Cold accounts
As you can imagine, the way you follow up with each of these accounts is very different. We are going to start with cold follow up accounts. The two variables that come into play are who told you that they weren’t interested and why they told you that. Remember, we are working multiple contacts at each account. If one of your contacts is a stakeholder who you would consider less involved in the decision making process, you will want to take their feedback with a grain of salt. Just because they said that they aren’t interested doesn’t mean that everyone in the company is also not interested. The good news is that we found out that they do have a problem. Let’s take a look at what this workflow would be like.
Step 1: Remove the uninterested contact from our sequence.
Step 2: Add another contact to a follow up sequence.
Step 3: Leverage what you learned from the uninterested contact to schedule a meeting with the new contact.
Understanding Step 3
Steps one and two are pretty self-explanatory, so let’s dive into step 3. We learned that they have a problem that we can solve from our previous conversation with a stakeholder. We will be using this information to build credibility early in the call with the new contact, so lets take a look at an example introduction.
SDR: Hi Michelle, this is Kyle from ABC Company, how’s it going?
Prospect: Good
SDR: Great, I’m reaching out because I spoke with Kevin and he told me that a challenge your team faces is collecting all the data from each marketing channel, in order to determine which channels are the most effective. I’m not sure if we can help each other, but I thought it was worth a quick call. Mind if I ask you a couple questions and let you decide if we should chat?
Prospect: Sure
Leveraging someone else in the organization is a great way to get your new contact’s attention. Of course, we didn’t mention that Kevin said that he wasn’t interested; we will let our new contact evaluate for herself. The next part of this interaction would typically be giving a path, but we already know that there’s a problem, so we have the opportunity to take a shortcut. Let’s continue with our example.
Prospect: Sure
SDR: Thanks for the time. I’m calling from ABC Company. We give tech companies the ability to collect data from multiple lead sources and evaluate their effectiveness. When I spoke to Kevin he said this is a challenge for your company. I’m curious, how does this impact you specifically?
By moving the conversation towards the impact, their challenge allows us to understand our prospects situation, find the gap, and book the meeting. Now, you might not be successful in scheduling this meeting; maybe the decision maker wants an email. That’s fine, because you turned a cold follow-up call into a future warm one. I would consider that a success.
Now, what if you cannot get in touch with the new contact? Maybe this is why you ended up speaking with a stakeholder that was far removed from the decision-making process in the first place. In this situation we will have to use email and LinkedIn to get their attention. Fortunately, the messaging for this is very similar. Take a look at the example below.
Hi Michelle,
I spoke with Kevin and he told me that a challenge your team faces is collecting all the data from each marketing channel in order to determine which are most effective.
Our tool allows tech companies to collect data from multiple lead sources and evaluate their effectiveness with an instant ROI calculation resulting in a 15% increase in ROI. If this resonates we should set up a quick call. Do you have some time tomorrow at 11am?
Best,
Kyle
This is very similar to the emails we constructed in a previous chapter. The main change is instead of using our research to create a tailored introduction, we use our conversation with the other contact that we spoke with. This should have an even more powerful effect because we know about their organization’s specific problems. The goal here is to leverage what we can in order to turn this cold follow up account to a warm account. Once we have generated some interest we must react by changing our approach.
Warm accounts
If you’ve spoken with a decision maker or stakeholder and they’ve admitted to a problem and are interested in your solution, that account would be considered a warm account. If you were unable to schedule a meeting, then you will need to follow up with that prospect. The process of following up with a warm account is different than that of a cold one. In a previous chapter, we spoke about sending emails every three weeks with blog post and other materials that add value. Eventually, the day will come that you will need to pick up the phone and call that person. In this section we will talk about when you should make that call, how you should approach that call, and how to use email if your calls go unanswered.
Because you know there is a need for your product or service, as well as an interest, these calls are typically fun to make. If you’ve been sending those value emails every three weeks like we spoke about in chapter 8, then making this call will be a breeze.
When to Call
The first question is when you should make that call. When you originally had a conversation with the contact, odds are they gave you a broad time frame for a follow up. They may have asked you to call them back next quarter or in a few months. My suggestion is to call anywhere from one to four weeks before they asked you to. The decision between one week and four is made based on the amount of time since you spoke. For example, if it’s January and the prospect says “call me around October” calling them in September would be fine. If the prospect asked for a call in February calling them the last week in January to set up that call is appropriate. The only reason to bypass this rule would be if the prospect had a specific reason for the timing of your call. For example, the prospect tells you that they are hiring a new marketing director and they start in March.
