Ah, the beautiful world of outbound prospecting! It’s a little like treasure hunting – sometimes you need to dig through lots of sand to find that golden nugget. But when you do, it makes all the effort worthwhile. Let’s dive in, shall we?
What is Outbound Prospecting?
Outbound prospecting is a proactive approach to finding new potential customers for your business. Unlike inbound sales strategies, which involve attracting customers to come to you, outbound prospecting is all about you reaching out to them.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur bootstrapping your outbound selling, or you’re part of an outbound sales team, mastering outbound sales techniques is critical to any company’s success.
Outbound and Inbound Sales – the Difference
Inbound Sales:
Inbound sales is a sales strategy that focuses on attracting potential customers or leads to your business.
It relies heavily on marketing strategies such as content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and other methods that draw customers in.
The central tenet of inbound sales is to provide value to the customer before attempting to make a sale.
Outbound Sales:
On the other hand, outbound sales is a more proactive sales strategy. It involves sales reps reaching out to potential customers, often cold outreach, to initiate the sales process.
Outbound sales strategies include tactics like cold calling, cold emailing, and direct mail. The main objective off an outbound sales team is to reach out to potential customers who may not be aware of the company or its offerings.
Outbound sales reps spend a significant amount of time prospecting, which involves identifying and reaching out to potential leads.
They often work with a predefined list of leads and use various tools and strategies to connect with these leads.
Essential Prospecting Tools for Outbound Prospecting
Here are some essential tools you may want to consider for your outbound prospecting toolkit. Remember, the right mix will depend on your specific needs, business size, and resources:
LinkedIn Sales Navigator:
This is a premium LinkedIn tool that lets you find and engage with the right prospects more effectively. You can use advanced search filters to identify decision-makers in your target market and save them as leads.
This tool helps you to find emails and direct dials for your LinkedIn prospects. It’s great for building a list of targeted leads for your outbound sales efforts.
This tool can find email addresses associated with a certain domain. If you know the company your prospect works for, you can use Hunter.io to find their email. Email are crucial for outbound sales success.
Yesware:
Yesware is an email tracking and automation platform that integrates with your email client. It lets you track email opens and clicks, automate follow-ups, and schedule emails.
Calendly:
Calendly helps simplify scheduling by allowing prospects to book a time slot directly from your availability. It integrates with your calendar to keep track of your appointments and avoid double bookings.
CRM Software (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce):
A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool is critical for managing your interactions with current and potential customers. It helps you keep track of your conversations, set reminders for follow-ups, and analyze your sales process.
Outreach.io or SalesLoft:
These are sales engagement platforms that help automate and streamline your outreach efforts. They provide features like email sequencing, call recording, and analytics.
ZoomInfo or Clearbit:
These are data providers that give you access to detailed information about businesses, including size, industry, location, technology used, and key decision-makers.
Slack or Microsoft Teams:
For internal communication within your sales team, these tools are invaluable. They also integrate with many other tools, helping to streamline your workflow.
Sales intelligence tools (e.g., Gong, Chorus):
These tools provide insights into your sales calls and meetings, helping you understand what works and what doesn’t in your sales conversations.
Remember, the key is to choose the tools that align best with your goals and strategies, and that integrate well together to streamline your workflow.
A Work-Backwards Method to Estimate Outbound Prospecting Needs
Figuring out how many prospects you need to reach is an essential part of your outbound sales strategy. Donning your math hat, you’ll need to work backwards to estimate your outbound prospecting needs.
Let’s say your goal is to win 10 new clients this month. Based on past data, you know that about 5% of your prospects end up becoming clients. That’s a crucial insight into your outbound sales process.
To find out how many prospects you need to reach, simply divide your goal by your conversion rate: 10 clients / 0.05 conversion rate = 200 prospects. And there you have it! Your outbound prospecting target for the month is set.
