Annoying persistence versus professional persistence
This is a guest blog by John Barrows, sales trainer to the world’s fastest-growing companies.
Even though most studies confirm it takes multiple “touches” (e-mail, phone, etc.) to get someone to respond to you, many sales reps give up after only one or two e-mails or calls to the same person. These studies highlight the fact that it isn’t necessarily about anyone specific e-mail or call, instead it’s about the overall contact strategy and persistence. The problem is there are two types of persistence — annoying persistence and professional persistence.
The sales reps that do send more than one or two e-mails tend to fall into the annoying persistence category with the majority of their outreach focusing on “touching base” or “checking in” or saying things like “did you get my first e-mail?” This is annoying in every way and ultimately reduces the chances of getting a response. I was told early in my career to never reference a failed attempt (“this is the 5th time I’m reaching out to you…”). If they didn’t care the first five times, why would they care now? Also, “touching base” and “checking in” means there is no reason for your call so, therefore, there is no reason for me to respond to you. Instead, we need to make sure that every time we reach out to someone we have a different reason and we’re adding value in some way shape or form. The most valuable asset any of us has is time. If you want my time, it better be clear on your e-mail or voicemail that I’m going to get something out of calling you back or don’t even bother.
My personal contact strategy is ‘6 unique touches in 30 days.’ The key to an effective, professionally persistent contact strategy is not necessarily the number of touches (as long as it’s more than 3), it’s the uniqueness of each of them. The challenge is how to make each one unique, emphasizing a different point of value with each engagement. I can usually go on a prospect’s website or LinkedIn profile and find one or two “triggers” (i.e. reasons) to use in my outreach (open a new office, launch a new product, growth, etc.). However, after one or two attempts, the triggers and therefore my value propositions get weaker. The way I round out my contact strategy is to include persona based messaging and insights.
Persona-based messaging and insights focuses on the priorities of the person I’m reaching out to based on their role and industry. For instance, CFOs in the Healthcare industry have different priorities than CFOs in the Manufacturing industry. If I understand what those priorities are I can craft a message that aligns with them and share insights that are relevant. I wrote a post last week about how I felt like business acumen was lacking in the development of sales professionals. By educating myself on specific roles and learning about what specific personas care about I can craft better messaging and ask better questions.
With a few messages focused on specific triggers found through researching the business, a few messages focused on the priorities of the persona, and potentially sharing a few articles or reports I can round out my 6 “unique touch” contact strategy. Will this approach, I never have to touch base or check-in. It’s also important to develop your contact strategy and the multiple touches all at the same time. By developing multiple touches at the same time, you can map out your story and think through how all the touches will build on each other. If you do them one at a time it’s hard to tell a good, cohesive story.
I can’t tell you the last time someone approached me with a well thought out contact strategy of more than three unique touches that focused on a different point of value each time. I’ve recently been asking the executives I work with if they have any good examples of people reaching out to them more than once or twice and none of them do. However, almost all of them say they would respond to a well thought out multi-touch approach focused on different points of value if it ever happened. Make it happen!
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Originally published at blog.freshsales.io on January 25, 2018.