When it is time to make that call, you want to be as assumptive as possible. Make the process of scheduling a meeting with you very simple and easy. We have done our best to mitigate the risk of receiving an objection by sending value emails every three weeks. Still, the prospect may give you an objection. If this happens, use the techniques from the chapter on objection handling and have a conversation with them about the importance of solving their problem. Let’s take a look at an introduction we can use with a contact from a warm account.
SDR: Hi Michelle. It’s Kyle from ABC Company, How’ve you been?
Prospect: I’ve been great Kyle, how about you?
SDR: I’ve been wonderful, thanks for asking. Last time we spoke you were having trouble collecting data from each of your marketing channels, so you weren’t able to see their effectiveness. I caught you in the middle of board meeting prep and you asked that we set something up for early September to talk about solving this. I know I caught you out of the blue today. Do you have some time this week for a call? How would 11am tomorrow work?
This introduction is designed to get right to the point and book the meeting. If you built good rapport with the prospect, you should bring that up. For example, if the they had told you they had a fishing trip coming up, ask them how that trip went. Your goal is to remind the prospect of the previous call and leverage that positive interaction to motivate them to schedule a meeting. After a strong introduction we remind the prospect of the problem that they are experiencing and that we are calling to talk about a solution. We then follow that up with an assumptive ask for a meeting. Keep the call simple and the prospect will as well. This isn’t a cold call, because you’ve already established a relationship.
There is no need to over-complicate a simple scheduling call.
Email to warm account
You are going to find yourself in a situation where the prospect you are trying to follow up with won’t answer their phone. You guessed it! We will need to use other means of communication—email and LinkedI
n. The email we are sending will be much like the one we sent to our cold account, except we get to spice it up a bit. Take a look at the example below.
Hi Michelle,
It’s been awhile since we last spoke, about a month or so. I hope you had an awesome time on that fishing trip with the kids, Alaska is beautiful.
Last time we spoke you were having trouble collecting data from each of your marketing channels so you weren’t able to see their effectiveness. You asked me to reach out in September and set up a meeting to show you how we help. When would be a good time to chat this week?
Best,
Kyle
This is a simple email that reminds the prospect of your previous conversation. Much like our call script, our goal is to attempt to book this meeting by leveraging our previous conversation. When we send this email, we should also plan to have more follow-up emails as part of our sequence. Often, people forget to respond to emails, so we don’t want to assume a lack of interest when we don’t get a response. First, try the simple reminder email that we have in our main sequence. If that doesn’t get a response, we can send another email that nudges the prospect to respond. Take a look at this example of an email following up on a call.
Hi Michelle,
Sorry I missed you on the phone today. I was giving you a ring to continue our conversation about improving your data collection so you can accurately calculate the ROI of each of your marketing channels.
When would be a good time for us to chat this week?
Best,
Kyle
Don’t expect all warm accounts to schedule a meeting when you reach out to them at the time they asked. Solving the specific challenge that you are reaching out to them about is one of many tasks on the prospect’s plate. You will have to continue to pursue these accounts until they show up to a meeting, so make sure you keep a good relationship.
Confirming Meetings
We have covered many topics in this chapter. Some, more complex than others. This final section is about rescheduling meetings that didn’t show up. It’s bound to happen. You spend so much time working an account and you finally book a meeting with the decision maker! After all that effort, you need to do everything in your power to make sure that they show up to their meeting.
Control the Controllables!
Confirming Your Meetings
Take a look at the process at a high level and then, discuss each step.
Step 1: Meeting set email
Step 2: Calendar invite
Step 3a: Call to confirm day before
Step 3b: Email to confirm day before (if the call was unsuccessful)
Step 4a: Reminder email
Step 4b: Call to confirm (if unable to confirm)
Meeting set email
Once you have successfully scheduled a meeting, you should send a recap email to the prospect. This is helpful because they will have an easy way to get ahold of you if they need to reschedule. The other benefit is that it comes across as professional, which increases the perceived importance of the meeting. Finally, it will remind the prospect of the value of the next call. Following, you will see an example of what this email should look like.
Subject: Great chatting today!
Hi Michele,
It was a pleasure speaking with you today. Thanks for the time. I have spoken with Taylor, our product specialist. I let her know that you are looking for a way to easily evaluate the ROI of each of your marketing channels. Taylor is looking forward to walking you through how we can help this Thursday 11/8 at 11:00 am PST. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to respond with any questions that you might have.
Best,
Kyle
Calendar invite
The next step is to send the prospect a calendar invitation. This will block that time off on their calendar, as well as remind them that they have a meeting with you. Use the subject line field to remind the prospect of the reason why they set the meeting. Take a look at the example below.
