The Salesman.com Podcast

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.

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. Welcome to the “performance improvement plan”. This is a new series of short-form podcast episodes that I promise to put together and will continue to publish as we move into and hopefully out of the impending recession. For anyone who is fortunate to have not come across the term performance improvement plan in their career, a performance improvement plan is what your sales manager leadership put you on when your performance isn't up to scratch. I’ve been on two of them, but I came out of the other side a stronger, more effective salesperson. Sometimes they’re exactly what you need to get your head out of your ass and to start making real progress. In my experience performance improvement plans are typically enacted when your management wants to start collecting evidence that you are not performing to the standards of the organisation so that they can then eventually let you go without any repercussions of firing you. This performance improvement plan series that I’m going to publish each however is different. I'm here to give you the daily motivation and tactical advice you need to improve your performance to the point at which your success becomes undeniable within your organisation. The goal being that the amount of revenue that you're going to generate in both hard times and easy times will make you unsackable. The first lesson that I have for you today is a tough one. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but if you an choke it down, your life will be better for it. The lesson – “you are exactly where you deserve to be” Let me say that again you are exactly where you deserve to be. This is a harsh reality of not just B2B sales but of life as well. If you are behind on your quota right now, you have only yourself to blame. It's been widely publicised in the media that a recession is coming. You are bright enough to understand, that during recessions most organisations reduce their spending on products and services that are not essential, and they become a lot more picky as to the products and services that they do spend money on. And so, knowing this, if you haven't been working your ass off for the past six months to build a solid sales pipeline, you are exactly where you deserve to be. If you haven’t at least six months’ worth of living costs saved up in a liquid bank account, and you've been spending money on crap that you don't really need, again knowing that there is an impending recession that will affect everybody sales careers, you are exactly where you deserve to be. If during the good times of the past ten years of rapid economic growth, you’ve been spending your evenings watching Netflix, becoming overweight, and going out of your way to avoid learning how to improve your sales skills, knowing that at some point we’ll enter a rapidly changing selling environment, you are exactly where you deserve to be. Now, this isn't all doom and gloom. If you are one of the thousands of Selling Made Simple Academy students that have signed up in the past couple of years, you've improved your sales skills, you've built a strong pipeline and you've become known as a recognised expert in your industry, you are exactly where you deserve to be. You will now dominate the marketplace for the next 6 to 12 months. You will become a hero within your sales team because you will be one of the few individuals that has already done the hard work and so has resilience in your sales pipeline. Now, the good news is that there is still time the change. You don't need to join Selling Made Simple Academy, I'm not here to shove our training and coaching program down your throat. But you do need to put in more hours, work smarter, and be more strategic right now, if the place that you believe you deserve to be six months from now, is a place of financial abundance, security, and admiration of your selling peers. So ask yourself the questions as you’re working through your selling activities today – Is what I'm doing right now going to lead me to massive success six months from now? Can the task I'm doing right now be eliminated, delegated, or automated? If the percentage of my pipeline that usually closes got slashed, how many more prospects would I have put in the top of my pipeline so that I still smashed my sales quota 12 months from now? How can I convert the value proposition of my product into a must have during the recession rather than a nice to have? So that's it for today's performance improvement plan. I hope you enjoy this new series. My promise to you is that I will give you everything that you need from a motivation and strategy standpoint, over these daily podcast episodes, over the next few years as we ride through this recession to make serious money. All you have to do is implement the strategies undo the work.