Mastering the Outbound Sales Strategy: What I Used to Get 3-4 New Clients per Month
Let’s get personal. I want to share with you the outbound prospecting strategy that has been a game-changer in my outbound sales process.
This strategy helped me consistently land 3-4 new clients every month. It revolves around identifying high quality leads, conducting strategic cold calling, and engaging the target audience effectively.
Identify Prospects: LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Outbound Prospecting
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a fantastic tool for finding potential buyers. It’s specifically designed to assist sales professionals with lead generation and outbound prospecting. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use it:
Define Your Ideal Customer Profile
Your outbound sales process begins with a clear definition of your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Who are the people or companies that need your product or service the most? This might include factors like their industry, job role, company size, and geographic location. Having a clear picture of your ICP will help you effectively use Sales Navigator’s advanced search features.
Utilize the Advanced Search Feature
Sales Navigator allows you to perform advanced searches using a variety of filters. You can filter results based on factors like geography, industry, company size, job role, and even seniority level.
Use these filters to narrow down your search to the most relevant high quality leads based on your ICP.
Save Your Search
Once you’ve defined your search criteria, you can save your search. This allows you to easily revisit these parameters in the future. Plus, LinkedIn will automatically send you updates when new prospects that meet your criteria join LinkedIn.
Use Lead and Account Recommendations
Sales Navigator also provides you with personalized lead and account recommendations based on your preferences and search history. These can be a great source of potential buyers you might not have found on your own.
Remember, LinkedIn Sales Navigator is just a tool. The success of your outbound prospecting efforts ultimately depends on how effectively you use this tool.
That means clearly defining your ICP, personalizing your outreach, and consistently providing value to your potential buyers.
Scrape Data with seamless.ai
Here’s how you can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Seamless.ai together to create a robust prospect list:
Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to Identify Prospects
Start by using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find potential leads that match your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Use the advanced search filters to narrow down your search by factors such as job title, company size, industry, and location.
Save Your Leads
Once you’ve identified potential leads, save them in Sales Navigator. This allows you to easily revisit these leads in the future and track their LinkedIn activity.
Export Leads from LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Next, you’ll want to export these leads from Sales Navigator. However, LinkedIn does not natively allow the export of lead data. That’s where Seamless.ai comes in.
Use Seamless.ai to Scrape Contact Information
Seamless.ai is a powerful tool that can scrape contact information from LinkedIn profiles.
Once you’ve installed the Seamless.ai extension in your web browser, simply open the profile of a lead in LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and click on the Seamless.ai icon.
The tool will automatically scrape available contact information, including the lead’s email address, which is essential for outbound sales.
Save Leads in Seamless.ai
After scraping the lead’s information, save the lead in Seamless.ai. The tool will automatically add the lead to your contact list and check if the email address is valid, thereby assisting your outbound prospecting efforts.
Export Your Prospect List
Once you’ve scraped and saved all your leads in Seamless.ai, you can easily export your contact list to a CSV file. This file can then be imported into your CRM, email marketing tool, or any other platform where you manage your outreach efforts.
Remember to always respect privacy and spam laws when using tools like Seamless.ai for outbound sales.
Just because you have someone’s contact information doesn’t mean they’ve given you permission to contact them. Always provide value and respect the recipient’s time when conducting outbound prospecting.
Find Emails with Hunter.io
Hunter.io is an excellent tool for finding email addresses associated with a specific domain, which can be instrumental in your outbound sales process. Here’s how to use it:
Visit the Hunter.io Website
Go to the Hunter.io website. You’ll be greeted with a straightforward interface.
Enter the Company Domain
In the search bar at the top of the page, enter the domain of the company that your prospect works for. For example, if you’re trying to find the email of someone who works at XYZ Corp, you would enter “xyzcorp.com“.
Press Enter
After typing in the domain, press the Enter key. Hunter.io will then search for all email addresses associated with that domain that it can find on the web.
Analyze the Results
Hunter.io will provide a list of email addresses associated with the domain, along with information about where those email addresses were found. It will also provide a ‘pattern’ for the emails.