Subject: Your Company: XYZ Company’s marketing channels ROI calculation
Call/Email the day before
The next step starts off with a phone call to confirm the meeting the day before it’s scheduled for. You may want to consider calling two days before if you booked this meeting an unusually long time ago. The purpose of this call is to get a quick confirmation that the prospect will show up to their meeting. Read through the script below.
SDR: Hi Michelle, its Kyle from ABC company how’ve you been?
Prospect: I’ve been great, how about you?
SDR: I’m doing excellent thanks for asking. I am calling because we have a meeting on the calendar tomorrow at 11am and I wanted to check and see if there’s anything you need from me before tomorrow?
This short script is effective because we aren’t giving the prospect an “out” by asking them if the time still works. Instead we are giving the prospect the opportunity to let us know if they can’t make it, as well as offering help if needed.
Not all prospects are easy to contact over the phone and, in this situation, we must resort to email. Take a look at the simple confirmation email below. Notice it is direct, making it easy for the prospect to respond to.
Hi Michelle,
I am reaching out to confirm our meeting for tomorrow at 11am. Taylor is looking forward to walking you through how we can help you collect the data from all your marketing channels so you can better evaluation the ROI of each.
Does tomorrow still work for you?
Best,
Kyle
Final confirmation call/email
If you haven’t been able to connect with the prospect and confirm the meeting, you should call them the day of the meeting as well. The goal is the same as the confirmation call we covered earlier in this section. Confirm the meeting a day before, then follow up with a reminder email. This is a simple way to keep the meeting fresh on the prospect’s mind. Take a look at the example below.
Hello Michelle,
I hope your day is off to a wonderful start. I’m looking forward to connecting today at 11am!
Best,
Kyle
Rescheduling Meetings
I have a sad story for you folks. There will be a time in every SDRs career, where they do everything right and the prospect doesn’t show up. This can be devastating, especially if they had high hopes that the meeting was going to go well. When this happens to you, don’t be disappointed, because it’s part of the job. Instead, embark on the journey to reschedule that meeting. We’ve already covered the sequence you use to reschedule a meeting. Let’s cover a script that you can use along with an email template.
The Script
SDR: Hi Michelle, Its Kyle from ABC Company, how’s it going?
Prospect: it’s going well, how are you?
SDR: I’m doing great thanks for asking. It looks like our wires got crossed yesterday and we weren’t able to connect. I wanted to reach out and reschedule that for you. What does your calendar look like tomorrow at the same time, 11am?
There are typically two things that happen on a confirmation call: the prospect will interrupt you with an apology or they will interrupt you with an objection. If they apologize, go ahead and reschedule the meeting. If they interrupt with an objection, use the techniques that we covered in the chapter about objection handling.
Sometimes the prospect is dodging your calls out of embarrassment or lack of interest. If this is the case, we must resort to email in an attempt to get this meeting back on the books. When constructing this email it is important to make sure the prospect doesn’t feel bad about not showing up to the meeting. Take a look at the example below.
Hello Michelle!
I’m so sorry, it seems like our wires got crossed the other day and we weren’t able to connect. I hope I didn’
t get the time mixed up! Taylor was going to walk you through how we can help you collect the data from all your marketing channels so you can better evaluate the ROI of each.
I’m happy to reschedule this meeting, when would be the best time for you this week?
Best,
Kyle
Conclusion
You did it! You made it to the end of a long chapter with a lot of information in it. Metrics, organization, and workflow are all very important for being a successful sales development representative. If you neglect your metrics you will not be able to react quickly when it’s necessary. For example, if you are experiencing a meeting show rate of 25% when your average is 50%, you must change your tactics to make up for that deficit. If you never see that metric, you may find yourself missing your quota and wondering “How is this possible? I put in the same effort as last month.” To continue with our example, knowing that your show rate has dropped will allow you to increase your activities to make up for the loss in meeting rate, as well as put more energy in making sure your meetings show up. Remember, this is a numbers game.
You need to know your numbers!
Being organized is challenging for most people; you may have to work hard at it. This is a mandatory skill and necessary in all areas of sales. As you work more complex deals and have more prospects in your pipeline, you will find it harder to remember everything about all of your prospects. Be diligent everyday to improve your organization and prevent things from slipping through the cracks.
Finally, there’s workflow. This area will improve as you continue to strategically organize and execute. Mastering your activities will allow you to be more effective with the time you spend. The bulk of that time should be spent on activities that will “move the needle” and get you closer to hitting your quota. Mastering other tasks that eat up valuable time will allow you to execute those tasks quickly and get back to more impactful activities.
Cold to Committed Page 15