CEOs & boards exacerbate the problem of building lead gen

• It takes 2-12 months to get less gen cranking
• Trial & error to find what works
• “Marketing through teaching” via webinars, white papers, live events etc
• Building a partner ecosystem

Best practices for opening up convos

• Keep emails short and precise / not salesy
• Ask for a referral to the right person in the org
• Become a respected expert via research and training.
• Research calls rather than sales calls. Rather than trying to get a decision maker on the phone try to find out if they’re a mutual fit

Specialize hour sales roles to avoid context switching between outbound and inbound sales conversations

• “Market research” reps for inbound
• SDRs for outbound
• Account execs for qualified leads

Once you have an ICP identified or a theory:

• Send 150-250 emails per week over 3-4 days
• Expect 7-9% response rate
• Goal is to capture a referral and ideally schedule a meeting with the referral
• “Sell the dream” help your prospect create the dream solution in their head and tie your product back to what they’re
• Qualifying questions
  • What are your challenges today
  • What have you tried? Has it succeeded or failed?
  • What would an ideal solution look like?
• Strategies for discovery calls:
  • Main objective: get them talking about their business and then listen!!
  • Call low before a C-level conversation: Find out how their business works and current challenges by calling a relevant employee at the company (at Salesforce.com, we’d call individual sales reps to get the inside scoop).
  • Try being (respectfully) blunt: After you’ve talked, and if their pain isn’t obvious, ask straight out if there is any pain:
  • “Where do you have pain today? What’s not working as well is it should?”
  • Keep asking questions until you’ve exhausted the hunt for pain–their challenges. Keep digging until there’s nothing left to uncover.
  • Ask for referrals: Who else should you talk to at other divisions / teams?
  • Scheduling via email is a huge time waster. Always work to schedule your next step while you’re on the phone.

Build a champion

• Find an internal contact who is interested in seeing this be successful
• Focus on what will make them successful and ask how you can support them
• This can take time and requires patience.

Common prospecting mistakes

• expecting instant results: it can take 2-4 weeks
• Giving up too quickly on target accounts
• Going wide, not deep. 100 accounts at once, not 10 accounts 10 times each.
• Giving up too quickly on ICPs. Wait until you get a no from target account decision makers
• Not giving up quickly enough on non ideal targets
• Depending on activity metrics, rather than a proven process

Quick prospecting tips:

• ask “did I catch you at a bad time?”
• “May I ask how your data team plans to prepare your data to be ready to be queries by LLMs?”
• “Who is the right person to talk about ______?”
• “If you were me, how would you approach your organization?”
• If they aren’t interested find hot why
  • Is the problem we solve not a priority?
  • Is it worth trying other people or should I move on?”

Always set up a next step:

• Setup a next step framed in a way that’s valuable for them:
  • “The fastest way for you to make a decision” “Here’s how your team can learn x”

Set 3 goals for the day:

• Have 3 conversations
• Send a campaign of 150 mass emails
• Schedule a demo
• Map out a success plan for next month

Sell last the close with a success plan:

• Sell past the close
• Create a success plan on what your software looks like once it is deployed and focus on that.
  • This can be half a dozen bullet points in an email so that anyone on the client side can grasp the vision
• When creating a joint vision of the future the close becomes a step in the plan.

2-3 hour sales process:

• 15 minute intro call – is this a waste of time?
• 45minute – 1 hour demo call – is there a fit?
• 1 hour scoping – should we work together?

Make your prospects earn a proposal. When they ask for pricing, tell them you’ll do that but to ensure you have all the info you need and all the right decision makers and economic buyer on the call.