Killing it in sales is all about one thing—alignment. Is what you’re selling the solution to your prospect’s problem? Does it alleviate their pain points? The tricky thing though is that 95% of the time, prospects only tell you about their surface-level pains. But to close a deal successfully, you need to be able to solve the problem that’s causing those pains. You’ve got to treat the disease, not the symptoms. And today we’re looking at 5 word-for-word questions to help. Surface Level Pains During the first few talks with potential buyers, you’ll only scratch the surface of their pain points. Your prospects don’t have the expertise to really get to the bottom of the issues. And so you’re left with the superficial problems, not the ones that are the real cause of their pains. Now that’s actually good news for salespeople like us. Because if buyers did have that knowledge, products, or expertise needed to dive deeper into their pains, they could solve them without your help. So this leaves a gap between a buyer knowing they have a problem and not knowing how to fix it. And that’s where we come in. We close that gap. But to do that, we need to move past the superficial pain points and get to the heart of a buyer’s problem. And we can do that using five questions in particular. Now before we get into those questions, there are four main categories that surface-level buyer pains fall into. Let’s look at some examples of what your potential buyers might say for each category. #1. Financial Pains Financial pains. You can spot these with statements like… “Revenue is up, but profits are down” “I don’t have enough visibility of the numbers to make sound financial decisions” “We’re only profitable enough to keep the doors open” #2. People Pains People pains, shown by statements like… “Our team’s morale is low” “Our managers don’t drive innovation” “Our best employees keep leaving to our competitors” #3. Productivity Pains Productivity pains… “We keep missing our client deadlines” “We have quality issues that are leading to higher refunds” “We spend too much time in meetings” #4. Process Pains And process pains, which show up with statements like… “Our hiring process is a mess“ “We have no system in place to monitor our sales pipeline” “The customer service department is inundated and can’t keep up” Alright, so now you know the four categories of pain points. And you’ve heard some examples of how they might share them. So let’s now look at some questions we can ask to dig deeper into the buyer's pain. We want to dig deeper into the buyer’s pain so that we can align our service to their deepest, most impactful pain points. Because when we align our service to a really deep pain, it becomes a “must have” rather than “something to consider next quarter”. 1. “What’s holding you back?” The first question that we can ask to dig deeper into the pain of our buyers is this: “What’s the main thing holding your company (or division) back from growing right now?” This question is great at eliciting a very specific response. One that lands your prospects pains into one of the four categories we covered before. Financial Pain People Pain Productivity Pain Processing Pain This question is the starting point to go a level deeper than the more general categories of pain that we’ve already discussed. And once you’ve done that, you can move on to the next question… 2. “How do you plan to solve this?” “How do you plan to solve this pain point?” An uneducated buyer will tell you that they are unsure how to solve their pain point. This is an incredible opportunity for you to educate the buyer on how your service can solve the problem and relieve their pain. A more educated buyer who is further through the sales process might have a few ideas on how they can solve the pain. But clearly there’s still something holding them back from taking action. So the next step is to uncover what that thing is that’s keeping them from solving the problem themselves. Now on to question number three… 3. “What’s your deadline?” We uncover lots of information when we ask the buyer the next question: “What is your deadline to solve this problem?” If the buyer tells us that there is no deadline, then the problem is not very painful for the buyer. And that means they’re not going to be very motivated to solve it, meaning you’ll have to work harder to earn their business. The takeaway here? Avoid doing business with these individuals. They’re not worth the effort. Alternatively, if the buyer does have a set deadline to solve this pain point by, you now have a very qualified buyer that is worth engaging with further. Now we need to keep probing and see if there is the budget and authority to solve the pain. 4. “What does your boss think?” Now question number four is where we uncover the true level of pain the buyer is in. After you’ve gone through the previous steps and questions, it’s time to ask: “What does your boss think about all this?” One of the most common obstacles to a smooth selling process is your buyer lacking the budget or the authority needed to make the purchase. Maybe they have to go to their manager to request funding. Or maybe they need to get permission from their boss before pulling the trigger on the deal. In either case, closing is going to be a pain. You’ll need to spend extra time convincing stakeholders that your product is worth the value. And you’ll risk your messaging being diluted since your contact then has to then convince their higher-up that it’s worth the price. All bad things. So if you ask this question and your buyer says “my boss has been on my back about this for weeks now, I really need to get this sorted” you have uncovered that the buyer likely has both the budget and the authority to solve the issue. And for you, that means an easier sale. Now that leaves us with one final question to ask the buyer to go beyond the surface-level pain they’ve been describing to you so far. 5. “What’s stopping you?” The final question we now need to ask the potential buyer is: “What is stopping you from solving this problem today?” This is the most important question in this sequence of questions. So far we’ve been living in the future with questions like, “What is your deadline?” and “What does your boss think?” Now we need to pull the buyer back to the real world. What’s stopping them from fixing the problem now, TODAY. This will intensify the buyer’s pain, drive urgency, and make it far more likely that they’ll take action on any suggestions you give them to solve it. Now you’ve got a quality, qualified lead on your hands that’s ready to buy and easy to close. And after that, well. You know what to do after that, don’t you?

Discover how a strong value proposition can revolutionize your sales strategy. Learn to identify your ideal buyer while aligning your product's unique value to their needs. Explore a structured, four-step framework for crafting compelling propositions, including insights into emotional drivers. Uncover the pitfalls of misaligned propositions and get practical templates to enhance your outreach. Gain actionable tips for refining your approach to close more deals and transform unclosed leads into loyal customers.

