“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
To Push, or Not to Push,That Is Our Question
Pushing the prospect a little is not necessarily a bad thing; sometimes it’s completely necessary. The challenge is identifying when you need to push and when you should agree to call back at a later time. Always start with evaluating the quality of conversation, because this is the best indicator we have. If the call went amazingly, you had wonderful rapport, and the prospect is giving you a good reason why they need you to call back in a few months, you should respect that request. If the prospect doesn’t have a reason to push the meeting off and they are experiencing a problem that they admit needing to solve, you should respectfully push them to take the meeting sooner.
The Soft Push
Let’s take a look at an example of a an SDR respectfully pushing a prospect to take the meeting instead of putting it off.
Prospect: Why don’t we talk in 6 months?
SDR: That sounds great. I can absolutely reach out in six months. I am curious though…why do you feel that 6 months from now will be a better time to chat?
Prospect: Because I’m not sure if we have the bandwidth to implement something new right now.
SDR: I see. Well, since you’re not in a position to implement anything new now, why don’t we do this. Let’s just walk through how our system improves your customer success teams efficiency and what it takes to implement. That way you can determine if you even want us to call back in six months. Do you have twenty minutes this friday at 11am?
We are agreeing with the prospect and offering a way for them to gain more information before making the decision to have us call back. The truth is, we are not changing our ask; the next call is going to be the same as it was before we got the objection. The only difference is that we are framing the meeting in a way that makes it more palatable for this prospect. This is an example of a soft push, one that is intended to change the perceived level of commitment you’re asking for. In this next example, I am going to show you how to push a little harder.
Prospect: Why don’t we talk in 6 months?
SDR: That sounds great. I can absolutely reach out in six months. I am curious…why do you feel that 6 months from now will be a better time to chat?
Prospect: Because I don’t really want to look at this right now, I have some other stuff on my plate.
SDR: I hear you. Kevin. Can I ask you a question that might be a little direct?
Prospect: Sure.
SDR: Earlier you said that improving the efficiency of your salespeople is your number one priority because of the time they’re wasting. And, that’s costing your company sales. I’m just curious, why would want to put off solving that problem?
Did your hands sweat just reading that question? Calling out a prospect like this can be tough, regardless of how long you have been in sales. You’re challenging them to take action and stop procrastinating. This takes a lot of confidence. The question may cause the prospect to say “You’re right. Let’s set something up for next week.” Or…they will give you another objection. Either way, you’re in a better place than you would be if you agreed to call the prospect back in 6 months. Now, you might be worried “what if they get upset?” Keep in mind you got permission to ask the question, so they most likely won’t. If they do get upset, just apologize and move on.
If asking why they are putting off solving a problem that they admitted was a top priority does result in upsetting the prospect, odds are they weren’t going to book a meeting with you in six months either.
Hostile Prospects
In some cases you will be dealing with a unique type of objection. These are the objections you can’t overcome with a response like we covered earlier in this chapter. You may find yourself on the other end of the phone with a hostile prospect. A hostile personality is an objection you will need to overcome. The hostile prospect will be aggressive, rude, and try to bully you. The first time you speak with a hostile prospect you will have either one of two reflexes—fight or flight. You will either apologize profusely and end the call quickly or you will double down, lock horns, and battle it out. I love to battle it out as much as the next guy, but that is not the correct way to approach this and neither is apologizing and then ending the call.
Why are they hostile?
There are three reasons why a prospect might be hostile with you over the phone.
They don’t like cold calls
You caught them at a very bad time
They simply have a hostile personality.
Regardless of the reason, when you are confronted by a hostile prospect, the only way you will be able to turn the call around is by getting them out of their hostile mode. I have four tips on how to handle a hostile prospect.
Tip #1: Stay calm and keep your tone consistent.
When dealing with someone who has a high level of aggression, it’s natural to increase your rate of speech and raise your tone. I recommend staying calm and not to waver in your confidence. This will show the prospect that you are not intimidated and will not be pushed around. “This is my lunch money!”
Tip #2: Do not get defensive.
Responding with a sharp or defensive tone will only exacerbate the problem and control that urge to fight back. A hostile prospect will feed off your energy so it’s important to keep your cool and not attempt to match their energy.
Tip #3: Give them the illusion of control over the call.
When a hostile prospect is drilling you with questions, it’s important not to dodge any, because this is what they’re hoping to catch you doing. You should answer their question clearly and respond with a question of your own.
Tip #4: Find common ground.
