [benefits]. I will follow up with an email right now and I look forward to speaking with you shortly. Have a great day. Goodbye. It’s simple. And it’s effective. Now let’s take a look at what using this template looks like in the real world. Real World Example So this is a word-for-word example of what I say when selling our Selling Made Simple Academy to the VP of Sales: Hi this is Will Barron, calling from Salesman.org.  I’m calling because we’ve just improved your competitor’s revenue by 24% with 4 weeks of training and we can do the same for you.  I will follow up with an email right now and I look forward to speaking with you shortly.  So let’s break down this template so we can understand what we’re really trying to do here. First off, you can see that I’m not doing anything weird or manipulative. The old-school way of selling would be something like this: “I’m calling as I have something incredibly exciting to share and I need you to call back right now before you lose access to it…” I’ve even heard old-school sales trainers tell reps to start sharing a benefit and then purposefully hang up halfway through the sentence so it sounds like they’ve been cut off. Both of these tactics are gross and obviously manipulative. Imagine using a tactic like this with a surgeon, which is who I used to sell to when I worked in medical device sales. They’d think you were an idiot at worst and at best, it would severely devalue you as an industry expert in their eyes. Why It’s Effective Let’s look at this template again and see why it works: Hello, this is [your name] from, [company name]. I’m calling because, [reason for calling]. This benefits you for, [benefits]. I will follow up with an email right now and I look forward to speaking with you shortly. Have a great day. Goodbye. The main thing that we are trying to communicate is that we are an expert calling upon someone that we can help. We’re also getting them used to our voice and preempting the fact that we are going to continuously follow up with them until they give us a response. That is all we are really asking for from a voicemail. Unless you’re halfway through the deal and you have something specific to talk about, most of the time your prospects won’t reply directly to your voicemail. And that’s why we always follow up with an email that builds on the trust and rapport our voicemail just created. Now what’s great about this template is that you can tweak it for a variety of situations. And that brings us to template number two… 2. The Referral As you might’ve guessed, this is the template you can use to increase response rates by pointing to a referral. So for example, every time I provided a high level of service to my surgical customers, I would ask them if they thought any of their colleagues could also benefit from the same value. Often, they would provide a referral which I would then use voicemail, calls and email to follow up on. So let’s look at how we can use this basic voicemail template specifically for referrals. Hi, [prospect name], my name is, [your name], and I’m calling from, [company]. [Referrers name], suggested I should book a meeting with you and gave me your details because we have, [benefits to original prospect], for them and they think we can do the same for you. I will send you an email right now with a little detail on how, [referrers name], thinks we can help you and it will be great to speak with you this week. Why It Works So in this voicemail we’ve leveraged a number of the principles of influence. Let’s break them down. The voicemail includes: Social proof from including our referrer’s name and recommendation. We’ve been polite and likable, setting the foundation for rapport building. And we’ve also started to build a little bit of authority because we have solved the problem that our prospect is facing for somebody else. That’s not bad for a quick voicemail, right? So now let’s look at a voicemail template for when you have “no show events”. 3. The Follow Up Prospects don’t always show up to product demos, scheduled meetings, and other sales events. This is all a part of doing business and truth be told, it’s nothing to be worried about. But we do need to relentlessly follow up on no-shows so we can either get a “no” from them and remove them from our pipeline or we can get another meeting booked in our calendar so we can progress the sale forward. Therefore, if somebody no-shows, don’t follow-up by email. Instead, call them immediately. Be assertive here. They may have a very valid reason for not showing. But they’ve wasted your time, your company’s time, and your resources. Not acceptable for high-value dealmakers like you. If you call the individual and they don’t answer, leave a voicemail using the following template: Hi [prospects name]. I’m calling regarding our [meeting/call/demo] that we had booked for [time/date] which is today. I want to make sure you’re not having any connection issues and as my schedule is now booked up, I want to see if I can squeeze you into another timeslot that fits. I will call you again in an hour to get this wrapped up. Why It Works Here you can see that we’re not letting the prospect off the hook by saying that we will email them to rearrange another meeting or by framing the conversation that “maybe it was our fault, and we got the date wrong”. If you go into the sales process being unassertive like this, your prospects will walk all over you and treat you like an amateur. Again, think of the principles of influence that we have tapped into with this “no-show” voicemail template. We have shown authority We have scarcity because we are saying our schedule is nearly full We have assertiveness as we are saying that we’ll follow-up in an hour on the phone rather than being passive and asking them to get back to us with another timeslot. Now before we go, I want to leave you with a… Bonus Tip Make sure that the tonality of your voice does not go up at the end of each of your sentences. When you go up at the end of each sentence, it sounds a little something like this… When you go up at the end of your sentences makes you sound uncertain about what you’re asking from the prospect. Additionally, I don’t have a particularly powerful or deep voice. But when I stand up straight, have good posture, and I talk a little slower, my voice projects a lot more authority. So try doing that when you’re leaving voicemails too.

