Five-Star Sales Outreach - The 411, May 26th
The Best Cold Outreach Lines, Sweet Sales Secrets, Good Data and Great Demos
Heyo,
As part of building out a valuable community, we’re starting an invite-only Slack channel to connect remote SaaS sales professionals across North America.
Sales is often a lonely profession. Remote sales especially so. We want to be part of changing that.
If you’re interested in receiving an invite, hit that reply button and I’ll add you to the waitlist.
Otherwise, grab a glass of water because hydration is key, the weather is heating up and this week’s edition of the 411 is coming in hot.
Four Links
1. Cold Call Openers and Cold Email Closers
Gong’s Sarah Brazier and Devin Reed put together a quick video this week where they share their go-to cold call lines.
Sarah’s a fan of, “How’ve you been?” (and so is the data).
Devin puts a self-aware spin on a classic with, “Did I catch you at a good time—if there is such a thing?” The whole 10-minute video is worth a watch. They’re great.
Gong also ran the numbers on cold email CTAs and (spoiler alert) asking if someone is interested in hearing more outperforms asking for a meeting (whether you include a specific date and time or not).
My take is that as the cold outreach game continues to evolve, asking for anything more than an expression of interest comes off presumptuous and tone deaf in an increasingly busy world.
2. Writing Cold Emails That Get Responses
Speaking of cold outreach, in this post, Auren Hoffman breaks down the three key ingredients for creating a tasty cold email. He’s talking about outreach more generally, but the insights apply to sales specifically.
Find the right person and tailor your message
Outline how they’ll benefit from responding
Keep it short, sweet and as clear as can be
Not rocket science, but somehow way too many B2B cold emails are still long, impersonal, convoluted and boring af. Hard to respond when you’re fast asleep.
3. Seven Super Succinct Sales Secrets
This short post oversimplifies the sales game a bit, but it's more or less on the money, and has some amazing lines like:
“Sales is a lot like golf. You can make it so complicated as to be impossible or you can simply walk up and hit the ball.”
“All things being equal, people buy from their friends. So make everything else equal, then go make a lot of friends."
“No one cares about your quota, your payroll, your opex, your burn rate, etc. No one. They care about the problem you are solving for them.”
Enough said.
4. Killer Memo for a Killer Demo
This is possibly the most comprehensive article on demos I’ve ever read.
From initial discovery and technical setup to in-demo best practices and post-demo follow-up, Veronika Riederle, CEO & Co-Founder of Demodesk, lights it up.
If your demos have been lacking that deal-clinching vibe lately, take a look and put these tips into action.
One Job Posting
Hopin is an all-in-one online events platform with unique features and high-profile backers.
With digital events becoming the new normal for the foreseeable future, “events without limits” feels like the right thing to be selling right now.
Got enterprise tech sales experience?
One Quote to Keep You Going
“Generic outreach does not cut it anymore; on average, buyers answer just one in 18 sales calls and open one in four emails. In a virtual selling world, the stakes are even higher. Sellers cannot afford to take a scattershot or uninformed approach; they need to reach the right lead at the right time with a differentiated and valuable message. Doing so at scale requires a new focus on quality—not volume —of outreach.” - Alyssa Merwin, VP of Sales Solutions at LinkedIn, from How Sales Data Can Help Non-Sales Teams
Now you know.
Steele
PS. We’re serious about putting the C in community. Or the om. Or the munity. We’re not picky. We just want sales to be less lonely. If you can relate, hit reply and we’ll get you on the list.
See you next week.