Listen to what the prospect is saying and see if you can find something that will help you establish common ground. You’re trying to find a window that will let you start to build a connection. Another great tool to find common ground and reduce tension is using your sense of humor.
Let’s take a look at an example of how a call with a hostile prospect can play out when using these tips.
Prospect: Look. I’m sick of getting calls like this all the time!
SDR: I hear you. You probably get bombarded by people trying to get you to make changes.
Prospect: Yes, and it’s frustrating!
SDR: Totally! Look, your business is successful and if you have a good system over there I don’t think you should change it. I’m curious…how are you keeping track of the deals your sales reps have in their pipeline?
Prospect: I have a spreadsheet that they’re supposed to fill out. Wait, what do you guys do?
SDR: We help business owners keep track of the pipeline of their sales reps so they can forecast earnings more accurately. Most folks I speak with are focused on increasing the efficiency of their salespeople. Is that the same for you or are you more focused on getting accurate data reporting?
As you can see in the example the SDR didn’t have a magic sentence that defused the prospect. They focused on finding common ground with the prospect and asking questions to keep them talking. However, even doing this won’t always win a hostile prospect over. You may have to use a technique that is near and dear to my heart—giving the prospect an out. Check out this example and then we’ll go over why this is effective.
Prospect: I have a lot of focuses right now! I am sick of these calls. You are scum!
SDR: Listen Frank, If I said something that upset you that was not my intention. If you’d like, I can end this call now or we can quickly see if this is something that would be valuable for your company.
Can you guess why I love this technique so much? Confidence! That’s right! It requires you to have high confidence! Let me explain why this is an effective way to defuse hostile prospects. The first sentence is designed to force the prospect to take a step
back and notice how they’re coming across. The clever phrasing of “If I have said something that offended you” is designed in a way to cause your prospect to realize that they have come across as hostile and are the ones responsible for your experience. This is followed up with confidently offering to end the call, something most salespeople would be too afraid to do. Giving the prospect an out is a technique that should only be used if you have exhausted your other options with no success.
Conclusion
Objections are going to happen, No one can avoid them. What will aid your success as a sales development rep and throughout your sales career is not letting an objection throw your confidence. Know that objections are coming and don’t be caught off guard when they arrive. To be able to keep your confidence you must practice responding to objections often. Sales requires a lot of repetition, which is why salespeople typically get better over time. Of all the calls you make, only a small percent will be decision makers, which means you will not get the opportunity to overcome objections as often as you get the opportunity to speak with gatekeepers. Because of this, it’s very easy to get rusty and lose meetings that you would have booked had you kept yourself sharp.
Practice, practice, practice.
It may never make you perfect,
but it sure will make you better!
Everything prospecting
(from first touch to showing up to the meeting)
At this point in the book I would imagine you have a lot of questions, questions that have been piling up throughout each chapter. How do I do this? When should I do that? What should I do if this happens? The list goes on and on, I’m sure. In this chapter I’m going to do my best to answer those questions, without even knowing what they are! We’re going to go on a journey together, a journey into the world of prospecting. In this chapter we will start with a high-level look at the sequence of prospecting events. After that we’re diving into detail about each of the prospecting methods available to us. Finally, our journey will end with what you are responsible for after you book a meeting.
The Journey of an Account
I’d like to begin this chapter with a high-level overview of the journey an account takes. From the very first touch by the sales development rep, to the meeting taking place between the decision maker and the sales rep, there are a lot of potential twists and turns that can cause an account to take a different path than what you’ve planned. Keep in mind that things don’t always go the way you want, so it’s important to know what your plan is.
The Beginning
All great journeys have a beginning and for an account this beginning is when it’s discovered by a sales development rep. The SDR will add a contact from that account into his or her sequence. A sequence is a series of touch points utilizing different methods of communication. We will go into detail about sequences later in this chapter. Here is a high level overview of the journey of an account.
Throughout the contact’s time in the SDR’s sequence, they will receive phone calls, emails, maybe some snail-mail, and even a possible LinkedIn communication.
At some point, the contact will respond to the SDR and agree to a meeting and that SDR will cry tears of joy and walk around the office telling all his colleagues.
After an hour of frolicking, the SDR will send a calendar invite to the contact and finish the administrative work required after booking a meeting.
Before the meeting takes place, the contact will receive a call and/or an email reminding them of the date and time of the meeting.
Finally, the contact shows up to the meeting and it goes swimmingly!
The salesperson is happy because they have a quality opportunity; the SDR is happy because they created that opportunity; the contact is happy because they’ve found a solution to a business problem they are facing.