The internet is an opportunity and an issue for sellers. A few clicks and you have infinite data. More is being added to the infinite every second. But you can’t consume, research or act on infinite. If there were infinite rules to a sport, we wouldn’t watch it. If there were infinite Disney characters, they’d have no brand value. Humans are not wired for infinite. And here steps in our sales automated outreach tools… “Artificial intelligence will scour the infinite sales data you have and give you exactly what you need…” Maybe someday. Right now AI can’t even keep obvious spam out of my inbox. Until recently, having more data helped salespeople. Suddenly, more data adds confusion and procrastination to their days. You know who has the exact information you need? Your buyer. It’s much more effective to call your buyer and ask them a question than it is to stick another software tool in your “sales stack”. Computers are great at gathering general data. Humans are better at uncovering the important bits. Computers will tell you the numbers, metrics and charts. Humans are better at finding why people do things. Computers are better at algorithmic math. Humans are better at motivating other humans. Computers will mine your online activities and spit out a persona that marketing loves. Humans will influence another human and close the damn sale. So if you’re struggling to get in front of or influence people in the market right now, stop starring at endless dashboards and pick up the phone and ask a couple of people who bought from your recently – Why did you buy from us? How did you find out about us? What could we have done to speed up the sales process? And then do more of that. Make selling simple. Click here to see if Salesman.com Academy can help you simplify your sales process.

Sales reps are busy (you know this). Lead generation, following up with prospects, updating contact info, setting up meetings, researching buyers, closing deals—it all takes time to do. A lot of time. It's no wonder, then, that sales reps are happily incorporating sales automation tools into their processes more and more. These tools drive efficiency, free up time, and even boost conversion rates. According to Instapage, 80% of marketing automation users see increased leads, and 77% see increased conversions. However, using an automation tool effectively means developing a strategic and data-driven sales cadence. But what is a sales cadence? How does it help? And what elements should every sales cadence contain? That's exactly what this guide examines. We're also going to look at some proven sales cadence frameworks and examples you can model your framework after. What Is a Outbound Sales Cadence?  An outbound sales cadence (or prospecting cadence) is a sequence of communications or “touches” that salespeople can follow to develop relationships with buyers. They usually consist of various outreach methods (email, phone, social media, etc.) and span several days, weeks, or even months. Your sales cadence is a critical part of the modern B2B sales process. Think of a sales cadence like a cold outreach roadmap. A strategic sales cadence tells you when to reach out to leads and how to communicate with them. With it, there's no more asking, “Should I follow up today or tomorrow?” And there's no more wondering which communication method to use. Like so many other aspects of sales, there's no single cadence that's a fit for every business or industry. Bigger deals with a longer sales cycle, for instance, might call for a more stretched-out sales cadence. Conversely, products with a lower price point may benefit from a more rapid sales cadence. That's why it's so essential to develop and tweak a sales cadence that's right for you and your current outbound sales strategy. Why Should You Use One? Some sales reps are under the impression that a effective sales cadence is only suitable for large teams. And for smaller businesses, salespeople should simply “feel” their way through connecting with a buyer. This couldn't be further from the truth. Instead, implementing and following an official, clearly defined sales cadence brings a variety of benefits for sales teams, both big and small. Benefits for a sales rep like – Simplify – The most significant benefit of following a sales cadence is that you never lose track of where you're at in the sales process. Most successful deals require eight touches, according to HubSpot. And when you're playing it by ear with your follow-up messages, it's easy to forget when you last reached out or what your previous email covered. There's no question of what to say next or when to say it with a sales cadence. It's a more straightforward, more efficient way of selling. Scale Without Spam – The “wing it” approach may work when you only have a handful of clients. But as business expands and you're juggling a growing list of potential buyers, wires get crossed and opportunities for rapport building go overlooked. With a well-defined sales cadence, you can handle more clients, close more deals, and not have to worry about overwhelming buyers with too much communication. Track & Refine – The first step to building a foolproof sales process is tracking what works and what doesn't. With a sales cadence, you can observe and analyze which stages you're losing ground with buyers. And you can refine your process when you recognize new steps that are working well. Essential