For example, it might be ‘first.last@xyzcorp.com‘ or ‘f.last@xyzcorp.com‘. This pattern can help you guess your prospect’s email address.
Verify the Email
If you believe you’ve figured out your prospect’s email address, you can use Hunter.io‘s Email Verifier tool to check its validity. This doesn’t guarantee that your email will reach the person, but it can check if the email address is operational.
Remember, it’s essential to respect privacy and adhere to all relevant data protection laws when using tools like Hunter.io.
You should only use the email addresses you find for legitimate business purposes and always provide an option for recipients to opt-out of your communications.
Craft Automated Emails:
Yesware is a fantastic tool that can save you tons of time by automating your email sequences. Here’s how you can craft effective email sequences in Yesware for your outbound sales process:
Log In and Navigate to Campaigns
Once you’ve logged in to Yesware, hover over the “Campaigns” tab at the top of your dashboard and click on “New Campaign.”
Set Up Your Campaign
Give your campaign a name and set your tracking preferences. You can choose to track opens, link clicks, and replies.
Create Your Email Sequence
Now comes the fun part! It’s time to start crafting your email sequence. Click on “Add Stage” and then “Email” to start creating your first email.
Compose Your Email
Compose your email just as you would any other. You can use Yesware’s personalization fields to ensure each email is tailored to the recipient.
For example, you can use “{First Name}” to automatically insert the recipient’s first name into the email, a tactic that can prove effective in outbound sales.
Set the Timing
Once you’ve written your first email, you can set the delay for your next email. This is the number of days that Yesware will wait after sending the first email before it sends the next one. This timing is a critical element of your outbound sales strategy.
Add More Emails
Repeat the process to add more emails to your sequence. You can create a series of follow-ups that automatically send if the recipient doesn’t reply. I do 3-4 follow ups 3 days apart each, a method that has shown success in my outbound strategy.
Review and Launch
Once you’re happy with your email sequence, click “Review and Launch.” You’ll have a chance to review your sequence and make any final edits before launching it.
Remember, the key to a successful email sequence is personalization and value. Make sure each email offers something of value to the recipient and isn’t just a sales pitch.
And remember, too many follow-ups can feel spammy, so be respectful of your recipients’ inboxes. This is an integral part of an effective outbound sales strategy.
Also, always be sure to comply with all relevant email marketing laws, like the CAN-SPAM Act in the U.S. or GDPR in Europe. Provide a clear way for recipients to opt out of your emails and always respect their wishes if they choose to do so.
Add a Calendly Link:
Calendly is an amazing tool for streamlining your scheduling process. Here’s how you can set it up and include it in your sales emails:
Setting Up Calendly
Go to the Calendly website and create an account.
Once you’re signed up, you’ll want to connect your calendar. Calendly supports Google, Outlook, Office 365, or iCloud calendar. This will allow Calendly to automatically add events to your calendar and avoid scheduling conflicts.
Now, it’s time to set up your availability. You can do this by clicking on the ‘Event Types’ on your dashboard, then clicking on the ‘+’ sign to create a new event type. You can choose between one-on-one, group, or collective (one invitee can schedule with multiple team members) meetings.
After selecting the meeting type, you’ll be asked to fill in the details like the event name, duration, location (usually a phone call or video chat), and a short description. Next, you’ll define when this type of event can be scheduled by setting your availability.
Customize other settings as per your preference, like buffer time between meetings, maximum number of events per day, etc.
Adding Calendly Link to Your Sales Emails
Once you’ve set up your Calendly account, click on the ‘Event Types’ on your dashboard.
Next to the event you want to share, click on the gear icon and choose ‘Share’.
Copy the event link.
Now, in your sales email, you can simply paste this link where appropriate. For example, you can write something like, “If you’re interested, you can book a time that works for you here: [Insert Calendly link].”
