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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Aaron Ross
Read between
May 31 - June 12, 2022
Put new reps through some kind of training program that has them working in other parts of your company first, talking to customers, before they go on active sale duty.
Prospecting cycle length: Measure the time between (a) when the prospect first responds to a campaign to (b) when a quality opportunity is created or qualified;
my rule of thumb is that it takes 2-4 weeks, on average, to qualify a new opportunity from an initial response.
Sales cycle length: I like to measure the time from (a) when the opportunity was created or qualified to (b) when it closed.
Resist any temptation to throw in lists of random prospects just because you have them
Don’t make this mistake: many companies are too dependent on cold calls. Phone skills are critical, but use calls as the second step in prospecting. Begin with email, and then use phone to follow up to people who respond. Simple email templates can get you a response rate of 8-12% or higher, even from high-level prospects.
Send outbound mass emails or mass voicemails to prospects that fit your Ideal Customer Profile. These emails should look as if they are a single email that came from a salesperson.
the idea here is to send a regular, smaller number (50-100) of emails per salesperson each day, a few days a week, as a rolling campaign.
The main goal of this stage is to generate just 5-10 new responses per day.
Work your responses and referrals to make contact with the right executives, and then “Sell The Dream” by helping them paint a vision of what kinds of solutions will solve their problems. Then connect your solution to their key business issue(s) and their dream.
Don’t treat your front-line sales reps as appointment-setting machines setting up all kinds of meetings to which prospects don’t show up.
Do you have outbound reps that are only trained to push product, read from scripts or push demos? Or can they create a vision with a prospec...
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It is vital that you have a simple and clear process to pass new leads smoothly from your dedicated prospectors to your quota-carrying Account Executives.
Here are some examples of red flags:
They just installed a________kind of system.
Know-it-alls / “We know what we’re doing.”
Their monthly budget for ________is only________.
This area of work is totally new to them, and they don’t understand it yet.
What are your greatest challenges?
What are your main frustrations?
What’s most importan...
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What do you really, really, R...
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Limit yourself to 1-5 types of profiles. If you think you need more
The data and list-building space is the fastest-changing area of outbound,
so always do your own research
First, use email to generate internal referrals to the right person(s) at the target company.
Then follow up on the responses and referrals with phone calls.
State simply and clearly why you are reaching out.
Make the email easy to read and respond to on a mobile phone.
Offer credibility (e.g., examples o...
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Ask just one simple-to-answer question (such as ...
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Start by sending 150-250 outbound emails per week, over the course of 3-4 days. Again, your goal is to receive an average of 5-10 responses per day,
Send the messages either before 9:00 a.m. or after 5:00 p.m., and avoid Mondays and Fridays. (Sundays are okay.)
Don’t ignore bounces – clean bad emails out of your database as they come in.
Learn to love “out of office” replies – those emails have the names and contact information for more people to target, such as executive assistants whose job it is to help route you to the right person in the company!
Who is the best point of contact for …?” (to get a referral);
When is the best day/time for a quick discussion around…?”
setting up a call, the objective is to set up a quick time to see if there’s a high level fit between your company and the prospect’s company. This call should be focused entirely on their business – not your business.
open questions
“No” doesn’t matter until you hear it from the CEO or your ideal decision-maker.
A great place both to train new salespeople and generate opportunities is to reach back into old opportunities that have died, and have had no activity for at least six months.
“Selling The Dream” is NOT to “sell.” It is, rather, (1) to help the prospect create a vision of a dream solution that will solve their problems; and then (2) to connect your product to their key business issue(s) and their dream solution.
Ask open-ended questions about their business first – how it’s organized, for example – before moving on to ask about challenges.
What system(s) do these teams use for sales and lead management? How long has the system been in place?
What are your challenges now?
Have you been looking at alternatives yet?
Have you tried and failed with other solutions? Why?
What would an ideal solution look like to you?