Elements of a Successful Sales Cadence As you can see, adopting and following a sales cadence is a great way to streamline your buyer outreach and lock in more wins. But what are the elements that make up a triumphant sales cadence? A) Activities Every sales cadence framework is made from a combination of outreach activities. These outreach activities are the individual social interactions you can have with a potential buyer. And as with the overall structure, the type of activity that resonates with your buyer most will vary. Generally, there are seven different types of activities you can engage in. Video – Video messages sent to the buyer through email or via social media. Social – Text-based messages or other type of engagement through social media platforms. Email – Text-based messages sent to the buyer through email. Meeting – In-person meeting with the prospect. Call – Both phone calls and video calls are included here. Voicemail – Voice messages left for your prospects after a no pick-up. Text – SMS messages delivered to your buyer's cell phone. Remember to vary up your outreach activities. Not everyone will respond to an activity the same way. For example, an older executive from a more traditional company may gravitate to doing business over phone calls. A younger buyer from a startup, on the other hand, may be more receptive to text messages. In the end, it depends on your audience. And refining which activities you use over time is essential for creating a successful sales cadence. B) Plays Plays are a series of activities that are grouped and completed one-after-another in quick succession. For example, a play might look like this: Call > Voicemail > Email and mention the call Think of a play like an activity combo. When the activities complement and build on each other, a play will be more effective at driving action and building rapport. We'll talk more about plays in just a bit. C) Cadences Similar to how plays are a series of activities strung together, a cadence as a whole is a series of plays strung together. It's critical to understand that cadences have an effect greater than the sum of its parts. It's the sequence that leads to results, not just the individual pieces. For example, a prospective buyer will have more trust and rapport for you and your business at the end of the cadence than at the beginning. That means if you were to send the exact same email to buyers at the beginning and end of a cadence, they'd end up having vastly different results. That's why it's so important to find a proven sales cadence framework and build on it for yourself. The Goal A lot of reps misunderstand the end goal of an outreach sales cadence. A sales cadence is not meant to bring buyers to the end of the sales cycle and close the deal. Instead, it's supposed to be just the beginning. Sales cadences are designed to get you a meeting so you can start the actual selling process (like the Selling Made Simple Method). An outreach sales cadence, then, is just the foot in the door. But it's the foot in the door you need to start nudging your buyer to a “yes” decision. The Two Plays There are only two types of plays you need to build a booming cold outreach sales cadence—One-Step Plays and Multi-Step Plays. One-Step What Is It: These plays are single activities of any type—phone calls, emails, text messages, or any other kind. So they're more of a “nudge” than Multi-Step Plays. When To Use It: One-Step Plays are critical for long-term accounts with a, particularly lengthy sales cycle. These are the buyers that take time to consider using your product. And this type of play prevents these more sensitive buyers from feeling overwhelmed or put off by your communication frequency. Multi-Step This type of play drives more action, attention, and responses from buyers over a shorter period of time. That being said, a Multi-Step Play isn't going to be suitable for every type of buyer. So don't assume going this route is always the best option. You can of course, build your own Multi-Step Plays over time. In fact, you'll want to create your own Multi-Step Plays so they cater to your buyer and industry. But for now, you can use the three below as a basis for building your first successful sales cadence. Loop Back – Call > Wait 5-minutes > Call > Voicemail > Email referencing the voicemail Social – LinkedIn visit > Call > Voicemail referencing LinkedIn visit Content Share – Call > Voicemail to explain that you'll send an email > Email content and refer back to your call Starter Sales Cadence Frameworks Before jumping into the sales cadence templates to get you started developing your own, let's have a quick word on the scientific method. Scientific Method The scientific method is the most widely recognized way of building empirical knowledge. It's a system of observation, measurement, experimentation, and theory development. The method involves: Stating a hypothesis (a guess about why something happens or why an event occurs). Testing that hypothesis in the real world. Refining your hypothesis using the results of your testing and comparing the results of further testing to your original results. You should apply this method to the development of your sales cadences. You may land on a perfect combination of plays right out of the gate. Or you could find that a particular set of activities is causing potential buyers to drop out of your cycle. The key is to keep on testing and refining. The sales cadence frameworks below are a solid foundation to build on. But the work will still fall to you to tweak and refine them so they align with your business industry. And if there is a play that's not performing for you (no calls, low email open rate, zero meetings booked, etc.), then it's up to you to remove it from your cadence or try something different. That being said, here are the sales cadence frameworks that we've tested and seen great results from. *Note: The plays in the sales cadence frameworks below are labeled as “OS” for One-Step Plays and “MS” for Multi-Step Plays.  