Eventually in your sales career, you’re going to hit a maximum effectiveness at winning business. “You can’t squeeze blood from a stone,” as the old saying goes. But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck where you’re at. If you want to drive more deals now, you’ve got to increase your throughput of sales leads. And that takes boosting your sales productivity using these 7 techniques. 1. Reverse Engineering Reverse engineering your goals, mainly your financial goals. What are you shooting for? Is it your dream house? Sending your kids to college? A ridiculously fancy new watch? What is it that you want? Take your goals, jot them down, and then it’s time to work backward. Start with how much extra income you need to afford those goals in a specific amount of time. So say you want to bring in enough to put a 20% down payment on a $500,000 house in 3 years. What you’ll do is break down the extra amount you’ll need to earn $100k each year, or $33,000. Then break that down into quarterly, monthly, and weekly commission goals. But the work isn’t done yet. Now you have to take your sales success rate and work backward to determine how much outreach you need to do every week. So if you have a close rate of 5% and each deal nets you an extra $1000, you’ll have to find 660 prospects a year to achieve your financial goals. And that boils down to 13 prospects a week, totally manageable. And best of all, you’ll always know when you’re on track to that brand new house and when you need to make up for lost time. 2. Measuring Progress Now number two is measuring progress. If you aren’t keeping track of everything, you’ll have no idea if you’re 1) being productive and 2) becoming more productive. You’ll be going on feel alone and have no real data to show for it. So what should you do? Measure your stats relentlessly. At a bare minimum, and I’m emphasizing the minimum here, you need to be keeping track of the following on a weekly basis. Prospects added to your list Emails and sales cadences started Meetings booked Demos completed Sales closed Your average deal length With these numbers at your fingertips, you can keep track of larger trends, see how you’re improving, and even spot shifts in the industry before they become a problem. It’s simple to do. And it’s a game-changer. 3. Time Blocking Number three, time blocking religiously. This one takes some practice. But the productivity payoff is substantial. For every one of your important tasks, you need to assign them a time block on your calendar. Prospecting, two hours a day, 8 to 10. Lead follow-up, one hour a day, 1 to 2. Demos, 3:30 to 5. Whatever it is, make a specific start and end time. And focus on it and it alone during that time window. Now the tricky part is not wavering. Answering emails during the prospecting window, making calls during follow-ups, any sort of multitasking or shifting that time window will make the entire system fall apart. Instead, be single-minded. Be focused. And only work on that task and that task alone. It’ll take some adjustment. But you’re going to be 10X more productive once you do. 4. Leveraging Parkinson’s Law Number four is leveraging Parkinson’s Law. Have you ever heard the saying that a goldfish grows as big as its tank allows it to? Well the same is true for the time you spend on tasks. If you give yourself three hours to finish something, say a new email sequence, it’s going to take you three hours to do, even if it only should have taken two. Humans are great at following the path of least resistance. And if you’re spending more time than you should on something, it’s probably because the deadline is off. That’s Parkinson’s Law – “the time required to perform a task tends to extend to all the time available to perform it.” So to fight that, you need to reduce the time you give to projects. Ask for forgiveness rather than permission and cut back the task to make it simpler. Usually this’ll be for the better and you’ll be thanked for the greater efficiency. You may even want to consider not doing the task at all and seeing if anyone complains. You’d be surprised at how much of what we spend time on is just plain busy work. 5. Saying “No” Number five is a powerful one—learn how to say no. No gives clear boundaries and stops clients, colleagues, and unreasonable bosses from walking all over you. And I guarantee saying it just a few times a day will free up literally hours and hours of time each week. Your time is valuable. And you need to treat it as such. 6. Prioritizing Revenue Generators Six, prioritize the real revenue generators in your business. Your business won’t die if your accounts are a little late. It won’t die if you check your emails in an hour rather than immediately. And it won’t die if you spend a little less time polishing the website. But you know what will cause it to die? Neglecting to create a sustainable pipeline. Never moving prospects through it. Not closing on a time-sensitive deal and losing a sure thing. There are tasks that are essential to bringing in the dough. And there are others that can wait until later. Make sure a good amount of your time blocked time each day is spent on the former. And focus less on the latter. 7. Qualifying Harder And last but not least is qualifying leads harder. One of the best lessons you’ll learn in your sales career is that not every lead is right for your product. And the sooner you recognize those leads in your pipeline, the sooner you can spend more time on the ones that are likely to buy. That means you need to qualify clients more. When you find the right lead, you spend less time on explaining the value, less time on handling objections, and less time on closing. And that means you can spend your day bringing more great leads into your pipeline. If you need a quick qualification method, use BANT: Budget – What is the lead’s budget? Does it match up with your price? Authority – Does the lead have the power to make decisions, or do they influence policy-making? Need – What are the lead’s business needs? Timeframe – In what timeframe will the lead be fulfilling the solution? The more time you spend qualifying, the less time you’ll spend on bad leads that will never be a fit. Summary There’s only so much you can do about close rates. But at some point, you’re going to hit your max. And that’s when you’ve got to put your productivity efforts into generating more leads by…