The Perfect Sales Cadence
The Perfect Sales Cadence
“What is the perfect sales cadence?”
The perfect sales cadence is the one that works the best for you. However, it must be realistic in the ability to execute and effective at getting (virtually by phone, etc.) in front of prospects.
The most effective sales cadence I have ever used is not something you will find written by popular content writing creators on Linkedin who have never made a successful cold call.
Instead, the most effective sales cadence based on making over 100,000 cold calls as a straight-commission sales rep is a straightforward process to follow.
It’s been featured in true stories turned blockbuster movies (Pursuit of Happyness – Cold Calling Scene and Wolf of Wall Street), and it starts with having a list of ICPs.
ICPs (Ideal Customer Profile)
Everything starts with knowing who your target audience is. There are plenty of blog posts regarding what an ICP is and how to build your framework for identifying what your best clients look like.
You’ll want to build your ICP list FIRST (BEFORE MAKING ANY OUTBOUND CALLS)
Once you know your ICP, build a lead list of prospects in your CRM that match that criteria.
Once you have your list ready, it’s time to start your outbound efforts.
Outbound Sales Cadence
Before you start any cadence, understand that most salespeople, managers VPs, Directors, and small business owners make the mistake of believing if they could find the magic sales cadence, the team would start hitting their quotas.
They will even spend significant revenue on fancy outreach tools that quickly eat into their profits.
It should be mentioned that without having the necessary phone skills, you or your team won’t get very far past “Hello, my name is…”, no matter how great your sales cadence is.
Remember that Skill + Output = Results.
With that said, when you are confident you or your team knows exactly what to say, and they have their ICP list ready to go, here’s the most proven process bar none:
Cycle Your Lead List
The best “sales cadence” is to have your list pre-qualified with leads matching your ICP and cycle through it.
So, for example, let’s say you take the time to build a lead list of 250 pre-qualified leads (pre-qualified = they match your basic ICP)
You call, leave VM, and send an email on the first attempt.
You want your sales reps averaging 60-dials a day (or 3-hours of talk time), including callbacks.
So if each rep has 250 leads, on Day 1, you should be able to make 60-dials and or have 3-hours of talk time.
Out of that 60-outbound dials, you will:
- Get prospects on the phone and set an appointment or a follow-up call
- Get prospects on the phone and close/won (one call close)
- Get prospects on the phone, qualify, and hand off to the AE (if you’re not handling the sale from start to finish)
- Get prospects on the phone and be told, “NO, NOT EVER.”
- Get prospects on the phone and be told, “NO, NOT NOW.”
- You will have to leave a message with Gatekeeper.
- You will have to leave a voicemail message and send an email.
After day 1 of making 60-dials, your “250” lead list will dwindle as you will start to subtract the
- Closed/won
- Set appointment
- Handed off to AE
- No, not ever
- No, not now’s, etc.
So, let’s say you remove ten leads from your list of 250 leads because of attrition due to your outbound calls.
- That’s a solid day’s work as a sales rep. Keep repeating this process, and you will have a thriving pipeline (provided your phone skills are up to date)
- You will need to replace the leads that are no longer on the list due to the attrition – so come in early the following day and Prospect for 10-more leads to replacing the ones you lost.
USING AUTOMATIC OUTREACH
Once I call a lead and leave a voicemail message, I like to send an email using YESWARE for my personalized one-to-one emails.
After I leave the first-time voicemail, I will send an email via YESWARE, and if the Prospect does not respond to the first email, a second PRE-WRITTEN email will be automatically sent the next day (unless they react before the second email is automatically sent)
This allows me to focus on calling other leads that have yet to be called while still reaching out to leads I called for the first time the previous day.
I then repeat the above process and cycle through my entire lead list.
It’s not about DAY 1, DAY 3, DAY 5 ETC….
Its about FTC #1, FTC #2, FTC #3 ETC (FTC = First Time Call)
FTC FIRST TIME CALL
I label my outreach FTCs and not FOLLOW-Ups because it isn’t a follow-up unless I have already spoken with the Prospect.
The process looks like this:
- Monday: 250 leads / 60-FTC and or 3-hours talk time.
- Tuesday Morning: 190 have yet to be called
- Wednesday Morning: 130 have yet to be called
- Thursday Morning: 70 have yet to be called
- Friday Morning: 210 / 10 have yet to be called
WHAT TO DO AFTER FTC #1
My leads are in a CRM, and the LEAD STATUS is marked OPEN.
One school of thought is to have an intern or junior BDR learn how to analyze each lead and determine if it meets the criteria to match the company’s ICP for prospects.
If you like that idea, it will save the sales reps time.
So, in this case, you have the intern/junior BDR be responsible for prospecting the database, archiving leads that do NOT match the ICP, updating the data on the leads that DO match the ICP, and then changing the LEAD STATUS to MQL as an example.
You can now have your sales reps work the leads in the MQL bucket (they would still put the leads in their name so only they can see/work the lead) and start the FTC #1 outreach.
After the FTC #1 attempt, if they could not speak with the Prospect, change the LEAD STATUS to WORKING.
This way, they know all the leads in the MQL bucket have not been called yet.
And they will also know all the leads in the WORKING LEAD STATUS have been called once and need to be tried again.
You now use the LAST MODIFIED date/time stamp as your filter for your next attempts.
Start by sorting LAST TO RECENT.
I use RingCentral with my CRM, and every call attempt I make, it automatically updates the lead record with the action.
So by having the ICP leads in the OPEN or MQL Lead Status List, I know those leads need their FTC #1. Any leads in the WORKING LEAD STATUS I know they already received my FTC CALL, VOICEMAIL & EMAIL combo, plus my next day email automation.
Should I Leave a Voicemail on my 2nd FTC Attempt?
That’s up to you. If you do want to and you are not sure what to say, this may help.
How Many Attempts Should I Make?
Once again, there is no right or wrong answer. Each lead will be different. Some prospects will be worth cycling through longer than others. Your experience will dictate when it’s time to fish or cut bait with a prospect.
When is the Best Time To Replenish the Leads?
We would use Friday mornings (we would come in early) and Prospect for new leads to replenish those who have moved out of our lead list.
Another option is to get in a few minutes early every day and Prospect for ten or so new leads to replenish the average number of leads that would have been removed from the previous day’s sales efforts.
What if I’m Not Confident In What To Say?
If you lack confidence, you have yet to find a proven, repeatable sales process that works. This online sales course fixes the problem quickly.