1) Education Cadence This sales cadence framework is perfect for buyers that don't yet understand how your product will add value to their lives. It focuses heavily on providing plenty of educational resources that your buyer can use to learn more about what you're offering. Day 1 – OS: Connect on LinkedIn Day 3 – OS: Email – Case study for a related business using your product Day 10 – OS: Email – Link to a “how-to” blog post that focuses on a common problem in their industry and how your product can help solve it Day 12 – MS: Call > Voicemail to explain that you'll send an email > Email link to another case study and reference your call in the email Day 14 – OS: Email – Provide some hard data on the buyer's problem that they might find useful Day 20 – OS: Email – Straight forward ask for a meeting Day 25 – MS: Call > Voicemail > Email asking for a meeting 2) Social Cadence This sales cadence framework is perfect for targeting the social butterflies on your buyer list. It focuses primarily on making a connection through LinkedIn. However, you can also apply it to other social media platforms like Facebook or even Instagram. Day 1 – MS: Visit LinkedIn profile > Connection request Day 3 – OS: Comment on latest post and ask a thoughtful question Day 5 – MS: Call > Voicemail to explain that you'll send an email > Email link to a relevant blog post and reference your call in the email Day 7 – OS: Email – Straight forward ask for a meeting  3) Stone Cold Cadence This sales cadence framework is excellent for separating yourself from the noise of the market. It works best when the buyer is already familiar with your brand and product. But rather than understanding the value you offer, they think of you instead as a commodity. Day 1 – MS: Call > Wait 5 minutes > Call > Voicemail > Email referencing the voicemail Day 3 – MS: Call > Wait 5 minutes > Call > Voicemail > Email referencing the voicemail Day 4-10 – OS: Email – Each day send them a new “insight” about their industry, their business, or your product Day 16 – MS: Call > Wait 5 minutes > Call > Voicemail > Email referencing the voicemail A Note on Response Rates It's worth mentioning that response rates tend to vary wildly when it comes to phone calls. Time of day, personal preference, type of business, day of the week, and more all heavily come into play. As a result, it can be hard to give guidelines on how many calls should connect during your cadence. And that can make it challenging to know when to vary up your cadence. However, the data is much clearer for email rates. Use the guidelines below when refining your sales cadence emails. Over 60% open rate / 10% reply rate – Great! Don't change anything, and keep pushing forward. >60% open rate / >5% reply rate – Your subject line is great, but you should test your email body copy. >25% open rate / >2.5% reply rate – Your subject line is poor, which is limiting the reply rate. Sales Cadence Example Let's take a look at what a sales cadence may look like for your business and a general gist of what to say. We're going to be using part of the Education Cadence as the template. That way, you can get a sense of what a social message, email, and voicemail sound like. Day 1 – OS: Connect on LinkedIn LinkedIn message: Hi [name], I saw that we’re both connected with [connection’s name]. Nice to “meet” you! I thought you might be interested in some of the work I'm doing with [connection's name], and it'd be great to connect. Take care and looking forward to hearing from you! Day 3 – OS: Email – Case study for a related business using your product Email: Hi [name], [your name] here from [your business]. We recently spoke on LinkedIn, and I wanted to say thanks for the connection! I also thought I'd quickly send over a case study from a similar client we recently helped solve [business problem]. I think you're going to get a lot of value out of it. Day 10 – OS: Email – Link to a “how-to” blog post that focuses on a common problem in their industry and how your product can help solve it Email: Hi [name], the other day I was reading about [problem you think/know the buyer has] in this great article we put out not too long ago and thought you might be interested in giving it a read. You can check it out at the link below. Day 12 – MS: Call > Voicemail to explain that you'll send an email > Email link to another case study and reference your call in the email Voicemail: Hi [name], just thought I'd connect to tell you a little bit about another case study you might find useful. I'll just shoot it over to your email. Be sure to give it a look and let me know what you think. Hope all is well on your end! Email: Hey [name], here's that case study I promised I'd send over in my voicemail. I'd love to talk about it with you some more after you read it. If you have a minute, feel free to ring me back at xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx or just shoot me an email to set up a call. Hope you're doing great.  