It’s as simple as that. By using a tool like Calendly, you’re making it easier for potential customers to connect with you, and you’re saving yourself the back-and-forth usually associated with scheduling.
Plus, it shows that you respect your prospect’s time, which can help in building that initial rapport. This is an essential aspect of any successful outbound sales process.
Example outbound email cadence
Follow-ups are essential in outbound prospecting and cold calling, as they can often be the key to getting a response.
Here are three follow-up emails that maintain the focus on the prospect’s potential pain point and your solution. Remember to leave a few days between each email to give the recipient time to respond.
Email 1
—
Subject: {First Name}, Can We Help with Your {Pain Point}?
Hi {First Name},
I hope this email finds you well. My name is {Your Name} from {Your Business}, and I’ve been exploring {Prospect’s Company} and your work in the {Industry/Specific area}.
I couldn’t help but notice that you might be experiencing {specific pain point} – something many in our industry often grapple with. That’s where we come in.
Our {product/service} has been specifically designed to address this issue, helping companies like yours to {describe benefit}. I’d love the chance to chat briefly about how we might be able to assist you with this.
Would you have some time this week for a quick call or email exchange?
Best,
{Your Name}
—
This template focuses on empathy and provides a solution to a pain point that you believe the prospect might be experiencing.
It’s essential to research each prospect thoroughly so that you can identify possible pain points accurately. The more personalized and relevant your email, the higher the chance of getting a response.
Follow-up 1:
—
Subject: Re: {First Name}, Can We Help with Your {Pain Point}?
Hi {First Name},
I just wanted to bump this up in your inbox in case it got lost in the shuffle.
I genuinely believe that our {product/service} could help ease {pain point} that {Prospect’s Company} might be experiencing. If you have a moment this week, I’d love to have a quick chat about it.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Best,
{Your Name}
—
Follow-up 2:
—
Subject: Quick Reminder: Solution for Your {Pain Point}
Hi {First Name},
Hope you’re doing well. I understand that you’re likely juggling a million tasks, but I wanted to quickly revisit our potential to help with {pain point}.
Our team at {Your Business} is excited about the possibility of making your life a bit easier. If you’re open to it, I’d love to schedule a brief call or email exchange at your convenience.
Looking forward to your reply,
Best,
{Your Name}
—
Follow-up 3:
—
Subject: Last Try: Are You Still Experiencing {Pain Point}?
Hi {First Name},
I hope this week is going well for you! I’m reaching out one last time because I genuinely believe that our {product/service} could make a significant difference in easing the {pain point} at {Prospect’s Company}.
If you’re open to a conversation, I’d appreciate the opportunity. If not, I completely understand and will stop reaching out.
Best,
{Your Name}
—
Additional Outbound Prospecting Tips
Follow-Up:
If you don’t get a response, don’t be discouraged. Part of outbound sales involves understanding that not everyone will respond. I usually follow up three times with a prospect before moving on. Remember, consistency and patience are key in outbound prospecting.
Analyze and Adjust:
The final step in my outbound sales strategy is to analyze the results and adjust as necessary. Look at your response rates, conversion rates, and any feedback you receive.
Are your emails getting responses? Are you scheduling meetings? Are these meetings leading to sales? This information will help you refine your outbound sales process for better results in the future.
Remember, outbound prospecting is not a one-size-fits-all approach. What works for one person or business might not work for another. It’s about testing, analyzing, and optimizing until you find what works best for you and your target audience.
Wrapping Up
These follow-up emails are respectful of the prospect’s time while still maintaining the emphasis on how you can help address their pain point. As with the initial email, personalization is key to getting a response in any cold calling effort.
And there you have it, my friends! This strategy may not make you the belle of the ball overnight, but with persistence and a little elbow grease, you’ll start to see the magic happen. Remember, the beauty of outbound prospecting is in building genuine relationships.
Keep your prospects’ needs and interests at heart, and you’ll not only meet your sales targets but also create a community of customers who trust and value what you have to offer.
Happy prospecting!
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