This is the ideal scenario, but as I mentioned before, things don’t always go smoothly. Throughout an account’s journey there will be uncontrollable events that strike when least expected. Some of these events will be your responsibility to navigate, but there will be others where your efforts will have no impact. You must not dwell on the individual events that cause an account to take longer to progress through this journey than expected. If you get too focused on individual accounts, you will fail to see the big picture and that may result in missed opportunities. Fortunately, there is a way to ensure you never lose sight of that big picture, while continuing to focus on each individual account.
Sequence
When prospecting, an SDR must utilize multiple methods of outreach to maximize their chance of a booked meeting. This means phone calls, emails, and LinkedIn activities. Each one of these methods has its own unique quirks and requires careful execution. The rep must strive to improve in every outreach method available to them and, if they do, it will lead to their success. The magic happens when these methods of prospect communication come together and are used in harmony—i.e. this is your sequence.
A sequence is a collection of touch points organized over a period of time. Another way to think about it is that it’s the sequence of prospecting methods you use on each contact over a period of time. For example, if you have a contact at an account who you would like to make contact with, you would add that contact to a sequence. That sequence would instruct you to call the contact and then, a few days later, to send an email, and then, another call, followed by a LinkedIn message, etc. Take a look at this diagram.
Creating a Sequence
The first thing worth mentioning is that typically, a sequence would be created with a sales enablement tool, such as Apollo.io, one of the leading sales engagement platforms, helping sales organizations deliver a better sales experience for their customers.
Organizing each account with multiple contacts associated with them, creating a sequence without a tool will most likely cause more problems than it’s worth. I am going to continue this section under the assumption that you will be using a sales enablement tool.
Sequence Components
There are two main components of a sequence—day and step. When I mention day, I am referring to an actual day in the sequence-I am talking about time. If you have a contact on day three of your sequence, that would mean that you added them three days ago and presumably, have already attempted to make contact. When I mention step, I’m referring to what touchpoint they are scheduled to receive—I am talking about action. For example, that same contact on day three in your sequence may be on step 2. If this was the case it would indicate that your second attempt at contacting the prospect happens on day three.
Why is this important? Because we want to use multiple methods of communication, but at different frequencies and over different periods of time. The goal is to maximize our chance at getting in contact with a decision maker or stakeholder. The spacing between steps, what method we use for each step, and how those methods interact, have an impact on our ability to book a meeting. The follow up question you may be asking is...
“Ok, Kyle, what’s the best sequence?”
Great question!!
Well, honestly, there is no best sequence. I know, that can be a tough pill to swallow. Sequences are as unique as fingerprints and what works best in some industries will not work as well for others. That being said, we can construct a sequence that will serve as a starting point. We can build a sequence using best practices that we see in other companies. There has been a lot of research on this topic so feel free to explore and create your own. For now, however, here’s what I would suggest and why.
Following is a very simple 7x16 sequence—7 touches over the course of 16 days. The reason why I suggest starting with this sequence is because at the time of writing this there has been a lot of research published that says that 7 touches is optimal. You don’t want to miss out on opportunities by not following up enough times. You also don’t want to waste your time following up with prospec
ts who will not respond. 7 touches seems to be the sweet spot. The amount of days that goes by is going to depend on the nature of your business. You may want to be more aggressive, or less so. That’s up to you to decide, so this sequence is built somewhere between aggressive and periodic.
How many sequences should you have?
As you can imagine sequences can get out of hand rather quickly. It isn’t uncommon for most of an SDR’s sales enablement tool to be a graveyard of old sequences, with nothing left except some analytics to remember them by. Because experimenting with sequences is fun, it can also be a big distraction and that, I recommend you try to avoid. I do, however, see value in experimentation and don’t want to discourage you to think outside the box.
Here’s a simple rule that should help you avoid wasting time building too many sequences. Ask yourself “What metric am I trying to improve and, if I am successful, what impact will that have?” If you answer this question and the metric you are trying to improve has a sizable impact on productivity, go ahead and test out your sequence idea. If you cannot answer the question or the metric goal you are striving for doesn’t have a significant enough impact, move on.
3 Key Sequences
There are three sequences that I believe every rep should have—a sequence for cold accounts, one for warm accounts, and one to reschedule meetings. If you have a sequence built for each of these situations, you will be well positioned to tackle the vast majority of situations. We’ve already covered a sequence for working cold accounts, so let’s focus on warm accounts.
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