Sales Cadence Tools Building a strategic sales cadence framework for your business is crucial for filling your pipeline with enthusiastic buyers. But to really get the most out of your cadence, you're going to want to utilize a sales cadence tool for implementation. How a Sales Cadence Tool or Software Helps While every sales cadence tool or software is going to vary in its features, most provide the following features. Streamline Your Prospecting Process – With no more questions about when to call, email, or even poke leads on social, you'll eliminate all that wondering when to reach out (a real timewaster). And that means you can connect with more leads and potential buyers. Better Qualify Your Leads – Determining the “when” is only half the battle. There's also the “who” that you have to consider. The right software or tool tells you which leads are ripe for taking the next step in the sales process. Automate Time-Consuming Tasks – These days, automating your work is more important than ever. A sales cadence tool can often compose and send customized emails from a template, message potential buyers online for you, and even dial their contact number with just a click. And all the time you save can quickly add up. Keep Track of What Works & What Doesn't – Finally, a sales cadence tool lets you bring a scientific approach to the art of selling. Software like this lets you zoom out and observe which cadences buyers are responding to and which are driving them to your competitors. Top Sales Cadence Tools So, which sales cadence tools should you consider picking up? There are plenty out there to choose from. But below are some of the best in the industry. HubSpot – This CRM is great for organizations and has fantastic tracking, reporting, and support. Pricing can be an issue for some companies though. Pipedrive – Affordable and user-friendly, this customer relationship management (CRM) tool lets you build cadences. But unfortunately, its support leaves quite a bit to be desired at times. Outreach – A great tool for personalization, Outreach makes it easy to build customized cadences that appeal directly to your buyer. However, integration with some other tools (like Salesforce) can be problematic at times. Reply – This sales cadence tool is designed for cold email outreach. It has plenty of integrations (including LinkedIn and calendar integrations) and lots of ways to automate your processes. SalesLoft – Great for email and phone touches, SalesLoft offers helpful features like call recording, advanced analytics, plenty of integrations. It does have some functionality restrictions that reps may find frustrating. Cadence for Confirming The Booking Once you've developed an outreach flow that works, there's one more cadence you'll need to start using—the booking confirmation cadence. Now, this may look like a lot of extra work upfront. After all, who wants to send two extra emails or touches before a call? Aren't they already going to show anyway? But this cadence can actually save you a lot of time by weeding out the no-shows early. It's also the attention-getter a forgetful buyer may need to actually show up, saving you tons of back and forth about rescheduling. The 24-Hour Reminder Email This email should include a complete agenda for the meeting while also linking to any relevant content or data the prospect may want on-hand during the meeting. Example: We're looking forward to connecting with you tomorrow at 8 am GMT. Here is what we have agreed to discuss on our call – Point A Point B Point C We also recently published a report that backs up some of the data points we're going to look at. Here's a link if you'd like to have it on hand – HTTP://LINKTOARTICLE.COM/SPECIFICPAGE If anything comes up in the meantime, please do not hesitate to let me know. I'm always here to help. The 10min Courtesy Touch Always default to a quick text if you have the proper contact info (more effective than email here). This touch is just enough to get their attention and make attendance much more likely. Example: Looking forward to our call in 10 minutes. I will call you on xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx. If anything comes up in the meantime, here's my mobile number too xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx. Wrapping Up Some sales reps may be a bit hesitant about changing up their process. They may argue that selling is more art than science. And it's true, there's only so much that hard data and set-in-stone processes can do when it comes time to close the deal. But a sales cadence isn't so much a path you should never veer from. Instead, it's a foundation for you to build on again and again. The more you refine and tweak it for your audience, the more successful it's going to be. And the greater of a beneficial impact it'll have on your response rates. In the end, Daniel Disney (speaker/trainer/author-extraordinaire) may have put it best in an interview on The Salesman Podcast: “I've worked and managed a lot of salespeople that are very resistant to utilizing things like cadences because they think they can do it themselves. They think they know everything. And trust me, for most people, having a bit of structure can have a hugely positive impact on your results.” 

Day to day, do you spend more time telling or doing? What do I mean by that? – Do you solve problems for your prospects and earn the meeting or do you tell them you have a wonderful solution? Do you pick up the phone cold call prospects or tell your colleagues about the newest cold calling hack that you’ve uncovered? Do you ask for the business assertively or do you tell your sales manager that you think the deal is probably going to come in soon?   There are countless ways to tell. You can shout, talk, scream, leave passive aggressive post-it notes on the office microwave informing Barbra to clean her shit up. Doing stuff is different. To have an impact on our environment, we need to do. Telling rather than doing is the safe thing to do in the corporate environment. You can get feedback, someone can stop you before you make a mistake, people will chat back and forth about the best way to do stuff. But if you actually cared about the outcome of the situation, you wouldn’t tell, you would do. If my house is on fire, I’m running in to get my dog out. I’m not standing around telling people about my plans. If I really think Salesman.com Academy can help a salesperson reach their potential and become finically free in just a couple of years, I’ll follow-up until they get signed up. So today, when you go to tell a prospect, a colleague or your sales manager about your plans. Stop. Shut up and take the first step of action towards completing them. I guarantee that you’ll make more progress than by chatting crap.

Pop quiz hotshot—what’s the #1 sales objection you’re likely to run into? Got it yet? The answer is overwhelmingly… price. But 90% of the time, the problem isn’t about budget or expenses. It’s about value. The better you are at selling your value, the less price is going to matter. And this 4-step framework shows you how to do just that. Now, one of the most important lessons you’ll learn in your sales career is that value isn’t the same as price. And oftentimes, an objection on price really comes down to value, not the cost. In my interview with Saas marketing expert Ajit Ghuman, he said the same thing… Expert Note: “Many times the issue of price is not the issue of price, it's an issue of we didn't communicate the value properly.” Ajit Ghuman Salesman Podcast What Is Value? What is “value” in the context of a B2B sale? Value is the difference between the intrinsic cost of a product and the price the buyer pays. So a car for example has intrinsic cost in the fact that it’s made of lots of expensive materials. But the value is that it can take you places. You don’t have to take the bus, you can fit more activities in your day, and it can exhilarate you if you like driving fast like me. So it’s much easier for a buyer to say yes to an offer with lots of value, because it makes the offer price look small in comparison. This gets exciting for salespeople because… Total Value = Product value + Your value  So you actually have a leverage point here to close more deals, and you don’t have to rely on anyone else to increase the value in the equation. So how can you as an individual salesperson add more value to the offer and make it a no-brainer for the buyer? The 4 Steps to Building Real Value That’s where today’s framework comes in. In four steps, you can increase both the product value and your own value to the buyer. And that way you don’t have to compete on price at all. 1. Identify Real Problems Often buyers will come to you with what they believe is their issue. But in reality, they’re just seeing the superficial problem—the symptom rather than the disease. With your experience, you’re perfectly situated to help the buyer diagnose what’s really wrong. Think of it like a buyer going to a mechanic and saying that their steering wheel is causing them issues. They turn the steering wheel but the car doesn’t change direction. But you as an expert in your field can see plain as day that the car doesn’t have any wheels. No wonder that turning the steering wheel isn’t working. In the same way, you can add massive value to your potential buyers by diagnosing the problem that’s causing the issues they see. 2. Be a Guide Next up, you know the pitfalls of your industry and products. It’s likely you’ve taken buyers through the buying process hundreds of times. The buyer on the other hand may be making a purchase in your industry for the very first time. Therefore there’s tremendous value for the buyer if you can honestly help them navigate the landmines and potential issues they may face along the way. For example, when I was selling medical devices I’d regularly add value to the surgeons that’d head up the buying project by making introductions to key procurement and management staff that they didn’t realize they needed to onboard before getting the deal signed. By making their life easier, I was able to increase the total value of working together. See how that works? 3. Industry Insights Next up is industry insights. I have a couple of consulting clients that don’t want me to teach them how to sell. They’re already doing a great job at getting deals done. Instead, they jump on the phone with me every month to get insights on what is working across the broader B2B sales industry. They’re looking for cutting-edge, innovative ideas, not a training plan. Now you might not realize it but you’re probably full of industry insights that could be really valuable to your buyers too. Just think how much time you spend in and around your own specific part of your industry. It’s likely 100x more experience than your buyers have with it. So you’ve likely lots of valuable insights to share and boost your value. 4. Facilitating the Buying Process Finally, unless you’re selling to a professional procurement team, it’s likely your buyer isn’t used to buying things in the B2B environment. Buying new products, services, or technology probably makes up a tiny amount of what they do each year in their job. You know who needs to be involved. You know how long these things take. You know what issues need to be investigated before the deal can happen. So you can add tremendous value by educating your buyer and streamlining their efforts throughout the buying process.

[spp-player] Stop rushing to come second. In sales second place doesn’t count. Only one salesperson wins the deal. The flip-side? When you’re the best selling becomes easy. People will fly across the world to visit the best restaurant. People will wait in line for hours to get a piece of paper squiggled from the best athlete. When you’re ill, you don’t ask for the second-best doctor. You’ll shout, demand and pay way over the market rate to speak to the best. We all have limited time and so we intentionally narrow our choices to those at the top. If you’re not the best salesperson, you don’t exist. Our culture celebrates the best. It’s typical that the top salesperson in your industry makes 10 times more than the second best. Probably 100 times more than the 10th best seller. It’s a steep curve. There’s only room at the very top for a few people. That scarcity makes being number one worth something. Do you want to earn more money? Get more respect? Want to stop cold calling and have buyers throwing themselves at you instead? Then become number one. At this point you might be screaming in your head “of course I want to be the best”. But do you really? Where is the evidence? What have you gone through that your competition hasn't? What expertise have you developed that they don't have? What audience have you slaved away to create that they don’t have access to because they’ve been watching game of thrones instead? It’s easy being number one. It’s arduous work to get there. If you want to dominate the mind of your buyer, become number one. Not the number one generic salesperson in the world. There’s too much competition. Become the number one salesperson for your specific product, in your specific industry, in your specific location, for your specific ideal buyer. That’s doable, right? Being average is for losers. Being number one makes selling simple.

A big shoutout to the HubSpot Podcast Network for supporting this episode. Stay inspired with more podcasts that help grow your business at HubSpot.com/podcastnetwork. Today's principle is that average action will always get you average results. Most salespeople barely hit their quota and that used to be me as well. It wasn't until I started becoming more unreasonable with my expectations that my income started to explode. The cold hard truth is that what you did to have success during the good times is not going to be enough to make it through a recession. Therefore, you need to become unreasonable. Unreasonable with your levels of action. Unreasonable with your assertiveness. Unreasonable in taking new approaches that you hadn't considered previously to find and close new business. Practically this means 5 things – 1– Longer hours You may have to work longer hours at least at first to start testing what works and what doesn't in this new selling environment. How you generated leads during easy times is unlikely to be effective when you try implementing it during a recession. You’re going to find that prospects want to speak to salespeople even less than before. I'm not saying that you should reduce the amount of sleep that you get each night so that you can squeeze a few more hours of prospecting each day. What I am saying is, that you will need to uncover new ways of achieving your previous level of results. 2– Then become lazy Counter the first point, as soon as you uncover a better way of finding and closing new business you need to become lazy. Uncover the 20% of efforts that is getting you 80% of your results and focus in on that. Ditch the crap that isn’t crushing it. Then a few weeks later, find the 20% of effort that is getting you 80% of the results within your new process. And continue this until every moment that you are working in the new selling environment, you're generating meetings and progressing sales to a close. The recession that we’re in is not like COVID. During COVID the advice from sales experts was to stay in touch with prospects, even if they weren't buying from you in that moment and to start to build stronger relationships with them so that when the money starts following, your deals will come back to life. COVID however was a completely different environment to a real recession because it was artificial. Governments were stopping people going to the office, the public could not spend their cash the ways that they would usually do so. So the market was artificially held back for 12 months. This time around we have an organic and completely natural downturn in the economy. Companies still have cash; you must work out the most efficient way to get in between the problem they have and the solution they need so that you can accept payment for solving their pain point. 3– Lose the losers This next point can be a tough to implement but has a dramatic effect during a reccession. We've all heard the saying that you are “the average of the five people that you spend the most time with”. There is also science to back this up. Most people earn between plus or minus 20% of what their parents earn for example. What does this tell us? This tells us that we need to stop spending time around people, influencers, and media that are not helping us progress towards our sales goals. That includes any colleagues who are panicking about their performance right now. It's very unlikely that spending time with individuals who are panicking is going to improve your chances of smashing quota. So don't do it. The same goes with cutting out the news and social media. Ignore all of it, get your head down, complete the sales activities that lead to success in this new economy, and you'll be just fine. 4– Minimalism Step four follows a similar pathway to step three. We need to become minimalists. I'm not saying that you should sell your house and move into a small white room with a mattress on the floor with no cutlery. Instead think about this definition of minimalism – “remove anything that doesn't help you become the person that you want to be”. Tying this directly into your sales role, you should remove any activity or interaction that doesn't progress you towards becoming a person who smashes their sales quota regardless of the economic climate. Does that expensive watch move you towards becoming the person you need to become to hit quota? Or would you be better off spending that cash getting training and unlimited coaching from a organisation like us over salesman.com? 5– Become assertive The final step is to become more assertive. You going to have to ask for the business more often to close it during a recession. You going to have to implement longer and more assertive sales cadences to book the same number of meetings during a recession. You must be clearer with your outreach in general if anyone's ever going to listen to you during a recession. So that is it, 5 steps to breaking the idea the average gets average results. Longer hours Then become lazy Lose the losers Minimalism Become assertive If you do an extraordinary amount of work, which doesn't just mean more hours comment it means working smarter, you will get extraordinary results. Recession or not, this is what leads salespeople to truly become wealthy in this industry.

Ahhhhh the sales call. This is where the magic happens in any buyer’s journey. When it goes right, a sales call qualifies your buyer, drives enthusiasm, and sets the final deal in motion. But done wrong, it can eliminate trust, tarnish your brand, and send leads headed for the hills – permanently. There’s a lot riding on a sales call. And if you don’t come to the table with a strategic Pre-Call Plan, you’re setting yourself up for failure. When we’re working with the sales professionals in our community at the Selling Made Simple Academy, the salespeople who love their calls tend to do more pre-call preparation than the folks who don’t enjoy them. The good news is that this pre-call preparation can be done in just a couple of minutes too. So if you want to find yourself much more relaxed, focused and effective in your next sales call, then let’s start building your Sales Pre-Call Plan. 1. Review Step one is conducting a brief yet thorough buyer review. Before picking up the phone, give yourself a few minutes to open your CRM and LinkedIn to read up on the person you’re going to be speaking to. Now you don’t have to go too crazy with the details here. Just get enough information to inform the rest of your research and planning. Try to answer these questions before you move on through the rest of your pre-call planning: When was the last time you spoke with this person? What has changed in their world this month? Are they qualified to do business with you? 2. Catch Up Next you should have a couple of questions in your mind to bring everyone who’s involved in the conversation up to speed so you’re all at the same point in the sales process. Have these questions lined up before dialing so you’re ready first thing. Your catch-up questions could be: You’re still in the market to change X in your business, right? We’ve just made X change with our product. Do you think it could solve your Y problem? Is it fair to say that X is…? I jot these catch-up questions down before each call so I have a firm starting point for every conversation. 3. Goals You’re not going to close a sale on every call you have with a buyer. But it is important to always have a goal for the call that pushes the buyer forward toward a close. That way, you’ll always have an endpoint in mind. And you’ll naturally nudge prospects down that path, even if you aren’t doing it consciously. Now additionally, I like to get the buyer to agree on the goal of the call before I make it. I usually do this at the end of the email setting up the call or at the end of the earlier phone conversation. This is super simple to do too. All it takes to close the agreement on the next call’s goal is to say: “On our next call, does it make sense to do X?” If they say “yes” then you’ve got a clear goal for your next call. If they say “no” then you ask: “What agenda for next week's call would make sense?” And you can work out the new agenda from there. Again, it’s a simple step but it’s incredibly important. 4. Objections Now step four is all about doing your objections homework. One of the traits of high-performing salespeople that we’ve uncovered with our research at Salesman.org is that high performers are optimists. It’s not rocket science. If you never think anyone will close, you won’t make an effort to close them. This leads to a vicious cycle of a lack of personal belief and zero deals getting done. So most high-performing salespeople are optimistic about the outcomes of their selling conversations. With that said, it’s worthwhile to spend a minute to ponder what objections might come up on your upcoming call. Now if you’ve been selling your solution for a while now, you may know the best responses to these objections already. If you’re new to the industry, it may take some studying. I personally don’t write these objections out and make up a rebuttal for each and every one of them, for every single phone call. But I do predict what might come up ahead of time to give my subconscious brain a little time to process some possible rebuttals. If you’re new to sales, you should keep an “objection journal”. An objection journal is a notepad where you write down any new objections that come up in conversations. Objection journals let you see what objections come up regularly so that you can then spend a little time coming up with a rebuttal for the most common issues you face. 5. Support Materials Finally, in your pre-call planning you should pull together any information or materials that could make your call run more smoothly. Nothing makes you look more amateur than having to fill 3 minutes of awkward silence on the phone as you try and find that piece of paper that you need from your messy work bag. Case studies, product catalogs, testimonials, use cases, whatever. Anything you need to help you sell, get it together before jumping on the call. So pull together everything you might need for your call beforehand. And bonus points if you’re using either an overpriced “sales enablement” software tool or even better, something like Evernote to manage your selling materials.